He is awesome!

"He is awesome! He is perfectly made."  

Those were the words my sister said from her wheel chair.  My sweet, strong, weak, crusty and kind older sister Kathy is in the last stages of renal failure.  I am home to be with her and my other older siblings, 65, 79, and 82 as we move her from assisted living to skilled care.  

These are the rhythms and times of life, never easy, often trying and always holy.  

We had just finished Kathy's doctors appointment and she wanted to be wheeled outside to wait for transportation.  We set together, I held her hand, because words don't work like they used to.  Touch communicates what words fail to say.  She started pointing way out in the distance, she saw a child.  Whenever she sees a child her face lights up and her words come back.  She waved, kept saying "Hi, Hi".  As the Mom and child walked passed us Kathy's head dropped.  She suddenly looked up at me and in all clarity said "He is awesome! He is perfectly made."

Her words took my breath away and released a flood of healing tears. This 72 year old woman who had never been married, or had children of her own has worked most of her life with hundreds of children in churches, inner cities, teaching them, loving them, investing her life in what she knew were the treasures of this world.  Even in her limited mental state her mind, soul, and spirit can see what is most valuable in the world and call it out.  Kathy knew what Psalm 139:12,13 had formed in her over her life.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

Children taught me today, a little boy walking past, and the child that is still inside my sister.  If you were around she would tell you, "You are awesome, you are perfectly and marvelously made."