Keith’s Pool
Pain happens; fear descends; loss knocks on our door.
There is nothing we can do to avoid this reality, but there is much we can do to shape how we respond to pain, fear, and loss.
I caught the story of a retired judge in Minnesota named Keith Davison. In April 2016 his wife of 66 years died. The house went silent. Evy’s watch sat on her nightstand ticking until it stopped. Then it just sat there, unmoving. There were no grandchildren.
“You cry a lot,” Keith says as he sits in his still living room looking like he’s going to cry some more.
Keith decided he would build a pool in his backyard. There wasn’t a community pool in the neighborhood. So, the earthmovers and the cement trucks pulled up, did their thing, and now there’s a pool, the Judge’s Pool. The neighbors thought Keith’s idea was a joke at first.
Keith laughs as he sits by the pool with splashes of water and the half-crazed whoops of children swirling around him. “I’m not sittin’ by myself lookin’ at the walls,” he says.
Pain and loss confront us, and we are tempted to freeze up and shut down, but we don’t.
Sometimes it’s not even our own personal pain and loss, but God touches us, and we respond to the pain of others.
I heard about a congregation who decided their community had a wound – there were too many children in the foster system and not enough families to love them. Over time, there were 100 fewer children in need of families and homes.
When I hear Jesus say in John chapter 16, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” these are the sorts of things that often come to mind.
Pain happens; fear descends; loss knocks on our door.
There is nothing we can do to avoid this reality, but there is much we can do to shape how we respond to pain, fear, and loss.
I caught the story of a retired judge in Minnesota named Keith Davison. In April 2016 his wife of 66 years died. The house went silent. Evy’s watch sat on her nightstand ticking until it stopped. Then it just sat there, unmoving. There were no grandchildren.
“You cry a lot,” Keith says as he sits in his still living room looking like he’s going to cry some more.
Keith decided he would build a pool in his backyard. There wasn’t a community pool in the neighborhood. So, the earthmovers and the cement trucks pulled up, did their thing, and now there’s a pool, the Judge’s Pool. The neighbors thought Keith’s idea was a joke at first.
Keith laughs as he sits by the pool with splashes of water and the half-crazed whoops of children swirling around him. “I’m not sittin’ by myself lookin’ at the walls,” he says.
Pain and loss confront us, and we are tempted to freeze up and shut down, but we don’t.
Sometimes it’s not even our own personal pain and loss, but God touches us, and we respond to the pain of others.
I heard about a congregation who decided their community had a wound – there were too many children in the foster system and not enough families to love them. Over time, there were 100 fewer children in need of families and homes.
When I hear Jesus say in John chapter 16, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” these are the sorts of things that often come to mind.