November 12, 2019 â the day of my kidney transplant
Iâm welcoming twilight today, that space created for me by a gifted anesthesiologist.Â
It is, I imagine, a magical thing that gathers all the worries, fears, disappointments of illness and tucks them neatly into a glittering silver pouch.Â
The twilight is a good feeling, a sense of new well-being in the all places where my feelings and emotions live.Â
It is a comfort and a grace.
It is a relief, a blessed sense that all is well.
It is an alchemist holding the silver pouch in her hands and flinging it into the heavens, each fear and worry joining the stars in the night sky.
And as dawn breaks â a new dawn â I welcome a new life, a different life, a gift of life that feels like hope.
On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant today at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to rea the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundationâs website at this link:
A âGo Fund Meâ page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link
. . . And the wind? Ah, who has seen the wind go by? Neither you nor I. But when we see the trees bow down their heads, we know the wind is passing by. That is the way the Holy Spirit works: silently and effectively. *
There was never a more needful time for the fresh winds of the Holy Spirit. We inhabit a world divided . . . nations divided by tenuous agreements; white people divided from brothers and sisters black and brown; people of faith divided by differing traditions; immigrants divided from those who claim to âownâ this nation; citizens divided from their president; politicians divided by ideology, greed and self-interest. There are so many examples of division. And whether we will admit it or not, division diminishes us.
The divisions among us â the ones we personally experience and the ones we observe â create an unsettled environment around us and an unsettled spirit within us. The acrimony, the hate and the disrespect we witness all around creates an unrest in us. Perhaps, from the weariness of the constant hostility we see, our heart becomes hardened. Perhaps we are closed off from the Spirit Wind that fills us and creates in us rebirth, fresh and new.
We can never think of wind without recalling the day of Pentecost. The disciples of Jesus and other followers were gathered together when a rushing, mighty wind filled the entire house, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-4) That day was the beginning, and from that day when Spirit Wind came, the holy promise came into view: that God would pour out the Spirit on all people, that sons and daughters would prophesy, that some would have visions and others dreams.
We need it again, the Spirit Wind. We need it to fill us with courage for the living of these days. We need it to fill us with love that can change the world. We need it for the will to save our planet from devastating climate change. We need it to responsibly open our borders, to become again a nation of welcome, to reach out our hands to sojourners searching for safe refuge, to rescue children from the unwelcoming places where they are detained and kept from their parents. We need it to repair the world in all the ways possible to us, to repair its brokenness.
To become Godâs people in a broken world, we need the wind of the Spirit. Now.
But how does Spirit Wind come in these days? I have heard of no âPentecostalâ experiences of rushing mighty wind. I have heard of no one who has seen a sudden whirlwind. (1 Kings 19:11)Â I do not know of a person who saw the winds cease at the command, âPeace. Be still.â (Mark 4:39)
So how does the Spirit Wind come? I can share only what I know from my own experience, and that is this: when I am very still and very present with God, the Spirit comes quietly, gently â but surely. I do not see her. I do not hear her come with any sound of rushing wind. I cannot touch her. Yet I feel her, covering me, filling me, empowering me. I go away with that sense of being reborn and renewed, like I might be âborn from above.â
Art by Charlotte Nickel, âMighty Rushing Wind,â acrylic on canvas.
You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where itâs headed next. Thatâs the way it is with everyone âborn from aboveâ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.
â John 3:8 (The Message Bible)
*From the Carmelite Bulletin, Carmel of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Little Rock, Arkansas, âWho Has Seen the Wind?â Christina Rossetti – 1830-1894
Please pray for me as I await a life-saving kidney transplant. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often feels so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundationâs website at this link:
A âGo Fund Meâ page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:
Himalayan blue poppies in the rain, Valley of Flowers National Park, Uttarakhand, India
The beauty of Godâs creation often takes my breath away. This image did that. When I first saw it, I stared at for quite a long time. You might say it stopped me in my tracks, slowed me down for a moment, caused me to wonder. Thatâs not a bad thing, slowing me down. It does not happen easily.
So what does it mean to slow down and linger, to linger in Godâs presence? One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the very brief story of Anna.
There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38 NIV)
What strikes me about Anna is that âshe never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.â She lingered in Godâs presence. Perhaps God honored her devotion by allowing her to see the Christ child.
And then thereâs this small snippet of Joshuaâs story:
 . . . When Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. (Exodus 33:9-11 NKJV)
Joshua lingered in the tabernacle even when Moses, his mentor, left it. Perhaps it changed him. Perhaps because of his devotion in lingering in Godâs presence, it was Joshua, and not Moses, who received the honor of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land.
Of course, we are not certain about any of that. Certainly we do not linger in Godâs presence in hopes of receiving some reward or honor. At the same time, developing the spiritual discipline of abiding â lingering â in Godâs presence brings its own reward.
What are your ways of spending time in Godâs presence? Reading scripture? Writing scripture in a prayer journal? Yoga? Walking a labyrinth? Praying? Journaling? Taking in the beauty of nature? Creating a place of silence? The ways of spiritual discipline are endless.
One thing is certain: lingering in Godâs presence does not just happen. We enter that sacred space and linger there only if we commit ourselves to do it. Not in a legalistic manner that is more religious than spiritual, but in ways that slowly open us up to craving that time with God, needing it more than we need to âaccomplishâ our never-ending daily tasks.
When we reach that place, we might discover that lingering in Godâs presence is life-giving. We might suddenly realize that we are lingering in Godâs presence easily and often, that it has become a part of life.
So how in the world did a blue flower get me here?
Iâm not sure, but I think it is because God can be found everywhere, in any moment, in any space, in every stillness, in silence and music and birdsong, in whatever we hear and feel, through anything our eyes can see â even a blue flower covered with dew.
God of the Sparrow đ± By Kathy Manis Findley 