deeper

This week on the Boundless Line, they’re talking about “the quieter and more lasting kind of interest” that develops as a marriage grows past the honeymoon stage. It sounds a lot like my experience with living abroad. Giddy excitement has given way to deeper and deeper understanding…and I’m still barely scratching the surface of all there is to know, just about one small country.

Today, I stood in line for two hours with a tourist group who had been here just two days. First-timers tend to make me a little envious with their sparkle and excitement. But to have enough experience to exclaim over a dust storm that’s chilly, enough Hebrew for little old ladies to ask why I’m not wearing a sweater, to be on first-name basis with many of the plants, to feel the folk music in my bones, to have glimmerings of understanding for the struggles and joys of the local people, to see history and meaning wherever I look: this is richness.

This week, I took a flying trip south, and saw many new facets and faces of Israel. I spent an afternoon with a new friend, and retold how much of my story has been full of God’s surprises for me. There is so much more of Him to know. So very, very much more.

It’s been a hard week, with dullness and deep sadness. It’s been a good week, with clear evidence of God’s tenderhearted planning in the details, and the reminder that it’s right and good to pray the most basic of prayers: for the gift of repentance. Hunger for God and His word. Just…that He will pursue me, when I cannot seem to pursue Him.

I’m told that the absence of rain on the surface will cause palm trees to send down roots through packed earth, through gravel, deep, deep into the ground for water.

I think I’m going deeper. I don’t know, because I can’t see below the surface of my life. But God can.