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Wind Scraps
by Shannon Woodward

Wind Scraps takes you on a journey, as Shannon Woodward listens to the whisper of God's voice in the everyday things of this life. 

Shannon is a Calvary Chapel pastor's wife, mother of two, speaker, and author of A Whisper in Winter: Stories of Hearing God's Voice in Every Season of Life (New Hope Publishers; October 2004) and Inconceivable: Finding Peace in the Midst of Infertility (Cook Communications; July 2006).


Email Shannon

Visit her other sites:
www.shannonwoodward.com
www.windscraps.blogspot.com

Visit Shannon at Wind Scraps:

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Last Time
Shannon Woodward, May 2008

When I walked into the kitchen this morning and saw that straw sticking out of a too-short cup, my first thought was, That is absolutely the last time I buy straws.

They irritate me. I don't know why. I suppose I could trace it back to those curly, loop-de-loop straws I bought way back when the kids were younger. I wanted them to like the straws, but not so much that they'd use them. Because if they used them, say, for milk, then I'd have to be diligent about cleaning them. You can't procrastinate your dish washing when you've got milk-coated curly straws waiting in the sink.

Of course, the kids did use them--all the time, and for every conceivable liquid. And occasionally I didn't clean them in a timely fashion. Then I'd have to pour boiling water down that miniscule hole, squish the sides of the hot straws as the water raced through the curves, and hope no deadly and/or disgusting bacteria lingered somewhere inside.

The curly straws disappeared one day. No one knows what happened.

I switched to cheap, straight straws—and a different irritation. Now I didn't have to worry about bacteria, because these were cheap enough to throw away. I just didn't like the fact that Zac, in particular, likes to use a new straw for every sip of water he takes throughout the day. And he seems to take a special delight in using them in the shortest cups he can find, which means they're always leaning out over the edge of the cup, making it easy for someone—Mom, maybe—to accidentally bump the tip and send it catapulting out of the cup.

So, yes, this morning I felt irritated. I stood looking at the evidence of Zac's last sip and I thought, This is the last straw.

And right then, because he loves my children and me, God brought to mind the words of Tammy Courson, a pastor's wife I heard speak at a conference two years ago.

Jon and Tammy had five children: three from Jon's first marriage, and two together. Jon's first wife died in a car accident when their three children were very young. Of those three, Jessie was the oldest girl. Not only was she beautiful and smart, but she had a spiritual depth most adults don't possess. She'd be at a retreat with the high school kids, and during a discussion she'd say, "You know, the other day while reading about the seven bowl judgments in Revelation, it occurred to me how well they coordinate with the last words of Christ on the cross," or something equally deep. One night her father teased her. "Jessie, the hardest thing ahead of us is going to be finding a husband for you who is more spiritually mature than you are."

The day after that conversation, the kids had a scheduled day off of school. Jessie decided to drive over to the church and take communion before she started her day. Her dad was happy to see her there, and touched when, after communion, she stood and shared a verse. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jer 29:11). When she finished, she looked at her dad and winked. What she didn't know was that God had spoken that very verse to Jon during the ambulance ride to the hospital with his dying wife, Jessie's mother, some fifteen years earlier. That verse had been God's way of letting Jon know that God would bring good out of that tragedy and would walk with Jon during the hard times.

Jessie left then and went home to ask her brother, Peter Jon, if he wanted to go out for breakfast with her. Peter Jon said later that he doesn't know why he declined, but for some reason he said no. Jessie then went into the kitchen to say good bye to Tammy.

"You look so beautiful today," Tammy told her daughter. Then she gave her a kiss and a hug, and they exchanged "I love you's."

Jessie left the house. Just two minutes later, rounding a curve near the spot where her mother's accident had occurred, Jessie had her own car accident ... and died.

At the memorial, Jon told of the conversation he and his daughter had shared the night before her death. He talked about the man he'd hoped Jessie would find, the man who would be more spiritually mature than she, the man who could lead her. And then he held up a ring belonging to Jessie, which they hadn't been able to find in the car initially, but which someone brought him just before the service started.

"One of the things I have most looked forward to, as a pastor and father, is being able to officiate at the wedding of my daughter. And today, I am doing so. Today, my Jessie has found that Man to lead her. Today, my daughter is the bride of Christ."

I have known of Jessie's life and death for many years, but it wasn't until Tammy Courson stood before me at that conference and shared her message that I really understood the story from a mother's perspective.

