It was dark when we finally got home last night and it was still dark when I again walked back in the door this morning.  The sun just hinting at it’s coming glory as it began to lighten the eastern horizon.  I wonder if it’s as tired as I am, and I know that’s ridiculous, and yet I still wonder…

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Sunrise. Sunset. And a question…What did you do in My Name today?

Well God, I had some great ideas, I made some really Big Plans. We could change the world you know.  But that’s a lot of pressure, changing the world and the Big Things.  I have to get this right.  Maybe tomorrow I will know what to do.

Sunrise. Sunset.  And a question…What did you do in My Name today?

Um, today just flew by, what with the time spent in the “in between” and the kids and the cooking of the dinner…and well, I sang some songs to you.  We had a great jam session in the car and I thought  some more about those Big Plans.

Sunrise.  Sunset. And a question…What did you do in My Name today?

I made some mental notes today.  I think I could write about this…maybe that will be launching point of our Something Big. I am going to do Something Big Lord, I promise.  I just have to figure it out.  I know I was made for Big Things.

Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat.  And the cycle continues and nothing changes and I long for Big Things and I make Big Plans and I chase lightning in a bottle and I get tired of trying so hard to make something happen.  I get tired of peering around corners, knowing and expecting, that Something Big is just around the bend.

Aren’t we supposed to want Big things?  Aren’t we supposed to leave a Big Mark?

And then this question straight from the car speakers…Why are you striving these days? Why are you trying to earn grace?
Why are you crying?

I don’t know…I honestly don’t know…

I am a person of action words.  I don’t sit still.  I desire to be “doing” and I feel like Small isn’t Big Enough. But I am wrong, and I know this, but it doesn’t make it any easier.  I am trying to see Small for how Big it really can be.  And when my heart tells my brain, “it’s not enough,” I remember these words from Ann Voskamp that I have read so many times in recent days.

You don’t have to worry: We all get to make one unforgettable mark. And every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world?

Why in the world disdain the small? It’s always the smallest strokes that add up to the greatest masterpieces.

Because the thing really is: Do we ever really know which mark we make — that will matter the most? The extraordinary things happen nowhere else but in the everyday and today can always be the beginning.

I know you’re brave … and you’re scared. Because you keep doing big things that seems so small and you wonder where all this is really going and you only get one life here —

And though you’re weary, you do hard things and you keep getting out of bed, and this is always the hardest part — you keep believing that Christ didn’t leave this world until He showed us His scars — and He won’t ever let you leave this world until you leave your most beautiful mark. To show Him.

We will probably have to be scarred.  In leaving our mark it will probably be messy and it probably will hurt, but maybe this is how we do our Biggest Thing.  Maybe our scars, bravely worn, show a hurting world His Glory and Comfort.  Maybe our stumbles and struggles handled honestly, and redeemed mercifully, show Love and Hope.

So Just For Today — listen: you’ve got to keep going.

His Kingdom is Upside Down and in Him your part is large and lovely and needed and art.

So go get the milk and take out the trash and throw in the laundry and wave giddy to the neighbors because there is a plan and there is a purpose and there is a God in heaven who didn’t just ink you onto the palm of His hands but etched your name right into Himself with nails and He’s hasn’t just got your number, He’s got your heart.

So really — you’ve got to believe it…really, it’s all working out okay.

Because God’s writing your story and He never leaves you alone in your story, and His perfect love absorbs all your fear and His perfect grace carries all your burdens, and your story is a happily ever after because Christ bought your happily ever after so you always know how this story ends.

Maybe my Biggest Thing, isn’t a thing but instead living presently in the daily grind of life. A life filled with scars and struggles but also Love and Joy and I have been missing out as I have searched for it elsewhere.  I am understanding that my Big Thing doesn’t look like I thought it would and that’s how I have missed it for so long.

But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus–the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. (Acts 20:24)

…in Him your part is large and lovely and needed.  It is the true meaning that I had confused for so long in Ephesians 3:20.  “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work withing us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”  We have no idea what Big looks like from the other side…

Sunrise.  Sunset. And a question…What did you do in My Name today?