The Great Cloud of Witnesses

As a child I was a pioneer, an adventure seeker, an explorer.  My favorite book was Robinson Cruiso and I had a crazy crush on Franz from Swiss Family Robinson.  It was amazing the places my sisters would follow me into – across rivers (irrigation ditches ) and over mountains (the wood pile) and through the vast wilderness. There was an old barn on our property that I shared with my sisters as a clubhouse. Until the day Tara fell through the roof of the lean to and was dangling by her armpits 6 feet from the ground.  Somehow I managed to climb up on something underneath her and rescue her but we were forever banned from that barn afterwards.  By the time we moved from that house there were a dozen other places we were no longer allowed to play because of the traps and trouble we managed to find. Like the field with the neighbor’s bull (it wasn’t so much the bull that was the problem as the manure we managed to drag home on our shoes) and the giant dog house (that really looked like it should be a play house) but was infested with fleas.

I would spend my summer days exploring the fields, woods and meadows behind my house.  Sometimes I would take my little sisters with me but mostly I went alone. I had secret forts and hiding places spread across the mile of farm and woodland behind my house. They were all mine. My Secrets.  My Fortresses. I remember sitting beneath the canopy of the willow tree with the fairies and crawling in the dirt through the cornfield like a soldier on a secret mission.

Then one day I went further than I had ever gone. Clear across to the dirt road that ran parallel to my street.  That’s where I found the cemetery where generations of my family have been laid to rest. I remember wandering the stones that shared my last name and longing to know who they were and what their lives had been like. The grass was so green and the sky so clear, but I could feel the age of the place. I could almost hear the whispers of the hundreds of stories stretched out over the last 150 years of my family’s history. I didn’t know any of the names on the stones then. Now I do. My mother is there, Uncle Fred and my grandparents. Friends are there too. The mother of a boy I went to high school with and the little brother of my childhood friend. I’ve visited that cemetery too often since that day I first discovered it. It still whispers every time I’m there.  Now though I know some of the stories. I know the hope they held for heaven. I know that more than anything else in the world they would want me to know the love of God as they know it now. Looking on his face.

I think they would be proud of me. Of the life I’ve led and the life I’ve laid down for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  Of the adventures I’ve had and the times I gave everything for the sake of discovering what God had next for me.  I guess I’m still a pioneer at heart. But I am not alone. I feel the great cloud of witnesses cheering me on, encouraging me and telling me that it is all worth it in the end.