"There's a last time for everything with our children," she said. "There was a last hair cut for my son, Ben. After that, he never asked again. There was a last time I watched my youngest daughter swirl in her tutu, because after that, she put away her ballet clothes and stopped dancing. And there was a last time ..." Tammy fought tears as she tried to finish, "... there was a last time when I told my daughter Jessie how beautiful she was, and a last time I hugged her and told her I loved her."

Her grief broke my heart. It was impossible not to cry with her, impossible not to let my thoughts jump to my own children, and what I'd feel if I were recounting my "lasts."

"You never know when that last time comes," Tammy said, "so make sure you appreciate the moments you have now."

Remembering her words, I stood in the kitchen staring at that red-and-white straw sticking out of Zac's too-short cup, and I thanked God for breaking my heart again.

My son can use all the straws he wants.

©2008, Shannon Woodward

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The Trade
Shannon Woodward, April 2008

The only things I can move right now, without wincing, are my fingertips. If you watched me walk across the room this morning, you'd think I was trying to recover from injuries I sustained when I failed to jump my motorcycle over twenty brand new Mini Coopers down at Bellowin' Bob's Autos. Or at the very least, a mugging. But no. Mine are "exercise wounds," and lest we all forget--it's a "good" pain.

It's been a week of water aerobics, weight lifting, elliptical riding, walking and biking. No, I'm not training for the Iron Man. I'm trying to get back into my spring clothes.

I'd already had my belly full of exercise by yesterday afternoon, but Dave came home and said, "I brought you a surprise. Come outside and see." I followed him out to his truck and saw a new (to us) 14 speed, automatic shift bicycle--with shocks. It's really a beautiful bike, and I was so taken by his gesture that the words "Hey! Let's go for a ride!" popped out of my mouth before I saw the calamity coming.

He was all over that. "Yeah! Let's see how far down the trail we can get." Several months ago, a paved, 9 or so mile trail opened along our property. At any time of the day or night, you can watch a sea of roller bladers, bicyclists, walkers, and horse riders meander past our pasture.

Last week, an old shirtless guy with a santa beard came riding up on his bike and told us there'd been reports of bear and bobcat sightings along the trail. I've never yet known a shirtless, santa-bearded biker to lie, so when I went inside to grab my cell phone, I also grabbed my mace. Geared up, I headed back out and found that Dave had hooked up the air compressor and was filling the tire on my old bike. It was once beautiful, but the law of entropy has had its way with it. Parts of the shiny burgundy paint are covered with rust; the seat is somewhat moldy and ripped in one spot (the rip screams "Zac," our son's name--but that won't hold up in court), and the kick stand wobbles.

I felt terrible that Dave was going to ride that old bike while I had this beautiful new bike, and I told him so. His answer? "I don't mind--I just like knowing you have a good, dependable bike."

He's like that. He'll take the dilapidated bike so I can ride the nice, new one. He was happy to take my old, simple cell phone so I could have the nice, new, picture-taking  phone. He was perfectly content to take my old lap top so I could have a nice, new, faster model. He's very good to me.

So we had our ride. We went all the way to Lake Cassidy and then some. And sometime during the ride, maybe 50 minutes into it, I began to think about Dave's sacrifices and how often he puts me in mind of my other Groom--the One who was willing to take the punishment of the cross so I could have a new nature, a new name, and a brand new hope for the future.

I don't deserve to be this loved; I know that. But I'm glad ... and grateful.

The Trade
by Brett Williams

Mine was Your only sin
Yours is my only righteousness
Mine was Your only shame
Yours is my only confidence
You took all of me; I want all of You

Mine was the pain You bore
Yours is the healing I received
Mine was the nails and thorns
Yours is my life abundantly
You took all of me; I want all of You

I'm waiting here to feel Your touch
The weight of sin it seems so much
The freedom that You offer me is You

Mine was the the victory
Yours is the blood that purchased me
Mine is a blessed way
Yours is my love eternally
You took all of me; I want all of You

©2008, Shannon Woodward

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Passion
Shannon Woodward, March 2008

In terms of pure romance, no open-shirted, smooth-chested, flowing-haired, pony-riding hero ever held a candle to my grandfather. Though I read and enjoyed all the best fairy tales as a child and spent my fair share of Saturday afternoons sitting through Disney movies, my romantic notions were birthed, formed and cemented at home, watching the way my grandparents interacted.

