All Saints Day

Today is All Saints Day. This is not a day I ever considered until about six years ago, when we began to follow the Church calendar. It is a day set aside to honor the Saints that have gone before us. At our gathering yesterday, Stephen and Karen encouraged us to honor and remember the Saints that have impacted our own lives and we spent the morning doing that - listening to stories from friends there, of those that have gone before them, that impacted who they are today...the ways they did that both in their faithfulness and in their brokenness. As they spoke, I was struck with how much those people I've never met are now impacting my life through my friends that loved them.

I've spent a lot of time since thinking about those I love, those that have impacted me, that have passed on before me. My first thoughts went to my grandparents, the ways they impacted my life, the stories, the memories, the kindness and love they gave freely. I thought of the ways they shaped my parents, who in turn, have shaped me. And how I've since shaped my children. They've all been gone for many years now, yet their lives continue to impact even my grandkids.

My thoughts also went to three different people outside of my biological family I've loved that died much younger than we typically think of as fair. None had lived the "long, full life" that we want spoken of when we're giving our final goodbyes. With each of them, it was too soon. And their lives had much pain. There was trauma, physical illness, mental illness, heartbreak. There was also joy, love, belly laughs and connection. In their pain, they sometimes hurt those they loved the most. They also enriched those same lives, and many others, in ways we will likely never fully grasp. They sometimes frustrated me. And they also taught me love in ways I had not before imagined.

This is life. We heal and we hurt. We nurture and we damage. We mess up and we begin again.

The biggest thing that struck me as I thought through all these messy, beautiful lives that changed who I am today is the consistent presence of Jesus. He never ceased to love. They never ceased to love - even when they could not find ways to express it in healthy ways, they still loved. 

And Jesus loves us - our entire messy, beautiful selves. I do believe He will consistently pull us toward healing and wholeness. His love is not an excuse to wallow in, or harm others, in our brokenness. But neither is it ever a condemnation in our brokenness. We are fully and completely loved.

I pray that I will learn to see people this way more often. Beautiful and broken. Life is hard and sometimes the levels of brokenness will require safety and boundaries. But I pray I will never lose sight of the humanity of those God loves. I pray I will never lose sight of the fact that the imagi dei in every single person, and the ways I treat that, impacts who I become. I pray I'm becoming more and more like the love of the One I follow and that it will be that love that leaves the biggest impact on those coming behind me.

Loved. 

No matter what. 

Love is always the first thing. 

And always the last thing.