Happy News from Old Friends

I had a happy surprise this morning. A reminder that God is bigger and his plans greater than the things we can imagine or predict.

My Bible school friends and I have been doing an email reunion. The small children we have produced would fill up the room I am sitting in and then some. Those with advanced degrees are impressing the pants off of me. Okay, my pants are still on, but I am impressed. Actually, to be frank, though it is 9 am (the Sesame Street hour) my pants aren't on yet at all. But my jim jam britches are secure despite how impressed I am by my friend's achievements.

The selfless careers of service also make me feel proud of my friends and humble in my own life. It's been a while since I have been selfless. And yet one friend has dedicated her life to serving the most needy of Omaha.

A very dear friend I had lost touch with impressed me twice over--first, after teaching science for a couple of years she changed her mind and became a doctor. A doctor! And then she had twins! Just about six weeks ago. I knew she was destined for good things--it is amazing to see how her life has panned out.

And then there was today's email. My friend Will. Will was very nice. I liked him a lot. He and another student sat at a table together during class that they called the Skeptics table. And like the rest of us he was just an 18 year old kid figuring out how to be a grown up while his parents weren't looking.

My clearest memories of Will were him playing my favorite Indigo Girls songs for me on his guitar, my saying something rude and embarrassing him and then how much I regretted it. And then one time we took a walk together in the woods and he didn't give up but kept asking if I wouldn't like to make out. Which I didn't want to and didn't' do. He asked very politely, which made it pretty funny and not pathetic. Likely it was an unacceptable offer because he considered himself a skeptic and seemed to expect I would like to make out. There is a good chance that if he had been secure in his faith and didn't expect anything I would I would have had a different answer. Ahh teenagers.

Will's email update came today. He is an ordained minister working as a chaplain at a hospital in a couple of different wards. He is happily married to a Doctor. In the Bible school days I would have expected him to be happily married. He was always polite and kind to girls which seems like a good sign at 18. But a Pastor? Reading his email I certainly expected him to say he was ordained in the Unitarian church, or some such thing. But he is not. God has answered Will's questions and secured Will as a servant for Himself. This much to Will's surprise and to the pleasure of his mom and dad, I am sure.

Well God can do the best with the most surprising of people and I am glad to see this happening with people I know and care about.