Clifford loved Mickey--madly, deeply, jealously. Maybe that's because he found her later in his life (she was forty, he in his mid-thirties). Or maybe it's because when he met his red-haired beauty, she was just ending her marriage to an emotionally distant, carousing man, and Clifford liked the way she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in defiance to the choice she'd just made. Whatever the reason, he fell hard and never walked the same again. The power of Mickey kept him staggering the rest of his days.

He was a drinker when they first met; owned a bar, in fact, down on the beach in Mukilteo, not far from where I live now. She didn't like his drinking but she tolerated it in the beginning, when they first started dating. She let him take her dancing, let him show her off to his drinking buddies and the patrons in his bar. But three or four drinks into the night, he'd grow belligerent, and after awhile she began to wonder if she could live with that kind of energy.

They'd be sitting at a table in some dance joint and the door would open. As people do, those already sitting would glance up to see the newcomers, and those walking in the door would glance about to see who was already there. My grandmother had striking features, the poise of royalty, and that vivid red hair, so it was no wonder that men would often do a double take. Clifford couldn't stand it. It wasn't unusual for him to bristle at that second look and bellow across the room, "Put your eyes back in your head! You've stared at her long enough!"

Once, he was so enraged at the number of men looking at Grandma that he took a knife out of his pocket and drove it in the table in front of her when he stood to leave for the bathroom, as a silent sign to anyone looking that if they thought about talking to her while he was gone, they'd better think again.

After years of being made to feel invisible by my biological grandfather, years in which she dried up like sponge, I'm sure Clifford's furious love was a needed downpour. Even years later, when she'd recount those stories to me, her face would soften and she'd grin shyly. But the drinking was too much. One night, after arguing over his behavior in a bar, she took off her high heel, hit Clifford over the head as hard as she could, and threw his car keys over a rocky embankment down by the beach. Her parting words, as she hobbled back to the bar to call a friend for a ride, were, "I'm not going to spend my life with a drinker."

Clifford quit drinking on the spot. She waited six months, just to make sure he meant it, and then allowed him to marry her. And they stayed in that sober-but-wild, blissful, romantic state for the remainder of his days--right up until he died, twenty-one years later.

Passionate love is real. I suppose it's because of my upbringing that I've never doubted its existence. Maybe because of that, I don't have a problem believing that God loves me with that same depth of passion. Reading Song of Solomon was, to me, confirmation of what I think I always knew on some subconscious level--if we mere humans can love someone with that kind of abandon, surely God can do it on a grander scale. When I read in Scripture that He is a jealous God, I thought, Well, sure. When someone belongs to you, you don't want others staring at them or trying to steal them away when you're out of the room. Sometimes you have to do something drastic to drive the point home.

In my mind, it wasn't a far leap from a knife driven into a table to spikes driven into a cross. Sometimes it takes a wild, extreme act to let someone know how much you love them--and to let them know your love will last forever.

For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels won't, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God's love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are--high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean--nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us. - Rom 8:38-39 (TLB)

©2008, Shannon Woodward

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Step by Step
Shannon Woodward, February 2008

Sometimes, when he accepts that second piece of pie or another not-needed cinnamon roll, he does so only to satisfy me. And when he gives in to my urging and accepts a handful of vitamins and a glass of water, he does it to nourish me. So when he stepped back in the house before our walk today, and put on the coat he felt he didn't need, I know he did it to warm me. "It's so cold!" I'd said. "Look at the way the wind is bending the trees--you'll freeze!" The man of steel put on his coat, but he left his hands bare. He has his limits.

I'm not made of steel. So I wore not only my coat, but also a knit hat and my fluffiest gloves.

We took a right at the bottom of the driveway and started off on the trail. Ahead, I could see the Highway 9 overpass still visible against the sky ... but barely. Dusk was rapidly snatching daylight.

We walked quickly, and quickly went through our unwritten lists. We talked about the kids, and Christmas, and an upcoming meeting at church. We talked about Germany, where we'll spend a month this fall, and I planted seeds for a few side trips to England, France, and Austria. "Wouldn't that be great?" I suggested. "As long as we're in the neighborhood, don't you think we should see those places?" He never makes decisions on the spot, but I know that. So I'll keep planting seeds between now and fall.

Somewhere between the overpass and the wide-open spot near the power lines, where the trees drop away and the sky shows big overhead, I became aware of a loosening of my right shoe. The tiny, click-click-click of a shoelace tip against the asphalt convinced me. "My shoe's untied."

