Time to Listen

I'm facing backwards as I ride. The train swings and I see clouds layered thousand-fold. It's the vastness of it all that grabs me. My bag is draped across my legs, full of 'maybe I'll need that today'.

And the God who layers clouds listens to my prayers. Mumbled, halting, inept prayers. Some forgotten in the midst. I am thankful that it doesn't rest on my shoulders to make it right.

I puzzle at the vastness (layered clouds) alongside the small (a little more breath, or a steady hand). He manages both, and does them carefully.

And I realise that we expect it will be the earthshaking, lifechanging events that will destroy us. But somehow we survive and we go on. We keep it together. Then the little incidental undoes us. A child's hand slipped in ours, a breath that faintly wheezes - the reality of that one moment brings a deep flash of emotion. Sadness that breaks us.And we can let it slip past barely noticed.

Or it can be the window to our very hearts. Sometimes a glimpse is all we can bear.

God has no such pretense. He does not need to mask his pain, nor his joy. He can bear it. He can layer clouds and soothe a breath.