gratitude

I don’t know how many times Bobby and I have prayed together through the years, but it’s been a lot.

Whatever season of my life for the past 25 years, Bobby has been there. The best of times, the worst of times, and a lot of times spent together on the way up or down.

We have acted in variety shows together, preached funerals together, talked baseball together, spoke on sermon series together, whitewater rafted together, hosted Bible studies together, survived multiple Fourth of July weeks in Mississippi together, traveled thousands of miles in his Ford Ranger together, and damaged at least one church van together.

Bobby (and the people I met through Bobby) influenced my faith, my college choice, and many of my personal and professional opportunities. As I grew up, we grew from teacher and student, to mentor and encourager, and then to partners in ministry and friends as equals.

We were sitting in line at the Wendy’s drive-thru in Huntingdon, TN one Wednesday night in 2015 after traveling to a summer series together when Ann Marie texted me to confirm plans for our first official date. I told Bobby, “Something just feels right about this.” Less than two years later, Bobby officiated at our wedding.

Bobby and I are different in many ways, but in one accord and complimentary in the things that matter most. I think sometimes we need people in our lives who love the same things, but love them in different ways or from difference perspectives. Rather than fostering competition, this tension actually creates a more authentic balance by encouraging both people to keep rethinking and stretching in life and ministry.

I am grateful for Bobby and our friendship, and I am so thankful that Freed-Hardeman University shared this photo from one of last week’s chapel services during the Bible Lectureship. Bobby’s son Will, now a student at FHU, is seated on the other side of him removing his Ole Miss cap as we begin the prayer.

Friendships shape who we are, and they also shape our views on every other aspect of life- family, business, politics, hobbies, sports, and, of course, faith. I hope we can all lean into the friendships that shape us into better, more faithful people who are seeking to encourage one another even as we imitate Christ.

“As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”
-Proverbs 27:17

I have never lived in a town of more than a couple of thousand people.

I like rural life, and while I love to travel to cities and appreciate the conveniences of larger towns, I have chosen to live my life in small, familiar places.

A little more than a year ago, a major tornado ripped through our little community and left destruction in its wake.

City hall gone.

Fire station gone.

Businesses gone.

Offices gone.

Church buildings gone.

Homes gone.

All gone in a moment.

As deep as the scars of the physical destruction have been, the damage has not all been visible- a breaking took place that has both divided and bonded our community in ways we cannot yet fully understand and may never fully know.

I have been reading Wendell Berry’s fiction as a treat to myself following the end of grad school, and in A Place on Earth, he describes the valley that flooded outside his fictional community of Port William, Kentucky- how the local landmarks were rearranged and erased and how nothing was ever the same- except that it was all still exactly the same.

Small places- maybe all places- are like that.

Always both foreign and familiar.

Never seeming to change, yet never staying quite the same.

I took a drive to pray, to reflect, to give thanks, and to allow myself to feel the weight that this year especially has brought.

To discern what needs to be remembered and what is better forgotten.

To pause and pray at church graveyards and cemeteries.

To consider what has passed on and what remains behind.

I love the holiday season and the hope of a new and better year ahead, but it was a lovely day to be quiet and still before we leave the old behind and stretch forth to embrace the new.

I am grateful for this life, this pace, and this place.

And the December sunset over Sharon was not a bad nightcap- even if it did happen at 4:45 PM.

will norrid writes

Intentional Thoughts on Faith

Friends are friends forever…

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