TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

“He does my hair everyday,” she says while dipping her eyes down to her sturdy cane, adding under her breath, “because I can’t.”

I was at church, & the conversation slipped from exchanging Mother’s Day wishes to haircuts & how, though she won’t trust him to cut it, her husband manages her hair every day, curling iron & all, every day.

Every day.

& somehow the only words that come to mind are perfect love because I don’t need to watch this man lower his macho & raise his arms in worship to see Christ.

I see you, Jesus. I see you in the image of a husband waking up every morning to take care of his wife’s hair when she can no longer do so.

My grandfather used to carry my grandmother to the bathroom every time she had to go when she was dying of ALS. His oil stained hands & mechanic shirt, making there way over to her hospital bed in their small living room with the deep green carpet, & shift all her weight into his arms when she was too weak.

I see you, Jesus. I’m crying because I see you.

“So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food & drink & to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.” (Ecclesiastes 2:24)

I’ve been thinking on this for days now, & though it doesn’t seem to connect, I think it does.

Because his yoke is easy & his burden is light.

Sometimes I think we forget that.

Everyones always saying to dream big, & if it doesn’t intimidate you its not big enough. & do I think that God wants his people to travel the world speaking his words, to plant churches, to donate large clumps of money to wells overseas? Yes. Totally. That is the God I know. But the God I know also is constantly concerned with the ones forgotten. The simple. The least of these. & sometimes we aren’t being called to do something incredibly drastic. Sometimes he needs us to be him where we are.

Sometimes he needs us to rock our babies a bit longer, to be a good friend to the girl down the hall, to pick up the curling iron & help the one whose body won’t listen, to carry our wife to the bathroom multiple times a day.

Sometimes he needs us to be people in a community who are willing to put down their tightly woven schedules & say here am I. I’ll go.

I’ll cook double the meal to take to their family. I’ll go to the hospital to be with that one. I’ll invite that one to sleep on the couch.

This is where I am.

We’re in a two bedroom apartment when we need three.
Our lease is up in August.

In my mind about a month ago, these two sentences were interwoven with one meaning:

I’VE GOT FOUR MONTHS TO FIND A NEW APARTMENT OR HOUSE OR SOMETHING. Call this place. Look there. Let’s check that out. Go on that website.

I was so driven to go, go, go, I hadn’t even considered staying here another season or living out these four months as if I still live here with purpose.

Honestly, I don’t even know what changed or when. But suddenly my neighbor responded to a week old message & there we were hanging out every day, & from there it was like a snowball of distractions where next thing you know I’m looking at my husband with a peace I couldn’t grasp before, telling him I think we need to stay.

God will use us when we open our arms to his plans.
Open your arms. Invite him to fill your day & see what happens.
In the simple, in the least of these. His love is strong.
His love his seen.