It is Tuesday morning and I just finished breakfast with three of the grandsons. Michael was feeding Mead and I was helping Matthew and Mason. Oatmeal was the dish du’jour with applesauce on the side. It was a relatively calm night. Mead woke at 12 for his bottle and at three for the pleasure of it. Mason woke crying at 6:15, missing his mama. Suddenly I am thirty three again, juggling babies and cooking meals, running carpool to preschool and trying to keep up with the wash. Now I remember why I was tired all the time. As I sat rocking Mead at three in the morning, it occurred to me that we are all on the way to the same place… different arrival times but the same destination.
We are all traveling to the “I AM” by becoming our own reflections of the one “I AM”. God gave the “I AM” name as noun and verb so that we might have both process and destination for our living here on earth. When Mead pushes me away, when Matthew tells me I have hurt his feelings, when Mason calls my name and laughs as he walks in my shoes, when I groan at the three a.m. wake up call, we are each becoming the “I AM”. How much fun/pain/grief/joy/grace there is in being and becoming the I AM. Watching and being with my grandchildren heightens the awareness of my own growth towards God as I watch how they grow.
Our children had their different heights marked on the door frame as they grew. Like those painted over pencil marks, our signs of growth are covered over with the passing of time if we don’t make time to remember. These are some of my I AM signs… verbs… mother loving, eight tracking, multi-tasking, art creating , writing, giggling, weeping, making music and hearing music in my soul…nouns… daughter, woman, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, writer, calligrapher, lover of cows, farms and mountains, child of God. What is the Great I AM calling me to be and what is my destination?
Perhaps God wants for me what I wanted for my children and for my grandchildren. God wants me to have joy, joy that is more than just happy, joy that runs like a bubbly underground spring popping to the surface with laughter and giggles as I feel the Love that called me into being. God wants me to have a purpose in my being, work that not only does what is necessary to sustain life but work that also creates life in my being. Sometimes these works are the same thing, often they are two separate experiences. Most of all, I think, God calls us to be grateful. My grandchildren’s “thank you’s” sweeten the giving. I give them something they love… a rubber snake, construction paper, crayons… and we share the gratitude for giving and getting. How can I not be grateful for this most wonderful gift of life? How can I not sing my gratitude every day?
Few of us are called to be Prophets of the Big Picture. Most of us are called to be Ministers of the Miniscule…tending to children, cleaning house, making meals, balancing the checkbook (or trying to), showing up for PTA meetings and Sunday School, going to work and coming home. Now and then in the middle of our everyday lives, the I AM knocks on our front door, sits by us as we listen to NPR on our way to work, shines in the faces of our grandchildren night and day, even at three a.m. As I live this day tending to the many small tasks that await my attention, I am looking for the I AM, hoping for a revelation, a sign, a chance to hug God and say “thank you” for this most amazing life.
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