Happy Mother’s Day morn…
“Sue, good morning,” she wrote yesterday, “I must tell you how tenderly God cared for all the details in my mom’s life as she gracefully aged. I retired from work to take of our elderly parents three years before my mom died. I was working for several medical practices at Northside and had a card to get into the parking deck for free. I never was sure which of my groups was paying for my parking and just gratefully accepted it. I would take my mother at least once a month to the doctor for infusions she needed and parked in that same parking deck.”
She continued to explain: “To my surprise and delight, my parking card continued to work after I retired so I never had to pay to take Mom to the doctor. Well, she passed away in January. I had a doctor’s appointment for myself last week and went to park in that same deck. For the first time in over three years my card didn’t work!”
She sensed God’s subtle provision: “God kept that card working the whole time my mom needed it and turned it off when she didn’t need it anymore! Can you believe He cares about something as small as a $6.00 parking charge?! I was blown away and filled with gratitude for how tenderly He cared for my mom. Have a great Mother’s Day! Love you.”
“This is so beautiful, so tender, so detailed, so God,” I responded. “I know the LORD must love it when we notice His invisible hand pulling the tiniest string in our everyday life. Noticing the Spirit’s movement is the first step, giving thanks is our next step, and finally sharing the story of these small God-moments makes God more real to all of us.”
Thinking back on our week of learning, I tried to glimpse more of God: “Some might say, ‘If God can have a sister call a sister at the very moment a tragedy is unfolding, and God can nudge a friend to call a friend from states away during a time of intimate loss, and God can mysteriously pay a parking fee for over three years, why doesn’t God keep a shooter from shooting?’ I suppose it has something to do with hardness of heart. The more attentive we are to the flow of God’s love in our ordinary lives, the more we see, sense, and share God’s love spreading out everywhere. When our self-protective layers get so thick and so hard, the guiding voice of God-in-us is silenced. We become like fish out of water, removing ourselves from the flow of eternal love, piling on more self-protective hate. As we disconnect from our awareness of God’s loving ever-presence, God’s enemy gradually begins taking over more of our mind, more of our time, distorting more and more of our daily decisions.”
I concluded: “I get on my inner tippy-toes each morning trying to sort out the jumble of life. I want to understand more keenly this loving God we are created to flow with freely, effortlessly, day and night. Thanks for sharing your sweet parking fee story. Simple stories like yours pick up God’s pulse and make our living LORD more tangibly real. Happy Mother’s Day to you too!”
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
“To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
Why do you complain…?
Why do you say…
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:21-31, NIV).
If God strengthens us tirelessly, day in and night out, might our daily job be simply to notice God’s loving provision, to freely give thanks, and to generously share our God-glimpse? Our LORD’s loving presence is designed to expand through us every day to make God tangibly real to more and more weary people.
…Sue…
P.S. Give yourself the gift of touching six times on the “Previous” tab at the top of this post to quietly catch the movement of God growing among us this one-of-a-kind week.
