What Does It Look Like?

 June 16, 2015

“What does it look like?”  I lift the handle on the faucet and shift it to hot, the clear running water sends steam upwards as it swirls and mixes with the soap forming frothy piles of bubbles on its surface.  The heat of it soothes as my hands slip under the water, testing the temperature, I want this water hot.  A rainbow of bubbles rises and I watch the iridescent changing of colors across their surface.  I close my eyes, “What does it look like?”  My closed eyes allow my mind to bring forth faces one after another each one bringing to mind their precious story, each one unique, each one holding a special piece of my heart, each little life a gift of Grace.  Both hands are in the heat of the water now and their searching below the surface finds the coarse texture of the cloth, grasping it in one hand I open my eyes as my other hand lifts the first glass and begins to wash.  My eyes focus on the verse written across the glass on the picture before me.

“Make me know Your ways,

O Lord;

Teach me Your paths.

Lead me in Your truth and teach me.

For You are the God of my

Salvation;

For You I wait all the day.

Remember, O Lord, Your

Compassion and Your

 Lovingkindnesses,

For they have been from of old.”

Psalm 25:4-6

  I wrote it up there a few days ago, that clear smooth surface has become a favorite place to jot reminders of who my God is and what He is teaching me in these days.  Now in this moment I am praying these very words, “Lord, teach me Your ways.”  I smile and think to myself as I pick up the next dish, “What does it look like?”  It looks like a pile of dishes, it looks like a meal prepared and served, it looks like a floor mopped and a vacuum cleaner pushed, it looks like a bathroom scrubbed, a porch painted, a basket of laundry sorted, washed, and folded.  It looks like a garden planted, a yard watered, but it is so much more than that.  It is here in what the outside world would see as everyday chores that I am finding words to put to the heart cries, it is here in these moments of doing chores that are so very familiar to my hands that they come automatically where I find the time to think, to ponder, to be amazed at my God’s working.  To consider the work He has given me to do in this season as a gift of time to consider the work that He continues to do in me.  I see the faces of little ones, I consider the suffering and pain I have seen, I contemplate the joy and elation of moments that I still do not fully understand.  I am reminded of His promises to love, provide for and protect and I am given a chance to wonder at what it looks like to see His mighty hand moving to care for each tiny detail. 

It is in this work when I am able to gather together the words to share with others when they ask, “What does it look like?”  

It looks like Remembering this!

It looks like moments with these precious ones...

It looks like family

It looks like Christmas Morning

Like Wearing lots of hats

Fresh Homemade Bread- wheat ground and hand kneaded

It looks like little sister baby dolls, snuggled and set on the bed just right...

It looks like long walks through our woods to the pond with only the company of my Heavenly Father and the dog.

It looks like sweet friendship...

And the fellowship of dear hearts

Like finding a car to share on the journey

And remembering where I am from

It looks like bowls of rice ready for a class of children who are enthusiastic to try their hands at eating with chop sticks

And dressing up to share with those same children some of what my life in China has been like

Sometimes it looks like a spiral of stairs leading to the top of a lighthouse where the light can shine the brightest guiding others to the Light of Lights

It looks like bright dresses and brick ruins...

It looks like being reminded of what are essentials in a Southern Girls wardrobe

And that white is worn after Easter!

It looks like watching an airshow from big brothers strong shoulders

It looks like yummy cheesecake made to celebrate the gift of sister and her birthday.

It looks like fresh farm picked strawberries

And it looks like sisters excitement at veggies picked from the garden for dinner tonight.

It looks like making the swing set fort into a big girls playhouse where sweet girls can cook and clean  and learn to care for their family and the guests they invite.

It looks like savoring coffee with friends and family- please pour me another cup!

It looks like running hard every day...

It looks like taking the boat out and smelling the flowers

It looks like a stack of books.

It looks like the encouragement of a friend, well mixed with family time

It looks like a reunion of families each embracing familiar Chinese baby faces, it looks like a smile of recognition and reaching arms asking for me to pick them up when it has been so very long since I last saw this one, it looks like tear blurred sight, and the look of a mother’s eyes as she reaches to wrap her arms around us both.  It looks like amazing love.  It is a vision of abounding grace.

