drawn away

"Jesus, Your love is so amazing and this joy I can't explain it. I'm caught up in the fellowship, yes I'm caught up in the fellowship. Cause You're the One, there You go again. Lifting my heart, lifting my head, And hope is rising as I see You smiling." The Love Inside, Laura Hackett Park

I was so proud of Rick. The engine smashed through the windshield. He was telling us what happened to him - twenty years ago - how they used the jaws of life to get to him and extract him from the car. The details. The memory came to him, while we sat on the couch in his apartment. ?Did he still have what he wrote down last time? He didn't know where he had laid it. Then it occurred to me. My hand reached down and pulled out one notebook for him. "Write pieces of your story. Maybe just the word "windshield," I said.

It's like the blue dashes around the red-outlined letters I had made on the pink sheet. My eye found it on the top of the pile. My fingers carried it into the living room yesterday morning, seated on the sofa, sipping on my cocoa. And next my thoughts were drawn away - left to rest - on the One who was thinking about me. The One who lifted my head, held my thoughts, moved my heart. To know his presence. To be known by him.

When you look at "windshield" next time, you will remember what God has done for you.

As I talked with Shane, Rick scrawled down bits and more bits until he finally had filled out the whole page. It set in his lap.

"While you're at it, DECORATE the page." I handed him the tissue paper squares and the glue stick in a cellophane bag. He took the bag from me and began gluing bright colored squares along the edges. Afterwards he asked, "Do you want me to tear out the page?"  "No, the notebook is for you to keep. Like a treasure chest... to remember... moments of God's help," I replied. "You can put your name on the front if you want." Yea, he got right to it. He made it his own.

Caught up in the fellowship. The tall fellow from Marshall, Shane, 36. He said quietly he hasn't prayed for some time, but the river from his lips took me to into the presence of the Father. The history God had with him swirled in dips and turns. Feeling unknown to those I was with. But each of us was known by the Father, held in the Father's hand, given to Jesus, that none would snatch away. 

I thought of Ellen and Robbie, Charlie and Jenni, figures that have moved in and out of my life. The way the Spirit reminded us - that we were thought over. How His smile made hope rise. In the next moment His fellowship touched a chord and a response spilled out. Like the words Robbie spoke last week, "You are a lover, God." 

Across from Rick's place, Darlene showed me the design she had been embellishing with her colored pencils. I saw an orange starfish in the middle, flanked by rose blossoms, and some blue snow flakes. From my plastic sack I handed her the paper sign with packing tape across its back. She studied the blue dots around the "I" and "N." The green dashes with orange and blue and red. She read the sentence to me. LET  JOY  FALL  IN  MY  HEART.  "That is a prayer for myself Darlene......

......cause I need His help."  As I rose to leave I hugged her, told her I loved her, she told me she loved me. This stranger, a mother, a grandmother. Thank you Lord for knitting our hearts.

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