Friday was warm and sunny. Mom and I went hiking at the nature preserve.

We walked single-file down the trails and talked about a lot of things: about life lately, about people and how they’re doing. We talked about family.

We crossed the creek over a fallen log, and somehow as we went along the little graveyard in Blodgett came up. Pappa is buried there; Thea too. That’s where Mamma will be buried, and Dad and Mom as well, someday.

That put me at ease somehow, knowing where they’ll be, knowing that when the time comes I won’t have to leave them with strangers, that there’s a plan and eventually a rest-place with our people. “Dad and I have eight plots there, you know. And Nancy has four,” Mom told me.

I didn’t know.

It put me further at ease, not knowing how things are going to turn out or where I’ll go, to think that I might also have a place there someday if needed. I’ve been knocking on doors, praying about opportunities, but nothing’s opened clearly, they way things do when God is in them. I’ve been frustrated, a little scared, a lot repentant, and still it’s quiet and there’s no answer. But when I thought of the graveyard in Blodgett I did feel some peace knowing that even if none of my dreams come true, even if I lose all my teeth and my body falls apart and no one will marry me and I have no home and no family and die alone of some horrible disease somewhere, that even if all that were to actually happen, as long as I live loving God himself and keep getting back up and looking for ways to grow his kingdom, I might still have one of those humble little plots in the end, and my body can be planted to rest with people who’ve loved well until we all rise again. We can meet Jesus together, and what a good company.

Saturday I filled in at the Studio. Donna had made these tiny little clay heart beads and I wanted to buy one to keep clumps from forming in my mini sugar bowl. I couldn’t find a price so I texted and asked about them. Please take what you want! she answered. And I was so happy, so happy at the exchange, so happy that my work was letting them be with their families for the day and also feeling appreciated and loved, and now whenever I get to the bottom of the sugar and see the little heart I’ll remember Donna — beautiful and creative and generous and kind. There are still people like that.

Sunday before I left for late service I came across a clip of a panel of third culture kids all grown up. They talked about how the way they were raised effected them in good ways and difficult ways, and I thought about how wonderful it would be to have friends who understood what that thing was and is and always will be. I thought about the greater community of missionaries and about all the people in the world who know what it means to try to live for God between cultures and peoples and competing agendas in the general whirlwind of the fringe.

The missionary from American Samoa spoke on Sunday. “There are places in the South Pacific that we paddle past in our canoes that have never heard about Jesus,” he said. And he teared up a little telling about someone who donated pallets of Bibles, how when someone there is given one they disappear to begin reading it right away. So many there have never heard the simple story of God and His People. And I just wondered what in the world we’re doing and what in the world I’m doing, but at the same time knowing that it’s God’s project and he moves all the willing ones everywhere in the world he needs them to go.

At the nature preserve, on Friday, Mom and I crossed back at the real bridge farther up the creek before heading home. We stopped, watched a little waterfall, thanked God aloud for good things we don’t deserve, and heartily amen-ed.