I wonder as I wander.

I will confess You among the peoples, O LORD; I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your loving-kindness is greater than the heavens, and Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Psalm 108:3

The Voelkel women are putting on their traveling shoes. And in each of our heart of hearts the underlying pulse is to sing praises to Him among the nations. To celebrate His goodness, His beauty and His great lovingkindness.

How does one prepare for the great unknown? And while in truth each day lies before me as a great written-before-the-birth-of-time yet I have not yet turned the page Book of Life it is certainly underscored as I prepare to step into the byways of unpronounceable provinces.

It is one thing to start packing. Um, different styles abound, as Nicole prepares for the Congolese bush by spray painting her tiny tent with gold and green and blue stencils. Mary Anne has researched and found the perfect traveling electric hair curler. I am hand stitching together a baby quilt for Simone who is arriving any day.

And there is the other thing, the promise.

For the LORD God is both sun and shield; He will give grace and glory. Psalm 84:10

And Audry sang to me on my new Mother’s Day music from Cameron:

I wonder as I wander under the sky

How Jesus the Savior did come for to die

For poor on’ry people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

What does it all mean?

Poor on’ry people.

The headlines are full of them in heartbreaking lack of detail. Blurbs of bits. And behind each lead there is a swirling backstory and aches and fears and minor triumphs that are quickly ground up like the morning coffee beans.

Poor on’ry people.

May I know His lovingkindness. Greater than the heavens.

His mercy reaching to the sky.

And a Madeleine L’Engle quote is circulating around Facebook this morning, amidst the bathroom jokes and San Francisco’s homeless crisis:We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

So lovely.

As I slide on my now quite faded Keens and step out the door.