This October morning seemed perfect… crisp, cool, a deep blue sky. A sweet beginning to my favorite season.

I don’t want to miss these days as I missed the months of August and September… days lost in preoccupation of busyness in a scheduled bathroom renovation coupled with surprise water damage from a faulty refrigerator, resulting in chaos as the floors had to be taken up.

I almost missed it! There have been days, perhaps weeks, that I missed the Now.

I longed for normal… I longed for dust free furniture. I longed to hear whispers of peace. I tried to write a blog, but I was too much “with me”; the focus was on the present moment of  getting all things done. There were bits of normalcy even with a temporary kitchen set up in the garage, but Now was stolen by urgent needs.

I lost the focus of living in the moment.

Isn’t it strange that we can become self-absorbed when days don’t go as planned… when our schedules are interrupted? … so easily we forget the struggles of others.

You’ve heard the expression, “I cried (or complained) because I had no shoes. Then I saw someone with no feet.”  Getting the house back in order had to be done, of course, but it should not have changed my focus. And it did… for a time.

A friend in a nearby town called last week to tell me the owner of the house they lived in had sold it; they were given ten days to vacate. Dust and cracks suddenly lost their importance.

“Where will I go? What will I do,” her voice broke.

Today… wherever we are in this house project, or wherever you are in your world… doesn’t seem quite important as I watch parts of the world with no shoes, no feet, no homes… life, as normal, is over for many.

I remember hearing the whisper, “Pray My heart for the world,” two decades ago before we moved to Europe. How easily and quickly I began loving the international family in Vienna and later in Copenhagen. Even the sad faces crowded on the city’s trams, trains and buses were not dull objects, occupying a space, but became a focus of love and intercession.

Tom performed the wedding ceremony in Vienna for a lovely young woman from Bethlehem; we love a Syrian lady born in Damascus, living in Vienna. We had Muslims for dinner.  Currently a sweet part of my days is teaching a young Muslim English; “I feel so happy here”, she hugs me.It was and continues to be a joy to love the world.

So what is my response this day?

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you… (John 15:12).

Brennan Manning says, “Time has been given to us to cause love to grow, and the success of our lives will be measured by how delicately and sensitively we have loved. There is no escaping the gospel logic that all our thoughts, words, and deeds addressed to others are in a real way addressed to Christ himself.”

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us  (I John 4:12).

… focused to love…