All Those Years

*A note before you read this. After doing an audit of my blog in 2022, I have decided to leave content that speaks to the Christian I was at the time this was written. I no longer identify as Christian (and haven’t for a very long time.) I chose to leave these posts because it is who I was then and it is important to me to be honest and true with every iteration and evolution of self that I experience. I may decide to add comments to the end of posts like this as well

Sometimes

a random question fans a flame

That question took me back. Way back.

Splashing through the sand bar
Talking by the campfire

Talking by the campfire. The sun went down earlier back then or maybe we stayed up later, but it was always night and we had beer and a campfire and a sweatshirt and each other.

And we sang bye bye Miss American Pie.
Drove the Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

We sang and we drank. We talked. We sang and talked.

did you write the book of love,
and do you have faith in God above,
if the Bible tells you so?

I didn’t have faith in God above.

We talked for hours about anything and everything. We went everywhere together and did everything together. And we argued sometimes. Because some of us (me) didn’t believe there was a God and some of us (Ed) did.  Some of us were convinced that The father, son, and the holy ghost, they caught the last train for the coast.

I told Ed if His God was really there He’d find a way to show Himself to me. And we drank more beer and talked more and sang more.

Nobody on the road
nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air
the summer’s out of reach.

Summer ended. We graduated. We went to college, got married, got divorced, became truck drivers and ministers and we bought houses and had kids and

forgot

at least I did.

Empty lake
empty streets
the sun goes down alone.
I’m drivin’ by your house
Though I know you’re not home.

Some people (Ed) didn’t forget. He’d come home to visit his dad. He’d drive by my old house and he’d think of me.

Out on the road today
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said,
“Don’t look back.
You can never look back.”

Many moons and summers after those campfires, Ed’s dad died and he remembered me again. “I knew I wouldn’t be driving by your old house again, so I wanted to find you. See how you are.”

“I’m not like I used to be.” I love Jesus (and I drink a little) and I’m not the girl I used to be, how are you, Ed? Who are you, what path did you take?  A collegiate minister in Wyoming. Still, as he was then, a man of God.

Now for twenty (plus) years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone,

He was driving by my house, knew I wasn’t home (Home) and he’d pray for me. (he’d pray for me.) (he’d pray for me.)(every time he drove by)

All those years

He prayed

for me

and sometimes i wonder what would’ve happened to me if Ed hadn’t whispered my name in God’s ear all those years.  Ed didn’t shout or point at his Bible or preach or proselytize. Ed prayed.  and i’m brought to a place of terrible and wonderful humbleness and gratitude.

and i wonder, is there a name i should be whispering in God’s ear?

and i am full of wonder at how, in his silence, Ed was the blaring example of Christ in my life.

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