Reading Half the Sky is has brought the spirit of Christmas into my heart. I can't explain it. I'm having a wonderful time here in San Clemente with family; yet even though my feet are grounded in this cherished family time together--shared meals, making origami birds, playing board games and fishing off the pier--my spirit feels as though I've stepped on an invisible conveyor belt that's whisking me to a world of equally powerful purpose: to lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees.
I arrived here two nights ago after slowly reading, outlining, and making notes of Half the Sky during my flight from Denver. I think I got to page 26 or so. After we all went to Morton's for an incredibly sumptuous meal, I went to bed exhausted. But the most amazing thing happened. I got chills just now thinking about it:
While I lay in bed next to my husband, surrounded by a fluffy duvet comforter, a cloudy bed quilt beneath me, and the fragrant, untroubled air wafting in through the moonlit window, my word of comfort felt out of place: I felt the silent voices of the wounded calling to me. Here come the chills again--my litmus test for what is true, inspired and God-given. I was exhausted from my disaster of a missed-flight day, but I couldn't fall asleep for two hours or more. This feeling of being called was something solid and sure. I was being pulled.
Three years ago, I remember saying to my husband and my daughter, "It's the strangest thing, but I just had the strongest feeling that someday I'll be going to Africa and India to accomplish a great work. I don't know what it is, but I'm supposed to go."
Then today as I sat in church, something happened that's never happened to me before. It's hard to put into words, but I felt as though voices of the suffering, and those who have vanished from this earth in silent agony were calling me from the dust. My family is sitting at the other end of the room playing Othello, and it's all I can do to keep from weeping aloud as I write this.
Christ was placed in a manger as one of the least of us. He taught us to love the least among us, and that when we serve them, we are serving him. As I prayerfully press forward with my life, seeking to serve those who suffer, may I remember that I am silently serving our Redeemer, our brother, the Messiah, the great Jehovah, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And may I never forget those who have served me, nor the peace that has come into my own heart because he lives.
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