FPCI attended church yesterday, something I do with decreased frequency these days. I am in Urbana, IL and I visited the church Judy and I attended for more than 20 years before moving to Texas. Because of the pandemic the attendance was small, but I saw familiar faces and got to chat with many of them after things had ended.

The experience reminded me again of how gratitude and grief are often inseparable. As I sat there I was filled with gratitude for the long history of experiences and relationships I had found in that place. I was also keenly aware of many who were no longer there. Death had taken a toll on the elderly members I had known, but also on many who seemed far too young to die.

It was the evolution of those relationships that got my attention yesterday. Judy and I joined that congregation in hopes of finding significant friendships there. We did, despite one member’s statement early on, “Oh, you’re looking for relationships? Presbyterians don’t do that.” She was wrong. Good relationships did emerge and persist to this day. However, that happened through a combination of joy and grief.

We were there for each other when new babies came into the world. We raised our kids together, attended their Christmas pageants, participated in bake sales and pancake suppers for their mission trips. We sang together, prayed together, went on retreats to learn and relax. But we also grieved together over the death of children and spouses, miscarriages, kids going off the rails, all the inevitable and awful things that come with life.

I recognized again yesterday that genuine gratitude comes from the strange mixture of all those delightful and devastating things rolled in together.