Snapshots

O God, you have taught me since I was young, and to this day I tell of your wonderful works. Psalm 71:17

Alan simply has better childhood stories than me.  He remembers blow by blow Frankie and LouLou and their bags of candy and the vehicle driving and the graveyard by his parents’ house.  I can’t even remember his stories about his stories.  I just have snippets of my own preschool stories, moments gleaming in soft backlighting.  Snapshots without a soundtrack. 

I can exactly remember sitting on our front wall longingly watching the curve in the road for the boy across the street to come home. Throwing rocks into Mill Creek and looking for lizards on the rounded white granite. Standing with Jenny over the floor heater in the living room watching our dresses blow up.  But most of the moments involved stories. Me sitting with my dad in their big kingsize bed after bathtime reading Little Visits with God.  Once again all the bathed children piled up on the couch in front of the fireplace downstairs, listening to A Little Pilgrim’s Progress. Begging for just one more chapter.  And the clearest moment of all: when the little black marks under the pictures of Little Bear and his Mother suddenly turned into words the kabillionth time my mom read my brand new birthday book from Aunt Carol.  

Maybe that last moment is most telling.  Because that exact instant of revelation is relived day after day.   Those little black marks suddenly turn into His Word- piercing.  One moment nothing. The next moment light.  How can it be fresh every day like manna? 

My little book club struggled through James last night, trying to shake loose a fresh insight.  And it was there, the steadfastness of God, with whom there is no shifting shadow.  We cannot be a wave tossed back and forth. His wisdom and provision are there for the asking- with no rebuke.  And that is the lesson that began in my youth. Life in Southern California, what were my parents thinking of?  Snowstorms heaping over the house, raging floods tossing boulders against a trembling home, furious flames racing over drought dry shrubs- sometimes the earthquakes shook the light over table and tilted the picture frames  so violently we all stood under the doorframes, but I never wavered.  Because in my mind, my parents never wavered.  And yes there is that one last memory repeated over and over again: kneeling by that same couch with the Chinese brocade print and the gold velveteen chairs that I could draw pictures in if the prayers lasted too long, the whole family waiting to see His hand.  Consider it all joy.  One more moment gleaming in soft backlighting.  Simple and straightforward.  Like a child.