Devotion 363 - BIG

The big girl comes downstairs convinced her fish, her cherished Christmas fish is dead.

I know this type of fish, sturdy is his middle name.  Hence my willingness to let the little swimmer live in the gal’s bedroom. Evidently she neglected to feed Peppermint the fish for a day or maybe two and upon remembering, she panicked. I went and got the tank.  The little fellow looked perhaps a little thin but he was perfectly fine and I launched into my rhetoric about responsibility.  

Lily’s brother had a bit of a different reaction.  He was neither sympathetic nor interested.  In fact, he disappeared. When he returned, he wore a black t-shirt around his hairline resembling long dark hair.  He had downloaded, O Mio Babbino Caro on his music device and he lip synched in his best Italian and with enough drama to make Pavarotti envious.

Beau has adopted a new life phrase, 

“Go Big or Go Home.”

Beau’s preparation for his musical presentation gave us just enough time to confirm Peppermint was still among the living.  We had cleaned his tank and fed him a good meal.  Some say timing is everything.  In this case, Beau’s was perfect.  We all had a good laugh, especially after Lily’s fears were relieved.

“Go Big.”  Beau has mastered it.  He goes for the big laugh, the big noise, the big burger, the big drumstick, the biggest slice of life he can find. 

It’s a noisy mantra, but appealing as well.  In a tense, life and death fish moment, it made for a big, welcome laugh.  I like that.  I wonder where he gets it, certainly not from me.  No Beau has his Dad’s moxy.

I am cut from a different cloth.  I look at Beau; he stands in sharp contrast to me.  He stands in sharp contrast to my mother whose quiet, gentle demeanor stood large. There are many days I have to remember a life well lived often is not based on size. 

I have captured into a frame of my mind every conversation I had in my mother’s last days, the ones I shared as she breathed her last breaths and the ones I savored with her dearest friends.

My mother’s career was being a mother.  Her passion was her Jesus, her prize her family.  Every friend shared about mother’s time in conversation, her work in service;  her life spent poured out.

I remember how small it all seemed yet as I added moment after moment;  what seemed so small, perhaps insignificant, somehow became huge.

I hold her life up to the mirror of Paul’s letters.  The woman bore fruit.  In the sweetest, most gentle and quiet ways, her life was a heart load of love, joy, peace, kindness, all tied with a bow of gentleness. 

It is the fabric from which I am fashioned, yet big, loud, Beau style visible is so much more appealing although ill fitting for me.

I find my Jesus in prayer, 

the most silent thing I do all day.

I see Him in time spent well, 

the thing I sacrifice for the urgent.

I hear Him in my loved ones' voices, 

when I choose to listen.

I cherish Him in friendships, 

when I remember to thank God for kindred spirits.

I worship Him in the sunrise, 

when I stop being content in darkness.

We serve a huge, incomprehensible God who is willing to be found in the smallest places.

He doesn’t need big.  He IS big.

He doesn’t need loud;  

He hears the whispers of our hearts.

He doesn’t demand; He knocks; and we dear one simply have to answer.

“Be imitators of God…and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.”

Ephesians 5:1-2