This is my ark. Most
days I don’t notice it, unless our one year old is throwing its wooden animals
across the room. Recently, I’ve actually started praying for an ark, or
rather what I believe it represents.
To,
like Noah, have the willingness to follow through on God given directions even
if they seem absurd. To possess a confidence that even if everyone around me
thought what I was doing seemed ridiculous, I would have an assurance that it
was what I am meant to be doing. To have the courage to live a life of intention.
To disallow distractions of my sense of success for myself and my family to
supersede whatever it is that I am actually supposed to be doing. To live this
life with open hands, believing that as long as I have breathe there is purpose
to my presence.
I recently heard a woman speak of her experience when she
looked upon the face of her child with Down Syndrome for the first time. As
her brand new baby looked up at her, she felt as if he were asking her the
question, “Mama are you going to love me for me? Or for what I can do and how
it reflects on you?” As I reflected on her words and considered the possibility
of something akin to an Ark in my life, I asked myself the questions, “Are you
going to claim comforts as essential on behalf of your two children? Or are you
going to live in a sacrificial way on behalf of all God’s children? Was I
willing to constantly remind myself that each person I encounter is beloved by
God? Was I even willing to be inconvenienced beyond what I believed would
benefit my family?”
I am trying to discern the balance of giving what God has
already called me to give to my husband and my daughter and my son, without
using that as an excuse to not have time or energy to do whatever else He may
ask. To never use “I can’t help them all” as an excuse to not help one more,
since I was never equipped to “help them all” anyway.
Despite the size it implies, my prayer for an ark is not a
yearning for something big or even noticeable to others. It is a prayer for
willingness of the heart. It is not an “I’ll wait right here until I receive a
grand vision.” Rather it is a commitment to keep picking up fistfuls of my everyday sacred mundane dirt that
by the end of my life may be formed into one muddy brick of justice and mercy (with the debris of my selfishness and pride mixed in), to place next to the
ones others are building. To have fully used up everything within me in this
solitary pursuit to love God and love others. And to be ready if asked, to stop
forming bricks and start building an Ark.
