She picked a really good book from the library this week.  

I am amazed at how so many things I have encountered and observed this last week, month, and the last of summer worked together and pointed in the same direction as the week unfolded.
And it all was revealed through this song.

The book came with a cd and I played it, opened the book, and snuggled up tightly to her 4 year old frame.  We sit under a map of the world in a sea of blue.

The woman on the cd sang the words and it felt like my heart started beating softer and slower so I could hear better as I listened to her simple words.  Words I remember singing a long time ago.
I wonder if her little heart hears what I hear.   The morning light streams in softly through the window as we listen and sing.

I have been keeping up with bloggers this week who went to Guatemala and were transformed by genuine poverty and authentic love.  They helped transform me too through their eyes and their words.  Words like these enable you to see God in everything.

They helped me see that He holds the broken hearted in His hands.  I read Ann’s words and I think I actually stopped breathing for several moments.  I read it out loud to my 13 and 10 year old girls and we unraveled it together.
My oldest had to continue reading as I couldn’t see the story through the blur of tears or read the words as my throat constricted.  You know how you feel when you can’t swallow (but you must), when your throat tightens and burns.  I think my daughter stopped breathing too,  for a moment.  It was the moms that got me.
The whole world…..

He holds those who ask God to  “Come By Here”.  As I listened to his song looking at the pictures of Guatemala, seeing such deprivation through their picture window camera and comprehending (or trying to) their words that detailed the experience, it became my own experience.  I wonder just how many other people went to Guatemala like I did this week.

The song reminded me of the song “Kum Ba Yah”.  I sang this to all 3 of my girls when they were babies.  It wasn’t until my youngest was born that I researched it a little and discovered that “Kum Ba Yah” is an African-American spiritual song from the 1930’s that means “Come By Here.”

My girls would quiet and welcome…
“Someone’s crying Lord, Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)…  Someone’s praying Lord, Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here)… Someone’s singing,  Lord, Kum Ba Yah (Come By Here) …Oh Lord, Kum Ba Yah”
It is like singing a prayer.

Even though I know it wasn’t the same as being there in Guatemala, in some small way, I went too.
And I did see that He’s really got the whole world in His hands even though it can be difficult to see His big picture in what appears abandoned and dejected.  I am turned inside out knowing that I can get that from mere words and pictures.

Honest poverty where there isn’t anything but prayer.

Seeing Mommys (like me) holding together their nests with only walls of tin and and not much else.    And here I sit with so much.  I never thought of myself as wealthy before.

I am so thankful.

I went through my daughters’ clothes the other day to see what they need for the fall and felt almost guilty for such abundance.  Most of it is used, hand me downs from sisters or bought at a yard sale; but it is royal compared to what hangs from knots on rigged clothes lines in these pictures…..

She sings,
He’s got my brothers and my sisters in His hands.

It isn’t very often I see this.  I caught them reading together Monday.  Sisters.  Their legs entwined and relaxed.  Teaching, reading, experiencing…..  Loving.  (How can I bottle this up and share it with them when they bicker?) I can almost see His fingers cuddling them.  They want for nothing right now.  Can they see that?  How can I show that to them?    …With a million kisses?   …By counting raindrops, books,  warm blankies,  and everyday ordinary blessings?
…By pointing them to Him and by showing them other people who point up?

How blessed we are.

I have seen the son in the rain thanks to The Most Beautiful Woman I Know.

News of more unrelenting cancer this month disheartens me.

My soul has been pierced and penetrated by her testimony again and again …..  His words through her.  My perspective has been forever changed.  My heart will never be the same.

I still see her in His hands…. although not always the bigger picture…..    because  I am so blind, busy and oblivious most of the time and because I just don’t understand why.
Seeing her suffering tears my heart right out.  But glimpses of His face in hers heals it.  I just need to look.  Doesn’t He command us to look?  …..Lord, open my eyes…..

I am taking a class on The Screwtape Letters at my church.  “The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as “the Patient”.  In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, as seen from devils’ viewpoints.”  (Wikipedia)

The adversary distracts us in the ordinary and the common.  He uses the busyness of cleaning the house or being hungry or seeing the same things every day, day in and day out… dulling our senses.
I see how the the many distractions of a mother’s life can deaden us to be shallow and not to go deep and look for Him.  Sometimes I feel accomplished just to get through the day…..

Screwtape told Wormwood to distract his Patient.  I found it profound that  it wasn’t a huge matter that took ‘the Patient’ away from thinking about God…..  It was a hunger pain.  It was trivial and ordinary. Wow.

The instructor is excellent and spoke about God’s ‘2 Words’ tonight;
Scripture 
and 
Nature
and how Scripture is the spectacles we use to see.  That God gave us scriptures to view all He created so we can see Him.  All of creation points to Him.

“For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written, are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly^.”  John Calvin

As I said goodbye to summer these last few weeks, I tried to capture the heavens, the moon He holds, with my camera.  I couldn’t do it justice.

I saw Him, this summer,  in the pounding surf,
the dancing waves,

in the broken shells, and in the unity of friends.
I could smell Him in the salty air and feel His breath in the breeze on my back and the wind in my face.

He’s got the itty bitty baby in His hands…..
I remember this verse from my childhood.
Just this week, I called my dear friend about an unrelated matter and she excitedly told me that she had just got the call.  I could hear the joy in her voice.
They were finally going to be foster parents.  That a baby was ready to be picked up at the hospital and she was scrambling to find everything the little guy would need.  My heart burst for her.  It has been 4 years of waiting.
And He wasn’t late.  He was right on time.
Regardless of how long this little boy can stay or the tears he will bring; both joyful and heartbreaking, I know He was saving him for this family.  It isn’t random.  Again I see His handiwork,  His designs.

(This was my favorite picture in the book)
Me?  Me.
Why is it so easy to see it for others and not ourselves?
I should behave like He does have me in His hands,  so that others will see me pointing.  So that my children will see me pointing.  So that I won’t give Him my worries in the morning when we meet and then take them back from Him at night when I can’t sleep;
So that I can aim and steer and zero in on Him.  So That my faith would grow so big…..

We finished reading Peace Child by Don Richardson today.   We read how primitive cannibals In the 20th century were shown Christ.  It was disturbing and beautiful;  Shown through words….. And legends.
“Peace Child’s name comes from a tradition in Papua New Guinea, where, to make peace, warring tribes would exchange a child. The children would grow up with the others’ tribe and in the future, when conflict threatened again, the ‘Peace Child’ from each tribe was sent to negotiate.”  www.peacechild.org
We learned how everyone is looking for the ‘Peace Child’.
We learned that God can be seen holding Papua New Guinea and Guatemala in His hands.

Funny how the week was wrapped up in these simple words, this simple song.  I feel it in the joy of the baby finally arriving in my friends tirelessly waiting arms, and the sorrow and pain in my dear friend fighting cancer.  I see it in the pictures of poverty in its purest form, I see it in the restless beach and in asking God to ‘Come by Here’,

I know it when I see the Extraordinary in the ordinary.

~Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles ~




…to be continued…