It's Okay to be Here

The setting sun sets fire to my clothes, the edges of my sleeve shining gold. All the lights in the house are off, and these last rays steal in and rob patches of darkness (patches of the sink, the table, the floor). I stand at the sink washing dishes. I do my best thinking here, hands busily scrubbing and washing, methodically placing plate and glass in drainer.

I’ve been pulling at the threads of a thought. A thought about present-ness. Here-ness. And the more I pull at this, the more the ripples show themselves in everyday places. Being present is so important. Being here, in this place, where the lessons are.

A dirty plate holds heavy grit and I elbow-grease it off. All this tugging at the threads is making my daily rituals look a little threadbare. The time wasted away in cyber places, lost in the abyss, and spent for nothing. The time looking toward the future, the seasons to come, and missing the one I’m in.

It is so dangerous not to be present.

Transparency, clear through to the heart: Lately, I’ve been so caught up in what the next season will look like that I’m afraid I’m missing the one that I’m in. Our seasons change, sometimes quick lightening and sometimes slow rain. Either way, there are lessons to learn and seek here. Right now. And we don’t need the added pressure of trying to be somewhere we aren’t.

This absence from presence pulls my heart away from prayer and real listening. In the crazy and the chaos (or the dead calm quiet), the now, right here, we can “be still and know that [He] is God.” What other time than now should we come to our “ever-present help?”

Truth: I’m a new wife. I’m not a career woman. I’m not a mom. I’m not a college student. I am here, in this place, and I need to live here. Seeking someplace else only takes away from my time here.

Feet planted on the rug, I watch a single, small and perfect soap-bubble glide around the space before me. Its rainbow swirls move—kaleidoscopic—as it gently floats up and down before descending to the sink and quietly disappearing. Yes, be here, this very day.

When we live in a mirage, that shining marauding of reality, we can expect to miss out on God’s teaching. Isn’t this the place where God has put us? We don’t expect Spring in Winter. We wait out the winter; appreciate the wind and the bare trees. And so we seek the Son wherever we are, even when the clouds accumulate thick.

And when we’re waiting for the next season, when it’s just around the bend? Here’s a piece of hope for those of us who are straining to see around that corner:

This place is not pointless if it propels us toward God. No matter where we are.

It’s okay to be here: here in the waiting, here in the unbeautiful mess of dishes, here in the mundane madness, here in the trying to peek around the corner to see what’s next. I pile the last dish on top of plates and utensils and pans, flick the water away and dry my hands on the damp cloth down by my knee.

I want to joy in today. I want to be present.

So help us see You today, Eternal One, and embrace the path You have placed before us.

The Love that Spills Over

She flew south, and then she migrated home. Home to Ohio and now here—seated at the table by the window. It is so good when a friend comes home. Friends are places where the soul lands safe, and mine nestles in to hug this missed missionary.

We talk about the hard things over plates full of food, cups full of coffee. The sharp edges of the topics are smoothed, sanded by the understanding ears they fall on. We talk about rejection. When we feel forced out of a picture unjustly. When it feels hard to love.

Love: this word that has been a question mark in my mind lately, punctuating my thoughts. I wonder, ask aloud, “What does it mean that love believes all things, hopes all things?”

And I’m really asking—asking in expectation of an answer, because it’s my heart that’s been wondering, needing to know. Even as the words leave my mouth, I know it’s my scars that are talking. The places where wrongs have cut the skin, drawn the blood, left the permanent mark. So we chew this question through, forking food around plate.

She sits, wondering with me. And then she proffers this profound explanation: that maybe hope is a great part of belief. And that maybe it’s more God-centered than anything else. Maybe it’s believing that God can do anything in anyone’s heart . . . and that maybe He will in this person’s life.

And love becomes a period, instead of a question mark. A declarative statement full of hope and surety. I nod, just sitting there, eyes roving the room, this answer sitting well with my soul, satisfying.

My mind muses it over. The scars, the wounds, create instinctual desires to distrust those who have hurt us; it’s our shielding protection, self-defense. And so often it feels that loving someone who has hurt me will bear my bruises in the open—only to be beat again.

But there is amazing freedom and power in believing that this One can change anyone.

Because here’s the truth I know in my heart: I am crazy blessed that God chooses to love and forgive me. That He’s chosen this after times when I’ve ignored Him; times when my heart has fisted against His will; times when my face has looked clean away from the cross, the holes in the hands, the life lost, risen again. He sees the heart. He sees the sick in need of a Physician. And His love covers a multitude of sins.

Sweet, sweet soul truth. Truth that heals our hearts and grows our love.

And this is why we believe that God can clean the messiest of hearts (even when the world washes the hands clean of those who hurt them, rinsing them dry). He has cleaned, and is cleaning still, our own hearts. One lift of the curtain into the darkness of our hearts sinks this truth deep. So we know that we can “comfort others with the comfort with which we have been comforted.” With the love with which we have been loved. With the forgiveness, with the care . . .

And if they don’t change? If the hearts of those who hurt us never break open to God? Then we still have this unwavering joy in Him, the One in control. Because our joy—and our love—is not dependent on their change.

This is where joy grabs hold of our lives and runs free and fast. Joy that is steadfastly found in the Faithful Father.

So break the boundaries of our hearts, Faithful One; help us believe all, hope all . . . love all.

That Word of Encouragement (When the Father Prunes the Useless Parts)

No one knows me better than my mom.

I can see us now—sitting like we always do—her in the cream-colored chair, the one blued over with birds and branches; me on the couch, tucked in between decorative pillows, bare feet on the ottoman edge. Both of us cupping steaming mugs of coffee (either our first or second brew of the day). We just sit and talk, sharing understanding. And I pour out my heart journal-style, feeling full freedom.

I feel safe there.

And, inevitably, when she detects the pride, the control, the sin of the heart festering like gangrene, she pulls the stops and speaks with gentle eyes, loving lips. And because she knows me deep, heart-level, these wounds of love sliver open and heal quick—like paper cuts. There’s pain, but it’s pain with gratefulness, which eases the ache.

The Perfecter of my faith does this, too.

And He’s been pruning me.

He caught me in the kitchen, multitasking at washing dishes and holding a grudge, pounding soapy anger on pots and plates. Scrubber in the hand, I rubbed the grit hard and washed it off hot. The darkness outside and the microwave clock both told me I had a right to be mad. And, to ice that cake, I was planning for a party that would end up being cancelled.

This and all the depth of my heart the Lord has seen. And so He’s been snipping off these useless bits.

He is our perfect Father, our sinless parent. And His punishment—His pruning—is one of the biggest blessings we get. It’s a testament to His love. Even though there’s a sliver (and sometimes more than that) of pain when parts of us are cut away.

One father says of Another:

“My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent His rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Hebrews calls this a “word of encouragement.” The soul encouragement sparked by the very thought that we are God’s family. And—what we can’t lose sight of, especially in these pruning times—that the end is “a harvest of righteousness and peace.”

It’s like the tree in my backyard that had to be chopped: fungus ran through the top of it and would have destroyed the rest. So midway up the tree it was sliced slant-wise. For a while it stood there, a gaunt stick of a tree pointing up toward heaven. But it grew back—different and curved and beautiful. And without disease.

So there’s joy tucked up in this pain. Joy in the Father’s presence. Joy in the cutting away. Joy in the letting go.

And we praise God for that.