The Hands and Feet of God

Last summer, my family was on vacation in Colorado when I received a call with the news that my dear friend had died, suddenly and tragically.  This woman was the mother of my daughter’s best friend, my walking partner, one we vacationed with and shared children with cooked with and, most of all, laughed with.  I was consumed by grief, and anger, and fear, and all of the emotions that eat you from the inside.  My children were devastated, and my husband was frantically trying to be everything for everyone, all in the space of our little motel room in Colorado.

By the time we could get home, the funeral was the next day.  I felt like I was walking through a dream – which was unlikely because I hadn’t slept since I had received the news.  The funeral was in a church much different from ours, where the preacher called out loudly that my friend was in such a wonderful place now, where angels were carrying her from room to room in her new mansion.  My friend had never experienced the joy and peace she now lived in, he told us.  Her young children sat in the front row, eyes wide with emptiness, hearing how happy their mother was now that she was gone from them.  My beloved sons whom I have comforted so many times, now grown men on either side of me, comforted me.  And perhaps their arms around me were also there to guard against my standing and screaming.  Probably a good idea.

I came home from the funeral empty, exhausted, and completely unable to find peace.  I couldn’t find God in her death, in her funeral, in anything in my life.  I turned to my computer and wrote an e-mail, pouring out my grief and anger and fear and emptiness to seven friends.  And then I spent another night lying awake.

I dreaded the next day.  My husband had to go back to work; he had missed too much.  The day before her death, my friend and I had made lunch plans for this day.  The day felt bleak and long and too much to bear.

At eight in the morning, a knock on the door roused me.  A friend was there, with a tall nonfat latte – just perfect – and a booked and paid for massage appointment.  She stayed with my children while I ventured out.  When I returned, another friend was there; she had made plans with my kids; we all drove over an hour to my favorite childhood restaurant just for lunch, and then drove back.  When we returned, two more friends were planting beautiful flowers in all of my flower boxes.  As evening came, cars started coming.  All seven friends came, bringing food, flowers, wine, and families.  My house was filled again with friends and children and laughter.  Toasts and tears and hugs.  And as the evening wound down, they cleaned every dish before leaving.  And that night I slept.

I awoke the next morning still sad, still lonely, still missing my friend.  But I also had a stirring of peace forming inside me again.  I realized that truly God had been there with me; God’s hands and feet had surrounded me all day with the love and caring of my friends.  We do not need to look for divine intervention to find God’s love; we can look to the world around us, to the people who share our lives.

This moment was the inspiration for The Hands and Feet of God theme that the children have been focusing on in Faith Formation.  We are God’s hands and feet; we bring God’s love to the world through our service and our words.  On Spirit Sunday, the children presented a banner with their hand and footprints that will hang in the education wing as a reminder to us all that we are indeed called to be the hands and feet of God in this world, and in the lives of those around us.  In our homes, our church, our community, and in our world, we are the hands and feet of God.

There is another lesson here as well.  Not only are we the hands and feet of God, but we are also surrounded by the hands and feet of God – but sometimes we need to ask.  Sometimes we need to write the e-mail, make the phone call, reach out to a friend; we need to throw our pain out into the world for love to surround us.  It’s okay to ask.  You are surrounded by the hands and feet of God every day with your family, with your friends, and in your church.  We are all the hands and feet of God, and we are here for each other.