We still have an answering machine in our home.
It’s stuck on the wall between our kitchen and dining room, a 20th Century relic I just can’t part with.
My husband has grumbled about getting rid of our home phone and the machine, but I have a couple long-distance friends I talk with regularly, and I despise talking on my cell phone. So understanding hubby set it up that when we’re home and calls come in on our cell phones, we can answer on the home phone.
When the number blinks, we have new messages. Either an “IRS” rep demanding we call NOW before our bank account explodes or the ortho office reminding me about my older son’s appointment.
{Thank goodness the political season is over.}
But there are five saved messages that will never get deleted from our compact answering machine. In Lord of the Rings dialect, they’re my PRECIOUS.
They’re cheerful, congratulatory female voices letting me know You’re A Semifinalist or You’re A Finalist.
When I met one of the lovely message-leavers at a local writing conference last year, I started the conversation with, “Your voice is on my answering machine.” She got that deer-in-the-headlights look (in Florida, it’s more like squirrel-in-the-headlights) until I explained who I was and why her voice was on my machine. Then we laughed.
Those five saved messages slowly added up, little numbers that equaled Fulfilled Promises of this writing dream that took root decades ago and grew, bit by bit, until it stretched my aching heart.
Until this happened last weekend.
It’s a gift I still can’t fully believe and am so grateful for.
But there were other messages along the winding, wondering years, too. I see them more clearly now. Emails that healed the tender ache, notes that pressed me forward despite longing to give up.
Words prayed over me that wrapped me in the Father’s love.
Messages from writer friends, encouraging words just when I needed them. And messages in God’s Word.
“But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.”
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks.”
“Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.”
“Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
“But none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
Are you on a heart journey? Traveling a path you know you’re supposed to, but the end is out of sight? I’m not there yet either friend, and I’m realizing in shades of blinding, sunset beauty…that’s the point.
The goal isn’t the final objective. The goal is the journey–and the messages we leave and receive along the way. They’re grace and friendship and love and selflessness.
Here are a few pictures from the ACFW conference and Gala last weekend.
“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.”
Kerry Johnson 