[Adventure] in Seeing God

 

[Adventure 22]

When friends text or call and ask for help out of a bind, you can usually predict what type of bind that will be by the friend that's asking. But with some friends, you just have no idea what to expect. 

I got one such text the other day. The favor that was needed was to record myself talking about where I saw God this week.

I could have talked about seeing God in the faces of my church congregation as we prayed and sang and communed together on Sunday morning during Drive-In Church in the church parking lot. Or how I saw God at work through our church's food ministry. But that seemed to obvious. Too easy. Too big picture. But we're in quarantine here. I barely go anywhere - just to church to record music or play ukulele and sing ... or to medical appointments ... or to take children to medical appointments ... or to visit my parents. We barely ever even go to a store these days. In the moment I said yes, I also may have panicked just a little about what it was that I was going to say. Suddenly I couldn't remember a single thing I'd done all week. 

It was then that all the places I'd seen God flooded into my consciousness. 

I saw God in my husband's eyes as he pushed me in my wheelchair down a Rails to Trails path while our children set up a 25th anniversary celebration for us at home. And in the love and care our children put into the celebration.

I saw God in the tears of a doctor overwhelmed with hope upon talking about having received the covid-19 vaccine.

I heard God in the words of a pastor proclaiming to LGBTQIA+ people everywhere that they are beloved children of God, valid and valued and worthy of God's love and ours.

I experienced God in a middle of the night chat with one of my night owl (or fellow insomniac) children.

I glimpsed God in the patience of a grandchild as they repeated themselves for their grandparent with Alzheimer's with just as much excitement or humor as they did the first several times they said the same thing.

I saw God's blessings upon my life while washing a sinkful of dishes and sorting a mountain of laundry because they meant that not only am I blessed with my husband and my children - and my children's significant others - but also with food and clothing, a home and running water, and something to keep my OCD entertained when I can't sleep.

I witnessed God's grace through an argument that, instead of turning ugly, transformed into an opportunity for learning, healing, and forgiveness.

I encountered God in both opportunities to be of service to others and through the thoughtful care I received from others.  

Most of all, I saw God through a simple question asked by a friend- a question that made me pause, that wrenched me out of the pain-filled misery I had been experiencing in that moment, and opened my eyes to God's beautiful and bountiful work in my life; that reminded me that even on my worst days, even amidst quarantine and all the difficult and dangerous things going on in our world, God is present in the care of those around me and in the things I can do and be for others - that all I need to do - all any of us needs to do - to experience God in our lives is to share God's love with others and to be open to receiving God's love in its infinite forms.