Appear (Judges 6:11-12)

Papa, I don't want to miss You.  Keep my heart in tune with Your melodies and my feet in step with Your spirit as You and I move throughout this day.  As You hover just on the other side of my ordinary life, use every sight, sound, smell, sensation and interaction to tweak my heart, reminding it evermore to recognize You through the thin veil that separates us.  Even as You sit under my oak tree, I just don't want to walk by without noticing You.  I don't even desire the flashy, but don't let me get caught in the flesh either.  Can we just plan to be present to each other today?  Thank you for being the one who is present and on the brink of appearing at every moment.  Papa, open my eyes.  

Grace

The problem with Grace is that she isn't here.  Which is more of a problem for us than it is for her.  Because in her not-being-here she is so painfully present.  She is in the absence and the silence.  In the should-have-beens and would-have-beens.  In the row of heads around the table and the almost perfect family photo.  She doesn't run or walk or play among us, her footsteps frustratingly elusive as milestones go ambling by.  She doesn't speak or sing or tell stories, but her voice is the one we almost hear, heads spinning around before we remember that the problem with Grace is that she isn't here.

Shaggy Headed Reader (Acts 7:2 & 7:33)

Sometimes, no mosttimes, this house and our days feel so ordinary.  One morning looks much like the next and it is fine but hard to feel much excitement.  

But today my heart bursts with thanks and pride and joy and awe as I watch this boy that is first His before he is mine.  He gathers all three littles around his shaggy head, asking which of the cartoon character chairs they prefer.  He confirms that they can all see the pictures before beginning to read his rendition of the story.  When one of them points out that he is using the wrong word, he gently explains that he doesn't actually know how to read and he's doing his best and that's okay too.  I swear he's older than five today.

Thank you, Papa, thank you for the gift that is Niko.  Thank you that every so often this very ordinary place becomes holy ground and I can sense your glory so much closer than I would have thought in my self-absorbed distraction only moments before.  You are the God with a years-long habit of appearing in glory and making holy that which, by all accounts, is the most ordinary of ordinaries.

Sinister

Papa,
My times of refreshing come from Your presence and I can smell the fragrance of Your goodness this morning.  It rustles through the branches that frame the sky outside my window.  It echoes into the depths where my selfishness tries to subtly drown it out.  This crack, Lord, sheds some light on what is down below the surface.  Because it is much easier to keep the surface neat and clean, prim and proper, than it is to keep the cavernous depths free of cobwebs and nasty growths.  Too often and too easily I happily forget that.  I am not what I want to be.  Please forgive me.  What is revealed today is more sinister than I would care to admit.  Yet I don't want to cover it back up.  Grow Your grace in me, in those deeply ugly places.

Voice (John 20:16)

Everything is moving
and loud and busy.
Can You be the One
to slow it down
or hold my hand
or whisper in my ear?
Just steady me
even if you can't ready me.
Catch my attention
with Your beauty
or Your grace
or Your love
or Your voice.
Say my name
and I will know
it is You.

Behold the Man (John 19:5)

Behold the man, the desperate judge pleads, and my eyes widen as I reread the story.  Divinity humbled, drastically.  Pain heaped on embarrassment heaped on chosen meekness.  I am torn between skimming quickly to get this misery over with and carefully cupping my hands to catch the love pouring out alongside the blood and water.  Behold this God-man.  Behold Him then, behold Him now.  Slow down and look, take Him in.  Behold.

Truth (John 18:37)

My side of the story is filled with hurt and anger.  Come to think of it, so is hers.  But despite the similarities, our sides are decidedly incompatible, tensions rising when we guardedly pass each other by.  Honesty might get us closer, but honesty still relies on our perceptions.

The story of next-door is still messier, with more sides than there are people involved.  In the difficulty of telling who is right, my heart breaks for each again.  So much is at stake with no clear right path through the pain.

This is why I came into the world, Jesus says, for the cause of truth.  And my first reaction is to say with Pilate, What truth?

But it's been too many days of adoring this One my Heart Loves.  Too many hours invested in speaking, singing, whispering, humming praises back to Him.  The One I say I Love challenges me over and over as I read words I have read before, hearing words I have never heard before.

So what of this truth?  Papa, I am listening.

Unraveling as We Go (John 14:3, 16:12, 17:20)

The finite years of Jesus life wrap up neatly in my children's Bible.  Birth, life, miracles, death, resurrection, done.  But His words take on a pulsing echo in my heart and in my day as the story suddenly stretches like bubblegum into this century.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

I have yet many things to say unto you.

Neither pray I for my disciples alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.

The loose ends I thought were were tied up when I turned the last page are unraveling in the best of ways.  They sound like they are spinning and swirling in the wind, taking on a life outside of themselves as He fills and infuses new parts of new hearts with new truths.

The best part of it not being over is that the story continues in me.  Oh, Papa, you are alive and dynamic and I don't want to miss a page in this beautiful story.