I walked into the laundry room to switch the load from the washer to the dryer and instead I put my head down on the top of the washer and just breathed deeply for a few minutes.
In deep places I am hiding. I am hiding from the weight of my responsibilities, from caring for my family, from writing this blog, from our role in the church.
All day long I email and cook, smile and teach, write and call, help and pray, and in the midst of the business of life I often forget that I am hiding.
But then in the quiet of the laundry room, I remember.
I remember the closeness of God’s mercy. I remember the vast comfort of the gospel. I remember that I may live out here, but all day long I rest in Him.
I step along behind a veil of God’s merciful grace. Here with Him I can be sad and weary. I am known and understood without ever having to say a word. I am loved beyond measure, accepted and beautiful simply because I exist and because God chooses to call me His own.
It is here, tucked away in Him that the words of this blog flow in praise of how He loves me. The words are my worship, my offering to the God who sees me and treasures me.
Honestly, there is little sense I can make of the love other people have for me. I am flawed and sometimes complicated, short-tempered and inconsistent. Regardless of my shortcomings, there are many people who love me and bear with me through my failings.
My friends are brave and wonderful, and I don’t deserve them.
God’s love is different, though. It is the place that my fickle nature dissolves in the sea of His constancy. It doesn’t matter what mood I am in when I am with Him, it only matters to whom I belong.
I belong to a God who is brave and wonderful, and none of us deserve Him.
Isn’t that the mind-blowing beauty of a God like ours?
So I stand with my head laid on the top of a silver LG washer, and I breathe in deep as I think of how He has me right where He wants me. It is hard here, and I feel fragile and sometimes a little scared, but I am never alone.
It is odd, the way a laundry room can become a holy place. I take one more deep breath before I lug the laundry basket out into the buzzing household that is my family.
In the deep places I smile because this is how we hide in Him: one step, one breath, one load of laundry, one post, one verse, one prayer, one praise, one glorious day at a time.
One at a time….
