Thread by @BethMooreLPM

A year ago, my beloved uncle & only remaining relative of my parents’ generation, told me he needed to speak with me about an important matter. I sat across from him on the couch of his home in San Diego & he told me, of all unexpected things, a story about his life in banking...

I had no idea where the story was going but it did not matter much. He is the kind of man you could listen to forever but I did wonder what it had to do with me. He told me about the enormous crisis that happened in the banking world, a well known crisis, & what a mess it was...

He said what the crisis would have taken to fix would’ve been such an ordeal & would require so much work & put him in such opposition to key people he had worked with amicably for so long, it didn’t seem worth it. Mighta killed him. He took a good job elsewhere. Ah, I thought...

I know where this is going.” He has no involvement in the religious world but he was very aware, because I’m his niece of course, of my ordeals in the last few years. I thought to myself, he’s about to tell me to run for my life and get out of this mess.

“I wish I’d stayed.”...

“I wish I had fought for the organization. There were so many wonderful people there. They were worth it. I have no idea if I or the others could‘ve done any good at all or made an iota of difference but we did not stick around to find out.” Paused. “I wish I’d stayed & fought.”

My Uncle Roy looked at me with the dearest expression. Smiled the way the best of father-figures smile and said, “I love you, Beth.”

He then stood to his feet and straightened his slacks and said, “Cream & sugar in your coffee or just black?”

And that was it.

“Just black.”

None of us can see the future & we’re Christ’s to lead wherever He pleases in whatever crisis surrounds us. For some of us, it’s go. Others, it’s stay. But either way, let it be because He led & not because we fled. We are not cowards. Legacies of shame can be broken in His name.