Michael Reed

I lost a friend today. (Written on June 25, 2012)

I met Michael and Meri Reed and their incredible family at a youth camp in the Texas hill country in a place known as Echo Valley. It was the early 90s and I remember Michael smiling and laughing. He spoke of his love for God and His people. He never stopped smiling.

When I graduated Bible College we moved into Michael and Meri's guest house back in Austin. I was nowhere close to prepared to become a father but was about four months away from it ready or not. Michael and I sat for hours as I watched his adoration of his family and listened to him speak of his love for God and His people. He never stopped smiling.

Many years later we moved yet again into the guesthouse. Different location but the same Michael Reed. I wandered many nights across the driveway into a living room filled with people loving God, celebrating His goodness, and learning as Michael spoke profoundly about his love for God and His people. He never stopped smiling.

A few years later we moved into the house yet again. This time it was the main house as they were in transition to California and we were...just in transition. Night after night Michael and I would sit on the porch, watching the deer. We spoke of the usual, of his love for God and His people. He never stopped smiling.

I began to wonder if Michael ever stopped smiling. I passed him I'm traffic once, looked over, and there he was, all by himself and smiling. I told him about it and he laughed. His joy had become an involuntary expression of an inner delight in God and His people.

A couple of years later we moved yet again into the main house. There are a very small handful of people to whom I have been completely transparent in my life, and Michael was one of them. On one exceptionally difficult day I caved and poured my heart out to him. He could have taken the occasion for well deserved harsh correction, and I was braced for it. Instead he went a very different and unexpected route. He told me who I was. Who he saw. Who he knew me to be. He reminded me of things I should have never forgotten, and though I gave him plenty of reason to look disappointed, he never stopped smiling. He held onto my wife and I, spoke love over us and our children and prayed as a father would. The love in his eyes and voice refocused my heart and left me solidly shaken by grace.

May the cloud of witnesses understand who they are receiving, and may those left here comprehend who we have lost. Michael Reed, I love and honor you, my friend, brother, teacher, father, and.....from the core of my heart there is a chasm of sadness that is swallowing up the words... In moments like this, only weeping will do.

Hi God.

Me - Hi God.

Him - Hi Bill. What's new?

Me - All things, so I hear.

Him - Good answer. What do you want to ask me this morning?

Me - I just want to grow, Spiritually.

Him - Hmm. Well that's a problem. You can't grow because I can't grow and the full measure of Me resides with and within you. All you can "grow" in is the revelation of what you already have and who you already are, in Me.

Me - Explain please?

Him - When did your son become your son?

Me - At the "beginning"?

Him - Right. And as he has grown, is he any more your son now than he was then? But the revelation of what it means to be called your son grows as the relationship deepens through experience. He could experience your love before he could explain or understand it. So I'm bringing you experiences you don't yet understand but can fully enjoy.

Me - Ok. I'm just going to sit here and be loved.

Him - That's called rest, and it's My gift to you. Now when you live, move, and have your being, be who you are, which is who I am. Be Love.

(Inspired by 1 John 4:17)