Walking

This morning as I sit with my cup of coffee, my Bible, and my view ...  overlooking the leaves that have lived their short days of Fall - dying on the vines  ... I'm struck by a few of the most profound things that has surfaced to the top of an experience I've had this week.

Parents know their children.  From the day these little human creatures make their way down the birth canal and wind up wrapped in clean blankets - laid upon Mamma's chests - they are somehow known by their parents.  The little way they stretch their tiny little appendages reminds a Momma of movement inside her miracle incubator tummy.  The way she makes a tiny little face when Daddy feeds her too much oatmeal ... known and etched in a Daddy's heart.  Those fleeting days of intimacy lay deep foundations when they leave the nest.  A feeling, a knowing, a catch in our Spirits ... we may not know the details but we can feel the outline of the specific activity that is occurring in our child.  Parents know.

God uses other people.  From the first moment I heard the story of Christmas, I longed to be a fly on the wall of the nativity.  As a little girl with a very vivid imagination, Christmas stories of Jesus' birth always included me, somehow in full costume, incorporate in the events.  In my mind, I wanted to so badly be there in that moment when eternity crashed real time.  My whole life I've wanted to touch God ... see His face ... be physically near Him.  One day that will be possible.  But now in the "Zwischen Ziet" - a great German phrase for "in the meantime" ... God sends people as His representatives that I can "touch" in some way ... and who inevitable "touch" my life.  God has profoundly given people to comfort, guide, expose, enlighten, encourage, and be givers of gifts.

There's no place like home.  The Elledge's have been the most grateful recipients of the gift of a plane ticket ... that brings the one that has lived so far away from us ... home.  Home.  I am already envisioning my blond-haired beauty walking through the arrival gates at the Vienna airport.  I already know what I am going to wear.  I am counting down the days.  I've been planning meals that I know will warm her tiny little belly and fill her with a sense of "home".  I've been creating long periods of "blank space" on my calendar while she is "home".  I can already picture her in her bed, with her blanket.  I can't wait for this girl to get "home".    "Home" where she can sleep late, let down, cry, laugh, gripe, be made fun of (nothing mean) and joke around, get on the nerves of her siblings one moment and encourage them the next.  To hear her laugh at something I do and see her smooch on her sisters cheeks.  Wherever we all are ...  is ... home.

At the risk of making this way too long of a blog, the biggest thing I've learned is how to grieve alongside another.  I've been in a season where I know the Spirit has been teaching me things.  It's not always been fun.  It's not always been visible.  I've felt myself in the classroom, taking notes, being prepared.  When the unexpected happened this week, my response took me by surprise.  Instead of saying the proverbial "I told you so" ... instead of some personal satisfaction in being "right" ... came an overwhelming ability to grieve.  As they hurt, I hurt.  The details didn't matter.  The heart mattered.

That's when I heard and felt the Spirit smile.  That's what He had been teaching me.  When I lean into Him, I'm going to respond out of instinct like He does.  When we hurt, He hurts.  He's not an accusing Father with pointer finger shaking in our face.  His arms are open ready for us to fall into them.  He doesn't care what we did before, He only cares we are there and falling into His arms.

This week was a first.  In our family nucleus, we experienced a life event that none of us has traversed through.  The waters have been strong with emotional undercurrents.  The distance of being on two different continents has escalated the pain.  We are still walking through the ordeal ... but walking through we are!

walking and learning,
christina