From Michelle. 15 December, 2010.
Dearest Friends and Family,
What a lot has happened since I wrote last! I woke up several days ago to find that the flood warnings I had so casually noted on the nightly news now applied to us. A river was literally flowing straight down a hill and into our basement. If I had had a boat, I could have white water rafted down the stairs. Fortunately a blocked drain was quickly fixed but it left a foot of water in our basement and wet walls and carpets in our guest house, as well as a soggy mess in the garage. Since then we have been in emergency clean up mode. Thank God for visiting friends who have pulled and lifted and tossed item after item out of garage and basement. As one friend put it, God is so amazing that he brought friends from Manila, Hong Kong and Portland to answer the call. Curiously, other than the obvious physical exhaustion, nature’s small calamity has had little effect on me. While things were lost, the perspective offered by the accident, the sheer gratitude for every breath, for all of the love, has transformed this new challenge into a bothersome chore and no more. Please do pray for our wonderful landlady, however. Her losses are far greater, both personal and financial, and though she has bravely soldiered on, her load is heavy.
Steve continues to plod faithfully on, and is rewarded each week with continued progress. Though he still needs his power chair for any significant activity, he walks wherever and whenever he can. This means that he can get to the kitchen or an appointment on crutches, however even a walk around a large store is still too much, let alone any greater distance. Steve is tasting the freedom from his chair, however, and it is spurring him on.
God continues to fold his wings around us in a sheltering embrace. On a drive to the airport recently to pick up a friend, I wept tears of joy and gratitude at the loving presence we feel so deeply each day. In my mind’s eye I imagine a radiant joy streaming down toward me, offering riches far beyond our circumstances. While the disciplines of life remain, a promise also plants itself in our hearts.
This is a quiet Advent for us, far from Manila’s rash of parties and lights. While I deeply miss the many circles of friends and celebrations that we enjoyed there, I am trying to embrace the quieter anticipation that this more mundane rhythm of life allows. And what I am finding in that quiet is a deep sense of prosperity. Even as I am surrounded by loss, in waterlogged piles and physical incapacity, in spirit, in space and in time, I am aware of a profound richness so deep and wide and real, that all that is temporary merely fades in its presence.
And so, this is my prayer for you and me this week: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19.
With love,
Michelle