I’ve had occasion to laugh at myself a number of times recently. Just this week at Bible study my precious 13-18 year old girls had a simple question for me. They wanted to know what is done the other six days of the week with the large table in the center of my apartment that bubbles with life every Tuesday afternoon.
“I put stuff on it. Cover it with junk, then scramble to clean it off every Tuesday morning.”
My wryness is lost in their sincere curiosity.
“Do you eat at this table?”
“Yes”
“All alone?”
They’re all business now.
“Yes.”
And like that the room erupts as one with the gentle, feminine sounds of pity.
I just laugh. And think to myself that either I am far more pathetic than I imagined or else God has met me with a greater grace than I ever expected for this season of life. I suspect it is the latter.
It’s true that there are times when the whirlwind activity ceases and the silence yawns to a gaping hole that threatens the fragile existence of my contentment. But then, in that silence I hear it – bursting rapid-fire through the walls the staccato laughter of a friend who is choosing joy against the odds. I stop for a moment just to listen to the sound that comes to me like church bells pealing across the countryside, the sound of battle and victory. My heart soars.
And again, in a moment between the busyness, there is silence as I walk alone to my car. In the stillness I feel the embrace of the warm, wet air that follows a southern rainstorm. I slow my pace and breathe deeply, and I am filled with the raw scent of mold and earth and new life. Around me the sun takes its final bow, dipping low on the horizon, setting the western sky ablaze in fiery orange and painting long light on the world below. The oak trees drip with liquid gold as the scattering clouds, rimmed brilliantly in pink, lose the last of their rain drops. My heart pounds.
These are moments of His grace. In the aching silence I hear God. He is whispering, He is screaming, “I am here and I am enough.”
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