looking for gifts

  Yesterday morning I decided to spend the day looking for gifts. I didn’t feel like looking for gifts. It was a travel day, and I felt like trudging through, chore by chore. So I asked for eyes to see the gifts.

  I was surprised. There were so many -- an unexpected call from a friend and a sister’s saying-goodbye eyes and a hummingbird and a workman’s kind help and energy to work and water coming out of faucets.

  My favorite gift was the man from Ghana who drove me home from the airport and told me his story and afterward said with cracking voice that most people just sit in the back seat and give him directions and don’t know or care that he has a story, too. If I hadn’t been looking for gifts, I would have been most people.

“[H]umility is the only posture that can receive the wondrous grace gifts of God -- God who . . . waits to be seen in light off doorknobs and the curve of vases and the mound of laundry.” Ann Voskamp

“Do you have eyes but fail to see. . . ?” Mark 8:18

more than enough

     I fill too many of my days with not-enough. I don’t intend to do it. It just comes naturally. It comes in all shapes and sizes -- not-enough time, not-enough fun, not-enough sun, not-enough kudos, not-enough youth, not-enough ice cream, not-enough appreciation, not-enough certainty. It is a long and weary list.

     I want today to be different. I want it to be a more-than-enough day. I want to fill it with thanks –- for the sun rising again and the baby born and a son’s phone call and eyes that see and light that dances and holding a sister’s hand. And at the end of the day, I want to say, “Thank You. It was enough. It was more than enough.”

"Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?" G. K. Chesterton

“For of His fullness and abundance we have all received, grace upon grace.” John 1:16

the third frog

     Here’s a question for you: if three frogs are sitting on a lily pad and one decides to jump off, how many frogs are left? The answer is three -- the third frog hasn’t jumped yet.

     I’m the third frog this morning. I spent some time thinking about one particular thing that weighs me down and makes me anxious. Just thinking about it made my stomach churn. I wasn't ready yet to make the leap from carrying this particular thing myself to letting it go, so I just sat there and enjoyed imagining what life would be like if I did let it go.

     It was fun. The churning went away. I (literally) breathed a sigh of relief. Making the leap is looking more and more inviting. I’ve decided to do it.

“I put _______ into Your hands.” Psalm 31:5

not even one?

        What if God is always coming to me in each present moment, no matter how busy or blind or disinterested I am? What if He is always knocking and calling (in every sight and sound, joy and pain) and waiting to be welcomed in? If He is, then today has no mundane moments -- not even one.

"Never let yourself think that because God has given you many things to do . . . pressing routine jobs, a life full up with duties and demands of a very practical sort -- that all these need separate you from communion with Him. God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude . . . ; however unexpected its outward form may be receive Him in every sight and sound, joy, pain, opportunity and sacrifice." Evelyn Underhill

“I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear Me calling and you open the door, I will come in. . . .” Revelations 3:20

oh

     Sometimes “oh” is a complete sentence.

     If somebody tells me his plans, “oh” may be more respectful than offering my unsolicited advice.

     If somebody tells me about her world, “oh” may be kinder than “that reminds me of the time when I. . . .”

     If somebody gives an opinion (especially one I don’t agree with), “oh” may be more welcoming than airing my own views on the subject.     

     “Oh” takes the pressure off. It lets the other person speak in a more leisurely way, and it lets me listen in a more leisurely way. It gives us both breathing space.

     Sometimes, with words, less is more.

 “[P]ay attention . . . also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:4

like an ocean

      I have been watching a mother and a father with their child. They watch his every move. They enjoy his laughing and his dancing and his resting. They hurt when he hurts. They hold him close. They pour into him like an ocean.

     So I wonder.  

     Does God watch my every move and delight in my delighting and hurt in my hurting and rest in my resting? Does He pour into me like an ocean?

“God gives each one of us His undivided attention.  And through this spacious channel . . . pour the ocean-tides of His love.” James J. Daly

“The Lord . . . delights in you. . . .” Zephaniah 3:17

“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” Isaiah 66:13