Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, April 1, 2021.

In Week 14 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for Lynn Spruill.

We're as different as night and day:

I'm male, she's female.
She's white, I'm black.
I lean conservative, she does not.
I'm Christian, she's doesn't identify as such but ironically I've had more theologically substantive conversations with her than with 90% of the self-proclaimed Christians I know.
But, most importantly she's a remarkable human being.

Lynn Spruill is my friend.

Not friend in the hanging out or chatting it up everyday sense (because honestly, I'm a hermit), but friend as in "one who loves at all times".

In many of the circles I've frequented, I find people to be fickle. They will smile and chat in private quarters but later, in the open and depending on who else is the room, they will act as though I do not exist. Lynn has never done this. NOT. ONCE. Whether we're with the president of the University or a City sanitation worker, Lynn Spruill has been of consistent, caring, loving, determined, principled, no-nonsense character.

In recent years -not the 1950s or 60s, I have actually been in places where people didn't want to be next to me and actually moved such that I couldn't sit where they were. But, Lynn offered me a seat. In fact, many of the tables that I get to sit at today are because Lynn Spruill made room for me. And, this but scratches the surface of what she's done and the influence she's had on my life.

I write this in tears -I am determined, and am working hard everyday to make room for her and people like her. I am constantly pleading before the Throne of Grace that wherever I am, Lynn Spruill may be also -in this life and the one to come.

I am grateful. #52WoG