"THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE POSSIBLE"
Monday, January 12, 2009
By Rev. Travis Franklin
I have driven this road thousands of times before. Twelve years back and forth, back and forth. Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgivings, retirements, funerals, all those events that bring families together were ours to share. The typical family we were as we drove that black ribbon of highway 31 together so many times before. Drawn back to the home of the woman I had married. Good times, bad times, sad times, or happy ones the comfort and constant of Gamma and Papa’s love. The security of knowing that just an hour down the road due east it was there, they were there. The apostle Paul went so far as to proclaim that what was at the end of that drive was the greatest, love.
Not so anymore at least for me anyway. At least not in the way I had known for 24 years of my marriage to their daughter. Some of the collateral damage of the family wrecker divorce. Now only memories to me and a highway that now leads to just another east Texas oil town. It has been over two years since my last official tie to a family that I had come to love as much as my own. It was one of the tragedies of splitting up. Relationships shared now torn apart never to be the same again lost forever somewhere between what was and what will never be again. It was another casualty of another relationship who over the years just lost its way never to be found again.
But……..the day before Christmas the phone rang. The voice that was on the other end of the phone was one that I knew all too well, my ex-wife. She had heard that I was spending Christmas day alone. It is true? Yes, was my reply with my effort to assure her it was no big deal. Not what she intended with this divorce thing. Why don’t you come and have Christmas supper with us at home. Mom and Dad, my brother, the kids, me and you complete the invited guest list. You need to come. Thanks, I will. And so I did.
A Christmas day that was full of nostalgia, good memories, and haunting familiarity. For a brief six hours on that day when love was born it was as though we had all traveled back. Back to a time and place of home, the smell of ham baking in the oven, fresh rolls rising on the counter, yams simmering in butter and brown sugar, hugs, laughter, and the table set for Christmas dinner in a the room where we had shared it so many times before. As though nothing had changed we all played our parts. After all they were well rehearsed after 24 years of being family. The agenda hadn’t changed and even the presence of an old but new visitor didn’t alter the course or mood of the day’s festivities, dinner and cards. I remembered them well and for a short six hours I was back, we were back together moving through time as though nothing had changed. A Christmas day I will never forget. It was a Christmas day that reminded me of the truth and power of the nativity and its bold and daring proclamation that nothing is impossible with God. I now know the reality and truth of this God and the love unleashed into a hurting and broken world that makes anything and everything a possibility. Who would have ever believed or thought that I would spend this Christmas accepting an unexpected invitation from the most unlikely of sources to spend with people I still loved and who still loved me. The possibility of the impossible! Only God could be the architect of such a design.
As I drive this road again to my new home I thank God for such loving where the impossible becomes possible. As the tears run down my cheeks and as I whiz past the white, broken lines on the road one more time I am grateful for all I have lived, for that which I am living, and for that which I have yet to live. Because deep in my soul I know, I trust, I believe in a way maybe I never have before that anything and everything is possible with God. How do I know? Because on this Christmas day for a brief period of time I lived again, anew the old and familiar in a daring and beautiful way the impossibility of the possible. Without regrets, without grieving what I no longer had, I was given a wonderful and inspiring gift this Christmas day. A gift that reminded me of just how the mystery of God’s love invites us in new and unusual ways to experience once again the wonder of all the manger means and inspires. After all who would have every dreamed that a stable would become the birthplace of the son of God.
All the way home I pondered these things in my heart because I knew the gifts I received this Christmas were memorable indeed. Such giving could only come from this God who will stop at nothing to love me and you in ways that simply defy my ability to understand. Overwhelmed, full to overflowing, joyful to the depths of my soul, I travel this road one more time in a way I never have before!
I will see you on the road,
Travis