In the Stillness

Its evening and from where I sit at the dining room table, tapping keys, I can hear the voices tripping down the stairs. Sent to bed over a half hour ago, I hear D's voice "reading" to her little sister - now and then little feet hopping out of bed to scurry to the bookshelf and back. I glance at the clock and decide to leave them to it - I remember being small and chatting with my sister in our snug bedroom at night. Some things (sisters?) are sacred.

Jo-boy coughs from his bedroom and then is silent and I imagine him tossing over on his stomach, eyelids thick and closed, breathing heavy, deep and slow.

In the living room, B is putting the finishing touches on something he is working on in his journal. The lamplight shines over his face, forehead creased in concentration. Occasionally he asks me how to spell a word and we work through it together.

And there's nothing really remarkable about any of this, nothing especially out of the ordinary - a normal night at home.

But perhaps its the commonplace that is calling to my heart tonight - the natural rhythms that pierce my heart and beg for a closer look.

God shows his brilliance in the ordinary. He historically chose humble people in regular quiet lives to be key players in His story.

Yet so often I find myself looking for the spectacular and ignoring the still and the small - which is where He is.

" And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."

1 Kings 19:11-12

I'm embracing the commonplace - and the One who meets me there.