Saturday, March 31, 2007

Dearest God,

I sit before my new computer, waiting for God. What shall we talk about today? Clothes washing, Holy Week, two visitors coming to our home this week, painting the bedroom, avoiding a phone call, Harold's dinner last night, cleaning up the papers on the floor, visiting a grandchild? Any one of these can be a topic for our conversation. And why? Because God is in all of them. From the simplest to the most profound, none are exempt from a discussion with God.

Someone said to me a long time ago, "When are you going to stop writing? You're going to run out of things to write about." I quickly remarked, "It's not about how many things you can write about. It's about just talking with God, seeing God in the ordinary, searching for God daily." My writing is a spiritual adventure, an exploration into the sacred deep, a spiritual Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass, looking for clues. And I am never disappointed.

Perhaps the writing is not so much down below reaching up as it is up reaching down. God reaching me, rather than the other way around. Is it possible God reaches me every day? Of course, why do I exist if not to converse with my Creator, who takes the greatest care with me? What is life truly if not a life with God? I simply continue the conversation begun at my conception. Was God in my mother's womb? Of course. Not a difficult theory.

But life is not about me. Life is about God at the center. I am one, just one that comes to the center to relate, to share, to be. Every day is like a first year college student who returns home to visit the first time. "I missed you so much! I'm so glad to be home!" Isn't that what most of them say? And what happens next? The college kid rambles on about college life, classes, friends, food, staying up all night, exams, dates, fears, all sorts of stuff. Isn't it God?

We can say anything to one another. I am reminded this is not an equal relationship. God and I do not equate equally. God is God and I am a child. I need constant challenges from on high. And who can better do it? Who do I trust more? And who can love me more than God? My discipline comes from God's own hand.

When I live an intentional life with You, my life is made new every day. I start fresh each new dawn and I let go of the crud at the end of the day. I get many new chances to live in the light, to trade a day's darkness for God's light. What can be better?

We will talk today
about all the earlier things,
laundry, visitors, painting,
sermons, Holy Week,
and more.
I delight in our talk
as you engage me
in every area
of my life.
Take all my spaces,
my time increments,
and make them yours.
Let our conversation
be the topic of your choice,
not mine.
Lead me,
guide me
always to the same place
with You.
My heart will
always sing
the song of gratitude.

Always, Andrea