Jtwenty7

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Discounted Floor Models

It's always scary to buy a floor model because there's just no certainty in what you'll get. They're usually an incredible deal or an extreme rip off. I think the worst aspect is chance because there's just no guarantee...literally.

We've been fortunate enough to (knock on wood) always luck out with floor models. For instance, our stereo is a floor model that I bought with eighth grade graduation money. That's pretty enduring.

Other models I followed in eighth grade have recently fallen apart. I'm not referring to a stereo or tv this time. These were models that helped to shape my life, found in the local church.

Our family started going to "my" church when I was six. At that time, they were simply the pastor and his wife, but more importantly the parents of my first crush. But as time passed, I realized they were so much more.

He was the second one in the driveway when we found out my grandma had been killed. He was the one that baptized me at the age of eight. He would give these great sermons with notes from a greenbar printer that were still all attached so when one page would start to fall off the pulpit, they all would follow. She was the perfect complement. She volunteered at the Crisis Pregnancy Center and always got stopped for speeding on the way there and back. She was there for everyone in the church when they needed her. I remember when all the ladies of the church passed around a cross-stitch of the Proverbs 31 Woman and each worked on a separate piece to present to her. She taught me the bible school song, "forget you bible, forget to pray and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink." When I was still in grade school, she let me dress their new baby, assuring me that it was just like putting clothes on a doll and that I could do it.

They were the last pastor's family that actually had a true friendship with our family. We actually did things together. Suppers and ice cream. They loved us and they cared sincerely about what was going on in our lives.

When they moved out of state at the end of my eighth grade year, I thought I was going to die. A foundation had been ripped our from under me that I had relied on my entire "christian" life.

Years later, I remember driving across Indiana in a big red truck with my future husband and we were talking about what our future would be like, what our plans were. He wanted to go to seminary and become a pastor. What did I want to do? I wanted to be her.

Plans changed, directions shifted and then they shifted again and I found myself in a tiny community in Indiana as a pastor's wife. Mike has known how much I adore this pastor's family. He even had a chance to meet them when we were in college. He has known that I wanted to be her and model my life after her in many ways. He even used to tease me - "Are you ______? Are you?"

And then this year, the year I became a pastor's wife myself, I found out that my models had fallen apart. They had separated and are now getting divorced. And I don't really know the details, but it sounds like a lot of it falls on her. On the one I wanted to be.

Another reminder that nothing here comes in a box with a warranty. We're all just out there, possibly broken, most of us in ways that are invisible to the naked eye.

It's a good thing God is a risk taker.