The dancing girl recently started leaning in and whispering secrets. Currently most conversations are whispered into my Mama ears... and it tickles. :)
The spunky girl is convinced that she always has an idea that just might be one up from the instruction that I just gave her.
The littlest boy, the charmer, throws me that captivating smile while flaunting his marker-covered forehead, holding up the bright pink culprit in his pudgy little hand.
And then my Siah, well he wants to know what's real. Consistently constant. This boy of mine is always in wonder.
"Mom, are the people in this book real?"
"Mom, is the golden gate bridge real?"
"What about Sleeping Beauty? Real?"
"The people on the radio? Real?"
"The starving kids? Real?"
"Our Bible stories? Real?"
"Jesus? Real?"
All day long, he's trying to figure out this thing called REAL.
And he not only wants to know what, but how?
How do we know? And can we really know? Can we really know and still rest in an element of mystery? Or, can we only really know what we can fully explain?
I think about his consistently constant questions.
I think about the Lord and all the things that I don't understand.
I think about the season that I watched my own Mama. That first hour after she told me. I can still feel the steam, and the way my skin felt, as I wept deeply in the shower. A conversation with my Jesus, a conversation that surprised me and changed me for all time and for His glory.
How do we know that the things we can't always explain are really the realest of all real?
The confidence comes in the most humble of circumstances.
It comes when I'm standing alone in a shower, a heart dripping in utter brokenness. And there in my own darkest moment, He gives me His eyes, and enables me to see... To see what it is that He sees.
Because when I wanted to ask "why", when I wanted to know more than anything that He was willing, that He was able, that He was REAL, He did the most unlikely of things and lead to me to the most unexpected answers.
Is there anyone around who can explain God?
Anyone smart enough to tell Him what to do?
Anyone who has done Him such a huge favor that
God has to ask his advice?
Everything comes from Him;
Everything happens through Him;
Everything ends up in Him.
Always glory! Always Praise!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Romans 11:33-36
He doesn't tell me why but He tells me that He is trustworthy.
And how can one watch her own Mama slip away and simultaneously find a place to rest her heart?
He is real.
He is real.
And isn't it true that we only really know what no man can take away from us?
We only really know what we've seen with our eyes, what we've known in our hearts, what has changed us so deeply in the marrow of our bones.
And if the eyes on our heads haven't seen it, the eyes of our hearts surely have.
My eyes have not yet seen the wind, Oh, but my skin has surely felt it... and knows it to be true.
I stood there in that shower and I found clarity in the blur of a fast-moving river of tears.
He-is-trustworthy. HE-IS-TRUSTWORTHY.
I can say it with confidence because I've seen the work of His hands with my very own eyes.
And He is real.
I know this to be true...
Because countless times He's shown up and brought me into Himself.
Because He took the loss of my Mama and showed me His glory.
Because He took my boys home and strengthened the heart strings of my marriage.
Because He showed up in the jungles of Costa Rica when I thought I just might die from virus and He showed me Himself and this seemingly contradicting truth that there really is a way to consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds. (james 1:2)
Because despite myself, He's growing me up daily under this farmhouse roof, with this Cowboy, and these many small treasures, and He's giving me insight into how to daily love on them and live for His glory.
It doesn't always make a whole lot of sense but despite the extent of my understanding (or lack there-of), He-is-trustworthy.
****************
And this morning when my Siah asked me if the Jesus that we read about in that little blue book each morning, was real...
I told him yes...
And then he asked, " But how do you know?"
And all I could think to do, was to encourage him to find out for himself.
"Sweet boy of mine, Ask Him."
"Ask Him what, Mom?"
"Ask Him to make Himself real to you.
He can and He will.
And that's how you'll know.
Because you can't deny what your eyes have seen and what your heart has experienced. Mama can tell you all day long that He's real, but what you really need to know, is that He's made himself real to you personally."
There is a mystery about God. A mystery that makes Him the one and only true God. But He is gracious enough to show Himself to us. Show us in such a way that no matter who wants to refute, there is no denying what His mighty hands have done in our souls, in our very lives. :)
He is real.
He is the realest of all things real.
