The Miracle of the Moment
I sit in the Saint Louis airport for an extended layover for the second time in 6 days with a very full heart. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when my heart is too full, the overflow spills out of my eyes as tears. There are a lot of emotions that come with unexpected delays, and processing them can be overwhelming. So, I’m going to do what works best for me — and write it out.
When I was home, I came across my journal from my study abroad trip to Costa Rica in 2000. For a week, twenty or so other twenty-somethings and I traveled the country learning about agriculture - and mostly, each other. At the end of that trip, I wrote about sharing a Saturday evening pizza with three that I’d become pretty close with and how that special-ness, that once-in-a-lifetime-ness of that moment wasn’t lost on me. “Even if we get pizza together in Ames, it won’t be the same. There is just something so powerful about being in the moment.”
Even at 20, I understood something about the power of the moment. Of this time right now, and how special it is. That this time right now — that’s our gift. And even at 20, the fleeting aspect of the moment tugged at my heart. It’s that blend of the bitter and the sweet — in the height of your joy, the knowledge this isn’t coming around again.
I tend to throw myself into the moment. My goal is to be as present as possible where I am. What results is that I end up sharing my heart as completely as I can with those others. …and then, when it comes to goodbye, my heart is left incomplete. It is full —and also, empty - because I’ve left part of it behind with my new (or old) friends. (For those into CliftonStrengths, this is Connectedness for me —and Adaptability)
I share all this because I’ve had a leaky heart all afternoon. Yes, it is because I’m tired. And also, because I have the time to reflect. And especially, because I left a little of my heart behind.
Twelve years ago, I wrote a Facebook note about noticing the miracles of the moment. I wrote about the gifted miracle from God to recognize that maybe what frustrated or confounded me might actually be a miracle, a gift from God — if I had the eyes of faith to see it that way. And I mused that those eyes of faith come when we are thankful. When we give God thanks for the situation, even when it makes no sense to us, God may gift us with the eyes to see the happenings from His point of view. …and what we will witness is a miracle.
Today, there’s a couple of little miracles that keep coming to mind. One is the feeling of my niece Taylor wrapping me in a hug while we walked after Thanksgiving dinner. In that moment, my teenage niece chose to run after Nigel, my dad, and me. Walking along with her on a deserted gravel road with the sun setting and her arm around my shoulder is a moment I treasure.
The other moment is recognizing my name shouted by my niece Treva. My niece is turning 6 on Wednesday, has Down’s Syndrome and is quite verbal, but not quite understandable. It’s hard to describe her as nonverbal, because the girl has A LOT to say. She works with a speech therapist and has made such improvements. Because she is so talkative, it is hard (emotionally for me) to hear her chattering and not be able to understand. For me, being understood is so important - so I think it hits me harder. While listening to her on Thursday night, her chatter reminded me of speaking in tongues. I realized that God knows what she’s saying, and so I should ask the Holy Spirit to help me understand. That night I realized that she was saying my name. Friday night, during our joint birthday party (our birthdays are 16 days apart), I swear I heard her yell, “Aunt Jessica, Help!” I ran into the living room where she and her brother were rough-housing…. Miracles abound if we know how to see.
It’s so easy to say each day is a gift; it is much harder to live that way. I know I can get too wrapped up in the busyness and the to-dos and focus more on frustrations than on looking for the gift that is only coming in this day. Today wraps up our church’s liturgical year. Tomorrow begins a new year with Advent. How will you find a way to walk by faith? To look for miracles in our present moment? May God by the gifting and grace of His Holy Spirit make this lesson bear fruit in our lives in a new way this coming year.
May God bless you and keep you, friends.
