Leigh McLeroy - A Minute of Presence for Women: Awaken Your Heart to the God of Wonder

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A Minute of Presence for Women: Awaken Your Heart to the God of Wonder

Copyright 2018 by Leigh McLeroy. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-4964-2284-2

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I am convinced that God is present and ever revealing himself in the midst of ordinary human life. Yes, he is the creator of the universe, the author of salvation, the beginning and end of everything that is. He is great. There is none greater. But he is not far away. Not at all. If you asked me for proof of his presence, I would point first to the fact of the Incarnation: the Word became human and made his home among us, says the Gospel of John (1:14). With the birth of Christ, God put on skin and, as Eugene Peterson has phrased it in The Message, moved into the neighborhood. His coming changed everything.

If you pressed me for further proof, I would point to my own everyday lifebecause this life is the place he keeps on showing up, time after time after time. Not a day goes by that I dont catch a glimpse of him. In checkout lines and waiting rooms. In bells that chime and sirens that wail. In drive-throughs and drop-ins and even at my own front door. These pages demonstrate the ways God has been present in my own life. The stories they tell are in thematic order rather than chronological order, and my hope is that you will recognize yourself in them and consider Gods constant presence in your life too.

Human life, says Michael Downey, all of it, is the precinct of epiphanyof Gods showing, of Gods constant speaking and breathing. It is a wonder to me that this is so. And every time he shows himself, it takes my breath away. My prayer for A Minute of Presence for Women is that it will invite you to linger a while in the presence of God and will awaken your heart to his wonder all around you.

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

PSALM 16:11, NASB

Leigh McLeroy

Michael Downey, Altogether Gift: A Trinitarian Spirituality (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000), 35.

Ive tried going paperless. I have. I have all sorts of convenient tools and apps that stand ready to keep me on track, on time, and on task. But I love my plain, banded folio and its simple, worn pages. Scratched notes fill the columns of each week, reminding me where Ive been and where I need to go. Scribbled names record who Ive spoken with and perhaps what weve talked about.

Great and small blocks of time attest to what sort of work Ive done and what is yet to do. Stray words and phrases are buried throughout the whole stew that might someday bubble into something more substantial... or not. My own handwriting on my planners not-virtual pages grounds me in a way that ether notes cannot. I am, unapologetically, a calendar girl.

Each January I procure a new planner with crisp, white, empty pages. I have no idea what assignments or stories it will catalog. I hope, of course, that its pages will record good work, thoughtfully done. Old friendships maintained. New ones serendipitously explored. Heart-hammering trials endured. Good books read and pondered. Inviting creative challenges met. I cannot possibly predict what will appear on any one page, but I can attest with certainty who will be present behind, before, and on every page: my heavenly Father.

How do I know? Because he was there in the pages of last years calendar... and in all the ones that came before it. He was there when the pages bore notes like fire and move and myeloma and Memphis. He was there on a beachside balcony in Orlando and in Marcys guest room in May. He was there in my mothers hospice room and beside me on a bluff high above the Frio River. He will be for me what he has always been: present and the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The pages may be new. The year may be different. But there is no reason to fear the coming contents of this empty planner. The unseen Author of every line is unchanging, good, and true. He is faithful. He can be nothing less. I am a calendar girl, and he is the God of the ages.