We stopped and I began to remove the first of my gloves. Dave saw. "I'll do it," he said, bending down. I watched those ungloved hands as they took my shoelaces in hand, tugged them tight, and tied them in a bow.

"Thanks," I said. As we started down the trail again, I thought about the man at my side--the man who opens all my doors, and keeps my car full of gas, and gives me the best of all he has, and ties my shoes.

Those shoes were at odds as we walked. His was tight--so much tighter than the one I'd tied myself. It was tight like the blankets he sometimes tucks around me when I fall asleep on the couch. Had I tied that shoe myself, I would have stopped and loosened it within a few steps. But I left it just the way it was, and for the rest of our walk, I was conscious of the difference in every step.

One step felt like love.

©2008, Shannon Woodward

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New Year...New Canvas
Shannon Woodward, January 2008

What is it about a blank canvas that puts me in such a mood?

We ventured out today. That makes us sound timid, doesn't it--like we're a family of field mice living under the floor boards, watching the giants we co-habit with through mice-sized peepholes and wondering if we can scurry out fast enough to collect their dropped morsels without being spied and scooped. It's just that we've been hunkered down in this house all week, enjoying the after-Christmas stillness and moving only enough to refill our coffee cups or fetch our slippers or throw a bit more wood on the fat fire. Today, though, we traded robes for coats and slippers for real shoes, and we ventured out.

Our destination was the mall. That's a place I'm not fond of even during the slow shopping months, let alone the first few days after Christmas. We needed to do an exchange at REI and another at a sheepskin kiosk. Before we braved the mall mob, though, Dave had to drop off some paperwork at our insurance place out at Smokey Point. While he was handling that task, I took a stroll down the strip mall sidewalk until I found an art supply store. I love such places. If they didn't kick you out for doing so, I'd open every tube of paint and stick my fingers in all that color; crack open the linseed oil bottles and turpentine and take impolite whiffs; slit the plastic covering off every canvas and run my hands over all that pristine possibility.

Since I'd like to be free to return to that particular store from time to time, I resisted my artistic urges and tried to keep a safe distance from that side of the store. For a long time, I contented myself with thumbing through the art books and reading all the technique tips. But I kept peeking toward the back of the store, where one entire corner boasted a ten-foot tall, two-decker display of plastic-wrapped canvases. It wasn't long before my feet dragged the rest of me back to ogle the bounty.

I hadn't been there five seconds and I knew I'd be leaving the store with a new canvas. I've been feeling a strong urge lately to start a painting. The nudge pokes me at odd times, like when I'm just dropping off to sleep, and the memory of oils tickles my nose and runs across my fingertips again. Or when I'm driving past a wide-open pasture and the cows within arrange themselves in 3-dimensional letters that read "paint me."

It took awhile to select just the right size. I almost went with the 14 x 18, but there was something so majestic and intense about the 20 x 24. I had to have it. And when I pulled it down from the top shelf (did I tell you I'm 10-feet tall?) and held its slickery self in my happy hands, a familiar, lovely feeling of hope washed right over me, just like it does every time I hold a frame stretched tight with touch-me, shape-me, tell-me-who-I-am potential.

It could be anything, you know. It could be a still life of plump limes resting in my burgundy wooden bowl, with rare Pacific Northwest sunlight dancing speckles across the green orbs while winter-bare branches fill the windows beyond the kitchen. It could be a pair of barefoot girls sitting on the front stoop of a cottage, whispering giggly secrets while a family of June bugs skitter toward the edge of the painting. It could be anything at all. That's the power of untouched canvas.

A few weeks ago, Zac handed me his headphones and twirled the pad on his iPod. Switchfoot's "This is Your Life" filled my ears. Nice song. But long after the song had ended, one line continued to play in my head: This is your life. Are you who you want to be?

I couldn't shake the question. Am I who I want to be? If not, what would I change? What will I regret if it's not added to my life at some point? Before I knew what I was doing, I'd begun a list. I'd like to be kinder. Less impulsive. More self-controlled. More disciplined. Less of a procrastinator. A better communicator. It's a big list ... but I'm ready.

In a few days, another year begins. Indulge me here: God is placing a brand new, still-wrapped canvas before me, before you. Anything at all can happen this year. We can change that moodiness, finish that goal, mend that relationship. We can fill our lives with good things so there's no room for the bad. We can put our energy where it matters. The truth is, we can become who we want to be--but only if we surrender. No painting ever painted itself. The only way to bring lasting beauty into our lives is to take the palette, the oils, and the brushes, and lay them at the feet of the Master Artist--then unfurl the list and hand it over.

