Weird twenty-four hours.
Last night I learned via voicemail that my high school youth pastor had died that afternoon. It wasn't exactly unexpected -- he's been suffering from a brain tumor for ten years, although it was pneumonia that took him.
But even so, it was...weird. It's not easy to write about. It's complicated. He's been the strongest influence on my life so far (reaching well beyond the time when I last saw him, seven years ago), and it was a harsh and difficult influence as well as a good one. But still, the strongest. It's hard to process a passing with that kind of a convoluted history.
Add to that the fulfilled prophecy of bad weather and I've been in kind of a gray suspension.
I did learn the value of being forgiven, however. That was a bright spot. The human understanding of God's forgiveness gains strength when it's expressed through His people. I can be an extremely unkind person from time to time, which I'm noticing vividly and trying to correct -- a task made easier (easier? more encouraged, rather) by forgiveness.
I'm tired. I stayed up 'way too late last night reading The Time Traveler's Wife (the person who said I should buy it advised me that if I slogged through the slow beginning it would be a fabulous read, and upon beginning it I have no idea what he was talking about -- the beginning is excellent. But I like spliced narratives, and maybe he didn't), trying not to think how March seems to claim someone of pneumonia at one point or another -- eight years ago it was my grandfather. I don't see death as a permanent state, but it still casts a shadow.
But tonight is more housecleaning (the wild life I do lead), and tomorrow my parents are coming to visit, and I'm anticipating a nice weekend. Whether or not the weather clears up.
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