Soul-Stirring Conversations: Susan May Warren Newsletter

Connecting!

I don't know about your life, but as my teenagers get older, I see less and less of them. I use to think this might be a good thing - back when they followed me into the bathroom, when they'd bang on the bedroom door, "We're done with our nap!" My son Peter liked to climb onto the back of the sofa and lay in wait for me, leaping onto my back as I walked into the room (no wonder I had a weekly chiropractor appointment). It seemed my children were velcroed to me.
Not anymore.

Let's see, when was the last time we were all home for dinner together. Well, let's not count David, who is away at college, or we'd have to go all the way back to New Year's Eve.

Superbowl Sunday. Yes, we managed to pack out the sofa for four hours of togetherness. And perhaps the night before, when I made everyone go swing dancing. But other than these events our lives sort of resemble a fast food restaurant, people showing up in the kitchen at odd hours of the day, making themselves some food to go, and dashing off to basketball practice, theater rehearsal, weight lifting, their shift at work, dance class, dates, slumber parties, and church meetings.

My goal is just to emerge from my office when they happen to pass through the kitchen, maybe catch them for a quick kiss and, "just tell me when you'll be home so I'll know when to start worrying." I've thought of attaching bells around their necks.

Connecting in a meaningful way with my teenagers isn't easy these days - occasionally, I resort to fumbling through their piles of dirty clothes in the dark, sitting on the edge of their beds, and saying, "Hey, wake up. Tell me how your day was." But I make the effort because it matters.

Sometimes I think God is that way with me. I am rushing all the time through life, and suddenly he shows up with a sunset, or a song, or a sweet moment with my family, or even a kind word from a reader and says - Hey, wake up! Tell me how your day was!

Oops. I meant to check in, God, before I went to bed. Really. But the truth is, sometimes I'm so busy studying scripture, or apply it to my novels, or speaking about what God is doing in my life that I forget to just sit down and enjoy Him. Chat it out. Be in that relationship. Connect.

I love reading Oswald Chambers. In his September 7th entry, he writes: "Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of other with no dryness or deadness whatsoever."

The verse for that day is: John 4:14, "The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

I don't want God to have to chase me down in the middle of the night and wake me up to spend time with Him. (Although I'm glad He does!) I want to stay at the Source...and drink until I thirst no more.

I pray that during these dark cold months, you are staying at the Source, and letting Him fill you up - so you can flow out to others.

Thank you to all who are reading Double Trouble and Sons of Thunder! I know - two very different books, but both journeys of my heart. I hope God speaks His truth to you through them. Thank you for letters of encouragement - they are sweet water to me.

Blessings on the journey!

Susan May Warren