Closer to the Mystery

I'm mesmerized by the wind.

I believe I could sit on my front porch and watch the trees dance and listen to the song the leaves sing for hours on end. I've convinced myself that stories live in those songs.

Listen.

Do you hear it?

It's a mysterious, slightly melancholy, but melodious song. When I stop and listen, it is as if my ordinary, everyday, routine life transforms into something bigger, grander, and more exciting. It's like I can almost touch it.  Maybe adventure, maybe mystery, I'm not sure, but it's right there, right at that place where my fingers can almost reach and grab onto.

Summer is speeding by even though I've spent many a morning asking God to slow down it's passing.

Our summer has been work, chores, friends, and time spent with the kids who have been here and then gone, here, gone, here, gone and then gone again.

Kelli moved home after graduation, worked here for a time, and then took a new job and moved to Omaha.

Elizabeth was gone all summer on an internship but was home this week before she leaves tomorrow to head back to school to train to be a RA.

Will was a counselor at camp and home weekends. Camp ended and he was home for a week before he landed a job pollinating corn and now he leaves at 6:00 a.m.and spends his day walking corn rows until about 6:30 p.m. He comes home, showers, and goes to bed.

Here and gone. Here and gone.

I was driving home from the gym one morning and it hit me how raising kids is similar to getting gut-punched by a friend. You told your friend to hit you, come on, you could take it.

Then they did it.

They hit you!

Right in the gut exactly like you told them to, but now you are doubled over, short of breath and surprisingly surprised.

Grow up. Go. Live. Discover. Be.

And then they do, and then we clutch our gut, suck air, and find ourselves shocked that they actually did it. They did it!

God does not solve our problems

or

answer all our questions

but

leads us closer to the mystery of our existence

 where all questions cease. (Henri Nouwen)

Mystery.

Adventure.

Wind.

It's all God isn't it?

God simply doesn't fit into anything we try to stuff him into does he? Life constantly surprises us because he is more than we could ever ask for or imagine.

So join me this weekend. Find a spot to sit and take in some wind.

Let's sit together even though we may be hundreds of miles apart. Let's sit with the wind.

Let's ask to be led deeper and deeper into the mystery. Let's watch and listen. 

Let's reach for a bit more surrender for that is where the adventure starts. 

And if we happen to find ourselves doubled over and clutching our gut, let's listen for the song of adoration the leaves sing,  and when we hear it let's be brave enough to lift our heads back up so we can take in some more.