Two months ago I said goodbye to my Nanna… within hours her
witty self and love for life, the way her eyes would light up with excitement
could no longer be expressed in this physical realm.
She took her last breath… and her Spirit left this earth. She breathed out onto my dad, her son
that she brought into this world as she left this world.
We’re fragile… I get too hot and feel irritable… a few too
many kids climbing on me at one time, and stepping on my feet sometimes just
makes me want to break out into an all out sprint… Or the other night a plethora of bugs and mosquitoes were
attacking me and my sanity was seriously questioned.
Okay I’ll be real – haha, sometimes in my dreams, I conjure
up ideas about me being hard core
– I’ve run a marathon, I’ve climbed a series of sizeable Irish mountains
with less than a litre of water, I can cycle Gulf-Island sized inclines without
tapping into the lowest gear, I’ve rowed and sailed through stormy seas…
but actually all I have is my skin covering my veins and
organs and unfortunately my fair,
see-through skin bruises like a peach and a small scratch may cause blood to
draw. (And how do any of these
“accomplishments” matter anyway…?
Are they lasting, do they leave a mark of love)
Sometimes I feel what David is expressing in Psalm 139
verses 13, 15. I feel that I’ve
been knit together in my mothers’
womb, that I was woven together in
the depths of the earth. Yah it’s
like I’m a series of knots combined together but one aggravated frayed strand
could have me unraveled…
I feel that
this is saying I’m just composed and held together by God’s grace.
Ingrid Michalelson sings “Have you ever though about what
protects our hearts: a cage of rib
bones and other various parts. “
Yah. Fragile
hey.
And this breath.
This breath that my Nanna breathed in, out…and then… stopped.
The Lord formed man from the dust of this ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living
being. Genesis 2:7.
Do I even have control over my next breaths?
A sweet and awesome girl on my team has asthma that India
hasn’t been very kind to. She
often has to take her puffer, tonight we all laughed and imitated her
puffer-inhaling expression and series of noises -but another reminder. Our faltering breath, that thing we do
that we can’t live without, first breathed into us.
Sometimes when I held these little beloved ones I was with
at SCH in Ongole, I could feel their fragility. I could feel their little bodies and their seemingly
weightless, precious limbs.
I would put my hand over their heart and feel the rhythm of heir
heartbeats. These little miracles discarded by society and glady given away by
the government are woven together, held together with the same grace that holds
me together. They may depend on
more medicine to control seizures or maybe they need to be carried to a lunch
date instead of walking, (haha yes that was my pleasure) but their heartbeats
carry on the same way mine does and their next breath comes in the same way
mine is given.
Yahweh.
Grace. Something out of my
control.
This morning God gave me a gift. I was reminded of my frailty, my lack, my brokeness. I woke up and I actually
couldn’t continue until I was still and broken before God.
So I’m here, in Calcutta,
just trying to love, trying to care, just trying to give out from what I’ve
received – just trying to give what I’ve already been given. But I can’t do this a lot of the
time. This morning I was reminded
of my need to come before God, return to the ground where He made me from dust
and allow myself to receive what only He can give, and realize who He is.
(Haha, literally I lied down on the mat on a cement ground I
sleep on.)
All this is encouraging. This is sort of why I’m here. I knew that coming on this trip would empty myself of my own
ability to operate and bring myself to more dependence on my Rock, my Redeemer
– who makes all things new, my strong and mighty tower, my provider, my
strength and protector.
As I returned to my “bed” and went back to sleep as the others
carried on with the morning, the Lord was breathing more sweet life into
me. Letting me know and experience
more of who my Pappa is, my sustainer.
I believe He was teaching me -and saying I’m giving you a new well to draw from. Out of His great love and compassion
that are new every morning, He helps me to stop drawing from my old cisterns, that
cannot hold water (Jeremiah 2:13).
He is living water and I will draw up joy (Isaiah 12: 3) from the
wellspring of true life given to me every day my wonderful sustainer chooses
to. I am glad, something new
is coming to fill my emptiness.
