On Sunday morning, while visiting my brother and his family in Michigan, our vehicle’s horn decided to malfunction.  It blared a loud, piercing, continuous blast for ten minutes or more.  After Tim had been outside trying to make it stop for five minutes or so (it took a little while to realize it was our vehicle making the horrendous noise), I prayed God, please make it stop, and within a couple seconds, Tim had found the proper fuse and pulled it out, silencing the horn.

Later, on our way home, I developed a pretty bad headache.  While stopping for a bathroom break, I asked Bethany to pray for me.  She did, and the headache went away immediately.

As we continued our drive, around what would normally be bedtime, the kids all started getting somewhat unruly.  Our car’s cd player, which tends to malfunction, hadn’t been working for any of the 5 hours we had been driving up to that point.  At that moment, I thought music might really help the situation, so I prayed God, please let the cd player work, and I reached over to turn it on.  It worked, and continued working for the rest of the drive.

Still later, around 11pm, all of the kids were asleep when Isabelle woke up and started screaming at the top of her lungs.  After a couple minutes of trying to console her, and feeling pretty hopeless of having success since she almost never calms down on her own, I prayed again – God, please let her calm down and go back to sleep.  Only a few seconds later,  she was sleeping.

I know that maybe those all seem like small things, and taken individually, I probably would have been tempted to just call any one of those instances coincidence and not thought any more about it.  But, as we finished our drive, God was impressing on my heart that these answered prayers were purposeful reminders that He is with me, with us.

Sometimes life can make me think that maybe I’m missing Him.  Maybe I’ve taken a wrong turn.  Maybe I’ve forgotten His voice.  Maybe I’m deceiving myself by thinking that He will be our defender, that He is faithful to work in us and in our circumstances.  I question often whether I really know Him at all.  I’m terrified of the possibility that I could somehow become so wrapped up in myself and my ideas that I stop seeking Him, and then stop truly seeing Him.

I think God knows that.  I mean, I’m sure He does.  So, though these days have held a lot of unanswered questions, frustrations, and sometimes feelings of hopelessness, and though it seems that God’s timing in certain areas just isn’t what I would like it to be at times, He has been showing up in the “little” things.  And these things remind me that He is still loving, He is still powerful, He is still concerned with even the smallest details of our lives, and He is trustworthy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately.  I like words.  I tend to place a high level of importance on words, both in what I speak…or write…and what I hear.  I like understanding and being understood and choosing the right words is, generally, how that is accomplished.

But, what has been weighing on me recently is the limitation of words.  As much as I might think that a certain word, or a certain explanation, clearly communicates what is in my heart…or what is in someone else’s heart, if I’m the hearer…the reality is that there are a number of things that muddy the waters and make it unwise to let anyone’s words alone be the basis for a determination of what their heart is in any given situation.

I say this because, as I consider some of my own words – words I’ve wanted to think were presented in an acceptable way, words I hoped would perhaps evoke a different response than what they’ve received – I’m realizing that I’m not even certain of all the reasons I used the words I did.  While I rarely try to make my explanations exhaustive, I usually think I at least know my underlying motivations, but although I usually can provide a reasonable accounting for what I’ve said, I’m finding that I sometimes arrive at a rationale based on what I think provides the best defense for my words, rather than based on an honest assessment of my heart.  It can be easy to just want to be right.

And even when I conclude that my words do accurately convey my heart in a matter, it’s becoming apparent that words can have different meanings to different people.  A whole host of factors can affect the interpretation and weight that we apply to specific words.  It isn’t simply a dictionary definition that will rule the day in how a word is understood, and I have to be careful in both the words I choose and how quick I am to judge someone else’s words because of this.  It’s possible that a communication breakdown is just that – some idea that simply got lost or distorted by our words – and not a deeper heart issue at all.

Honestly, this all makes me tempted to not say or write anything, ever.  I don’t want to miscommunicate.  I don’t want to misunderstand and I don’t want to be misunderstood.  My natural tendency when there is an issue over words is to want to dissect and analyze and figure it all out.  When I step back a little, though, I’m beginning to see a more important objective than figuring it out.  Because when words fail, there has to be a heart that is first seeking God’s glory.  And being understood may not be the most God-glorifying thing in a given situation.  Exposing someone else’s failed communication may not be either.  I need to make love most important.  Extending grace, forgiving freely, acknowledging the imperfect state of my own heart, seeking to understand another person’s heart even if their words have caused offense, choosing to believe that in these circumstances – as in all others –  true reconciliation, resolution, and peace are a work of the Holy Spirit. 

Lord, have Your way.