An Ordinary Day

I celebrated a birthday this week. Half of ninety. A nice, solid number.

The thing about birthdays, the thing that makes them kind of tricky, is this. They're supposed to be good.

Not that I'm morally opposed to having a good day or anything. It's just that . . . gosh, that's a lot of pressure. You can't just declare, first thing on a Tuesday morning, that THIS is going to be a good day. No, not just a good day, but a special day. An extraordinary day. A day that is on some level different from all the other days of the year. What Tuesday could live up to such demands?

Most of the day was fine. But then it got close to supper time. I knew the kids would want to know if we were going to go out to eat. That's our family tradition, sort of. As often as it works out, birthdays are celebrated by the treat of hitting one of the local restaurants. I had to decide if that's what I wanted to do, or if I would prefer some sort of nice dinner at home, with the kiddos handling the cooking and cleaning.

The supper question gnawed at me, and I grew gradually more agitated. What did I want to do? I truly didn't know. Nothing seemed right. The family wanted so much for me to have a good day. Surely I could come up with just the right way to spend the evening.

I was starting to panic. I had to please the kids by thinking of something to make the day special. I just had to.

And then it hit me. I didn't want special.

If I could truly choose any kind of celebration I wanted, any way to spend a few hours with my family, I wanted, with all the wants within me, to have not-special. I wanted ordinary.

The rest of the evening, happily, was as ordinary as could be. The kids did homework at the table and ran around in the back yard. I chauffeured the boys to drivers ed and little league practice. The husband and I took the dog for a walk.

And supper? Quite the opposite of fancy. I made a random and unexciting pasta/meat/veggie concoction. The kids and I recited our usual evening dialogue... Kid: "What's for supper?" Me: "Food."

And it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I shouldn't say that the day was completely ordinary. We played a quick game of Pit, and I actually won, for the first time ever. And I received a few loving gifts: some dark chocolate, a carton of Mike & Ikes, and a bag of Toasted Pita What Thins - haven't tried one, but they look delicious.

But for the most part, the day was just a day. A wonderfully average day. A day in which to revel in the absolutely ordinary pleasures of life. Balled-up cats snoozing with abandon in a patch of sun. A glass of cold milk. A moment to stand still and just be.

The game of Pit (that I won, you recall - not that I'm gloating or anything) got kind of silly and concluded with a loudly-played YouTube rendition of a Go Fish song (Pop Goes the Weasel, if you must know) accompanied by some pretty snazzy dance moves from around the table. I shooed the kids off to bed with a wide grin and a great internal peace. It had been just an ordinary day. And it had been perfect.

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How often do we treat ordinary days as something to tolerate until the next Big Event on our mental calendar?

We want special. We crave exciting. We forget, we overlook, that ordinary can be beautiful.

I think God knows the beauty of the ordinary. Sure, He sometimes works in magnificent and miraculous ways. But He also comes to us in simplicity. In the everyday. In the ordinary.

In His Word we see God immersed in the ordinary moments of His people's lives. A baby born to a scared young mother. A man sharing a cake of bread with his friends. Sheep, goats, donkeys, eagles' wings. A day out fishing. A tree, a stone, a walk along a dusty road. The simple used to bestow the astonishing.

With extraordinary care our not-ordinary God comes to us day after average day, laying before us a feast of ordinaries. Little joys. Precious moments. Simple, unspectacular gifts. And tucked in and among the cats and the little league practices and the glasses of milk are simple, unspectacular, utterly miraculous truths. You are cherished. You are forgiven. You are chosen. You are loved. Can't you hear the whisper? In a warm chocolate chip cookie, the smell of pine trees in the sun...for you My Son lived, died, rose. For you, my ordinary, average, so-special child.

Our God With Us, so very with-us...in the ordinaries. 

First published in The Alpena News on April 30, 2016.

Lost and Found

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 19:10

The black box lay just past the center line, crumpled from a hard landing but still intact. A lone car in the other lane dodged the obstruction and continued on its way. I jabbed my driver-son. "We should move that."

We slowed to a stop on the gravel shoulder and I hopped out to investigate. It was a shoe box, the kind with a hinged lid. A few small items crouched on the floor of the box: a Webkins tag, a couple of dinosaur Silly Bandz, and a Lego minifigure.

Other small trinkets lay spread around the road. I scrambled about, collecting as many items as I could before the next car came by to crush them.

Back in the van we investigated the objects I'd picked up. A scratch-art pen, a shell casing, an inch-high trophy, a clay bead. We tried but couldn't imagine the chain of events that led to the box lying on the road. But I couldn't help feeling a twinge of sadness. Somewhere, some little boy was missing his treasures.

I couldn't help thinking of Teddy.

Years ago, our then-little girl and Teddy were inseparable. He was present at every bedtime, along for every outing, a companion at church and the park and the grocery store. In the course of his time with us he was stepped on, smashed, and on the receiving end of the stomach flu, but through it all he gazed happily up at us through his little black eyes, glad to be a part of the family.

And then we lost him. We don’t know where or when it happened. He could have been left anywhere – in an obscure corner of the house, at the bottom of Grandpa’s toy box, under a bush at a campground, in a cold, dark, wet parking lot.

Time has passed. But I'm still sad when I think of Teddy.

He was just a stuffed toy. We have had dozens of other animal friends since then. But I still miss Teddy. My child loved him. And so I sigh and get a little moist in the eyes when I think of our lost bear. He’s our Teddy, and I want him back.

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If I cry over a bear, surely God must weep for His lost ones.

If I love my child’s toy, surely God loves, with a love of unfathomable depth, the ones for whom His Child gave His very life. Surely He hurts when He thinks of those who are far from Him, whose hearts are alone and cold and held by no one. Surely He aches to have His lost ones back.

In the years after we last saw Teddy, my daughter would ask about her little lost friend. Most of the time she would calmly wonder when he would come back. Sometimes, though, the loss filled her. I can still see her dark eyes as she said in a small voice, “I bet Teddy misses me.”

Lost ones, do you miss your Father? Does part of you ache for something it once had, something you can’t name? Does your heart long to be held, to be loved? Little bear, searching soul, know that someone is looking for you.

The Father’s heart breaks for His lost ones. He knows the trials that life apart from Him brings. He sees the searching heart, the yearning soul unfulfilled. He longs for the lost, and with all His heart He wants them back.

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I look into the shoebox and think of that little boy who has lost his treasures. He can't possibly know where to look for them. Surely, if he is looking for them at all, it is with drooped shoulders and a feeling of hopelessness.

But there’s nothing hopeless in God’s pursuit of those He has lost. He looks into every corner, digs into every hole. He reaches and calls and hunts and offers, relentlessly, steadfastly, lovingly seeking the lost, seeking His loved ones . . . seeking you.

It is not only in the deepest shadows that the lost ones hide. In my waywardness, I’m the lost. And you’re the lost. We are the ones separated by sin from our eternal home. You. Me. We are the lost.

But in the cross...we are also the found. With Easter joy we are scooped up from the mud and carried to where we belong, reunited with our Father, washed and cleaned and warmed by His love. It is over us that He rejoices, it is us that He rushes to embrace.

Imagine the joy of a small girl clutching her found friend, the reunion of a boy with his treasure box. This is your Father, holding you. His found one.

Lost ones, Someone is loving you. He will always wait for you. He will always come for you. And He will always, always, always want you back.

First published in The Alpena News, April 2, 2016