UNDONE

Two thirty a.m. and I'm lying awake (something related to menopause, I think), looking out the window at the night sky and the fireflies blinking on and off in the hay field. The house is quiet and the bed is oh-so-comfortable. This is one of my very favorite times to pray...

I am grateful that God is awake and listening at 2:30 in the morning. I am touched that He makes a quiet, dark, beautiful place to meet with me. I am astounded that the same God who holds the enormous, flaming, far-away stars in the night sky condescends to slip into a messy bedroom in a rural farmhouse for an hour of intimate conversation.

I pray for my kids, and my grandkids. For my church and my church family (King and Virginia, you are my special people today!) and for folks on the other side of the sea. For things heavy on my heart and my mind. Eventually, I drift off to sleep again, encouraged and strengthened with the confidence that God is near, and that He is sovereign and good and He loves me very much.

A few hours later, I am sitting down at the kitchen counter with my first cup of coffee. No one else is up and stirring about yet, and the house is still and quiet. Let's see, where was I...flip, flip, flip...2 Chronicles. NOT my favorite book of the Bible, and yet, reading through a tedious list of names I can't begin to pronounce, I am once again reminded of God's faithfulness to his faithless children. Reminded of God's big, scary, dangerous, life-altering, never-tiring, ever-pursuing love. And I pray for my kids, and my grandkids...

Much later in the day, I am driving to town for a meeting, alone in a funky-smelling green mini-van that badly needs to be vacuumed, soaking up the warm sunshine that beams through the windshield. My thoughts turn to a young man - someone dear to me - who seemingly has no desire to know God, no interest in Jesus's great love for broken, sinful people like us, and I am saddened. "Father..." I need someone to talk to, someone to share this burden.

And then it occurs to me...

Lying in bed at two-dark-thirty in the morning, at the kitchen counter with a steaming cup of coffee, and now, driving down the four-lane toward Union City, this has all been one long on-going conversation. Interrupted by sleep and exercise class and cooking breakfast for the gang at home...interrupted, but never broken.

"God, you are still here! You are still listening!" We were picking up right where we had left off, before the pause to review Helen's math lesson and the conversation with Tom about what he is working on on the Ranchero, and my rush to get out the door on time.

Nobody on Earth meets me like that. Nobody on Earth listens like that. Nobody on Earth loves me like that.

Is it any wonder that I adore Him?