Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the name of his son? Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. --Proverbs 30:4 &5
On a spring day in 2007, I ran into my friend Steve Ferguson at CVS. I met Steve and his wife Bea years ago when our older sons played youth soccer. One Saturday after a game, a couple of their boys came home to play with mine, and we've been friends ever since. Eventually, the Fergusons had six children. Steve used to joke, "When they leave home, we're going to move and not leave a forwarding address." Of course, that didn't happen and the Ferguson home was always the center of activity for their extended family. We had not seen each other in a while and started catching up. He said he had seven grandchildren. I said, "Oh, my! I only have one and I am so wrapped up in her. Her mother is expecting another baby and I worry how I will make room for it. How do you spread yourself out among seven?" He simply replied: "You just get wrapped up in every one of them."
The following winter I got a call that Steve had passed away. He had some health issues, but no one realized he was sick enough to die. At the funeral, his pastor told how he had built a stage in their church basement for their Christmas pageant just a few months before. She had remarked that it would be nice if they had some sort of platform and the next thing she knew, Steve had organized some of the men of the church and they were carrying in lumber and tools and built not just a platform, but a real stage. "He built a stage," she said again and again, using it as a metaphor for living a good life. He took care of his family, he was a friend to all, he was a pillar of his church, he built a stage!
His words, "get wrapped up in every one of them," will always stay with me. As anyone who has more than one child or grandchild knows, your heart and your lap find room for the additional children. But I think his words go farther. We can get wrapped up in more than our blood relatives; in being a true friend to neighbors near and far, in causes, like fighting for justice, in spreading beauty and protecting the earth, in searching for God's purpose for our lives. We are wrapped in the loving arms of God, and we can build a stage!
Anita Gardner Farrell
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