My ex-writing student K sacrificed 10 hours of labor today at work. It is very strange to see her all grown up and yet working with her was such an incredible pleasure.

I had, as usual, an impossibly long set of tasks that needed to be finished. Given that I have not been sleeping of late, I was a bit frenetic in mind as I tried to tackle my list.

K was there ostensibly to help with a gargantuan newsletter mailing, but, as usual, she blew through that task with hours left in the work day. What is extraordinary about K is her heart. She is kindness personified in such a young person. K spend several very long hours running back and forth between my boss, fetching things, showing edits, typing instructions, and basically laying down her life for me so that I might be free to leave knowing I had done what needed taken care of before being off on Monday for an out-patient procedure.

Her mind is fine. I have believed, since I met her at 12, that K can do whatever she wants to do, whatever her passion is, whatever she believes she can do. While I do wonder if she will ever glimpse the potential within her that I see, if she will ever dare to dream big, I do know that she will continue to changes lives by her very presence. She can do anything, yet she chose to fetch and carry on my behalf!

God blessed me mightily this day, by having someone to lean upon during a trying day at work.

But...that was not all...even though we arrived home well after 8:00PM, we had planned to do an evening of writing. After preparing a meal for her, we settled down to work once more.

K polished off two networking emails, while I composed exactly four sentences on my novel. Four. My productivity was rather dismal. However, we did spend over an hour discussing the first part of that treatise on baptism.

Such joy it was for me to be able to talk about faith with her. How interesting to have a Lutheran talk about all this Lutheran stuff! For as much as I tease Pastor about trying to convert me (his ready retort is always that he is merely drawing out my inner Lutheran), his perspective is always the shepherd first and fellow Christian second. I love that he is so very willing to teach me and in teaching me share his own struggles. But I never forget, even for a moment, that he is a pastor. His is a dual journey. Faith for K, albeit a shorter journey, is more like mine. So, I found her perspective, having grown up a Lutheran, rather intriguing and a bit illuminating if only for her certitude in doctrine that troubles me for the contrast with that which I have been taught over the past 27 years, longer, in fact, than K has been alive.

Grace is objective.
Scripture is Living.
Faith is a gift.

Truth that is not new, yet somehow actually is....