It's Sherry Hoffschneider's funeral today. Pray for her kids, Becky, Rachel and James. God promises to wrap up those in grief and sorrow and shepherd them to green pastures beside still waters. He doesn't promise to stop the storm, He promises to be safe harbor while everything around us seems to fall apart. He doesn't promise ease, He promises that he will never leave us or forsake us or yell at us to hurry up and get over it. God has more patience than we do, more presence than we do, more grace, more mercy, more love and willingness to be in the pain- way more than we ever will. The significance of a suffering savior suffocating and dying on a cross in real time is that he gave himself to the long process of torture, ridicule, shame, mockery and long painful death in order to know our suffering and be with us in it, to be like us and know what it's like to live this human pain so that in our own pain he comes as a fellow sufferer who chose that pain on our behalf AND he comes as the one son of God sent to rescue us from it for eternity in his sacrificial dying and redemptive resurrection. Thank God for a God who chooses to dwell with us and take on our life as his own so that he might save us from this mournful state and give us freedom and shelter! Jesus is the first of the resurrected. Sherry died and will rise to new life in Christ on the last day. In His we are saved from sin, death and the devil.
Sherry was one of my first friends in Utica because she was aiding in the preschool classroom at the time when we first moved there and I did pick up and drop off at the preschool for Jesse (he was four) and Joey (three). That was like my one social interaction was the pick up and drop off of Fall 2010 and that fall was my loneliest falls on record so far. And there she was and there I was and our boys, Jesse and James, were in the same class. And Sherry was walking her own road raising her own kids after Todd passed and she brought a feeling of comfort with her that I sensed when we would sit together in the preschool room after I came to teach the kiddos a song.
And she was an artist and a creative and always kept that spark alive and had that same struggle so many of us do with balancing out the jobs of life with the playful creativity of life. What didn't she cut out and glue together for St. Paul Lutheran Day School? What didn't she prep for classes seasonally for every bulletin board? What face didn't get painted by her hand over the years? Which backdrop wasn't she in charge of turning into a saloon or jungle or desert for the spring plays?
I think I hosted two in person Dreamer's Club meetings at my house when I first got started coaching and she was there. Because Sherry was a dreamer. Of course she was.
As the kids got older and St. Paul School wasn't our connecting point, we didn't see each other as much. Sherry started working full time and we'd connect up around whatever the boys were planning to do and checking in with each other on half-baked teenage plans and say, "Jesse just told me such and such, can you please confirm?" And then she'd reply, "Well James said...." and we'd piece the thing together from the third party Mom perspective and clear it all up.
She got this beautiful feather tattoo on her forearm. It was a black inked feather that looked like it was moving in the wind and from that movement rose this rainbow swirl of sparkle and color. WE have our every day selves that drive mini-vans and go to the bank and pick up dinner on the way home and then we have our essential selves that dance in the wind and spin around in a swirl of rainbow and sparkle. That version of us isn't just for quitting time and bank holidays. That version is truer. It's redeemed. It's playing in the freedom of becoming a new creation. I wonder if her tattoo was a reminder to herself about who she really was and what really lit her up.
Sherry was 53. Let's all let love move us into bigger love, bigger saftey and comfort and presence and let's paint our faces with pink and purple butterflies and play plinko like it's Fun Day and not lose another minute holding fast to what is true, and precious and not guaranteed to last.
At my funeral I want them to play "The King of Love my Shepherd is"
"The King of Love, my shepherd is
his love it faileth never
I nothing lack if I am His
and He is mine forever
Where streams of living water flow
my ransomed soul he leadeth
and where the verdant pastures grow
with food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed
but yet in love he sought me
and on his shoulders gently laid
and home rejoicing brought me.
In death's dark vail I fear no ill
with thee, dear Lord, beside me
Thy rod and staff my comfort still
Thy cross before to guide me.
Though spreadst a table in my sight
Thine unction grace bestoweth
And oh, what transport of delight
From thy pure chalice floweth.
And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never
Good Shepherd may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever."