Warm

At night after our bedtime stories, Nora and I sit with the kindle in hand and search out pictures from the last 24 hours on earth, flipping through, talking about everything that happened today, not just here but everywhere.  I say the names of countries like some new song she's never heard before, tape the free map of the world we got from our National Geographic subscription to our wall, and point out where we are, the size of it all.  We talk of how God is there with each one of those souls, made each natural wonder, and will still hear our prayers whispered tonight, quiet words from two little ladies on a farm.

There is a picture of a group of men and young boys huddled around a fire, hands outstretched.  Where they live, winter has brought fifteen degrees below zero to their doors, though many don't have doors, so they huddle close to the fire.  Nora and I are quiet, thinking.  A life so different than ours...

How can we be sufficiently thankful for these gifts, each one a glowing thing that warms and heals?

Nora complains of her knee aching, growing pains like the ones I had as a child that kept me up twisting from front to back.  I warm the rice pack Mom sewed her for Christmas, elevate her leg, and place the warm bundle on her knee.  I see her relax a little, shoulders released into the pillow, head taking its weight down.  

In church Nora brings her dinosaur and I have to remind him to be quiet while Pastor is talking.  He speaks of the kingdom, and I get the sense that we're all a little unsure as to what that will be like.  I know there will be warmth.  The kind that clings to your eyes when they're closed, burning orange as you lift your face to the full sun.  The kind that hums through the walls of this house, blowing through vents and into the rooms in which we move.  The kind you find in the small, precious ember you feel glowing inside you at this very moment, the same one that glows now around the world.