A couple of years ago my church put on a women's retreat, like they do every year. It sounded worse than five consecutive root canals to me. You go off for two overnights in the wilderness with about 50 women. No men - pure estrogen. And not even alcohol available to dull the pain! It sounded like sheer hell and I begrudgingly signed up against my better judgement. I was not even close friends with any of these women, and I found myself in a dorm with about seven of this species. I took a top bunk, and pretty much kept to myself. One evening after the service, one of the girls on the lower bunk brought up the fact through some conversation that she wasn't really even sure that she believed all this God stuff…I listed for quite a while as some of the women witnessed to her. Two women in particular I found just amazing. Their faith in God was unshakable, and they both professed it eloquenty. And I knew (and still know) that I will never be that person. What really struck me about them is that they really, really believed it, they were not being hypocrites. You could just tell that Christ was the absolute love of their lives, even though they were both married and had children. Quite honestly, it made me really uncomfortable. I rolled over and went to sleep.
So yesterday when that flew out of my mouth to Edith, I couldn't help but remember those two ladies. And wonder what was becoming of me.
A few hours later Michael Jackson came up in conversation. I assure you, it was completely uncorrelated to the earlier conversation about children stars, unless you believe in divine intervention. But it was not intentional on her or my part. Her dad recently showed her the Thriller video and she was a little traumatized by it. She asked about Michael Jackson and if he was scary. I told her that he was one of the most amazing and talented human beings that we have ever seen - he could dance, he could sing, he could act. He was incredible! He was also very strange. Very, very strange. And then I remembered the child star conversation, and I told her that he had actually been a child star, and even though he had all of that talent and was so famous and had so much money, he grew up empty on the inside, and eventually died from overdosing on drugs. I didn't even know if she would know what that meant, but then she told me that her uncle could have killed himself overdosing on alcohol and then driving. And I said "Exactly."
My Edith, she's pretty smart.
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