I want to write more, but only write as I have it in my heart to do. I have been stretched being here. Reading and writing in my journal are not coming as easily as I'm used to... I think my brain and body are just doing what it takes to adjust to the new culture and surroundings.
I desperately want to breathe in the beauty that is all around me, to see God's fingers moving in the rhythm of life. I want see Him in the faces, the many many faces I see every day. But for now I am trying to hear Him in the whisper, the very faint whisper that I know is there.
He is here. He is with me. Emmanuel: God with us. With me.
I know it and I tell it to myself a hundred times in a day, in an hour.
And he is with my friend who has recently been diagnosed with cancer, and with my friend who is going through the deep pain of divorce. He is with the family of the girl who was killed on her bike the other day riding to work, like she'd done a hundred times before. Except this day was different. She was on the wrong side of the road, or the right. The driver. He was 76. What of his life now? But God is with him too. He is with the single mom of 4 that I know, who now has her daughter and boyfriend and their new baby living with her in her already tiny, government provided house.
He. He is.
He is with my friend who has deep and unsettling questions about God, this God who she's served and loved for 25 years. He is with me in all of my loneliness, this strange and unfamiliar feeling. He is with my 3 children in their new and oddish world. He is with Jeff swimming towards the voice of God in unknown waters. He is with the sad man with hollow eyes that sits with his large furry dog on the streets of Oxford every night hoping for a better life than the one he has.
Emmanuel. God with us. He is among, surrounding, in, with us. He breathes His life in us and moves us here and there, causing our eyes to look up to see him in the people we meet. The ones we see who don't see us. The ones who walk past our house every day, who ride on the bus with us, pass us in the office, live next door. The ones that we've forgotten about and the ones that we live with. The ones who we've hurt and the ones who've hurt us.
He is whispering to us. To see beyond to the ones who are hurting. Who need hope. The hope that He came to give. He is hope. He is. He. Emmanuel. Hope is with us. Whispering. I want to hear the whisper.
Beautifully said, friend. You have a most precious heart! Love you!!
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing!! You need to keep writing like this and publish it:)
ReplyDeleteYou keep bringing tears to my eyes and a hush to my heart....
ReplyDeleteI love: He is with Jeff, swimming towards the voice of God in unknown waters...
LOVE.
Yes. Keep writing. Please.