tune in…

                                  One of my favorite photos from this summer:  my sweet boy Isaac with my dad.

(This one’s for you, Dad!)

Picture it.  1982, or so.  I’m perched next to my sister on the brown and orange plaid backseat bench of my dad’s late 70’s brown Chevette. We’re driving around London, Ontario on some sort of errand, I have no idea what, and listening.  No, we’re straining to hear Ernie Harwell announce the Tiger’s game on a Detroit radio station…

Static crashes and tears away at his words.   “And it’s a hit to center field…”  but that’s all we hear.  My dad fiddles with the AM knob.  This was back in the day when the listener was completely responsible to tune in the station – no automatic harness of sound at the push of a button.  You had to really want it.  And we did.

It wasn’t easy to gather up enough waves from the atmosphere to hear a game being played in Detroit all the way in London, three hours away. Dad’s the one who taught me to keep at it.  A born and bred baseball fan, he taught us girls to love the game too, mostly by his dedication to listening through the static.

Listening can be complicated sometimes.  It was true about baseball back then and it is true about life now, I suppose.  It wasn’t long before the summer of 1982 that my dad demonstrated he was listening.  By God’s call, He moved our family  from Danville Illinois to a new life in London, Ontario.  Through all of the earthly strains, He listened and obeyed.  And we were forever changed. There had to have been plenty of static at the point of decision. I’m still amazed by my dad and how he listened then.

Well, my life has had a lot of static this week.  Crazy noise, drowning out my ability to hear anything. And I squint and grit my teeth and hold my breath. I imagine I probably look a lot like my dad while doing it…  But its just loudness.  deafening sound.   I fool with the knobs to adjust the station… Is HE even saying anything?  at all?  And I know He is, I just can’t hear it; His voice is muffled by my own inability to listen.

Static.  Squeals and feed back and ruffles of sound in the form of : a crisis with a friend.  Emotions run amuck when I find yet another situation completely out of my control.  Thoughts that cast fear and doubt over the future.  Envy of someone else’s something or other.  Gossip and rumors over unimportant nonsense. All of it creating distance and diversion from the one voice I long to hear.  If I could just find that station.  If I could just tune in…

And I find it.  It is my gratefulness that subdues all of the other noise.  “Tune my heart to sing thy praise.”  And I realize it is just that.  There is plenty of chaos swirling in waves around me.  But, when I focus on Him, His goodness…when I can see the redemptive pieces of my life’s puzzle falling into place, by His hand of mercy… Then.  Only then I hear His voice.

He is always speaking.  I just have to tune in to His station.

Thank you, Dad for teaching me how to tune in and listen.

beautiful words from Psalm 40:5-11

⁵ Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

⁶ Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart.”

⁹ I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You Yourself know.
¹⁰ I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly.

¹¹ Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.