I’m going to take a few weeks off from this blog. I’m saying that for my sister-in-law Vickey, the one person I know for sure who reads it and wonders if I’m dead or dying if a new one doesn’t appear each Monday morning. Well, Vic, just let me say, the little story you’ll find in this blog is worth reading three weeks in a row. (That’s in my humble opinion, of course.)

We’ll be moving from Joplin soon, probably by the end of March, and I’ve been cleaning out thirty or forty years of my life. (When Tony and I leave this world, it won’t take the girls long to “tear down the tee-pee.”)

I was tempted just to toss folders of things I will never likely need again or things that just aren’t relevant or helpful anymore, including sporadic starts at prayer journals that I wrote, always when I was feeling especially vulnerable for one reason or another. I just shook my head reading through those pages.

But I’m glad I looked over most things before I threw away bags of stuff, because I kept a few gems—from the prayer journals and from other folders. One of my favorites was a paragraph about my granddaughter Avrie, which I found in a copy of a letter I wrote years ago.

Along with that mini-story, I had written a paragraph of analogy, which is so like me. I tend to see God in any good thing.

I sent these two paragraphs to my parents last week. My 93-year-old dad is the primary care giver for my 84-year-old mom. He still bowls, and quite well, twice a week, so he is willing and able to be her helper, but their days can be challenging.

They liked the Avrie story, and they liked the analogy. I thought you might like it too:

Avrie, two years old now, does something kind of funny these days. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she hollers, “Avie awake!“ That usually isn’t enough to get Stacey up, so she adds, “Avie by  herself! Avie cryin’!“

This unabashed statement of need and her knowledge that she would be heard and taken care of makes me smile. And so does this: In a different sense, God’s children have experienced such a thing. As Stacey gets up to comfort Avrie, God will comfort those of us who some times wake up late at night and say, “I’m awake, Lord! I’m by myself! I’m crying!“

Annie Dilliard believes each of us is set here to give voice to our astonishment. My astonishment is, and has always been it seems, the presence of God in our lives. I, like David the psalmist, have asked, “What is man that thou art mindful of him?“

God’s presence in our lives—his love for us, his desire to know us, the opportunity to know and love him in return—seems the greatest of miracles. But at the same time, it seems simply the essence of life, it is what makes sense of this world, and fellowship with him provides that elusive joy and peace creation longs for.

In Tender Grace I expressed the joy of his presence in our lives with the sheep my character Audrey counted when she could not sleep, wonderful promises from scripture: “I am with you always; It is I—don’t be afraid; I will never leave you or forsake; I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.“

These sheep are yours as well. By all means, count them, and sleep in peace.