Who knows?

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:42)

How many times have you come to me, Lord, and I missed you entirely, lost in living, unconscious amid the urgency of whatever the day requires?

I wonder, do you get lonely for me? Do you miss me when my heart wanders, and I fail to speak heart-to-heart with you?

Sometimes I picture you standing alone, waiting for me to notice, wondering when my loneliness will hurt badly enough that I beg you to come and pour your love into my heart and still the ache that tells me how desperately I need you.

But you do not wait. You come. You have been coming to me since the days I walked my dog to the fairgrounds and released her from the chain, and she ran, a blond blur of hair flying in the wind. It was there that I sang hymns and prayed prayers and longed to be as free as this beautiful creature romping across the broad field, daring me to catch her.

I’m not sure who was happier, me or my dog. Nor do I understand why this image from nearly six decades ago should impress itself on my consciousness, today.

Unless, you are trying to show me that you have been coming to me for my entire life, since I was a boy, hoping I would notice the Love who longs for me… and is this longing in me to know you, the Love who comes, who is my healing, my freedom, my joy.

Who knows how and where you come to us … or when we might notice? It’s always a mystery. We know only that you do … and always will.

So, thank you, dearest Friend, for coming to find and gather me in during those early days before I understood what was happening in me. Thanks for the ache in my heart that wakes me to you who comes to love … me.

And while I’m at it, thank you for coming here and now, today.

Pr. David L. Miller