look closely
I start our dinner in the morning so that the smell of simmering will bring warmth to the house all day. This is also my preemptive strategy to avoid that moment in the weary hours when cooking no longer feels like an art and I murmur there’s still supper, forgetting the ever-constant whisper of the Spirit urging me to look closely and beyond and eternally, instead of through eyes that waste away.
I slice into an onion, pressing my fingers into the purple red layers—purple like lavendar in the sun, red like rich blood—and the knife cut reveals the perfect shape of a heart, white at the edges. I reach for my phone to take a picture, because I’ve learned to collect details like treasures gathered in my arms, stuffed fat in my pockets. Sometimes I freeze-frame the tiniest things—the grip of my daughter’s hands on a blanket wrapped crooked around her legs, dew drops like diamonds scattered on a thin black limb, the sleep rumpled collection of my family around the table for breakfast. They giggle over my pausing, the way I say wait and get up, but they are generous over my collection of gifts. I stop short this time, realizing that Zoe has the phone at the bar, that she uses it to talk to my mom. If I move it, I will break the sanctity of their conversation. I knew this, of course, that they were so absorbed. Their voices had made the rumpled background for my thoughts since the moment I turned on the speaker to free my hands for slicing and Zoe scrambled over and lifted the phone, calling, “Grandma, Grandma,” launching into sentences before Mom could even reply.
Look closely. Savor now. Again that whisper fills; that urging that stops time and opens up my soul; that beckoning that clarifies light for real seeing. Something waits carefully in each bit of living, even in the salt of our tears and sweat. Even these cleansing traces of our pain and effort taste of something He said, a reminder for perseverance: You are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5: 13). The perfect roundness of eternity beckons from every circle—the trampoline moving under bouncing, blackened feet; the wedding band on my finger, the water ring stained into the table. Each is another testimony if I have eyes to see and ears to hear it: I have made everything beautiful in its time. I have set eternity in the hearts of men (Eccles. 3:11). My words will never pass way (Matthew 24:35). Love never fails (1 Cor. 13: 8). There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4).
So I stop just to watch my daughter twist a section of her hair on one finger and to see the way the lighter strands still shine and curl, recalling the sweet wispiness of her infancy. I missed a lot of savoring when the baby years felt like they would go on forever. I took for granted the dig of those tiny fingers pressing into my arms, the tulip pink skin all fresh and unscarred, the roundness of her cheeks. Foolishly, I wrapped those days in always. It feels like I will always be diapering and nursing and weighing my body sore with bags and babies. These days, God has succeeded in teaching me a better understanding. He has granted me more wisdom about time coming. So now I stop just to hear the way my daughter grabs a breath before she says, “And Grandma” and continues; just to gather in the sound of my mom’s voice patiently and lightly commenting, assenting, encouraging. Mom responds in a way that reassures without shifting attention. Something familiar resonates, and I know that I must not numbly move around the edges of the words they exchange, the unique tones of their voices, the specific color and taste of this moment. Now is the fleeting testimony, not the eternity. Now is the taste, the reflection, the sampling, the evidence, the mark and flavor and shape of Him all over this place, the story of what He’s accomplished. Only foolishness makes me blind and numb, looking always to the next temporary want. So, He stills my fingers, stopping my hand with His own. Look closely.
A testimony waits right there in front of you, right in the background of your living:
This is just how I want you talk to me, and this is how I will listen. I sacrificed myself for just exactly this for always—for you so absorbed in telling me every new thing; for you new and fresh and young and vibrant with faith; for you grabbing up the opportunity to speak to me; for you calling out my name; for you choosing me; for you hardly able to breathe for wanting me to hear; for the way you’ll cherish and remember and gather up every sound of my assent, my mighty “yes” spoken clear, my voice reminding you I know you and I cherish you and I let none of your words fall to the ground (1 Samuel 3:19).