Here are the lyrics to an old favorite written by brothers John Michael and Terry Talbot:

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Making Room
Shannon Woodward, December 2007

I remember–distinctly–how overwhelmed I felt the first time someone suggested an Advent celebration to me.

Four nights. I'd have to set aside four nights during the busiest four weeks of the year. Lighting the candles sounded nice. I liked candles. Prayer was fine. I liked prayer. Sitting around a table asking questions and singing songs--that part I could do without.

"You'd be blessed," my friend promised.

I didn't believe her. It sounded like one more activity, one more "have to" in a month already crammed with have to's. I accepted the paper she handed me, glanced at the suggestions, and thanked her. When she left, I filed the paper in the very back of my filing cabinet.

It probably would have stayed there forever except for a half-hearted prayer I tossed toward God one day soon afterwards.

I'd been out shopping with the masses. Armed with four pounds of toy catalogs and flyers, I elbowed my way through crowds, hissed over parking spaces, stood in lines twenty people deep, and heard enough musical bells and animated Santas to drive a person insane. I spent too much money on things I was certain no one would like or appreciate. Worst of all, on a whim I picked up the newest book by Martha What's-Her-Name on "How to craft the world's most memorable Christmas ever using only a glue gun and fresh bay leaves from your own bay tree." Despite the fact that I didn't have a bay tree and couldn't remember when I'd last seen the glue gun, I plopped the book in my cart.

Driving home, I realized that something was way out of whack. My month was as full as it could possibly be. I'd loaded our schedule with every festive event I could find: concerts, parties, cookie exchanges, pageants, tree lighting ceremonies. There wasn't room for a single thing more. And still I wasn't happy, or satisfied, or contented. I didn't feel close to God. I didn't even like Christmas anymore. In fact, if I could have my way, I would have ripped December right out of my calendar.

I couldn't pinpoint how it had happened, but somehow Christmas had taken on a life of its own. It drove me, in an endless cycle of haves and wants and musts. I was on the Christmas roller coaster and feeling sick.

"Something has to change," I said out loud. Not much of a prayer. But God, I've learned, can read between the lines and find a prayer hidden in our little outbursts.

I lugged my purchases up to the house and hid them in the bedroom closet. With a cup of tea in hand, I curled up in my favorite chair and opened Martha's new book. I turned the pages, slowly at first, then more rapidly. One by one I vetoed the projects and recipes. Too big. Too expensive. Too weird. Gold leaf on cookies? Who puts gold leaf on cookies? Who eats gold leaf on cookies?? Most of the projects called for things I'd never owned and probably couldn't track down if my life depended on it.

Dejected, I tossed the book on the coffee table and wandered outside. Voices drew me to the sheep barn, where I found Dave and Zac, then four, spreading fresh straw.

Dave used the pitchfork, but hands-on Zac was down on his knee scattering straw with his hands.

"How was shopping?" Dave asked.

"Oh, you know. Plastic Santas. Angry people. No parking. Same as always."

I wasn't good company. My two men wisely kept working and said nothing. Until Zac, finally, made an announcement.

"That doesn't feel good," he said, pulling straw out of his sleeve. "It's not comfortable on your skin."

From my perch on a bale of straw, I watched but said nothing.

"Mom?" he pressed.

"What?"

"It doesn't feel good."

"Well, then, don't put it up your sleeve." Cranky mother.

"Well, it's just . . . I was thinking. Was Jesus really born in a barn?"

A cave, I thought. It was probably a cave. But I just nodded.

"Why did that happen?"

"They tried to find another place for him to be born, but there just wasn't room."

"That's not good." Zac shook his head.

He'd heard the Christmas story every Christmas of his young life. I couldn't understand why this was bothering him now. "It's just the way it happened," I said.

"But, Mom," he said, walking toward me, "feel this." He laid a handful of straw on my arm and stepped back. "It feels bad."

I looked at Zac. I looked at the small pile of straw on my arm and felt it prickling my skin. He was right.

His eyes were troubled. "They laid Him in a manger. I know what that is. That's a thing full of straw. That's not a place to put a baby."

No, I thought. That's no place for a baby.

"They should have made room for Him some place better," he continued.

They should have made room, my thoughts echoed.

"It was God. He should have been born in the nicest hotel."

