LORD, Thou hast searched me, and known me.
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, Thou knowest it altogether.
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139:1-10
The wings of morning are gliding across the Dallas skyline. Big black ravens shake the upright round trees with their chatter. And He is here.
And as I consider the past three years of my life in the world of ACSI, who would have thunk it? What a gift Kathie handed me when she answered my angst of an overwhelming life with, Just quit it.
Unpacking this gift, these 1000 named gifts, has brought new rhythms to my life with mom and dad, new friendships spread throughout the western hemisphere and even across the narrow passageway in the unassuming office on North Wilmot, just a talking-to-myself mutter away. And so many feet up on the magazine table in front of the fire moments in the glowing Tim and Jenny home.
I think the biggest gift has been this too-wonderful-for-me glimpses of His great love and His great work in the hearts and lives of His beloved children–one can only call it universalism– a word full of imperfections and baggage and inaccurate connotations– because His love reaches so far beyond the uttermost parts, and yet, so intimately with the very fearfully and wonderfully made innermost parts of each one of us. Every one of us.
And at this very moment, early morning stirrings are beginning at the 130 million dollar campus at the First Southern Church in downtown Dallas while most likely Dana Mahan is reading goodnight stories to his freshly bathed boys after a dusty afternoon of soccer under the South African sky. 17,500 teachers in the church schools of the Democratic Republic of Congo prepare their thoughts for tomorrow morning, while my sensible and insightful roommate Julie for the past three days is boarding a plane for Pennsylvania where her husband and five children will pick her up and take her to out for Mother’s Day pitas. Ramoncita is roasting coffee beans with handfuls of sugar on a dented sheet of metal behind the green cement house along Cañada del Horno, San José de Ocoa and Heather is hoping that sweet Everette will settle down for just two more hours after yet-another little snack.
So very many moments: wandering the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala with Manual and Marina and Luis, discussing a chance conversation while picking up a few things at the grocery store, pacing nervously in the back of a regional Spelling Bee, an unrequested German boy who met God in the back bedroom, the Holocaust Museum with an unnamed Spaniard, flip flip flip through morning meditations until I arrive at a candle-lit moment at the dining room table, October 25, 2010 when I committed to twenty-eight days of early morning writing...I ran out the door after forty-five minutes and was late to swimming. The Italian was trying to figure out why I was I so long to hear Your voice at four-thirty this morning, and when I was explaining to him my “schedule” (disciplines sound so much more spiritual), he said, half joking, “Why don’t you just say, ‘Your will be done,’ and go back to bed?”
And all of these moments in His book were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
And now, dear LORD, I lift up the rest of the journey to You, wherever it may wend. Reminded and comforted that You are with me, and in fact I cannot escape Your attention and knowing.
Lead me in the way everlasting.
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