Multitude Monday

I waited for him. Watched and waited..at the window..every day. When would he come to me?

It was his birthday. I saw his face and knew..he was the one.

Peering at me from the whitened page as I read Ann's words that evening.

Words both challenging and so encouraging.

loose bonds

set free

break every yoke

My fingers moved across the keyboard to pull him in and then suddenly he was..gone!

Why? Had I pressed the wrong key? Had someone taken him in before I had time to say-yes!

So many generous ones visit and sit with Ann in quiet hours. Maybe it was not my heart alone which longed to help
For two hours I trekked through the jungles and deserts and ghettos looking for a little boy in a strange land ..and I forget which one. A momentary glimpse not catching details but held only by his eyes.

I searched for his face..

but he hid from me in the dark hours that night.

I sat with watered cheeks searching..seeking

Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps I should choose another.

After all, he may be already chosen and secured in another's heart by now. I'll look through the other children and pick..

HOW!!? How do you do that!?

I grieved and sobbed, wanting them all

How do you look at their faces and choose only one?

What makes him any different from her? Do I go by age..gender..country?

Window-shopping for need..hurt..poverty..disease

and ...LORD... I can't do this! I can't choose!

I can't find the one who climbed my laptop and clung to my neck in the dark

yet I feel his presence...somehow

Then I saw it

on the sidebar

Another choice option. The welcome invitation "select a child for me".

Shaking fingers grasped the life-rope thrown

moved the mouse and hoped

and pulled

And opened my eyes to his face again! Yes! It was truly him..chosen for me!!

So my vigil began.. the waiting in hope for him. For the sign.. every day.. the good news that he'd come and I could hold him and see his eyes and begin to know him

My Advent of waiting..waiting..waiting..

for him who was chosen and given to me when hope lay disappointed and futile effort to do the 'doing' failed

Then on the rain-drenched day, with a ragged soggy covering so thin that nothing held together, I found him, carried him into the house and laid him on the dry wood to read his name again
Jesus..
Jesus Alejandro Santos


#183-191

Father I give thanks for
the gift
the searching
and seeking
the finding
the NAME above all others
for dirt floors and plastic roofs and hope in a small fishing village on the Mexican coast
for protection of tiny Max, the babe born into our family yesterday, 2 months early
for Alana, his young mother
for life ..new ..and made new
through HIM, the babe come helpless.. poor.. broken as bread
Giving thanks with Ann and the Gratitude Community here at A Holy Experience