I
had at least ten pounds of stuff in the bags I was carrying and I was anxious
to dump everything in the back of the car and turn on the heat. October had brought with it a cool
night air that I still hadn’t warmed up to.
I
could still hear the roar of the crowd and wondered the score. We had made it through two quarters,
the football game was well in hand and my eldest son who was working for the team felt loved and well
fed.
Success - mentally I checked
this one off my list.
Something happened, as if in slow motion, deafened the crowd and slowed my feet. I heard a gasp and then a woman’s
voice, louder than the crowd and the click of my shoes, “Are you alright?”
I
knew that you was mine.
I
whipped around, now eight feet behind me lay my little daughter. Her face up, her legs and feet up, but
her belly plastered to the ground.
I ran to my eldest daughter and handed off my luggage.
Strange how in a crisis our needs instantly
minimize. I looked at Ava’s face;
she had not yet begun to cry. She
was surprised and looking as if she could be spun with every extremity still
caught in the air.
I asked how it
happened shooting a look at my eldest daughter. My glare told her I thought she had tripped the youngest yet
knowing my infernal rushed pace was most likely to blame. Lily was now weighted down with my bags and she meekly told me Ava had simply stumbled.
I
stood her up but her knees pained her and I agreed to carry all forty –seven
pounds of her to the car. Lily lugged all
our belongings but knew better than to complain, somehow so did I. Our rapid progress now crawled, but
somehow it too was okay.
I
fastened Ava in the car; we dumped all our unnecessary necessities and turned
on the light to examine bleeding knees.
I was in the driver seat trying to quickly fire up the heater.
Lily
who has been taught by me...the master, started to distract Ava. Lily handed Ava her stuffed puppy and
said, “As soon as we get to Grandpa’s, I will get you band aids!” "Brilliant!" my mind responded. At five years old, Ava has learned to love
Grandpa’s band aids. He doesn’t
mess around with Barbie or ponies; he buys huge real estate type band aids for
his papery eighty eight year old skin.
Ava is allowed one per visit, but we all knew tonight with our sustained
injuries would bring two if not more.
Ava
paused listening to the promise of things to come, then said something so
profound. She looked at Lily and
hollered up to me, “We must pray for healing” she said, “I cannot wear a band
aid forever.”
I
drove away in silence. This child
who has fashioned band aids from the moment she first discovered their stickery
splendor had turned to prayer. I
was amazed.
Prayer
should have been my first response, but I am stuck on solutions I can touch and feel band aids. In any and perhaps all
situations, I look for how I can help or fix or remediate. I stick to what I know, what I can see,
what I can hold. When it is the
invisible the all knowing to whom I should cling.
I
read the other day that the moments one let’s go, we taste heaven. Yes,
I have done that too. In foreign
countries, holding babies birthed by heaven, I have tasted it. Not because it was some holy
errand, but because I could control nothing, I could change nothing, I could remedy nothing. It was just God, meaning, it was ALL
God.
And
I tasted it. I
tasted what it is to be all out, and Him all in and it is nothing short of
divine.
It
is surrender. And Beloved, I stink
at it.
Oh,
I have wanted it, I have prayed for it, but you see I find myself praying with
closed hands, holding on to what I know or hope for or esteem as perfect
solutions, instead of opening hands to what is the Holy good.
Sometimes, I
stick to head knowledge and forego heart knowledge and I want band aids instead of blessings.
It
is a new way of thinking for me.
It is contrary to education, contrary to accomplishment, contrary to the
forward progress I am always craving.
It is being still; it is listening,
it is HEARING and it is foregoing me for the foretaste of heaven.
It
is the single most important work we can ever do. And, it
is hard and it's never done. It is a morning and
evening renewal of ceasing our in- charge position for a better, more
frightening, more freeing, white flag surrender to the One who already fought
the battle and won.
It
is laying it down, to take up the cross.
What feels like an enormous sacrifice is the single most liberating
thing we can ever do. It is
intoxicating in its effect.
It is
so good; it is hard to believe it is real, because at its core it is
supernatural. To understand we do
not have to be in charge, we do not have to think about what others think, we
do not have to wonder if it will turn out alright; is only God.
Yes,
Ava, we have to pray. We have to
sacrifice band aids and we have to surrender. In return, we taste heaven and know it is extraordinary and
good and absolutely Holy.
“He is no fool
who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot
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