God is funny

Originally published August 15, 2015

The journey is long and the destination is surprising.

I have never had a zip code in my address that didn't start with 29. That's South Carolina if you don't know. There were my first six weeks of life in Seattle but that wasn't a formative time during which I was receiving postal mail. I've always lived in South Carolina.

South Carolina is a great place to be, especially during the summer of 2015. Our state takes its share of hits to the chin (some of which it deserves), but when a distraught young man thought he could start a race war by murdering 9 people at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, our state stood together in love and forgiveness. We did not loot, we did not burn. We stood on the Cooper River Bridge and held hands. Our church bells chimed at the same hour across the state. Our Legislature removed symbols of hate.

I cried tears of sadness for those families, and tears of joy for the way my people came together. It was a defining moment in our state and our country.

In the summer of 2015 we also spent two glorious weeks at Litchfield Beach. It was Isabel's 15th summer at Litchfield. She has not missed a summer there. Her grandma and I have seen to that.

Isabela and her cousin Jordan, 2001

Isabel, 2015 She'll be so embarrassed I put those pictures in.

And, in the summer of 2015, we sold our home to the county of Greenville so they can destroy it, and we moved to the side of a mountain in Tennessee so my husband can become an Episcopal priest.

Life is funny. More accurately, God is funny. Sometimes I think He thinks He's funnier than I think He is, but who am I to say how funny God is? Ask anyone who has a relationship with the Lord and they'll agree that He has a sense of humor.

My favorite verse is Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not (disappoint) because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, without suffering, we don't know the glory of God that he has in store for us.

Now, there different levels of suffering. There is the third-world suffering that Christians are doing as they are executed for their faith in 2015. And there is first-world suffering, as Isabel defines it, when she can't login to the Wifi. She is 15, and she has suffered the divorce of her parents early in her life, but she really has yet to suffer, so I give her the Wifi suffering, for now. She will suffer, it pains my soul to even think of it, but I know she will; it is inevitable. But I also hope - that dragging her to church, sending her on mission trips and exemplifying for her a relationship based in Christ - that she will be able to persevere through the suffering she will be subjected to, grow in it and know that in the hope we have in Christ she will experience God's love in it.

See why that's my favorite verse?

Back to God's sense of humor....

There was recently a Facebook group started for the Spartanburg High School classes of 86-88. We were invited to post where we are now. I had to laugh when I posted that I am president of the marketing services company we own, a recovering alcoholic, and on the way to Tennessee to become a preacher's wife. I would never have guessed in 1987 that I would be on that path in 2015 and I presume that those who knew me in high school and college would never have guessed that either.

Not that we need to go into what my life what like in the late 80s, but let's just suffice it to say that preacher's wife was not in the offing.

God has a path for us. And you can either walk on it with him, or you can wander off, and believe me, my friend, he will correct you and show you the path he has for you.

I met Michael in 2008 at church. I had been divorced for four years, and he was in the throes of a painful divorce (as if there is another kind?). He told me he was called to become a priest, as his dad was, as his brother is. Right off the bat, no punches pulled, Michael told me about his calling, and that he had pushed it to the back of his mind for 10 years, praying for the graceful end to a marriage that was not rooted in Christ.

Can you pray for a graceful end to a marriage?

Yes, you can ask God for anything. Matthew tells us: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (7:7)

But, careful what you ask for. (that's not in the Bible)

I had just surrendered my life to God. I had just let go, tired of trying to direct it, because it wasn't going very well. It wasn't an earth-shattering moment, but it was sincere, on the way to the beach (of course) that summer, when I came into full appreciation of my life and every thing God had given me, despite my efforts to clear my own path. I just looked out the window of my VW Bug, exhaled, and told God He was now in charge.

Two weeks later I met Michael Cannon.

Funny. Really funny.

And here I am, in Sewanee, Tennessee, clinging to the side of a mountain. Ha!

The view from lookout rock at the Domain gates, 1/2 mile from our house.

What I want to share is about our life here, there, and I don't know where! Most of it I suspect will center on our relationships, new experiences in the beautiful hills of Tennessee and food. You'll find I love to cook and bake for other people, especially. Our adventure here will be spiritual and culinary and mountainous.

We've been here 10 days, and we're well settled in our new home.

Left, Stone Haven - our cottage in Tennessee.

Michael has had his first day of school.

Isabel's here, at Volleyball camp at St. Andrew's Sewanee, the school she'll attend for the next three years. She won't let me come to a game yet, so I don't have any pictures of her in action.

I've found the farmer's markets, butcher, hardware store and the drive-in movie.

Homemade sweet potato pie, steak, local tomatoes, lettuce and sourdough bread, local ingredients from Moonies. Next week, I have to find the gym and the running trails.

Here we go! Thanks for coming along with me.