Lent Day 21: Plugged in

 

This morning Stephen and I attended Eva's first morning chapel service that Grade R parents were allowed to attend. 

Maybe it's fatigue, or recognition of the tight coil of anxiety in my gut after a very hectic term, but I battled to hold back the tears in that beautiful, spirit filled space. 

This happens whenever I'm in the presence of God. I can't help it. When I become aware of His presence I am just completely overwhelmed. And it spills out from my eyes. And when I've tried to do everything on my own steam for too long then the tears flow even harder because He was actually there all along. 

I suppose it's what some people now call 'plugged in'. I like the metaphor. To be plugged in is to have a surge of energy from an infinite source. It's being able to operate the way something was designed to operate. It's when something works at full capacity. 

It's the difference between light and dark. 

And this all happened even before the actual service began. 

When all the little Grade R girls meekly entered the majestic space eagerly searching for their parents in the gallery, and a collective body of adoring mothers and fathers lifted up and waved to their girls, I cried some more.

I even cried when we sang the Sunday school classics to the plinky plonk piano. 

At one point the earnest face of a little one turned and looked anxiously up towards the gallery. I know that her parents had arrived late and were sitting towards the back. Her entire being was a wound up ball of anxiety as she scanned the strange adult faces above her. 

I saw her mom stand up at the back and move so that her little one could see her. 

Talk about plugged in. The moment their eyes met the little thing literally shone. 

It must be hard for God sitting in the gallery watching us desperately searching in all the wrong places to try and summon the courage to see the day through. To try and make electricity on our own, when all we actually need to do it look up.