Stillness, Joy, Fullness

This summer, I have sat with God and he Has been in the stillness, or rather He was the stillness itself.  He could not be separated from the flowing stream in our yard or from the fearsome splendor of Volcano Poás.  In everything, I felt Stillness.  And I soon found another name for this Stillness, something that C.S. Lewis calls Joy.  Joy was what settled and spread within me, a bit like cinnamon hot cocoa but everlasting, as I was looking through the wooden frame of the church window.  A simple butterfly caught my eye, its blue wings flitting away towards the road.  There was another, yellow this time, and it followed the first.  I couldn’t tell you why, but those two tiny-winged butterflies unearthed a memory that overwhelmed me, not unpleasantly, but the way a large wave lifts you unexpectedly. 

It was of my last Sunday at Forest Hills and there in the wood and the soft light and the pleasant bustle of the chapel right before a service, were some of the people that I loved dearest in the world.  I was sitting on a high bench between two of my best friends, Josh and Audrey, and could look out to see the Moores off to the side and towards the back, Mom, Dad and Grandma sitting beside Mike and Margie.  I don’t remember what we all sang or what we all said that day, but I remember crying.  Part of it was knowing I only had a handful of days left in the U.S. and part of it was knowing that I wouldn’t see Audrey for a year.  But the time when I cried the hardest was when we were called up to paint our hand green and make a leaf on the canvas where James had drawn a tree.  Suddenly, I walked out of the chapel, ran downstairs and outside and sat on a curb and wept.  It was like I had to get away and be still and let it all catch up with me.  I couldn’t stop weeping and couldn’t trace it to anything but Joy.  There were pieces of sadness, too, thinking of being away and pieces of confusion at my own tears and I wish that I could explain it all better than that.  But I know I have never felt more surrounded by God or so completely Full as I did then, sitting on the curb in a parking lot with my hands in my face. 

I don’t think anyone ever saw my tears, except little Sara, who asked me later if I was all right and why I had been crying.  I think I told her they were happy tears, and although that is true in part, I realized I could never explain the joy and the fullness of it in a way that made any real sense.  And I didn’t tell anyone else because I felt that out of all of us, maybe a little girl understood the Fullness the best.