When we were developing the short list of names for our mini, the two
names for girls were names of women who have been important in my life,
particularly in my younger, formative years. The names had the
added benefit of being pretty, 1950s names that weren't "weird" but
weren't hyper-common either.
This morning in my wee hr-feeding-delirium, I was thinking about all
that I knew about the woman we named our mini after. The main thing I
appreciate about her is the time we spent together when I was in high
school. After I got my drivers license, my parents would occasionally
let me drive across town and spend time with her. She introduced me to
Hebrew National hotdogs, lived in a condo on the beach, and listened to
me angst about teenage life--a long- suffering woman indeed. In college,
when I was home, I'd look her up and try to drop by. I haven't really
had a chance to see her since I moved out West. But these are the memories I
think about when I think about her.
BUT in my wee hour delierium, I was remembering when I first met her. I first met her in 5th
grade where she was one of the speakers at chapel during world missions
week (I attended a Christian school through 7th grade.) At the time,
she was a missionary who smuggled Bibles into communist Europe. She had
a teddy bear named Abraham that traveled with her and used other props
to describe the countries she spent time in. It was very memorable for
me apparently because she says that several years later she was over at
my house for dinner and I repeated back her talk verbatim. I wouldn't
go so far as to say verbatim, but I do remember that I remembered a lot
of it.
Something I'm enjoying as I think about the mini's namegiver is how
radically ordinary her life is. Her life story is ordinary in the sense
that she's a nurse by training (and is now a nurse again), that she had
a husband who left her, that she lives on the beach in a condo and eats
Hebrew Nationals. But her life is radical in that God uses her very
ordinary-ness to accomplish his work. She has a very unassuming air
about her which is GREAT when you're trying to unassumingly avoid the
communist gaze. This and other parts of her life story have all fed in
to being used by God the way she has.
Our hope is that our little mini would also have a radically ordinary life used by God to expand His kingdom.
Comments (1)
What an awesome hope! Amen! So be it! So say we all! (sorry, just had to add that last one! ;)