How Much More

It's been a while since my last post. It's been an even longer while since I've talked about things of any spiritual significance. This is not because things haven't been happening, but because they take a while to percolate enough to write about them. The last couple of months have really kicked me into "process everything!" mode. Quite unlike myself, though, I've been processing slowly, and without my typical tendency to pressure myself. It has been kind of wonderful.

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about is how God shows up in daily things. This is not, for me, a given in the past few years. I'd like to share a couple of moments whose significance is hard to put into words, except to say that I felt them deeply. I think they made me think of God in ways I hadn't before. 

I was babysitting one evening for the family I nanny for. My fellas (ages 5 and 2) were fast asleep upstairs, and I was relaxing on the couch with a book. I started hearing some noises on the baby monitor and figured one of them was awake. I sat for a little while listening, then decided to go up and check on them. What I didn't yet know was that my 2 year old had woken up and come out of his room to stand at the top of the stairs. We couldn't see each other because the stairway curves, and he was standing there listening. As soon as my foot hit the bottom step, he heard me and called out tentatively, not quite sure if I was there, "Emmy?" These kinds of feelings are hard to describe without sounding super cheesy, but it is what it is: sort of a twist in your heart, a deep tenderness and protectiveness, the kind of love that aches a little. I immediately called out to him so he'd know I was nearby and took the steps two at a time in my hurry to reassure him that he wasn't alone. 

The second moment happened just now. I'm pet-sitting this week, and one of the animals I'm caring for is a sweet little cat named Harley. She has been declawed, and as such is often uncertain of herself in leaping from place to place. I was sitting at the counter in the kitchen and I glanced over and saw her standing on a chair about three feet away, looking intently at me. I could see she wanted to get in my lap, so I shifted one knee slightly closer to her. Never having interacted much with a declawed cat, I expected her to just hop across. My cat would do it in a heartbeat. But instead of jumping, she reached her paw out hesitantly to touch my knee. Afraid to put her weight onto it, she drew back. Suddenly, I understood that while she was perfectly capable of making the jump, she knew that if she slipped when she landed, she would fall off my lap. I straightened out my legs and propped my feet on the chair she was sitting on to make a bridge for her, and she crawled happily across and curled up in my lap. 

I try to be careful with metaphors and allegories, because no one thing is ever truly like another. Nevertheless, comparisons help us understand things that are difficult to process otherwise. I don't think there's any other way to say it: in a way, I'm a child standing at the top of the stairs in footie pajamas, wondering if I've woken up to an empty house. And I'm a cat contemplating a leap with absolutely no certainty that I'll be able to get a grip on my landing place. Matthew 7:9-11 says this: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew appeals to the kindness and tenderness that we are already familiar with in ourselves. What he's challenging us to do is remind ourselves, each time we extend mercy or kindness or love towards someone else, that our love is an infinitessimaly small picture of the love God extends. My heart responded instinctively to a little boy calling out my name. At the time I thought, "I wonder if God feels something like that when I call Him?" My own approach is still tentative, but I think that according to the book of Matthew the answer might be, "How much more does God's heart respond when you call out to him in uncertainty and fear!" I hope so.