Thursday Th(ink)s - August 6, 2026

As I’ve aged, I’ve come to love the doctrine of Providence. It applies to all aspects of living--joy, sorrow, life, and death. Because of the sure conviction that God is connecting my story

to His story, that He is creating a grand narrative in my life that brings glory to Himself, I can

rest that my grief at the loss of Kathy, at the relatively young age of 70, was God’s story for

her...God’s story for us...God’s story that our best friend-ness had run its earthly course

and that it was to be continued in heaven.

Our story began when I met her at a “married student wives bible study” in Mrs. Olver’s

basement some 40 years ago. There was Kathy (as we all were) in her practical skirt, guitar

across her knee, legs demurely crossed, and singing like an angel. Her ready smile drew

me in but what really put the “oh, I’m going to get to know her” fire in my belly was her

response to a proffered prayer request:

Married student wife: May we pray for your leg?

Kathy: My leg?

Married student wife: Yes, I see it’s swollen.

Kathy: (laughs) Oh! No, I’m fine. I was born like this.

I had felt like I was a crow in a basement full of doves. I didn’t fit in. I was awkward in my

serviceable skirt. I was only at Prairie Bible College because my newly saved California

surfer-dude husband needed some training beyond the picture bible and my dad said, “Hey,

let me bring you to the prairies and finance your way through school.” So here I was, in a

damp basement, staring at Kathy who had suddenly become a winter aurora in my dark sky.

As I would learn throughout our forty-year friendship, Kathy understood Providence better

than anyone I knew. She understood that since she was born with lymphedema, God would

give her the grace to manage it. She understood that Providence would bring a myriad of

people and opportunities into her story, and she would embrace what God wrote in his

“book of Kathy”.

We are fortunate if we find a kindred spirit during the time that God allots us as finite

creatures. Not everyone does. Kathy and I were profoundly grateful that we were both

protagonists in each other’s stories. Our lives were so much the richer because Providence

saw to it that we were both in that dismal basement, legs showing under equally dismal

skirts, on the prairies of winter Alberta.

What’s the bottom line to our forty-year story? God, in His infinite love and wisdom, knew

that we needed each other. We needed that one loyal friend who was going to be our soul-

sister as we lived out our human story. We needed each other’s giftedness to enhance and

sharpen our earthly creative work. We needed someone with whom to be equal, neither one

giving nor taking more than her emotional share. We needed to share our families, to create

bonds beyond our gene pool. We needed someone with whom to both scramble in the dark

and play in the sunshine. We needed each other.

And what do I think of Providence now that she is dead? I think that I still trust His story for

us. And so did Kathy. The plot twist was clearly expressed by her when she looked at me,

tears rolling down her cheeks and said, “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe I am dying! But

it’s okay...it’s okay. We’ll write our magnum opus together in heaven.”

We had so many, many more years of ideas to discuss. So many, many more plans to

make. We did not expect this plot zinger! Why didn’t we? Because friendship never faded, love was always a full cup. We hadn’t reached the end of our potential. We always felt like

we were just getting started. And we never missed a beat in our whole forty-year history.

Dear Jesus, I will grieve Kathy the rest of my mortal days, but that’s because my grief is as deep as my love. Meet me here, in that deep labyrinth where my soul goes to find You.

Big Brains: “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Old Souls: “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”

― Leo Tolstoy

The Ancient of Days: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

Norma Jean: 
Thanks be to God for His Providence. . . in everything. In everything give thanks.

Thursday Chat: What person did you think about when you read this Thursday Thinks piece? Those thoughts are today’s gift to you.