Read, Write, Love, Repeat

Isn’t it strange what you miss when someone leaves your home?  After much anticipation (on my part at least!), our college student daughter spent four weeks with us to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, her first visit to our new home in Texas. Looking around the house after she returned to college in California a couple of weeks ago, I found I not only missed her, I missed the evidence that’s she’s here. During her visit, even if I couldn’t hear her voice in the house or see her face, I could always tell she was staying with us.

When she’s in our home she comes into my bathroom every morning to get ready with me, preparing for wherever the day will take us.  This is a practice I love, one started last summer before she went away to college.  We chat, drink our coffee or tea, put on makeup, do our hair, and watch Dance Moms on my iPad.  (Don’t judge.  We moms do whatever we can to get our young adult daughters to hang out with us, am I right?)  Her makeup (in colors not meant for a woman my age), her impressive assortment of makeup brushes, and hair products that aren’t mine are on the counter or next to the bathtub. Evidence that she’s spending that time with me.

And they’re not there when she’s at college.

When she’s in the house (now and before she went away to college) there’s always a thin layer of flour on the kitchen counters from the baking she loves to do, one of the ways she shows love to those around her.  There’s always a scrunched up pillow and fuzzy throw in “her” corner of our family room couch.  No matter how often I straighten them up, minutes later the couch is again in disarray.  I know she’s made herself comfortable.

And it’s not that way when she’s not here.

When our daughter is with us, ALL the small forks get used.  Every day.  And there are always multiple water glasses sitting on the counter.   I can tell she’s eaten and is staying hydrated.  Evidence that she’s here.

But when she’s gone, none of the small forks get used and far fewer glasses are seen.

There’s evidence that I’ve been with her, too.  She loves fun and creative makeup so she encourages me to try things I wouldn’t necessarily do on my own: a bold lip, green eyeshadow, contouring.  She often does my makeup for me when we’re together, in fact.  I can tell I’ve been with her when I look in the mirror and see her influence.

I know these artifacts are evidence of our daughter’s presence in our home because I know her.  I known her stuff.  I know her habits. I know what she likes and what makes her comfortable.  I know what it looks like when she’s working, living, and active in our family.

How often do we struggle, my friends, with not hearing from God or seeing His face?  I know I’ve been in that place so many times, feeling so dry and so removed from his presence.

What if, in those hard times, I could remind myself to look for the evidence around me that He is right there, even if I can’t see or hear Him?  The places that wouldn’t be the same if He hadn’t touched them, the situations that wouldn’t work if He didn’t work in them.  Evidence that He is there even if I can’t hear Him or see Him.  I know He is always at work behind the scenes.  Always.  Even when I can’t see His face, but I have to remind myself to look for the evidence, He is still at work.

And can I see evidence of His work in  me?  Showing that I have spent time with Him, been worked on by Him?  Things that I wouldn’t do (or COULDN’T do) on my own look different because I have been with Him.  More evidence.

Just as I know my daughter’s stuff because I know her so well, may I learn more and more to know my Father’s fingerprints on my life, my circumstances, my world, because I know my Father.

May I Look hard and notice.  He is working.

For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it.  He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls in people as they lie in ther beds. He whispers in their ears and terrifies them with warnings.  He makes them turn from doing wrong: he keeps them from pride.  He protects them from the grave, from crossing over the river of death.  Job 33:14-17

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