Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Dinner Question

I start back to school on Monday, a week before the girls go back. It's been a great summer. I've loved having the opportunity to check back in as a mom, wife, daughter and daughter-in-law, sister, friend, granddaughter...

I'm working through the idea of incorporating healthy rhythm in my life as I head back into the full-time work week. Greg and I have had many discussions about the book Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton after she came to speak to our church leaders. I'll try to share updates as we experiment with this idea through trial and much error, I'm sure. I have to personally unpack it a little more before I even attempt to explain some of my thoughts, but I am hoping to get there.

On to dinner...
We had a wonderful time the other evening with some new friends, Stanley and Jenny, we've been wanting to get to know a little better. They turned out to be the type of people you feel like you've known for a long time once you have a real conversation with them (slight disclaimer: Jenny is a counselor, but she was not on the clock).

As I was talking with Jenny, the topic of my personal retreat came up. I had merely introduced the subject when she asked one of those perfect questions that you don't realize you've desperately been wanting someone to ask until you hear it.

"Kelly, what did God say to you that weekend?"

Now, sometimes people ask that question when they shouldn't and it freaks me out. But Jenny isn't like that, and she knew as clearly as I did that there was an answer to that question.

My eyes got a little misty as the surprising strength of that answer formulated itself into words:

"He said, not audibly but certainly, 'I'm so glad you are finally 'going there' with Me. I've been here in the quiet space where you couldn't go, always here even though you couldn't be here yet... And I knew that, so I've waited.'
And I knew with intense certainty that He never left or blinked or abandoned, but orchestrated within a Love that I cannot comprehend."

And I don't want to stop listening, but life is loud, so I'm thinking through that one.

1 comment:

Horn herd mom said...

I really can relate to your last comment "...I don't want to stop listening, but life is loud." Being working through some of my own stuff lately and, in retrospect, feel as though God had spoke to me on it several times before but I completely missed it in the loudness of life. (Well, that and flat out disobedience to what I did hear.) I will join you in thinking and praying on that one!