God’s pj’s.

A few days ago I read a guest blog post by Jeff Clarke on Kurt Willems’ Patheos blog (I really dig Kurt Willems blog, by the way.). The title of the post was, There are no God moments: Rethinking God’s Omnipresence.

I agree with what he’s saying — God’s always there to be breathed into our blood like oxygen. But I believe God moments still exist. Not because God is suddenly roused from his nap on the couch like a drunken father who swirls his little finger over the cosmic TV remote in the sky for us, switching the channel of our lives in some big or small way before returning to his resounding snorefest. No. That’s not the kind of dad God is.

Jeff is right — God is always there, present, watching and waiting to be noticed. But God moments exist as a consciousness paradigm — a moment when we suddenly awaken to the great almighty. A moment when the scales fall from our eyes for just a moment and we can experience God here in the physical realm, with a sensuality, a visceral experience that hadn’t been there a moment ago and sometimes, quickly fades.

So this happened to me yesterday.

I work at a church part time. It was mid-week, and I left the trailers our offices are housed in temporarily and headed down to the worship center. I wanted to grab whatever cards we’d collected that week at Volunteer Central and check on the progress of the drives we’re running: food for Thanksgiving, toys for Christmas, warm winter gear for the homeless. I was alone in the huge building. None of the lights were on so it was just the natural light streaming through the windows. In the lobby near our Volunteer Central booth, the doors to the worship center — the place where we currently worship on weekends — beckoned to me. I had no reason to go in there, but I did. I went in.

Immediately, I felt God’s presence in that place. It was as if I had barged in on God when he was at home, clipping his toenails, or sitting in his flannel pajama pants and robe.

I stood there for a moment and looked around, surrounded by the almighty in such a way as I though at any moment thunder would roll, or he might get up from one of the seats to turn and look at me. I felt his love of this place. How he comes here because it is the place of his people. Like a wife might sniff the pillow of her dead husband, God comes to this room to re-live the weekend experience, when he is the center of our thoughts.

The walls here are stained with your praises.

It was his voice in my spirit, sharing the reason he liked it there. I looked at the walls — perfectly clean — and heard the echoes of the amazing music that’s performed there every week. In my mind I saw all the lifted hands, and the people who were out there now, somewhere, hopefully praying, probably not.

He missed us.

Us, who in all our busy-ness had disconnected from the moment of worship, leaving a gaping hole in God’s heart. So he comes here — exists here — to look at the stained walls, the remnants of our praises, to ponder us and think about us and connect to us.

Of course, he’s out there, too, wherever we are, caring for us, listening and waiting and yes, I believe, orchestrating, instructing the angels he’s assigned to us, doing battle for us. But he’s also here, resting at home, staring at the wall art of our worship.

I started thinking about all the people who come here and how deeply I love them. And how it’s a supernatural kind of grace love — the crazy Jesus kind of love. It’s nothing that comes out of me. Because I don’t particularly like people. People exhaust me. And I am exhausted.

The past few months have been some of the most draining of my recent life. I am stressed beyond belief and I have not been alone in a room for more than about 30 minutes in over a year. For an introvert who recharges by being alone, this is serious. I am tapped out. I’ve got nothing left to give anyone, and I’m carrying a debt — I’ve still got lots more to do.

Important relationships in my life have hit a crisis point (not my marriage — that’s pretty amazing — so don’t go off thought-wandering — stay with me, here) that have made me want to run for the hills and are now in some creepy tension-limbo where everyone’s trying to not look at the elephant. People I care about deeply have made snarky comments to me that, because I am raw and feeling wounded, hurt like hell. Some of my friends are heartbroken and I don’t know how to care for their beautiful spirits. I’ve coordinated two events at work — one important but small, one incredibly big in recent weeks with another huge one coming.

A key, beloved volunteer recently passed away suddenly, and I suck at expressing love for people and don’t know how to care for his beautiful wife other than to give her hugs when I see her. I’m a low-empathy kind of person, and knowing I suck at the people crap makes me just suck at it even more, because now I’m all self-conscious about how much I suck at it.

My non-profit, She*s ELEVATED, is a thing now, something that’s out of my head and happening and needs my care. My private life coaching and consulting business is taking off. And in all this, I’m still a wife and mom to some of the most amazing people I know.

But this love for this place, these people, it keeps me there even when it would be easier to leave. It’s that crazy Jesus-love. It’s not me. It’s because God is there, and every once in a while he gives me a God moment, shares his thoughts with me, rips back the curtain and shows me his pj’s. And then the awe rolls over me like a hot shower, that God just showed me his pj’s.

Who am I, that God would be so intimate? Would speak his secret pleasure to my heart: I love this place because the walls are stained with your praises. It was a collective moment — intimate and solitary and yet connected at the same time. When he said your praises it was at once the singular and the plural, the solitary and collective. I realized he was saying, I love you, you, and I love you, my people. I love you being part of my people. I love you staying here even though you feel like running. I love you all even when you are all jerks, and you all are jerks sometimes. I love you even when you fight. I love you trying to work it out. I love you in your tense silences and I love you in your pain-filled prayers. I love you when you forget me. And I remember you by coming here, to look at the stains of your praises.

And that. Was definitely. A God moment.