Just one of those moments...

A few nights ago, it wasn’t quite bedtime and the boys were going stir-crazy (when Sawyer starts running in frenetic circles, something has to change).  Ryan grabbed a football and soccer ball, and we headed out into the front yard. 

It was just one of those moments.  The boys were giggling as they kicked the balls and tackled Daddy.  Ryan was laughing at me as I unsuccessfully attempted a good football toss with a perfect spin (I’m sure I was struggling because of my pregnant belly—it throws off my balance!).  The air was heavy with an incoming lighting storm and the sky all around us was an unearthly fire red.  Wet gusts of wind played with our clothes and relieved the heat.  I didn’t want it to end.

Of course it did, and rather quickly, when bedtime really did come and our boys melted into tired puddles of tears.  But it was those fifteen minutes that gave me a deep glimpse of contentment, perfection and a sense of home.

As Christians, we are often reminded that this is not our home.  Tragedy, ugliness, pain and separation stand in stark contrast to our longing for safety, comfort and joy.  Jesus even warned us that “In this world you will have trouble,” (John 16:33).  Our consolation is supposed to be, and often is, that we WILL get to Heaven. 

But my life has shown me that God has not left us hanging in a waiting room of misery outside the doors of Heaven.  He gives us these beautiful moments under breath-taking red skies to show us the rest of John 16:33: “But take heart!  I have overcome the world!”  In the concluding book of the Chronicles of Narnia, the last remaining Narnians find themselves in Heaven after Narnia has been completely destroyed.  Jewel the unicorn exclaims triumphantly, “I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.  The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this” (The Last Battle 213).

So I want to love the journey God has given me through this damaged, troubled world.  I do long for my real home at the end of this life, but I hope to seek and recognize the moments that I love here as times when God is letting me witness something a little like Heaven—in my relationships, in nature and in imperfect football tosses.

Liam and the Moon

(Written in 2008)

My almost-two-year-old son has started talking—quite fervently—to the moon.

Every night he insists on searching out the moon in the sky, and every night he expresses the same surprising litany: “Hello moon! I’m comin’! I get you! I hold you! I love you! I’m comin’!” Then he proceeds to reach with all his little might into the night sky as he continues to call out to the moon.

I marvel at Liam all the time, but this new ritual has been striking me to the core—touching something even deeper than my mama-love for my boy. Because I think I’m seeing something fresh from heaven, something more of God than of the world.

Liam, in all his two years of wisdom, does not know that the only people who talk to the moon are either crazy or staring in “The Wonder Pets” on Nickelodeon. He doesn’t realize the impossibility of his promise to hold the moon in his tiny hands. He’s never seen his parents or loved ones communicate with nature like he’s doing now. And yet every night he’s driven by something inside him to grasp the beauty before his eyes; this something comes out of the way God knit him together and not from any worldly influence.

So once again, I’m learning from my young son. His untainted enthusiasm for God’s creation inspires me to shed the apathy stemming from my busyness that I let consume me on a daily basis.

When was the last time I showed child-like delight over something beautiful or held my arms up to the sky in longing and awe?

Emerson wrote, “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.” Just like Liam is still just as fascinated with the wrapping paper as he is with the gift, I want to let myself get indiscriminately excited every day. I want to feel awe at the sunrise in the morning, seeing beyond the sun’s ability to light my path and letting its beams into my heart to warm my spirit.

I want to see the star-filled sky, throw my arms into the air and yell, “Hello moon!”