What does it look like?  It looks like sand castles built on firm foundations of rock.  It looks like everyday moments that are becoming more precious to me as I consider the grace that gives them to me- the God who allows me to see in them the much greater work that He is doing in my life.

Storms of Hope...

The rain had been steadily falling all afternoon, and now as the light was fading it began falling in harder torrents of wind swept sheets broken only by flashes of lightning and the crash of thunder.  I stared out the window watching the taillights of the van backing up towards the Big House.  The bundle snuggled closely in my arms wiggled ever so slightly and I shifted the blankets covering his face to check that the oxygen mask had not slipped from his tiny face.  He was so little and yet had been fighting so hard the past several days and now suddenly he was asking us to fight for him because he was simply growing tired.  We needed some labs, and radiology studies and we needed them quickly.  They were tethering an oxygen tank to a seat in the van and under cover of an umbrella I stepped into the back cradling him closely and checking the monitor that was passed into me.  Dr. Steve slid into the driver’s seat and handed me a small flashlight that I could hold in my teeth, freeing my hands for working with the various items around me that would help keep our little guy going on the way to the hospital.   As we drove through the flooded streets, skirting the larger rivulets that were once other lanes and the various shapes and sizes of stalled cars.  I found myself humming,

“In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face while the storm howls above me and there’s no hiding place mid the crash of the thunder precious Lord hear my cry keep me safe till the storm passes by

’Til the storm passes over ‘til the thunder sounds no more, ‘til the clouds roll forever from the sky, keep me safe let me stand in the hollow of Your hand, keep me safe ‘til the storm passes by.

Many times satan will whisper say there’s no need to try, for there’s no end of sorrow there’s no hope for the by and by but I know though art with me and tomorrow I’ll rise where the storms never darken the skies.

’Til the storm passes over ‘til the thunder sounds no more, ‘til the clouds roll forever from the sky, keep me safe let me stand in the hollow of Your hand, keep me safe ‘til the storm passes by.”

  I smile through the dark at my little charge and consider that there are moments when all around the circumstances say there is no hope and yet here we are in the back seat of a van pushing through flooded streets to make sure we have exhausted every possible means of help for him knowing that there is HOPE even when the storms rage.

When I can't see the Mountains...

   We stand on the porch waving at the buses as they enter the gates of our home, they pull to a stop and the doors open freeing a stream of old and new friends.  I hear her voice calling and glance to see waving arms coming toward me in an embrace, in her voice is laughter and a unique greeting only someone familiar to my heart would give…

  “Hey there friend, I hear a rumor that there are mountains all around this place."  She climbs the stairs and wraps in me a hug.  She was back once again with a team and I had to smile at her observation, only someone who has lived in China or visited often enough to know that the ever present foggy, hazy smog makes a clear day where you can see further than the buildings across the way a pretty exciting moment.  She has been here so many times and yet has never seen the mountains that surround the valley we live in here at the Big House.  Mountains, huge and unmoving dominating a landscape and yet here they are unseen, clouded, hidden from view.  I promised to show her some pictures.

Later as I scrolled through photos of the blazing red sky, the sun setting, and the jagged black edges of cliffs cutting into the horizon I had to consider the fact that though I have lived here many years now, I actually have very rarely seen these mountains and then those glimpses are only after a very hard storm when the heavy rains and the strong winds clear the air enough to see their forms.  Several times recently I have considered that conversation, So often I cannot see the mountains that stand strong and firm, I cannot see where my strength comes from I must simply take by faith that He who promised is faithful to carry it out.  The days can be long with pressures from every side that threaten to make us loose heart, or give up, or forget that there are things there that we can’t see or understand.  I am reminded of Elisha talking to his servant as the armies of King Aram threatened to capture him…

^“Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

II Kings 6:15-17

I can show my friend pictures to prove that those mountains really are there, to point her in the direction they can be seen and yet the rest is up to her, she will simply have to take on faith that they are really there.   And I dear ones will have to rest in the command of my Abba,

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.”

Exodus 14:14