It was late.  Well past dark.  I was out picking up milk/returning a movie/whatever other errand I could run with exactly zero kids in tow after 9:00 pm.  I wonder, exhausted, where did the day go?  All those minutes and hours and seconds, gone.  Did I see Him once?  In any of those moments, in any of the activities or errands, or responsibilities – did I ever see Him?  Did I look?  Between the kids and the lesson plans and the arguing and the laundry and the 85,000-th “can I have sumpin’ to eat?” I somehow have missed the rhythm of grace, the gentle melody that rocks me when the world around me shifts and clamors and screams, not even a glimpse of eternity in the midst of humanity.  How?  How, when my life is so full of everything that I thought would glorify Him.  Yet, where is He in the midst of it?

Sometimes, I can get so busy being ‘godly’ that I miss God.  And I hear that constant question, “Why do all this? Shouldn’t you be filling plates at the mission/caring for orphans/preaching in the dirt roads of Africa/Haiti/India – why are you wasting your time on ‘blessed’ people – what difference are you making??” I think about tomorrow’s lesson plans, then the next day’s/week’s/month’s, the bible studies, and the small groups and the mistakes I’ve made, the wrong decisions, the bad attitudes I’ve had – people I’ve offended – little boys I’ve yelled at.  And I wonder,  “all this is for you God, but where are you?”

“I am right here….

My child, I am here, in these moments, in this car.  Look up.  See me.  You spend so much energy and brain power trying to do for me, you have forgotten to just be with me.  I know it’s easy – I don’t blame you for getting distracted, that is just what my enemy wants you to do.  He knows how to keep you too busy for me.  But if your eyes are off of me for too long, all that you do will become corrupt.  I love what you do for me and for others, it is precious to me.  Even when you make mistakes, that’s where I do my best work.  Redemption.  But look up.  Even if for only this moment, that’s all it takes.  Just a moment for our eyes to meet and you to be filled, but I can’t force you.  Please, Look up.”

So there, in the middle of 83rd Street, in the pitch dark, I look up.  I gaze into the black sky as the music plays in the background of my minivan…

 

“I will lock eyes with the One who’s ransomed me, the One who gave me joy for mourning.  I will lock eyes with the One who’s chosen me, the One who set my feet to dancing.”

I see. We connect. And it is enough, no much MUCH more. It is everything. These moments, eyes locked with the lover of my soul, I am whole.  I am rested.  I am even made holy.  Everything makes sense again.

 

“Never stop praying.”  1 Thessalonians 5:17