reunion

“I think I know you,” I say, fumbling only a little because I don’t know if she’ll remember me at first, because the last time I saw her, we stood in worship singing blessings over each other. It was dark; we were masked, but I recognized her that night even though I didn’t know her name and had never seen her before that day. Now, the morning light beams through her dark curls, flooding the room, and she wears her name on a handwritten name tag on her chest.

“Oh?” She says, tilting her head a little, studying my face. She’s open, curious, familiarity flickers like an ember.

“Remember the prayer service?” I say, “At the end? We—“

“That was you?” She says, interrupting me, her voice almost a whisper, almost a gasp. She beams at me, and it’s as though the light comes from her face and not just those gigantic lobby windows. This woman is my sister; I know her.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she says, like she’s searched for me, like I was lost but now I’m found, and suddenly, we are embracing. It feels like coming home; like a reminder that I’m not traveling alone.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again either,” I say, beaming back. “My blessing sister.”

“My blessing sister,” she says, nodding at the fact, standing back at last to look at me.

It’s like this in Christ; we’re always discovering another blood relative. A missionary friend of mine describes finding sisters halfway around the world, in other nations and other cultures. She flattens her hand over her heart when she talks about it, remembering, recalling how she encountered in one instant the resemblance of the Holy Spirit, how she said, “I know you,” to women who before that moment had been strangers to her. In a family as large as ours, it happens anywhere; it happens everywhere.

“So tell me about yourself,” she says, because in reunion we can begin to understand some of the details, to sketch out the shapes of our lives, the places we’ve been with God. Being part of the church feels a bit like traveling on pilgrimage in a massive, road-soiled group. Whenever we camp for a time, we find ourselves across from someone new but not new at all, both of us rubbing our tired feet, looking beyond the trail dust to see one another by the Spirit’s light.

In the short time that we have this morning—we have both come here for other time-bound things, I tell her about my kids because sharing my life, especially in summary, naturally means talking about them. I tell her about this blog, about her post, because I know I will never have the words to tell her what her blessing meant to me in just a few moments, because I know this is the easiest path to my heart. I am not so good at revealing myself in conversation. My blessing sister, she smiles at me, her eyes alight with wonder as we talk like two old friends who have forgotten, at least for a moment, that anyone else is in the room. When someone blesses you, you don’t want to let them go. And in the background of all our living on, we have been looking for each other. The moment I remember our other sisters, the moment I attend again to the sound of their laughter and conversation around us, I want to take my blessing sister by the arm and tell each one of them who she is, not only her name or the usual things I would say by way of introduction, but the way she blessed me, the way she looped her arm through mine without touching me, the way she dragged me laughing to the throne of God. I want to tell them all how I knew she wanted nothing for herself that night and everything for me, how she helped me receive God’s love in a way I hadn’t before, how she did it from a distance and at the same time right up close. This is how it is for us in Christ: the unseen things matter more.

But before I can do what I’m inclined to do and share our story, the time comes to break camp again. My blessing sister puts her hand on my arm, says, “See you soon, okay?” Because somehow now we know that more than sharing blessings as we pass along the way, we will get to walk along together. She will share the living water with me, the dark, blood-colored wine, and I will break off chunks of the bread to place in the palm of her hand.