To know him in the small things
Early this spring, I installed two iron flower boxes under our big kitchen window. Between multiple fillings and rinsings of sippy cups, the making of PBJs, the washing of produce, the loading and unloading of the dishwasher, and the spraying all manner of messes off of small clothes, I spend a lot of time standing at this window. I dreamed all winter of being greeted by something beautiful as I went about my day.
After what we hoped would be the last snow at the end of May (always a gamble here in Colorado), my two oldest and I filled the planters with soil and dug six holes, making way for bright red geraniums. At first, they looked a little sparse in the planter, and I had to lift the kids onto the counter so they could peek out the window and check on their flowers. “All in good time,” I’d tell the them.
The other day, on our first morning at home after being on vacation for nearly two weeks, I looked out our kitchen window as I rinsed the breakfast bowls and realized to my delight that the geraniums had doubled in size, full and green with stems a foot tall. I paused what I was doing and breathed in the goodness of it all.
A few days ago, on an otherwise normal Wednesday, it occurred to me that I had everything I needed to make a caprese salad using our peaches from our neighborhood farmers market. What can I say—there was nothing to do but to chalk it up to God’s particular grace to me, sing the Doxology while doing a happy dance at my place at the table, and eat every last bite.
A few weeks ago, as I walked into the kitchen to grab the kids’ milk cups while they started the day with an episode of Curious George, I saw all our morning drinks lined up on the counter together, and my eyes filled with tears. Guys, you cannot imagine the dishes or the amount of milk or juice we go through in a day. Often, cups all over the counter drives me batty. But that day the sight felt like it was marked “Holy unto the Lord,” and if I hadn’t already been barefoot, I might have taken off my shoes. I was so thrilled, I had to take a picture.
They’re just flowers. They do grow every year, I know. And they’re only just peaches. And mozzarella. And basil from the plant that, for whatever reason, just won’t take off this year while its next door neighbor, Mr. Mint, which I don’t have a lot of ideas for, grows wild. And it’s just an endless cycle of dishes to wash and daily tasks to perform. There’s nothing special in any of that.
Maybe. Maybe.
Or perhaps…perhaps…the abundance we’re looking for is hiding in plain sight. And not just as reminder of our blessings and fodder for thankful hearts—food on the table, people we love to clean up after, etc.—though they’re certainly not less than that. No, the things of our every day lives are a thousand invitations to know, to commune with the incarnate Christ in his fullness. As a friend recently shared from Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”: “Christ accepted an earthly life, and returned it to us, shining in his grace.”
If I am to know God, to enjoy the nearness of Christ, to experience the power and transformation of the Holy Spirit, it must be through my current circumstances, as I currently am, in my unglamorous, work-a-day reality. His grace, his hand on my shoulder, the realization that his gaze is on me, meets me where I actually am, which, as it happens, is often at the kitchen sink.
And as we grow in discernment, learning to call “good” what God calls “good,” we more readily reach for the things that speak his presence to us. Like the writer of Psalm 92, I want a life marked by rhythms of watching for, reaching toward, leaning on Christ throughout the day, in all his fullness that this frail heart can handle, and concluding in wonder as I lay down to sleep, “You are faithful.”