fifteen minutes before we were due to leave for an event today i announced, (as i always do), "alright kiddos, we are leaving in fifteen minutes, please get ready to leave!"
i returned to washing dishes and unloading the dishwasher, because as soon as we returned home we were going to have company, and i knew if i didn't get it done before we left it wouldn't get done.
ten minutes later, "alright kiddos, five minutes... please start turning off lights and go ahead and make a movement to the car." when you have 4 kids things have to be done in phases. there is no, "just go hop in the car" any more. it's a process... sometimes a painful process.
five minutes passed, i grabbed my sunglasses, car keys, and headed for the van and i said, " i am leaving now, meet me in the car!"
once outside in the cold november air i realized that two of my children were without shoes and two were without jackets. for real? we are passed the babying stage in our family, everyone here knows how to get dressed and prepared for an outing. we've done it hundreds of times. everyone knows, now that it's november, shoes AND socks are required. and a jacket... no matter the temperature.
but here they were with an ample AND kind warning, and they stared at me like lost puppies. they stared at me as if the previous 15 minutes i was speaking in a foreign language. i turned in my seat and frustratingly asked them, "for real? why aren't you ready to go?" to which one of them replied, "we didn't hear you!"
deep, cleansing, breath. and then hot tears down my cheeks...
"does any one hear me?" i whispered.
i love being a mom. i love being a stay at home mom. i love that i am investing in THEM during this season of life. but on days like today, discouragement creeps inside my already fragile heart and screams, "no one hears you!"
i have no intention of being a polarizing political figure, but yesterday's election didn't go the way i wanted my vote to be heard. yes, yes, i am totally confident that Jesus is still King, i do know that He is sovereign, and i understand better than ever that there are way more pressing "life and death" issues in our world today (and i didn't even have to go to facebook to get all that) but it stung, i wanted to be heard!
i wanted to be heard yesterday when i nestled my nose against my mama's cold cheek and i whispered
in her ear, " i love you!" but the blank stare and the unaffected facial expressions told me that maybe in that moment i wasn't heard.
sometimes because of the way my personality tilts i feel everything super strongly. just like katy perry would say, "'Cause you're hot then you're cold.
You're yes then you're no." my mother would stop me at this point and insert one of her famous, famous phrases, "and sometimes our strengths become our weaknesses...." grrrrrrr..... why is she SO right? while being passionate and high on the feeling richter scale has its bonuses, sometimes the prick of the thorn hurts. (does is seem odd to anyone else that i just mentioned katy perry and my mother in the same sentence? *giggle, giggle*)
tonight, doing something that has become one of my favorite "people" moments of our routine, we went and hung out with our worship team and rehearsed songs for sunday. while some rehearsing does get done, (in between stories and random rabbit trails) mostly fellow-shipping and just loving on each other gets done, and i deeply appreciate and need that.
when you are singing and playing to an empty sanctuary and the holy spirit feels like your only congregant, you can close your eyes and worship in different and soul satisfying way. when the sound of your husband's voice fills your monitor and the strum of the acoustic guitar floats through the air, your knees go a bit weak and these words pour forth,
"For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done here
There is no one like our god
There is no one like our God "
and in that moment, any doubt is flushed away and i know that i am heard. in the darkness of the night, when not a single soul stirs, i know He hears me. even when there are no words to convey the message of my heart, He hears. when my children are numb to my own voice, i know He heard my 15 minute warning and appreciated my kind tone. when i feel like i am living in a nation where fewer and fewer people get me or "hear me", i know that He longs to hear my thoughts, that He and He alone has placed desires and convictions in my heart, and He ultimately steers the compass of my life. and even when the words i speak to my very own mother feel as if they are falling on deaf ears, i am assured that the one day, when i behold Him, He will have always heard me and He will hear me then say, "Savior, like a Shepherd LEAD ME!"
here is to hearing and being heard,
~s
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