A couple thoughts for a Friday morning.

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A week ago, I let you know about at GoFundMe for a handcycle for Rich Dixon. Between all the people, it took less than a week for the money to all come in. Thank you for each of you that was part of that support.

I talked to Paul Merrill the other day (our First Friday writer) who is part of a film on the life of Hudson Taylor. Taylor was a missionary in China (among other things) and lived generously toward others, depending on God for provision for himself. As Paul and I talked about the people who had sent money so that it arrived just in time, I imagined people of means who saw that as their way of participating. Paul said that one regular supporter of Hudson Taylor was George Muller. George was also a person who lived generously toward others, depending on God for provision for himself. Not a person of means at all, but a person of God.

We’re not all called to live like Muller or Taylor. But we are invited to live like us learning to rest in God.

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Yesterday, I shared my research initiative for being helpful in loss. I want to spend time during the next few years understanding how we can be helpful to people who are grieving. What I’m starting to think about is whether, perhaps, the way that we are built by God includes being built to grieve. It may be part of us to respond to death with tears and frustration (as Jesus did) and remembering with sadness (as all of Jacob’s sons did when they took his body from Egypt to the family burial cave). Not a bug to be fixed, but a feature to be acknowledged.

See you Sunday.