When you walk into a room, what
happens? How does your arrival make others “feel”?
Are they intimidated? Happy? Anxious?
When we walk into a room, sometimes, no
one notices. But more often than we realize, others will have a
subtle emotion surge through them when we enter.
How we live beside them, how we respond
to them, how we look at them begins to author the emotion they feel.
Are we a calming influence? Do they feel rejected? Can they feel
safe? Do we make them feel insecure?
Jesus showed us the importance of
seeing others and responding to them in right ways.
When Jesus walked into a room, things
changed.
And when He left this earth He said we
would do all He had done --- and more.
So ----- i've been sitting with this
question ---- what happens when i walk into a room? Do joy and peace
arrive with me? Or do i bring anxiety and strife? Something more than
just flesh and bones enters when we walk into a room.
Something more than used air will
remain after we go.
If we asked 10 people closest to us to
share one word describing how our presence makes them feel, what
words would they use?
Wherever we go, we fill up that space
with more than can be seen.
When we walk out of a room, we leave
something behind. People feel better, worse, or untouched completely.
Have we warmed hearts or chilled them?
It's the pre-cursor to the legacy we
will leave when we die.
It's what Heaven's been whispering to
me of late.
On a Monday we prayed again over my
aching chest. The cough had first come four weeks earlier. Tears had
dominated my night; fear is a mean bedfellow. Ugly thoughts like,
“could this be the beginnings of a heart attack?”. Since i've
never had one, how can i know how it would feel? I'm not typically a
worrier, but this extended sickness had begun to win and i was losing
the battle in my mind. After lots of prayer, and sorting out many
details, my husband bought the ticket to fly me home the next day.
It's the cheapest ticket we've ever bought between Kenya and home,
what a relief.
Tuesday i boarded the plane.
Twenty-three hours later i landed in
Atlanta.
People surrounded me. But my eyes
searched only for my daughter.
Maggie
walked into the room at the international arrivals in ATL ---
and everything changed.
A sparkle of “home” arrived with
her. Flowers in hand, she brought peace, calm, love, and the sense of
you-are-not-alone. It all walked in the room with her. My chest still
ached, but my heart breathed more easily ------
The next day found me sitting in a
doctor's office. Friends had made the appointment for me, we'd spoken
with them just minutes after booking my flight on Monday. I needed to
see a doctor, they made the arrangements for me (thank you Gene and
Jackie!). Seventy-two hours later found me in his office. I sat
quietly on the high examination table, Jackie and i watched the door.
The doctor would soon arrive; he would bring a knowledge of what was
wrong with my chest and what needed to be done.
The doorknob turned, Dr. Momin
walked in, a smile and a greeting, and i knew answers would
soon come.
When the doctor walked into the room
--- everything changed.
Before meds were even prescribed, my
thoughts shifted and i felt better, just knowing someone was present
who knew what to do. No more guessing, i could rest. It was only
bronchitis and pleurisy ----- the words heart attack or lung disease
never came. It's a tiring battle to keep believing the best when your
mind runs rampant over less appealing possibilities.
When someone who could give an educated
answer walked into the room --- there was no more space for
battlegrounds in my mind.
Two days later i sat in a room
proportionate to a castle hall. Called the “Great Room”, it a
quiet space where students can retreat from the continuous activity
of university life. My youngest son had said, “Mom, while you're
home, come to class with me...”. He now attends my alma-mater. It's
a beautiful campus in a small gold-mining town, hence the steeple on
the oldest building is covered in gold found in the mines long ago.
Between classes we walked pathways familiar to us both. I shared
storied of the places his father and i had sat and talked during our
dating days, before a wedding ring, before children. Under the
same-same oak trees, walking the same-same pathways, my son now
journeys where i once did, and we felt time shrink. As class called
him away, i headed to the great room, he would meet me there after
lectures were done.
It's a dark room with a stained glass
window on one end, flags hanging high around two perimeter walls, and
couches neatly placed in groupings. I chose my spot, slid off my
sandals, curled up against the cushions and studied along with the
other much-younger-students in the great room. They delved into books
like physics and foreign language, poli-sci and calculus. I opened
familiar pages of ancient history laced with endless love. My Bible,
my greatest study, my home.
I read, journaled, read more, prayed.
Mentally sitting right beside the hems of His robe, and wiped tears
over the flood that comes. The hour flew by. Looking up from my
studies, i saw him round the corner.
Peter walked into the room, and everything changed. There came
that smile on his face as he found me in the dark great room, that
smile of recognition, that look that silently says, “There you are,
i know you, i've been looking for you ----”. Familiar kindness,
peace, calm – it all came into the room with him.
Days later, i sat in my parents
beautiful mountain home. It's their weekend runaway, where the deer
battle with my mother over her newly planted flowers and the trees
wrestle with my dad over their leafy covering of his long mountain
views. It's a place of silence and peace even with these playful
wrestlings of nature. Mom and Dad know, the mountain owns itself
really (the Deed in their hands means nothing to the mountain), and
the trees and deer and bear see their lovely home as a well manicured
playground. We'd laughed the night before as we stayed up late and
talked. Early morning found me perched in the quaint sitting room off
their breakfast area, holding leather-bound-home in my hands again
and talking with the One. Everywhere can be home with Him. Finishing
up my readings, i sat quiet. The morning sun was shaking the
shoulders of the mountains as a mother does the shoulders of her
children, “time to wake up”. Light leaked into the little room
wrapped in windows. Then mom walked into the room, and familiar
flooded in, dad was right behind her, and everything changed.
