Evidences of Everything.
Psalm 19
Matthew 18:3-4

I awoke this morning, lungs still expanding and contracting in this ribcage. Knees that bent and lifted me out of bed. Eyelids raised to reveal these irises. 

The structure of a tree outside my window, tall and thick, unending in twisted branches, holding the promise of new life in its fingertips.  Never taking, always giving; in relieving shade and sweet fruit. 

But I still cry to see Your hand at work?

How do you explain green shoots in the crack of a sidewalk where we poured concrete to quench life? Yet it is life that still bursts forth. 

And I still scream for the dead to rise?

Have we grown jaded to the breeze across our faces?  What hand is behind air that can move and fall where no one has pushed it?  Have we become jaded to life emerging out of a woman?  Babies, lovely and perfect, personality present and dependant, produced from 2 cells we cannot see, growing in places our eyes cannot go. Fine hair, toenails, faint cries.  From 2 cells.

And I still ask for miracles? 

Is this just normal?

Is it just normal for 6,087,799,000,000 kilometers of boiling, roaring, wildfire to be confined to a sphere, more reliable than our day planners? To leap forth from its horizon-bed every 24 hours, allowing sight for our day, warmth for our skin.

His evidences are everywhere but we do not notice. 

If we do not see God, I hate to imagine that our prayer should ever be to ask Him to reveal Himself more.  How much more can He reveal?  If we do not experience God, I hate to imagine anyone asking Him to come closer.  How much closer does He need to press up against us to tell us, He is right here?  Every cell crawling the earth is a shadow of Him, every rock unmoving, every rise of the tide points Heavenward.  ‘Our Creator lives, Our Creator loves, Our Creator is the artist: present and attentive.’ I hear their cry, sometimes louder than mine. ‘We do not spin, we do not toil, our Lord provides!’ I hear the flowers and birds cry, sometimes louder than mine.

Do you feel He is distant?  Do you feel Him cold and removed?  I suggest that our prayer should be to ask for our eyes to be opened. That with the newness of a child we would once again look upon this earth, look upon our dear brothers and sisters with clear sight and without stale judgment. I suggest that the problem lies not with Him but with us and our refusal to see.  For all our self-medication all we have received is just this poor side effect of blindness.
We lose in all our knowledge
We lose in all our striving
We lose in familiarity
We lose His beauty in normalcy and awe-struck worship in formula. 
LOOK. 
He has already given us everything we need to believe, He has already given us everything we need to succeed.  And to be healed from our hurts and to step into fullness, forgiveness, Life? He has already come for us there too.  So let us praise Him.  In the midst of unfairness and confusion, can I still urge you towards gratitude, because He Is?  Because He takes away and He gives? Praise Him in the taking, Praise Him in the giving.  I cannot charge Him with anything less.

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm