Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God. Worship is the time and place that we assign for deliberate attentiveness to God – not because He’s confined to time and place but because our self-importance is so insidiously relentless that if we don’t deliberately interrupt ourselves regularly, we have no chance of attending to Him at all, at other times and in other places.

Eugene Peterson

Tomorrow my daughter Sharon, her husband Chris and their three children will be coming to Minnesota for a long-awaited visit. The third floor guest suite (I’m still not used to saying that) has fresh sheets on the four beds, a small, stocked refrigerator, a newly installed window A/C, games, books, a TV, new night lights, and a quirky bird clock that sounds a hoot owl at noon, a cardinal’s song at three, and a kingfisher at five.

I haven’t seen this part of my family for one year and two months. Children grow and change a lot in that amount of time. I have never seen Mr. McBoy‘s permanent teeth, Mrs. Nisky’s short haircut, or Little Glee-girl walk and run, so I’m pretty excited about their visit.

The video/photo montage below is something Sharon put together a while back, and in anticipation of their soon arrival, I thought I’d share. This is their middle child, Mrs. Nisky. She loves to collect things, draw and color very detailed pictures, and help her mama and daddy. She’ll be in Kindergarten in the fall, and she’s so excited about it she mentions it every day.

The lyrics are very touching. “How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough?”

Those sound like Grandma words to me…

In our last house, I indulged my long-time love of all things toile (pronounced twall) and put up black and white toile wallpaper in the master bedroom. I then hung black and white toile valances over the windows, and people began to give me black and white toile gifts that I displayed all over the room. It was truly toile overload, and it suited me just fine. I liked it so much (and Michael did too) that when we moved into our new house, I again hung black and white toile wallpaper in our bedroom, and because of peoples’ thoughtful gifts, kept adding to the toile theme.

Back at the old house, I once remarked to my son-in-law Jeremy that there should be a toile wallpaper with Miniature German Schnauzers on it. Because along with the various people always drawn on toile who sit on swings, pull wagons, draw water from wells, and fish off of quaint stone bridges, toile patterns usually feature goats, chickens, frolicking dogs, and even donkeys. Jeremy is a phenomenal artist and I told him he should draw a pen and ink likeness of our Schnauzer Edith on our toile wallpaper.

A few weeks later I was getting ready for bed and my eye caught something on our toile wallpaper that I hadn’t seen before – Edith, our Miniature German Schnauzer! Jeremy had drawn her sitting at the knee of one of the languidly reclining women figures on the wallpaper, begging for a pat on the head from said woman.

I was delighted! What an amazing talent Jeremy has. I called him up and thanked him for the pen and ink drawing of Edith, and he asked, “Did you find the other ones?”

“Other ones?” No, I hadn’t noticed other drawings, but of course Michael and I began to scan every square foot of our bedroom wallpaper to see what else Jeremy had drawn there.

It took several minutes, but on a different wall to the left of the window, we found this drawing of Edith, having some kind of canine interaction with one of the dogs already on our wallpaper. Edith has a strange ear that doesn’t flop down like the other one does – it stands up like an Orca fin all the time and Jeremy even captured that little anomaly of hers.

Of course by this time we were on a Schnauzer-hunt, and it took a long while to find the third drawing Jeremy had done – this one was up high near the ceiling. You can see that long-suffering Edith is sitting by a ladder and a chicken is pecking at her ear. It’s the ear that won’t fold down as it should, and we think this chicken knew it was a deformity and was trying to correct it for Edith.(You know how chickens are – they have a tendency to henpeck.) As is clearly evident in the drawing, Edith is not particularly pleased by this chicken’s assistance.

Over the years I would always smile when I looked at these amazing drawings Jeremy did. No one would have ever known they were there, since they get lost in the busyness of the toile. When I pointed them out to people they were always astounded at Jeremy’s artistic gift, and they loved the whimsy of us having our own Edith the Schnauzer added to our wallpaper.

Well, now we don’t live in that house anymore and of course we had to leave the pen and ink Ediths behind. Last week we closed on the sale and met the new homeowners for the first time. They were both friendly and so warm and complimentary, and we were happy to see that they seem to love the house as much as we do.

I’ve been wondering though. How long will it take them to notice that there are three little drawings of one beloved little dog that have been added to their bedroom wallpaper?

I hope I can talk Jeremy into putting some new Ediths up on our new black and white toile wallpaper. And we have a second Schnauzer now – her name is Mildred and we usually call her Millie. Hopefully she’ll make an appearance in pen and ink someday as well.

Along with all the photographs we have of our children and grandchildren, we also believe in immortalizing our dogs.

Several years ago the phone rang while I was vacuuming, and I thought I’d let it go over to voice mail. Then I saw that Michael picked it up in the garage and was speaking with someone for quite a while. When he hung up the phone he came in the back door with tears in his eyes, and my stomach sank as I thought the absolute worst and then whispered to him, “Who was that?”

“Ruth Graham,” he answered emotionally.

It took me a few seconds to react and I stood there staring at him, saying nothing. Ruth Graham, Ruth Graham, Ruth Graham – I was searching through mental files for something that would click, because I was expecting news about a family member.

Then it registered.

“Billy’s wife?” I asked incredulously. He nodded and his tears spilled over as he told me why she had called. Most of you probably know that Ruth Bell Graham had been an invalid for quite a while before her death a few years ago, but apparently she hadn’t let that stop her from impacting the kingdom for Christ.

I’d read that even though she was bedridden and in constant pain, she studied her Bible and spent hours in prayer each day, and that her passion for Jesus hadn’t been diminished by her suffering. So on this particular day, Mrs. Billy Graham was volunteering for her son Franklin’s organization, and she called to thank us for giving to Samaritan’s Purse. Michael and I had sent a small donation a few weeks before.

After she thanked Michael, Mrs. Graham chatted with him and asked him if there was anything she could lift up to the Lord for our family. He told her about one of our daughters, who was a prodigal taking a faraway path. For the next couple of minutes, Michael bowed his head and tried to keep from sobbing while Ruth Graham compassionately and powerfully prayed for our girl by name. Mrs. Graham knew a thing or two about prodigals from her own experience. I will never forget that blessing, that gift from God to my husband and me, and how greatly that encouraged us.

I remember marveling as I did the rest of my housework that day, “Ruth Graham has our phone number!”   And the next time we saw our daughter we told her that Mrs. Billy Graham had prayed for her, and she was surprised and encouraged too.

Over the years we began to see the hand of God move in our daughter’s life, just as we’ve seen His hand in our other daughters’ lives, and of course in our own lives as well. He has been faithful and merciful. Ruth Bell Graham isn’t the only one who has prayed for our family. We have cried out to God for our family, in whispered prayers while driving, in silence while doing dishes, in wailing and in weeping while snotting into the couch cushions, and I suppose we will continue to pray until we take our last breath on this earth – the needs are many and the Supplier is great.

Which one of you doesn’t relate? Aren’t we all deeply yearning for God to intervene in our lives and in the lives of the ones we love? I think the hardest thing about prayer is God’s timing. I have found it difficult to continue to pray in faith while wondering why God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to tend to my cries and important requests. But I’m learning. He’s teaching me patience and trust. My progress is snail-like, but at least I’m moving in the right direction.

So who is praying for you today? Your friends? Your spouse? Your pastor? Romans 8:34 says that even Jesus is ever interceding for us. I don’t fully understand this, but I accept it and give thanks.

I am no Ruth Graham, but I would be honored to pray for you today. We don’t even have to know each other – if you happened across this blog and you would like prayer for anything at all, please e-mail me and I will pray for you and keep your request confidential. I will sit quietly with you in God’s Waiting Room as you watch to see His hand move in those situations and people so dear to your heart.

Kneeling down and looking up,

Part of a hymn by John Newton that I’ve written on the inside cover of my Bible:

“Thou art coming to a King

Large petitions with thee bring

For His grace and power are such

None can ever ask too much…”

Asking for the sun, moon and stars,