Meetings with God

This mama doesn’t get out of the house very often (which is fine with me!), and so the lessons the Father teaches me are most often found in my everyday life, my children and their spiritual development. I’m so grateful that He meets me where I am!

Today, it finally happened.

I’ve been waiting and waiting. Hoping. Longing.

Eliana brought me her slipper.

It fell off when she was pushing her baby in the stroller, and from where I was in the kitchen, I watched her stop, pick it up, and contemplate it for a moment. Then a light bulb seemed to click on, and she looked around anxiously until she spotted me at my post, where I pretended I wasn’t watching and stirred the pot nonchalantly.

Quickly she made her way over to me, making a nonsense sound that ended with a question mark, and held out her pink butterfly slipper.

I swooped down to her level. “Oh, you lost your slipper! Do you want me to put it back on for you?” I asked. She clapped her hands (her sign for please) and plopped down on her fat diaper.

As I slid the slipper back on to her tiny foot and watched her toddle back to her toys, the significance of the moment was not lost on me.

Usually, the baby who lost her slipper either (a) didn’t even notice, or (b) screamed and threw a fit when she couldn’t get it back on by herself. I had been waiting for her to recognize that instead of wailing and carrying on, she could just ask me for help.

As the day passed, she brought me her empty water cup, her baby whose hat would not stay on, and patted my leg, signing the word “Lovey”, for her special rag. There wasn’t a tantrum to be seen, nor did I spy any indifference to her plights. She asked, and I helped.

How is it that Eliana has known me as her food source for sixteen months, and yet when it came to something she could not do on her own, it took her that long to figure out I was also a source of help?

Like a chant, the words ask, seek, knock began to trail through my mind. And like so many other moments in this Mama’s life, I sensed the Father was showing me something.

Beloved, I’ve always been here. You needn’t carry on so; I will help, if only asked.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:7-12)

His is the food source above all others. I know this. But so many, many times, I fumble about on my own, and carry on in frustration as I struggle to get by, rather than asking for help and trusting that He will come to my rescue.

In asking for and receiving His aid, I am learning how to live and lead, just as Eliana will soon learn how to put on her own slipper, just by mimicking my motions. It’s so much more, really, than receiving help; it’s accepting guidance that will lead us into His will for our lives.

And for you, I pray that your eyes may be opened to the beautiful sight of the Father, coming to meet you where you are.