We sorted and arranged, cleaned and unpacked. We spoke of future memories to be made. We painted her walls with the happy colors of laughter.
After the flurry of a busy Friday and Saturday and time apart from littles, Sunday's wake-up-slow start next to a baby playing with her feet refreshed my momma-heart. I drank in coos and "da-da's." I snuggled her close and breathed her in.
I sipped coffee plastered next to a little boy in pajamas. We shared ear buds over Mumford & Sons and smiled in that quiet morning way.
I high-fived a not-so-little-girl who stayed in her bed the night before. And relished the happy ways she shadowed me around the house.
And as we slipped from morning to day, I continued to unwrap it all because presence is a gift.
There's a story of a young woman in the wake of tragedy, freshly widowed, who packed up boxes and moved to follow her mother-in-law. Friends. Family. Hometown. Familiar. All left in pursuit of hearts together, near, close. And I love her words:
...Ruth answered, “Don’t force me to leave you. Don’t make me turn back from following you.
Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and I will be buried there with you.
May the Lord strike me down if anything but death separates you and me!”
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she ended the conversation.
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she ended the conversation.
So both of them went on...
RUTH 1.16-19
Both of them.
I'm not sure all Ruth thought about before she left home. I imagine she hugged childhood friends a little closer and kissed family goodbye through tears. Perhaps she walked around the home she shared with her husband and ran fingers down door frames, memories playing out like scenes from a movie in her mind. I imagine it was hard to leave. But the alternative, the thought of being distant, far from Naomi was more than her heart could carry.
I've heard stories of Siamese twins, born to the world sharing a vital organ. And while some cases are operable, the oneness of the two separable, some are not. It's life shared together or death. I imagine the bond between Ruth and Naomi something like that. One heart, joined, overgrown, inseparable even by the most delicate of surgeries. Together or death.
And their bond merely echoed one that was planned before either of them were born, one that would find its way to Earth's door frames long after they gave their bodies to the ground.
God left heaven to be near us. He packed up His power and strength and crammed holiness into the box of humanity. He ached to be close, to be present, to unpack His dreams for our lives and hang love on our walls. Immanuel: God...tangled and entwined and inseparably...with us.
When I climb for perspective and reassess direction, when I check my heart's compass and make sure it's still pointing heavenward, I think of the story I want to be written and retold of me. I want it to have packing tape and U-Haul's penned in the lines. That I left what I knew. That I chose to stay close, to Siamese-share His heart, to remain knotted with Him forever.
I imagine that no matter where we walk today, there are hard things to goodbye and leave behind. Maybe habits or substitutes. Self-protection or fear or anger. Things familiar and safe. Immanuel-God, aches to be near. He packs boxes and comes. He walks alongside. Present. With.
I hope He finds our hearts open before Him. I hope He find us determined to follow. I hope we pack up and say with Ruth, wherever You go, I will go, and wherever You stay, I will stay...
I hope, in every line, our stories read, So both of them went on...
