Mud Sitters

I got a call today from my friend Leigh Anne.

Leigh Anne and I met during our seminary years...way back in 1992. She and her husband Dustin moved into the Lotus Landing apartment comples in Altamonte Springs, Florida...the same apartment complex that we were in. The seminary had given them our name and they called us to ask for help moving in.

We were instant friends.

Our husbands were both in seminary, and we were both teachers. I often wonder how many miles we logged walking the apartment complex parking lot several evenings a week.

Leigh Anne was so diffent than me. She was from Silas, Alabama for starters and I was from Chicago. Southern Belle meets City Girl. She said things like "jumping stumps" and told me that her home town had only one four way stop. She is tiny and I am tall. She has this great curly hair and beautiful green eyes.

When our leases were up we both moved into seperate apartments on an elderly couple's lot...the Conyers were their name. They had a big old house on a lake and Eric and I lived on their coverted second floor. Dustin and Leigh Anne lived in the cottage on their property. Leigh and I would meet in the mornings leaving for work and complain about our seminary-going husbands who were still snug in bed. We still walked, but also sat out on the dock and talked alot and prayed for our husbands. We took canoe rides together and giggled because we sucked at paddling. We memorized Pslam 139 together..."You have searched me and you know me O Lord..."

Dustin and Eric graduated. They moved to the South end of town. We bought a house. Leigh and I both became pregnant at about the same time. I can remember sitting in big Adriondak chairs being all big and pregnant and hardly being able to get out. She had a Jacob and I had a Kaitlin. We have pictures of our babies together when she came to visit me in the hospital.

Eventually they moved to Texas to work with RUF at TCU. For over 8 years Leigh Anne and I have kept our friendship over the phone. She is one of those people forwhom time is not an issue. She preaches the gospel to me all the time. And has for many years.

This November her husband was riding his bike with his boys and hit something in the road. He sustained a severe brain injury.

He has never woken up.

I went to her when she called. They had just moved to Greneville NC and had been there for three months only. Dustin was still in the ICU.

Even though I hadnt seen her physically in 8 years it was like no time had passed. I slept on the floor of the ICU with her for 3 days. I didnt shower for three days...We read Scripture to her comotose husband and sang to him. She said she kept singing the same song to Dustin..." Jesus Lover of My Soul". I sang to Dustin too when I sat with him, but I sang "Dancing with Myself" by Billy Idol. (Something Dustin would randomly sing and dance around the house)

His prognosis is that things will not change for him. Barring a miracle he will not get well. I believe that God can do a miracle, however the Doctors have told them that they have never seen someone return from a brain injury this severe.

She has three children now...Jacob who is 10, Nathan who is 8 and Meredith who is 2.

She called me today.

She was weeping like I have never heard...truly sobbing...wailing...just overwrought with what is before her. There are no words for what she has.

She asked me to tell her about the worst thing that has ever happened to me. When I asked her."Why?" she said..."Because I want to know how you got over it...I want to know how you got better. I want to get out of this stuck place"

She broke my heart. Listening to her wail and weep from her soul on the phone broke my heart. I mourned for her. I mourned with her. We mourned for the loss of her dream...for the loss of what would be. Her future as she thought it would be is dead.

It would be different if he died...there would be closure. With this there isnt. Its beyond the worst.

What do you do when there is nothing to do? What do you say when there is nothing to say? I suppose at times the greatest act of love can be to be quiet. To be a "mud sitter" like one of Job's friends was.

I still dont know what to do with this...I dont know what to do with the problem of our humaness and God's sovreignity.