The straw was still sitting on my arm. I collected it in my hand and let myself feel its scratchiness. And I tried to imagine my Savior lying in a bed full of plain, rough, scratchy straw.

Something clicked for me in that moment. Zac's words pierced my mind and burrowed into my heart. No room. No room for Jesus. The Innkeeper was me, and I had left no room for the Savior.

I saw what was wrong, suddenly. I had pushed the Baby out and let unimportant things take the place that was His. I had banished Him to the far corners of our holiday. Church on Christmas Eve, maybe a prayer or two. A quick read of the Christmas story. Nothing more. All the rest had been reserved for talking Santas and toy catalogs and parties and such. A whole lot of fancy nothing.

In my quest for the perfect Christmas I had lost the meaning of the manger... I had forgotten the simplicity of the straw.

Our Christmas changed after that. I started by bringing that handful of straw up to the house and stuffing it in an old canning jar of my grandmother's. Then I set it in a place of prominence, where it would remind me, with each glance, of the miracle that happened in a long-ago cave.

Next, I pulled out the Advent paper from the recesses of my filing cabinet. Studying the suggestions, I decided they were a bit too formal for our free-spirited family, so we started from scratch and formed our own Advent celebration. That first year Zac and I fashioned a simple wreath from evergreen branches we found lying in the yard and molded five little balls of clay into candle holders, which we tucked around the wreath. Nothing fancy. And on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, not knowing what to expect, we gathered around our table, dimmed the lights, and lit the first of the five candles. Dave opened with prayer.

"Lord, we ask Your forgiveness for our neglect. We want to honor You. We want You to be the center of all we do this month. More than anything else, Lord, we want Your presence."

"Dad," Zac whispered, "it's not polite to ask for presents."

That First Moment
Shannon Woodward, November 2007

The most amazing moment for me, as a parent, was that first moment. Unlike most other mothers, I didn't get my first glimpse of my son when he was all slippery and irritated. Because we were adoptive parents, we had to wait for a phone call inviting us to the hospital. Zac was an hour old by the time Dave and I got there, and by then he was all cleaned up and calmed down. When the nurse placed him in my arms and I said "hello" to that little face, he opened his eyes and looked directly into mine. It was as if I could read his thoughts, as if I could actually hear him thinking, "Oh … there you are." I just stood there and cried.

I didn't know it was possible to love another person as much as I loved him in that first moment. When I felt those eight pounds, one ounce lying helpless in my arms, my heart was full to bursting with feelings of protection and delight and pure satisfaction. There wasn't a single second when I thought, "Well, little guy, I guess I'll accept you the way you are right now, because I have no other choice … but I'm really going to start loving you when you can walk." Or, "I'll love you best when you've figured me out--when you know that my favorite colors are blue and green and the ice cream I like best is peanut butter-chocolate; when you know that I light candles at the first sign of rain. When you've memorized all those little details, then I'll really start loving you."

I didn't think any of that nonsense. I don't believe Zac had any such strange thoughts, either. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even a second there, at the hospital, when he worried that he might not be a good son or that he might not work hard enough or manage to create anything worthy in his lifetime. I don't think it ever crossed his little mind that he might not measure up to my expectations. Nor did he worry about where we had the car parked, or whether or not we had enough gas, or if Dave really knew how to maneuver us from the hospital back to the freeway and all the way home. He just looked up at the two of us and waited to see what was next. And you know what was next? A lot of staring and grinning. A lot of dreaming about the life we would have with him. And a whole lot of loving.

God is no different. He feels exactly the same way--He loves us just the way we love our children, only He does it much better. I hope you really grab hold of the truth behind these words: Your Father is not waiting to love you more, because He already loves you as much as He possibly can. He loves you perfectly, flawlessly. It's not because of anything you can do for Him. It's not because you try really hard to walk a straight line. It's not because you're diligent to read your Bible exactly thirty minutes each morning, followed by a precise fifteen minutes of prayer. He just … loves you. And the child who understands this is the child who is free--free to explore life and enjoy her Father and face tomorrow without fear of any kind.

Open your eyes and look up, and you'll see an amazing sight: God is looking right back at you. He can't help it. Your Father loves you so much, He can't take His eyes off of you.

Excerpted from A Whisper in Winter: Stories of Hearing God's Voice in Every Season of Life © 2004 Shannon Woodward. All rights reserved.

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A Whisper in Winter
Shannon Woodward


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by Ann Voskamp
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