Tip of My Iceberg

The conference ended. All that was needed was to wrap up final details. Pack it all up.

And leave.

All that was needed? Packing up the stuff and clutter of thousands of people is no small task. Preparation had lasted weeks, getting final details just right. Working and reworking specifics.

Only to pack it up in two days.

It felt overwhelming.

People were amazing in their commitment to one another to finish well. To make the end as good as the beginning had been.

I had a variety of duties to offer to the familial corporate whole. Grands were running in and out of the apartment. I tried to figure how to feed the crowds with the last remnants in the refrigerator. (Gave up on that; we ordered out.)

Laundry. Loads and loads of it.

This is a first-world problem. I have a washer and dryer right off my kitchen at home. I can wash things when it’s convenient for me without having to organize my day around laundry.

In the apartments, I go down fifteen steps, carrying dirty clothes, detergent, the means to make the transaction (credit card), and walk around a couple of buildings to get to the laundry room. It always takes more than one trip to get all the clothes down there. You put them in, set the machines, leave for thirty minutes, walk back to the apartment, up fifteen more stairs, and return to put them in the dryer.

In the last couple of days I’ve done close to twenty loads of laundry. For two apartments. It’s what I can do to help out.

Everyone has been busy. Our family members have been working twelve hour days. Everyone’s dragging and hoping beyond hope they won’t get the bug that’s wreaking havoc on the intestinal integrity of so many that have been out here.

Tents had to be torn down. Tools, files, printers, computers had to be boxed up to be shipped back to Orlando. Furniture had to be distributed, stored or sold. Miles of cables had to be rolled up.

By the end of Wednesday, walking around campus, you’d hardly know we were ever here.

How is it possible that so much hoopla left so little indication that anything had happened?

Most of us go through life wanting to make a difference. Wanting to be remembered in some way for the things we accomplished or the people we impacted.

That it mattered that we lived.

For most, it won’t be flashy things that put us on the map. It’ll be the quiet, consistent, character-driven acts that will leave an impression.

Jesus was like that. He spent much of His time in small towns with men and women of little education. He didn’t go to the movers and shakers of His day. He spent His time with the poor, the sick, the despised.

Not people that would put Him on society’s posh list.

He lived a life consistent with what He said. Never a hypocrite. He spoke, lived and died for the truth.

And rose from the dead to prove His ultimate truth.

2,100 years later, He’s still making a difference.

That’s an impact you have to consider.