Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

She would always know me. When loving family and dear friends were bewildered by my choices and life direction, she never was. She always “got” me. A gift.

We were little sisters in our families, but we could be high and mighty in class; bringing our moral compass to everything, maybe wrong, but never in doubt. 

She showed me how to live at high school what I valued most: how to be gracious and generous; how to show dignity and respect to others-especially vulnerable ones; how to keep grounded; to always remember who I was and where I came from; to never believe that I was better or more.

After college, and through our 30s, a group of us met over dinner, sharing big world concerns and hometown news. We leaned left of our fathers, solving problems with our beating, bleeding hearts. She taught me about the nutritional value of edamame and led the way with her bold sushi selections. We gossiped about movie stars. We tried (and failed) at setting one another up on blind dates, a kind of Catholic-Lutheran-Jewish version of “Sex in the City.”

I’ll never forget how that group supported me at a tough medical crisis. Years later, I would ask the others: “What made you reach out to me? How did you know?” The answer was easy for them. It was because of her. She was a God-send for me. And I would always remember how that felt, for her to remember me in that way.

My favorite times this year with her was when I could sit by her bedside. Nothing else was expected, of either of us! We could just be there, together. She and I felt better, and less alone.

There is a great mystery within the faith that we share: heartache doesn’t end in heartache. There is more. The road we travel - sometimes with family and children, helpers and friends - it leads to a place where all are welcome, loved, and forgiven. We try again and again; we fail over and over; we can feel unworthy - and we belong.

And even when we feel alone, we never are. The Psalmist writes about it as a personal letter: "You have searched me and known me. You are acquainted with all my ways. Where can I flee from your presence? Even the darkness is not dark to you.  The night is bright as the day. For you formed me in my inmost parts. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

I love you, dear one, and I thank you for being my wonderful friend.