A Million Miles

When your mama turns 50, you can’t be there to embrace her.  A million continent miles stand between you.   

Your heart clenches tight, your eyes leak your pain, and you’re sure a million miles just might kill you. 

You’ve counted the cost.  And you do it again.  A million miles offered up on the altar.    

But as you watch them burn up (sweet aroma to Him, you pray), you think of another million miles.  The chasm between God and man. 

Though it’s long been bridged by God Man blood,  (and by grace, through faith you’ve crossed it), still so few know that Eternal Balm came to mend the million mile tear in their hearts.  You have to stay and tell them. 

A million miles.  How strange that the thing that rends your heart is the very thing that compels you to stay.

I’m Looking Out the Window

Twenty years later, I find her words ringing in my ears.  I miss that voice enough to squeeze my eyes shut hard, stop the tears springing up and listen.  How I cherish this hands on hips proclamation returned to me.  Would that she could too.     

We were rolling down some Montana highway when she’d marched to the back of the motor home and stood over us.   My cousin and I were each perched on skinny twin couches next to a window.   

“You may not read one more page of those books until you look out the window for at least 30 minutes!”

Even though I knew Grandma was given to passionate proclamations from time to time, this one surprised me.  After all, she was an avid reader.  That same summer, I’d caught her up “way too late” because she couldn’t stop the turning of the page.  

Still, there was another narrative she found more powerful than any type engraved in paper.  The one that has no words, yet speaks with a powerful voice, declaring the glory of God.  That was the one she was compelled to help us discover. 

And she did.  A thousand times before and after, so subtly that I’m not sure a one of us were cognizant of it at the time: slipping into a chair on the front deck at sunrise, coffee cup in hand; going barefoot through the ice cold stream; stopping on the trail to photograph a tiny pink flower; laughing at the fish jumping in the hatchery brook for five cent handfuls of food.  Peaks out the window, all.   

Grandma, today I want you to know I’m listening.  I’m pulling my nose out of the book of daily living for a look out the window, for a listen to the glory song.  I need to hear it.  I need to remember that the very thing that lifts me to a place of holy wonder is also the thing that grounds me - the worship of my Creator.

Looking out the window, the incomplete count continues:

491. Snail mail

506. 95 Manjui Baptized, wish I could have seen it with my own eyes! 

536. Family visiting from Colombia and the USA

570.  Sanapana Scripture portions ready for printing

587.  Pain that pushes us hard into Jesus

606. Cries of inadequacy

607.  His sufficiency

669.  Rain! 

710.  Explosions of yellow, tiny but beautiful

726.  Grandma Bert

756.  Dreams – wild, crazy, with God all things are possible dreams

776.  Salmon Sky

  

781.  Wild love, undeserved

788. My wonderful, merciful Savior

The Mundane Reborn as Worship

It’s not just another pile of laundry…

or another stack of dishes. 

It’s so much more for women who follow Jesus.  Every laundry basket and kitchen sink becomes a heavenly altar, just waiting to receive our acts of worship, our acceptable sacrifice to the God of the universe.  

I long to know that what I do all day actually matters.  Yet no matter how many inspirational quotes I read about the importance of being a stay at home mom, no matter how many times my husband tells me he appreciates me, I occasionally still find myself resentful and grumbling about having to put the baby’s board books back on the shelf AGAIN.  

It’s become pretty obvious to me that the only way I can maintain any long term passion for this job is to see each moment of my day as an opportunity for worship.  Dirty nose needing wiped?  “God, this is for you!”  Peanut butter sandwich needing to be cut into triangles (squares won’t do!)?  “Yes, Lord, thank you that I can serve you!”  Superman’s cape needing reattached, “Oh God, my hands work for you!”

It’s nothing revolutionary, perhaps, but for me the simple act of speaking the truth changes my attitude about the mundane.  Somehow laundry and dishes become almost desirable when they are reborn as opportunities to offer praise to God, my Strength!   

And yes, I do need to say it over and over all day long because when I don’t, I forget.  I forget that this is holy work and suddenly all I see are the dirty diapers waiting to be taken out to the trash, the leftovers needing to be put away and the toys strung from one end of the house to the other.  I forget so quickly that these routine things have the capacity to be transformed into something with eternal value – the worship of the only true God.        

I’ve decided to join Ann’s Gratitude Revolution so here’s the start of my list of a thousand gifts: 

1) Truth – that it renews my mind and that it’s available in my language

2) Unexpected Hugs

3) Honey, Darling Little Redhead and El Principito…all producers of laundry and dishes…and opportunities to praise God!  :)

4) Pancakes made with my sous chef, Darling Little Redhead

5) Wood puzzles with the baby and barking giraffes

6) A husband who cooks and cleans when I am unable (both with my eye crisis and again this weekend when I cut my hand and had to get five stitches)

7) Family on the mission field and our weekly dinner and game night

8) Nephews and Niece who love playing with my boys

9) For friends who accept me as I am

10) For Skype and email to communicate with family back home

They Fell Down

"The entered the home where the Child and his mother, Mary, were and they fell down before him and worshipped him." Matthew 2:11

If we would see the Child for who He really is, surely we too would fall down and worship Him! Yes, He came as a babe...but let's remember this Christmas that He did not stay in that manger. He quickly manifest to all the world that He is everything we need. He is Jesus. For a full sized view, click here. To make your own Wordle, click here.