The Sacred Space of Ordinary Life
Our first-born, nineteen and one of the latest and greatest additions to that great big world out there, came home for spring break. Having her home is like having the missing puzzle piece suddenly show up under the couch after you’ve looked there ten times.
There is an uneasy completeness when she’s here–uneasy because we all are keenly aware that it’s temporary. I think we feel a sense of grief in that knowledge, trying as hard as we can to fill in all the blanks that have been left empty while we were apart, thinking about how in another week we won’t be able to just turn to her and tell an inconsequential story of home that she would get a kick out of. Our family feels a little scattered, like when we turn off the lights late at night to finally give in to our sleepiness, we should be waiting up for one more. But we don’t, because she is out there, out in that largely unknown world of hers that we’re only on the fringes of.
When she got home, the room that she shares with her elevenyear-old sister was in disarray. We were in the middle of shifting the room to a bed with a trundle instead of two twins. She was aware we were going to make the change, and she was on board with it–her bed was only temporarily on display and would soon be hidden away when she was back at school. Her suitcase was laid open next to her bag of dirty clothes, her makeup bag sat unzipped on the floor, and her sister’s belongings were haphazardly strewn around.
They each spent time in the week she was home cleaning out closets and drawers, wondering why they chose to save some things, doubling down in their determination to save other things. Once dearly-loved items found their way to the trash. The room was in a state of transition, and it seemed smaller than usual, like a little girl and a woman were both trying to find a place for themselves.
I can see that the two of them are learning how to understand each other in these new phases of life: the sensitive pre-teen and the tender young adult. And I, too, am trying to learn how to hold these two worlds together: opening my arms to what’s new while clinging tightly to what’s familiar. And maybe this is how my college girl feels, too, when she comes home and her room doesn’t feel quite like her room anymore, when she sits in our living room and laughs as we catch her up on all of the stories she’s missed, when she is amazed that the baby is talking so much.
Thankfully, we fall right back into a familiar rhythm of the small things. Life is built on the tiny stuff. I think this is one of the first things that a young mother learns, like a light is suddenly switched on in her heart: it’s not the big events, the milestones, the rare occasions that make up a meaningful existence.
The smallest moments are the most sacred: that feeling when your hand stretches all the way across your newborn’s back. The way that a baby gazes at you in the middle of the night when everyone else is sleeping. When your second grader makes ten love notes for you in one afternoon. The way it feels to laugh with your teenager and “get” each other for a minute or two. And the way you sleep so soundly when your college girl comes home and your house feels the best kind of small.
These are the kinds of blessings that God built into the experience of mankind. Sure, life is hard, and we struggle and strain and walk uphill for years at a time. But all the while, through the struggle, in the struggle, because of the struggle, those sacred small spaces where God overwhelms us with His goodness are the monuments we return to as we look back. The small moments of ordinary life: those are the places where we stake signposts in our hearts, marking the truth that God has done great things.
And why would He have designed things in this way? Why didn’t He cause the big, rare moments to be the things that make us remember His goodness? Why is it that the things that mean the most are the littlest? I think there could be two reasons. One is that no matter how hard our struggle is, even if we are dying this very day, even if we are living in the middle of a nightmare, the little things can still spark a hint of peace and comfort.
In these tiny slivers of His goodness we remember Him, even on days when it is difficult to remember a single good or pleasant thing. The second reason is because in the little things, if we are paying attention, we can encounter God’s goodness every day in a thousand different ways. In the small things, we can know Him more. And that is what makes them sacred.
Before she drove away on Sunday, heading back to college and that new, big world that she is learning to navigate, she wanted to take pictures with her siblings on the front step, in the same place where she has stood for years’ worth of Easter, birthday, first day of school, dance recital, homecoming, and prom pictures.
It was a little thing, just a small moment, embracing her two little sisters and her brother who is her best friend. I set a signpost in my heart: this moment is sacred. And God is good.