Huddle

         
 "Have you ever noticed how 'huddle' is like a combination of 'hug' and 'cuddle?'" commented Naomi.
             One of the many highlights of returning here has been getting to know and work with my co-caregiver and Canadian friend Naomi. Our parents who are long time friends, were so tickled to learn that their daughters would be here together and it has been wonderful to share so many precious moments together. We were able to take a day off together last week and travel to Brugge where we enjoyed a day of exploring the quaint city and eating frites (fries) and waffles while people watching in the city square. It has certainly been a delight to share so many memories here.

      Some of my favorite memories have come from our time spent preparing Rebecca for bed. Some nights we get quite hyper and poor Rebecca has to put up with our silliness, but she often chooses to join in :) Regardless of the mood of the bedtime routine we end every night with prayer. We have begun to call it our huddle. With Rebecca settled in the middle Naomi and I position ourselves on either side and both place our hands on hers and begin to pray. In a way it does resemble a huddle by both the traditional and Naomi definitions. We have all of our hands together like a football huddle while also being in a half hug/half cuddle position. These are precious moments as we pause to thank God for our day, release our concerns to Him, and cover the household with prayer for the night and the next day. There is so much peace found in ending the day in precious conversation with our Father.

      We continued our Bible study in Ephesians diving into the richness of Ephesians 2. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love...made us alive in Christ. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus". Rebecca explained that it was not enough to God to just rescue us from death making us alive in Christ, but that He wanted us to be with him, to sit with him in the heavenly realms, because He wants to be with us. And for Jesus it wasn't enough to him to just die for our sins but that if He is to sit at Fathers' right hand He didn't want to be there without us, without you or without me. We get to be in the huddle with Him and He wants us to be in the huddle with Him. So every evening as we "huddle" before breaking at the end of our days I reflect on the incomprehensible reality that the God of the universe wants me to be in the huddle with Him "in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable richness of his grace" (Ephesians 2:7). How truly blessed I am to be able to look towards each day with the anticipation of being shown the richness of God's grace for today, tomorrow and the ages to come.

Naomi and I on our visit to Brugge

In Brugge, Belgium