Spinning and Walking

I dreamed the other night that I was lost in a concrete maze. Every path led to a dead end until I came to a slide. So down I went, twisting and turning, and I landed in a cafeteria where there were only a couple people. I had a sense that I was in a prison, but I woke up.

Later I dreamed that I was driving in some city with my daughter, and I couldn’t see out the windshield, either because of outside or inside fog. But I kept inching forward, not knowing where I was going or if I would hit or be hit.

“Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: ‘What’s going on here?'” Acts 2:12 (Message)

Can you imagine? There you are just hanging out, and suddenly a tornado spins through the place and flames flicker over heads and you begin to speak in sounds you don’t understand. But people come running in amazement because they do understand and 3,000 baby believers are birthed.

I can’t say that anything I’ve ever said has birthed even one new Christian. Presenting the gospel or leading someone in the “sinner’s prayer” is not something I feel very comfortable about. Some do it so easily. It makes me feel guilty.

I don’t like talking on the phone. I’m not good about sending cards and notes. I don’t plan ahead to give gifts or make meals. (Well, I do sometimes.)

Areas of ministry like music and speaking and teaching seem to have run or are running into dead ends. I bought a harp with grand plans for playing therapeutically, but have not followed through.

We do sponsor a child with Compassion, and I mean to write more often than I do. I’d love to travel as a blogger, but I don’t think my blog has enough traffic yet.

And I serve my family and love on my grandgirls and teach of Jesus.

But I’m not often a good example.

Sometimes my walk seems to get all tangled up and filled with dead ends, and I can’t see where I’m going. But I’m learning to be and to see, if even dimly.

And I remember that I can’t do everything. I can’t touch the least of everyone. But I can touch one here and one there.

And I write. I walk my fingers across the keyboard and spin words–to somehow touch, inspire, encourage. To bring clarity out of the complicated. To bring healing to the hurting.

But is it enough?

“God doesn’t look at how much we do,but with how much love we do it.”

~Mother Teresa

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time–just one, one, one.”

~Mother Teresa

Walking today with Ann Voskamp

and spinning with Claire and Kelly and Sarah.