The Lady in The Back Row

I will begin today with two pieces of background information.  First, as a part of the process of discerning my call to ministry I have been asked to write a paper on my faith journey. This has led to a lot of thinking about my past. The second thing is that I am currently living away from home and thus attending a different church. This past Sunday found me in the choir at my sister’s church. The sermon was based on the early verses of Philippians  and the focus turned to Paul giving thanks to God for the people in the church at Phillipi. The minister made a point of the fact that Paul was talking about actual people,  individuals whom he remembered from his time there. He then asked us to look around the church and find three people for whim we were thankful. Here’s where my first two points come in. I was in the choir so I could easily look out on the congregation  and see everyone. As I looked around at a room of strangers and a few acquaintances I had to stretch. I spotted this elderly woman in the very back row and did a double take as my first thought was that it was my grandmother. Next connection, I have recently written a section on the influence my now deceased grandmother had on my Christian development and there she was looking up from the back row. I knew that it was not Grammie, but for the rest of the service my eyes were drawn to her over and over. For me it seemed that Grammie was letting me know that she supports the path on which I am travelling.  After the service I made a point of finding her. I introduced myself to her and I told her that she was one of my three people. I explained what I had felt and she thanked me and said that she was glad that she had come to church. We can find people for whom to be thankful anywhere. They won’t all remind us of relatives, they won’t even all be people we like, but we should keep our eyes open for them!