(Disclaimer; I'm writing this more for myself than anyone else as a remembrance...and I'm coming off 36 hours of work and exhaustion is an understatement. Not editing. Just raw.)
God...you amaze me. I often think you will show me great visions of your plan in burning bushes and relevant prophets...then you choose an invalid. Even as I type this I cannot help but weep.
I had a moment that will forever change me. Unexpected. After the most horrific day; moment. I didn't see it coming...it was in a dark nursing hall room with someone the world would say has nothing to offer me but time...and I was forever changed.
I had lost my cool with a friend earlier...I had been standing for 12 hours...I thought I might lose my mind...and still it happened. That moment.
Spirit connection...as I squatted down and listened to the spirituals with Him...our hearts became one...right in the middle of my med pass...spirit communing with spirit...we listened...we shared...and He said "I knew we were special...I couldn't figure out why...now I know...Jesus...I can tell you really love Him..." My heart. I cried. Looked him in the eye and cried. We were encouraged. We made a vow to pray for another's struggles every day. It was Spirit. It was Divine. It could have been missed.
I'm still crying. My precious friend. Incapacitated yet he poured into me and I Him. I was changed. I was infused with Holy Calling...to the small...those deemed "palliative" not "purposeful"...those the world says "keep comfortable"not "what can they offer"...
I was humbled. Torn and shredded in the most beautiful way. Reminded of my prayers whispered to be Him in the world...and an Aha...that whole "I want to make a difference thing" becomes real when I'm faced with the brutal question "Do you?" Because you might end up in a nursing home on your feet weekend after weekend with this man for 32 hours for that one moment...do you really want to make a difference? Is the hard work, exhaustion, frustration, sacrifice really worth it like you say it is? I've been educated in the last 3 years...that the moments I envisioned the great prophets of old and the new trailblazers of the present, have spoken of are minuscule in terms of the work and mundane behind them. Oh I'm sure there are those who live one exciting tale to the next (God knows with my ADD self I'd love to be one of them) but the majority of us find His moments between long pockets of waiting, walking, and wishing for more. My aha taught me that there IS calling in this season. I was filled with blessed assurance and fed deeply in soul ravines that threatened to run dry from lack of rain. I must put in the work...I must not miss the mundane...the mundane makes me. Centers me. Sometimes threatens me. But produces me.
If He chooses this path for me forever (and honestly I hope He doesn't), I'll walk it every day like I did yesterday...praying for strength to rise above and shine on those I can, remembering Jesus' words and actions on earth...He walked the mundane...gave well past his wall of exhaustion...and often sat with those the world deemed "gone"...Yet we celebrate His life as so exciting...could it be that Jesus had many mundane moments looking from the outside in? Could it be his feet and legs could barely move after walking and standing and teaching? Could it be he wanted bigger, more exciting things in that desert than starving for 40 days and just resisting the devil? Did Jesus have to live in the mundane too and learn to let it produce Him? Have we possibly, just possibly over excited the days of Jesus and forgotten that He was just a man? And He too dealt with keeping the heart of God in an earthen, limited body and had to relegate that with his dreams for greater every day? Have we underestimated the power of the stories we DON'T read in the New Testament...the ones where Jesus went to bed tired and got up more tired...yet got up anyway...and went about the daily tasks of life? Jesus knows my heart and how it longs to travel Africa and do those things our culture deems magical...yet I'm quite sure when I arrive...more mundane would be there to greet me...He also knows my heart in the mundane because He walked it...on tired, swollen feet He also walked it...and He experienced miracles, unexpected highs, and forever changing moments. But in between all those things...there had to have been mundane. And He did it. Choosing fruit off trees rather than meat at the wealthy friends table...knowing He had something so priceless within but choosing to allow that priceless God to present however He deemed fit...with field or fancy table...with prostitute and tax collector...liberal and pharisee...invalid and possessed...One. Mundane Act after Another.
And so I will, for the moments sake, trust the mundane in my life. Because in that perspective, the mundane becomes holy. I want to be holy.
No comments:
Post a Comment