Familiar faces with familiar voices ---- for over five decades.
Familiar, safety, kindness, and i-miss-seeing-your-face walked in
with them.
My short two week visit home was a
flood of much-needed-moments with those dear to me--- walking into
the room. And for those two weeks, i allowed myself the gift.
Mentally, i wrapped each entry as if it were a literal present.
It was an unplanned trip. A last minute
decision. Go home to see a doctor (chest pains pressed the decision),
but also, and perhaps even more important, go home to see your
children, your family, rest in quiet places with souls that your
heart is aching to see.
Perhaps it wasn't pleurisy that pressed
me home after all... no, it wasn't a heart attack... instead it was a
heart in need.
My dear husband gave me this gift ---
go spend Mother's day early with them. The time it will take to fly
there and back will be about the same amount of hours you labored to
bring them into this world.
What a thought.
As i flew back to Kenya, sitting alone
surrounded by people, i revisited all the moments of familiar faces
walking into the room.
Words are not able to share the heart
sometimes.
It's perhaps one of the great griefs of
releasing a loved one to the grave. The pain of knowing they will
never walk into the room again. Living so far from home, i do think
on such things. And it grows me. Others-centered thoughts, not
self-centered ones.
Appreciating the fact that when someone
walks into a room with us ------- it is a gift that will not be
allowed always. This should not provoke sadness; this should provoke
appreciation. SEE the soul that enters the room. Embrace the gift
that has come near. And go a step further still --- ask ourselves to
be truthful about what others might feel when we walk into their
rooms.
In the blink of an eye, my visit was
over. Good meds had begun defeating the chest pains and coughing. I'd
rested near my children in my daughter and son-in-laws home. Getting
to lay my head down under a roof that's also covering the heads of
those i gave birth to --- well, that's better than ten Christmas
mornings for me.
Waiting on airport tarmac, anticipating
those wheels leaving home-soil again ----- those moments of seeing
them “walk into the room” filled in the cracked pain of leaving
them again.
Landing back in Kenya, i held that same
leather-bound-home in my hands. And i purposed in my heart to
appreciate who would be walking into the room here. My Steve. We who
have been married for many years can all too often overlook the gift
that should be seen when they walk into the room. Steve and i have
been married for almost 34 years. That's over 12,000 days of walking
in to each others rooms. Too many let it become common --- it should
not be.
“Walking into the room” ------ it
was a thought, a grouping of words that i'd been studying on for near
two weeks.
How it felt when others walked into my
room... how it might have felt for them when i walked into theirs.
Then two days after my return home to
Kenya, i sat with a missionary friend as we prepared to lead worship
on Sunday. She had chosen several songs for us to consider. Playing
her guitar, we sang. Coming to a song i'd never heard before, she
sang it alone, i closed my eyes and listened. She sang the words
-------
“When You walk into the room ---
everything changes...”
She did not know the journey i'd been
on with those very words. I opened my eyes and reached for the
song-sheet, as she continued to sing.
“When You walk into the room
----everything changes. Darkness starts tremble ----at the light that
You bring.
When You walk into the room-----
every heart starts burning --- and nothing matters more than just to
sit here at Your feet ---- and worship You.”
When Maggie walked into the airport
arrivals room – everything changed for me.
When the doctor walked into the
examination room --- everything changed.
When Peter walked into the great room
at university --- everything changed for me.
When my parents walked into the
quiet-time room --- everything changed.
...there were countless other moments
of special room arrivals, each of which is dear... and perhaps i
appreciate them all the more because it is not often i get to see
them walk into my rooms.
But when it came in a song ---
“When YOU walk into the room,
everything changes --- darkness starts to tremble at the Light that
You bring...”
Heaven whispered.
HE had been giving me glimpses of it –
the importance of what happens when LOVE walks into a room.
Truth --- when we walk into each
other's rooms, it matters. We bring something with us when we arrive.
We bring joy or angst, peace or turmoil. And we actually get to
choose. We should choose well what we allow to enter a room with us.
It will matter --- more than we know.
Heart-healing can come when others walk
into our room – when the doctor walks in – when my children, my
sister, my parents, my husband walk in. Heart-healing.
But ----
SOUL-HEALING comes when HE walks into
our rooms.
So ---- when the room is filled with
too much pain, too much lonely, too much ache --- and we're longing
for something to come and relieve the empty space around us.
Let's close our eyes and ask HIM to
walk into the room.
When He walks into the room -----
everything changes.
We must not let the wild commotion and
deep pains of life on planet earth keep us from remembering -----
what we REALLY NEED --- is for HIM ---
to walk into the room ---
and when we walk into the rooms of
other's lives, we need to carry Him with us.
And may we never forget --- some of the most unkind among us --- have never felt HIM walk into their aching rooms. May we carry HIM all the more steadfastly into their hollow spaces.