Monday Night Musings with the Mosaics

(This story first ran in The Hometown Advantage newspaper in Douglasville, Ga in early December.)

 

When you can't leave for home for weeks at a time, reentry to life is a process. Senses dull after too much time on the sofa. But I spent last Monday night with the Mosaics and was reawakened me to how much I value their friendship, their comradery, and their devotion to Jesus. I love these women and post this story in honor of their lives and how much they've changed my own - even if it's holiday themed.

My dear friends: The Mosaics

They came into my life at just the right time – like the baby born in Bethlehem sent to change the world. I met The Mosaics four days after my youngest left for college. My tears had barely dried when an acquaintance at church asked if I wanted to join the motley Bible Study crew. We met the following night.

 

Attendees include a woman with ALS who can’t use her arms; a young mom with severe vision issues after a botched Lasik eye surgery; a vibrant brunette with digestive problems that require gastric tubing she carries in a backpack; not to mention the mom whose son had a stroke at five years of age and another whose daughter suffers from spina bifida.

 

While their stories made mine feel small, I wasn’t sure what to think. Several years before I’d married a newly widowed man whose friends had not finished grieving his first wife. No one's really to blame but as I took on the role of his new wife, I battled rejection on several fronts. Real or imagined, most of it came from females which left me leery of women’s Bible studies, women's ministry events, and really just about women's anything.

 

A neuromuscular illness didn't make things easier. After numerous medical procedures over the course of two years, my youngest son and I were diagnosed with mitochondrial disease. Weak muscles. Bungled nerves.  It all took a mental toll. And while I had no doubt the God of the universe had carried me through the loss of my first husband and 10 years as a single mom, I struggled to find my footing in this new season—on unsteady legs with a wounded heart.

 

The Bible tells us that Jesus was born after 400 years of prophetic silence. Generations of Israelites lived without a fresh word from God; without a prophet promising one more time that the Messiah was coming and still looking out for them.

 

400 years they waited.

 

And then he came, to a stable no less.  And the first to see Immanuel, God with Us was a motley crew of simple, dirty shepherds.  Well-dressed Magi later came from the East—both divinely led to the manger—representing the broad spectrum of humanity. Even as the divine entered the world, heralded by angels from on high, God demonstrated that He came for everyone

 

After navigating a few of my own silent-type years, I drove to Bonnie’s home, where the study meets, and opened the book of James.

 

Over time I learned more about The Mosaics and the broken roads that led them to Jesus. Some grew up in the church. Other’s had strayed. Some live in big houses. Some live in houses that could fit in another's living room. Some are divorced and single, wondering when God will bring their Prince Charming. Others are sorting through hard marriages, longing to honor God and their husbands. Throw in the physical maladies—and the motorcycle driving chic—and there's no shortness of prayer requests as we wrap up each week.

 

But they welcomed me. This ragamuffin group welcomed me. And in time, they even made me feel normal—something very few have been able to do for quite some time. As I spend time with them I'm able to face my own brokenness with greater confidence. Not because of anything in me but because we all know we need the redemption that came in the form of the baby on that first Christmas Day; the redemption that arrived in a manger and was met by a group as motley and varied as we are.

 

The rich and the poor, the Kings and the paupers, the severely broken and those who might have just felt whole—all brought together by a divine act, by angels who sang, by Wise Men who followed a star, and by a loving God who laid down his life for all of humanity and said, “I’m coming.  I’m coming now. In this moment I’m here for you always.”

 

This Christmas I celebrate Jesus and The Mosaics—a colorful group of broken women who earnestly seek God and together make something beautiful. Their faith has strengthened mine. Their friendship is making me new. And because of that baby, we’re leaving more of our pasts behind and pressing on towards what’s ahead.

 

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” (Is. 60: 1)