eucharisteo {and the secret to significance}
We sit in a restaurant not far away, because she’s tired and I’m tired, and it need not take long to get home. Time comes and we sit down, having carefully protected the hour. She begins by announcing a blemish, because our hearts have been friends an uncountable age, and we see no need for glossing over life’s realities. In this way, she shows kindness, offering me the permission to notice her flaws.
Her voice sounds rough, clogged a bit by living. She’s just on the edge of recovery, having found little time to indulge the illness that has tried, relentlessly–and yet unsuccessfully—to thieve away what remains of her resolve. “I sound much worse than I feel at this point,” she says, and I understand.
On the outside, it appears that the day has appointed us differently, but the truth we gather together overlaps with nodding congruency. We follow Jesus, and this we both embrace with its costs, because we believe in the greater glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Today she has worked at home, and I have roamed, landing back only to launch again.
We scan the menu and I begin to unfold the wealth of responsibility lately curling into my days, my breath, my prayers. “I go for a run and let it go,” I tell her, without needing to explain what this means, that I pray and relinquish, that God reminds me that both the opportunity and the accomplishment belong to Him.
She nods and just listens, and in her sharp eyes I catch the reflection of my confessions. She understands how I’ve been called, the way I’m shaped, how He holds me in a way that changes where and how I step.
“You know,” she says finally, “I heard this thing the other day—or I read it—no, I went and I listened (and that’s how it is, how quickly we lose track of the immaterial details), to a speaker who said that sometimes life doesn’t allow you the time you want for “quiet time,” but that everything we do is done with Him, that it’s all focused there. I do laundry, and that’s about walking with Him. I teach my children, and that’s about Him. I cook dinner, and that’s Him too. It’s all about Him. And that helps me so much, because right now, I have so little time for quiet.”
She offers me her own list—the truth that her husband has had to work such long hours; the things she’s concerned about for her kids; the way the journey overwhelms and complicates and wearies. We speak in woven sentences about our daughters and the clinging ways they need us, the ways they watch, the wild ways they absorb and crave us. And without the words I’m praying, I know that each of these are separate conversations she’s having with God. It is much…so much.
And I nod and listen, and I wonder if she sees in my eyes the reflection of her confessions; if she knows I hear her.
For a moment, I forget that we both need shared strength so much more than sympathy. “You must be exhausted,” I say to her. “I don’t know how you’re not just one big puddle.”
Before I see in myself the reflection of Peter and him saying, “Never (Matthew 16:22),” and me saying, “This should never happen to you,” her eyes flash, with passion and without rebuke.
“I am so needed right now, and that is such a tremendous gift,” she says, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “All these things I do all day, they’re significant. I know without a doubt that I am used to bless other lives. Yes, it’s wearying. But that’s what it is to be poured out. It’s not going to be easy. I’m going to be tired. My body is going to have a hard time keeping up sometimes. But that’s okay. That’s following. I’m picking up my cross (Luke 9:23).”
She makes me smile for all her fire, for the way she speaks truth right into the air of this place. I recognize her testimony as my own.
“Truth,” I say, lifting my drink.
“So many people feel insignificant,” she says, and precious souls come to mind, dear ones I know who often still wonder. “But I know. I know that I am so needed, and that is such a blessing. I don’t want to take that for granted. I am significant because He pours me out. When I start feeling tired and overburdened, I start thinking about that. That’s how I can always give thanks.” That’s eucharisteo: thanksgiving for sacrifice.
I see that she has in mind the things of God and not the things of men. And so we speak of Jesus, the way He never suggested that comfortable would describe following, even as He promised glory, the radiant wealth of God. And I give thanks that she requires that I affirm her thanksgiving, that I encourage her pursuit of Kingdom first. I give thanks that she is my sister, that she testifies clearly to this: It is my joy to lose my life for His sake.
And so, I leave the table nourished not on bread alone, but on the very words that proceed from the mouth of God (Deut. 8:3). It is the real Bread she holds in her palm. She offers me, by her testimony, the Bread of Life, the true first thanksgiving meal, the best gift of Grace.
*~*~*
At the table of Thanks–which really is the eucharist—I give thanks for all of my sisters. I used to pray for sisters, and now we crowd the Table, warm. You brighten this place with your flickering eyes, and the strength of your truthful voices fills the empty spaces. You each offer me the Bread in your palms. Thank you for being so signficant to me.
