Sunny Kim

Kim's usual signature is "Kim in sunny Sacramento." One day when she told us it was raining there, however, I reminded her that it's always sunny wherever she is.

The invitation to come out to California came as a wonderful and very unexpected thing. After quite some time of very little meaningful face-to-face interaction with anyone outside my immediate family, out of the clear blue Kim called and invited me out for a Free Believers weekend. I thought of Jesus who goes around collecting the straggling sheep. This time he put one on a plane to Sacramento. So, well armed with gum and a barf bag in case of airsickness, I found myself clinging to Father, and he to me, as the plane left the ground.

Kim had invited friends she’s met from all over. Some were single, some were older, some younger people her children knew. Some had significant life issues they were struggling with. Many of them were those that I know from experience the IC would dismiss. Young, old, black, white, affluent and financially struggling - everyone is the same to her. We’re all looking to make heart connections, and this is something Kim is great at. She doesn’t see people in terms of outward appearance - she looks at the heart.

This wonderful quality has also brought her close relationships with her grown daughters and son-in law, who spend time with her because they WANT to. Three of the four young adults live out of their home now but were there so much I had to stop and remember who technically lives there and who doesn’t.

Kim spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food to feed everyone, but she didn’t seem to see it as a chore or a bother at all. She chatted with everyone easily as she worked, totally unlike the harried "Martha" stereotype we’ve all heard of. As she worked, she talked of how she loves to have people over and sees it as a privilege to prepare for a house full. Her entire family reflected the attitude of hospitality, right down to her mom who made a huge pan of wonderful biscuits and gravy for breakfast one morning. (I was touched that she even called me on Kim’s cell phone on the way to the airport to say goodbye since I’d missed her earlier that morning!) This love for people, this attitude of outreach and hospitality, is a precious and sadly unusual commodity in today’s society.

Kim’s optomistic outlook is one of the first things I saw in her personality the first time we talked on the phone. Being a more melancholy sort myself, she is a great influence and balance for me. An incurable optomist is something that many of us need. Seeing the sunny side of life doesn’t necessarily come easily to me. Having her lens to see things through has been very good for me.

My family of origin tends to have a strong negative outlook. Then of course, there was the time spent in charismatic IC where there was supposedly a demon around every corner that we had to be all wound up in fear over. If we didn’t "break the curse in Jesus’ name," we were goners for sure.

Kim’s sunny outlook on life has been a breath of fresh air that I had long felt a need for. Something good IS going to happen. Father IS going to work any situation out for good. There IS reason to hope in spite of a bleak landscape. There IS something good waiting for you around the corner. We DO have control over some things that bother us and the things we don’t have control over WILL get better. Father IS faithful. This is a message I didn’t get for years and years of my life, and am so glad to be drinking in now. A stream in the desert, and sunshine through the clouds.

Father is working through people like Kim to show me that I have worth, that I am special and of great value to him, just the way he made me. The wilderness can be a hard place. It’s just been very, very lonely at times. Even in my active "church" days it seemed I was mostly just valued for being the dependable one who would man the nursery or pass out bulletins. Feeling overlooked as a person for so long can certainly leave its toll on a person’s self-esteem.

Part of me felt like there must be some mistake when I was remembered this way, to have an invitation for a whole weekend in sunny California, to meet not just one but three people whose online friendship I've enjoyed. The whole experience served to remind me that Father never does forget us. I have needed more sunshine, and am glad to have found it in Kim… in my spiritual family… in my Father.