#smallgraces

With Kimmer’s birthday nearly upon us, my parents decided to treat her to a lovely brunch at Palisade Restaurant in Magnolia. They even told her she could bring me along if she wanted to. ;-)

To get there, though, involved a bunch of juggling ‘cause Linzy was up here with us for Saturday night and we were her ride Sunday. Today. This morning.

See, she’s on the worship team at Silver Creek Family Church not far from where we live and she works at Dolce Blue near 4th and Stewart in downtown Seattle. Up in Lynnwood, the service was gonna be done a little afternoon. Down in Seattle, her shift was gonna start at 1 which, coincidentally, was all the time we were to meet my parents for brunch.

Yesterday, the plan was simply to have Linzy drive her car to downtown a park it wherever she needed to do what she needed to do. After brunch, we’d swing by, pick it up, bring it back to the house.

In the middle of last night, though, Kimmer had a dream about the plan and woke up concluding it to be all wrong. We, instead, would pick her up after church, take her to Cornish (Lenora & Terry) to drop off the cello and guitar she brought with her last night, then drop her off at work shortly thereafter.

It worked, by the way. We left the church parking lot at ten past twelve, got Linzy to Cornish Commons a little after 12:30, got her to work ten minutes early, and rolled into the parking lot of Palisade Restaurant at 1, straight up.

The only thing that didn’t go according to plan was that my mom couldn’t make it. Not the greatest night of sleep for her, last night. So she was still making up for it.

Still, we had a really nice time with my dad over an ever-delicious brunch topped off with Mimosas. Not sure why they’re called that... but they sure are yummy.

We also had a table by the window, front row seats to a stormy afternoon on Eliot bay. 

We’re home now. Kimmer’s finishing up a nap ‘cause we somehow didn’t get the greatest nights of sleep either last night. We did pass some of that involuntarily awake time with an episode-and-a-half of Big Bang Theory, season 4. So it wasn’t a complete waste.

Next up: wake up my wife, go to the gym, and pick up Linzy’s car that’s still in the church parking lot.

Dang it.

I knew there was something we forgot to do earlier.

Twenty four hours now and every breath is full of longing. 

It’s been five weeks since I last held my best friend of six years, my Man. Being away is hard. 

Saying that, is its own struggle. Aren’t I supposed to be stronger? Aren’t there many many much harder things, literally struggles for breath and longings for food right this national, global moment? Yes. But this is still hard for me. And God cares about every little struggle. 

But as I long, the same voice that tries to justify that my hard is hard enough to complain about cuts sharp — “You’re immature, infatuated. Don’t the saints long only for God?”

But quieter in my longing I hear an echo — an echo of God’s longing for every heart, for every single heart that ran so deep it brought him to shaking, suffering, humiliated death. And I hear it soft. 

It’s not this OR God, it’s God IN this. 

Instead of God demanding “Love me like this” he is whispering “this is how I love you.”

With abandon. Enough to ache. Enough to weep. Enough to long. 

Somewhere along the way I misplaced knowing that God feels, wildly, passionately, perfectly, unfathomably.  I love wisdom, and wisdom does make fences, but I’m relearning that those fences are so my heart can breathe safe and I am free to feel. 

If every pang of longing reminds me that my God aches with longing for me, for every soul, what is not holy, what is not lovely, what is not pure about that? 

This God doesn’t want me to rid myself of these mundane loves, he wants to own them, to breathe his spirit into them, to be in every little thing. 

God in my art. God in my stories. God in my commute. God in just how much I love this man.