Devotion 325 - bubbles

The rain was pouring down, but my daughter, well... rain doesn't fall on her parade.

A friend had sent her some bubbles, just plain ordinary stick the stick in bubbles and she was determined. 

There are days I am not fond of her determination and then there are days, like today, I love it.

I watched through the rain.  I had told her to stay under the awning, but determined people are not daunted by raindrops.  

She went from one step to the next following her bubbles and celebrating as they popped.  I watched too.  I watched as she followed each sphere, there was little sunlight, yet they glistened.  She encouraged me to catch them and hold them.  It was raining I protested, but I followed.

The bubbles are fragile and I am a failure at holding them.

Bubbles and words, they have a lot in common.







Ava and I were up at dawn.  We would train down to an appointment spending the morning with her doctors.

This is the first time I had done this route without my partner, my husband; his health had precluded him from joining us. 

Health, just a word that when it vanishes life takes on new meaning.

I hadn't really thought through the day, uncharacteristically I had challenged myself to take every moment as a moment.  It seemed all I could handle.  I was fatigued from the events of the week.  Thinking ahead seemed to be borrowing trouble. 

The train ride was blissful.  Ava slept, I read; we exited and began to look for a cab.  I was focused; the taxi would be just a moment, now my mind turned to the appointments to come.  

Today, we would make the decision we had debated for three years, additional surgeries for my baby girl’s lip and nose.

I looked at the long line of cabs, perhaps ten deep.  There didn't seem to be anyone in the cab line.  I suddenly wished I knew big city protocol.  I wasn't sure if I take my pick or walk in the chilly wind the full block with my 5-year old to the head of the line.  Finally out of nowhere two gentlemen took two cabs and all the cabs pulled away, save one. 

Directly in front of us was the lone cab.

The gentleman rolled down his window, I asked if he was available for hire.  I had a difficult time understanding him but took his nodding head for my answer.  I gave him our destination then sat back for the twenty-minute ride.

I expected the driver to be silent, his English seemed terrible in our first conversation, yet he began with a clarity that surprised.  He noticed my daughter’s Asian eyes and asked what languages we spoke.  We dove into a fascinating conversation of language, culture and children.

He was wonderfully educated and miraculously edifying.  Where I had doubts in the seconds my day began, I know bathed in the confidence of a divine appointment.  The twenty minutes slowed my day into what felt like two hours.  His words hung in the air.  I wanted to catch each one.  They gave me a confidence that seemed foreign to me.  It was glorious;  it was a gift.

Words, He tells us He is the Word and the Word became flesh.

Why?

It is the Word that breathes faith.  It is the Word that breathes life.

It is the living essence of the Father.

It is words, my words, our words that can weave wonder or wounds.  They are fragile; they hang like bubbles for just a moment.  We cannot catch them but their luster remains. 

They leave my lips moment by moment and I wonder do they edify or do I destroy?

Have I sealed my children as they walk into the school door with worship or worry?

Have I kissed my husband with confidence or criticism?

Are my words written with the ink of grace?

In a matter of twenty moments, I visited grace,  in twenty or fifty years, are those I love embraced by my words or fractured by them?

Words are translucent yet the world sees through them. 

Do they see Christ?

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.  Psalm 19:14