No Name Tag Needed

The ZOE Conference has been a delightful experience this weekend. I wondered who I would see. . . there were name tags everywhere Like any conference there are people you know, people you think you recognize, people you know of, people there you never see, people you have heard of, and people you meet for the first time. Name tags are a beautiful thing. For the people you recognize or know of you can remember their names. Name tags help emblazon the name of someone just met into memory.

And then there are people for whom you don’t need a name tag. Regardless of how long it has been, you just know them. Tonight I ran into my childhood friend Tim. He lived a few doors down when I lived in Oklahoma. We played Star Wars, Lego, football, basketball, tether ball, and camped out. I have no idea when the last time was that we saw each other, but I moved away from Tim twenty some years ago.

Tonight we went to dinner and swapped stories of the events of life good and bad that have come upon us. For the last two years we have been praying for time and Kristi. Their two year old daughter has serious health issues. She was not expected to live through pregnancy nor childbirth nor many months. Now, she is two, which is a miracle in itself, but it is a miracle that has come with costs. Life experiences give us much and take much out of us. Twenty four seven care of a child is tough, but when two other children are in the home it is tougher.

I asked Tim how he made it through knowing his unborn child might die. He said that the night they went to the hospital he had a ZOE CD in the car and it was playing “Blessed Be Your Name.” He had never really paid attention to the words, but that night "the road marked with suffering" became a reality for them. The song gave him the words to return thanks to God through good and bad. Sometimes all we have left is the opportunity to say "Blessed are you God" and that is enough to show that God is at work.

Amazing. Life comes with questions, doubts, and difficulties. There are not cute answers that heal or solve it. But there is a God who walks with us through it.