Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Unexpected Presence

I didn't sleep well last night, and currently my children and I are scurrying about, getting the house ready for Thanksgiving guests. My daughter, who can be such a balm to my soul, has been consistently asking for more tasks to do to help everything go smoother.

So this morning I was dealing with my third or fifth load of laundry in the basement. Dryer humming, water emptying into the machine. I was quietly intent on what I was doing. Suddenly I turned and saw a bright blue sweater containing my daughter sitting on the chair in the laundry area. I screamed at my full energy capacity for a good solid three seconds as I held my heart in my chest to make sure it didn't fall out. She and I collapsed into laughter for a few minutes as we both recovered from scaring each other to bits. I did not hear her enter. I did not see her sit down. It was just all of a sudden -- she was there.

An hour later I still felt the physical change from that few seconds of a scare.

And I told the Lord, "You know, this is what you do to me! All of a sudden, when I don't expect it at all, You show up just like that." I'm not saying I see Jesus physically present in a blue sweater (or any sweater, or at all) in my laundry room (or other places. Just being clear.), but yes, spiritually He does have a way of just showing up to me like that. Now I don't feel so bad about it scaring the crap out of me.

Do you suppose that He has that sort of crap scaring-out thing in mind? I firmly believe that part of understanding God's personal love for us is realizing His sense of humor. What greater bonding is there than to share this kind of moment of raw reaction? It may not be the most sophisticated form of prayer, but whoever said prayer always had to be sophisticated?

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