Seek

It's quiet.

After a busy weekend culminating with six college boys in the house, we spent two more days hunkered down in a snow storm. Our home and hearts full, we've enjoyed togetherness.

But now, now I need alone-ness.

At the moment I'm enjoying solitary reverie. But not for long. Even as I type I can hear Brad stirring.

Soon the quiet will be broken, the dim light of dawn will be swallowed up with bright daylight and my time for reflection will quickly take a back seat to last nights dishes and today's responsibilities.

Why do I revel in this early morning silence so much?

I crave it.

Is it simply the silence? Putting off responsibilities of the day?

I think not since the washing machines hums in the background.

Is it just wanting uninterrupted time alone?

As my kids get older, I have that...even at work I have that.

That community I so often write about desperately needing, that's what I crave...but it's community of a different kind.

Seeking communion, not with other humans, but with the Holy. I think that's what I love about my early morning self imposed sequesters.

Communion.

Planned but never scripted, I simply seek and wait for the Holy.

And He's here in the quiet.

And He's here in His Words.

And He's here in the pages of books by authors throughout history who loved Him and sought Him out just like me.

And He's here in music and art and the silence.

And He's here even in the interruptions.

I used to worry when I couldn't concentrate on mornings like this. When it's hard to focus and my minds wanders. I used to think that somehow I'd miss Him because my mind jumped back and forth between eternity and earth. What a silly thought.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.*

I can't miss Him because of a wandering mind--only because of a wandering heart.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, Lord

Take and seal it

Seal it for thy courts above.

~Robinson: Come thou Fount

*the prophet Jeremiah (29:13)