"Gaps.........................."

My middle daughter, Jamie, has lived in Lexington, a little over an hour away from us, since she got married about twenty-five years ago. The distance is not all that great, but life, in general, has a way of creating its own walls. Jobs, children, commitments keep our schedules conflicted. It doesn’t take much to separate people physically. Beth and I are very happy, therefore, to have her staying with us a few nights before checking into a nearby hotel her new employer is providing while she trains in this area for the next few weeks. She’s going with us to early church service this morning. I’m, as usual, up and stirring before anybody else, hiding out in the computer room, an electric heater here beside me taking the chill off the room. The other truth of the moment would be my realizing just a short while back that, rather than piddling around on this “brain box”, such time would really profit me better if given first to prayer. How others accomplish that latter, I know not; but, for this fellow, it simply means trying to “connect” with that “living water” which is available for me in Christ. If, in seeking that portion of the promise already received, my words are not brought forth in some formulated format, but merely whatever comes to mind and spoken just as I’d talk to anyone else, that doesn’t mean the event is undertaken with no recognition of whose presence is sought. Let it be noted, however, that, for whatever reason, “hook-up” doesn’t always occur and, when that happens, silence on the other end doesn’t discourage me. I simply keep going back to the well. “Failure” to engage in a tangible manner, it seems to me, is usually attributable to fatigue, be it mental or be it physical; and “success” works much like this old man’s solution to sudden loss of memory, a state he finds himself in quite often anymore. Grunting and groaning in some strained attempt to locate whatever it is that has suddenly slipped my mind doesn’t help at all. Relaxing and letting the mystery come to me, though, never seems to let me down, whether trying to recall the name of this guy talking to me or kneeling down to knock on His door. It’s a lot like the old iced-tea commercial where you simply turn around and fall backwards into the pool, the space between forgotten, faith a matter of knowing He has never missed catching you before……