Dear Daughters,

Last week our family went up north to spend a few days together at an Airbnb cottage on a lake.  As we drove there, the road took some turns and zig zags as many country roads do.  Being the directionally impaired woman that I am, I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but giving Dad the directions given to me by Maps, so we could find the cottage. But the next morning when I woke up and looked at the sun, it seemed to be rising in the West. 

As soon as I saw that the sun was not agreeing with my inner compass, I tried reorienting myself to this revelation.  Yet, try as I might, I spent the next 5 days feeling as if the earth was spinning in the opposite direction. 

I’m not sure you have ever felt this way about directions, but there are certain places where my feelings about which direction I am facing is 180 degrees off from reality. 

I realize some people are always 100% accurate and yet there are others who think whichever direction they are facing is north to them.  (I actually had a friend like that on a short road trip, so I volunteered to drive.)

The first recorded question God ever asked was spoken to Adam and Eve,

“Where are you?”

 The question was asked in the garden, and sometime after the first humans were created.  Apparently, every evening, God would talk and walk with Adam and Eve, enjoying the beautiful garden and all the animals and other fascinating creatures inhabiting the garden. 

But one day satan, disguised as a beautiful snake, tempted Eve to think God was holding out on them because there was one tree in the garden of thousands that God said was off-limits for them.  Yes, even though there were more than enough other trees from which to eat, satan questioned the goodness of God.  The couple had never been ashamed of being naked with each other but now for the first time they hid because they felt shameful fear. Shame causes us to hide – behind trees or any other thing we can find in the world. 

It is curious to me what God did not say. He did not come in roaring mad because they disobeyed Him. He didn’t call them idiots for what they did. It was into this situation that God simply asked the question

“Where are you?”

God was not asking for their latitude and longitude coordinates, he was not asking behind which tree they were hiding – physical location was not His point.  He wanted to know why they were hiding from Him.  In the past, they had always been eager to visit with Him.  God wanted to know where they were in relation to Him. 

God created us because He desires to bring us joy, the fullness of joy.  But when we hide from Him, He will not barge in and demand we talk to Him.  He’s too much of a gentleman for that.  He waits until we are ready to talk, to reach out to Him.  More than anything, He desires an honest relationship with us, because He knows we will never have life abundant without Him. 

“Though the mountains be shaken

And the hills be removed,

Yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken,

Nor my covenant of peace be removed,”

says the Lord who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10

Ann Voskamp takes the question “Where are you?” in her book, waymaker, and paraphrases it like this:

Where are you, when it was once all about you and Me

And now it’s all about you and that damned lying snake? 

Woe is Me, where have you gone?

I just want you here with Me. 

Knowing that our heavenly Father loves us is enough to bring stability to our identity, attachment to the greatest person in the universe, and peace beyond measure. 

Knowing our location – our GPS coordinates – is important and helpful, especially when trying to find an Airbnb, but there’s something more important.  And that is where are you in relation to your Creator, the lover of your soul.

“Where are you?”

 is a good question Jesus asks of us every day, and unless we keep locating our soul near Him, we’ll keep losing our way.

Love, Mom