Sacred Moments.

“For it is in those moments in the past, many of them half forgotten- through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly, the sacredness of your own journey.” Fredrich Buechner

I do not remember how my journey started, but I remember the moments that kept it going.

Imagine a young girl of twelve who has all the appearance of health, love and friendships. Yet deep with in the fabric of her being is an insecurity that grows into depression, speaking louder than any message of hope she had ever known. She possessed a deep compassion for others that was juxtaposed against an inability to see any value in her own life. This deep pain was dealt with only through the protection of an outer shell, shielding her internal struggle. Blessed with the benefits of a good family, true friends and a safe upbringing, the origins of this dilemma are still yet unknown. One could point a finger at a society that subjects young girls to its high value and standards of physical beauty while exploiting their vulnerable need to feel loved. Being brought up to believe whole heartedly in a God who held “the whole world in his hands,” she cast all the blame for her pain on Him, and the perceived betrayal was more than she could bare. But alas, blame is not the moral of this story. This chapter rather is about the power of providence and the weakness of walls.

If anyone had been privy to her state they would have been concerned about her eating disorder, or the depression that plagued her mind at such a young age. But no one did know. So wonderful was she disguising her true inner sickness, so guarded was she that, though a bit rebellious in nature, she was often passed off as a model American middle-class Christian girl. Years of this double life went on until the summer of her sixteenth year, the battled had hardened her heart and her eyes had not allowed a tear to fall in over a year.

I sat outside under the stars and begged my God for some reprieve from the hateful battle going on with in my soul, I begged him to explain the pain and justify it. In a moment of grace and providence my friend came unasked and sat quietly by my side, simply slipped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in. It was this simple act that broke down all the walls I had built. With the tears the walls began to crack and fall. Ask him now and I would wager he would not remember this great act of kindness and obedience. I don’t know the path that brought him to my side, but it saved my life.

My heart was brought back to that moment two days ago when I found myself in the Rockies, sitting in a room with five other women who had pulled me in, just as my friend had fifteen years earlier. These women who have seen the best and the worst of me asked me one question… How can we pray for you? Not only could I not recall the last time someone had taken the time to ask such a question, but also I had no idea how to answer.

In the rush and ritual of the human existence we so often ignore the most basic necessity in life, relationship. The apostle John writes of the power of incarnational love. The very cornerstone of Christian Faith is in the act of God coming down to earth in the form of Jesus, so that we may have a glimpse of his unconditional love. Thousands of years later, John is still giving us advice on how we may live in this love: “No one has ever seen God, but when we love each other, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

So powerful are those moments of love that we can see the imprint of a God who did not create the world just so we could barely survive in it, but to dance together through it. It took a physical act of kindness to heal my sick heart and the patient care of a question to recall me out of the dark drudgery of survival. These were the moments where I see God, truly see him. These are the moments that have saved my life.