"God showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand… and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: 'What can this be?' And it was generally answered thus: 'It is all that was made.' It was so small I thought it might disappear, but I was answered... everything has being through the love of God." --Julian of Norwich

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Basking in the sunshine

Like my blogger-hero Glennon, I'm doing my best these days to treasure up the precious moments in my life and use the silences for prayer.  My life is too busy and stressful.  I spend too much time online trying to get away from things.

Here are some good ones this week:

Lying on the neighbor's trampoline looking up at a flawless blue sky while Lucy jumped and ran around me, getting her toddler energy out.  Feeling the sun on my skin.

Lucy's delight at wearing "Big kid pants" and learning to use the "big potty."

A friends voice on the line telling me "Moms are never ready for their kids to grow up," when I called her absolutely panicked about potty training.

Peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  You appreciate it more when you have to make it all from scratch, when it has been years since you've been able to do that.  When you have become afraid of food and when you know you don't have anything to fear in these bites, they are perfect just as they are.

Speaking Lucy's prayers for her every night, by her prompting.  Realizing the love that surrounds her by the names she remembers.  Sensing the Spirit's work in her to bring some people to mind more frequently than others, people who I know have needs.

Lucy's simple sentence spoken with so much delight, "I did it!"  She put the bobby pins in my hair all by herself, she went on the potty, she put away her blocks, she did it all by herself.

Raspberry Yogurt Popsicles, especially how Lucy persistently calls them Muhcles for no discernible reason.

Sitting in church alone on a Sunday night, free to worship without distraction or responsibility.

Reading Housekeeping and getting swept up in the beauty of the American West and it's loneliness, and the part of me that is and always will be more at home in the vast expanses of sky and wind and cloud and rain and dust.

Kneeling in front of our Anglican Bishop in his flowing red robes and flouncy Elizabethan cuffs, confirming by my vows and my posture that, after all these years,  I still want to be a Christian.  The baptism I received almost 25 years ago still expresses the deepest longing in my life, to be washed clean and to be with God.  Hearing good words spoken over me in prayer.  Feeling in the stillness, the sunlight, the slight tremble of the Bishop's fingers resting on the crown of my head, the voice of the Holy Spirit.

You are enough, Laura.  I love you just the way you are, broken and all.  You know that, don't you?  You don't need any special gift or crazy experience to know that.  Listen in the silence and feel the strength that comes from my love.  Rest in that.  You are enough.

No comments:

Post a Comment