Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ADORE (11/23/23)
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TITLE: My Puzzle | Previous Challenge Entry
By Philippa Geaney
11/30/23 -
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That was some time ago and being too curious to discard it, I pocketed it instead.
Blue sky borders and terra firma foundations were already a border around me, thanks to Jo and Anna O’Reilly, my parents. They'd formed child sized jumbo pieces of life’s puzzle for me, although logically, the pieces grow increasingly smaller, tighter. Harder to fit.
Still, I had the center piece to work from. It turned up on the first day I’d skipped along behind my parents and up the stairs of Holy Cross Church, Miles. A brass plaque winked from the top stair, catching Father’s eye. He read aloud.
’Proudly built from congregational finance and carpentry’.
The church was as small as a man’s hankie.
Somehow the insides seemed larger, as though the walls expanded in greeting.
God lived there. I knew it as soon as I walked in the door.
‘Hey Mummer, God’s here.’
I turned to face her, expecting similar excitement and agreement, but she’d narrowed her eyes and put her shhh finger to her lips.
I didn’t want to be silent.
I was five. Or four and a half, I can’t remember. The months taken to turn five seemed irrelevant, marked only by changing seasons and elements of play. Parental love duly supplied all birthdays and Christmases.
Wandering toward the front, smelling candle wax and brasso polish. I’d whispered an undying commitment to love Him. It was an informal agreement.
I’m older now and many more pieces of life’s puzzle have fitted, but after wandering through Notre Dame, St Paul’s Cathedral and many other beautiful churches, nothing has caught my breath, as did that moment in Holy Cross Church, Edith Street, Miles.
That is where I found God. The center of my life.
The building itself lay shaded in a cluster of Eucalypts, on country-width Edith—the street ending sans apology, at the town creek.
By age ten, I’d rejoiced with God over that lazy old creek as it flowed along like a brown snake who’d spent a morning in the sun. Once I’d written an essay about it, adding two, sometimes three adjectives to every noun. Mother Michael snorted as she’d read, leaving me to suppose she was jealous, or like my mother, feared I was far too fanciful.
Based on their receptions, I kept my conviction of His ever-present Presence in the pocket handkerchief church, to myself.
But He was there, and I’d firmly fixed my love on the One my eyes could not see.
Most little girls of five were cute and loveable, and my sister, aged seven, always drew stares of admiration, although I felt she was always grumpy, looking for a sibling misdemeanor to complain about. She said I was a freckle faced afterthought, who believed in unfiltered freedom of speech.
Logically, there was not a lot to recommend me to the living God, but He was stuck with me. I pursued Him, spoke of Him as a parent, which annoyed or worried my family.
I changed over time.
I learned He was not exclusively the God of the denomination I was born into. This claim, when spoken, brought about varied reactions.
Clearly, the institution had several or many things wrong. But the news that He was interested in a personal relationship, founded only on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, was spellbinding. In joy I asked Him to be my Lord, became born again and learned His Holy Spirit was waiting to indwell my spirit. Make a home in me.
Nothing could get any better.
Strangely, the sticky part came over my understanding of the word adore. A product of cultural immersion, I struggled with anyone suggesting they deserved adoration. Even God.
By then, the freckles of my youth were fading, but the will to express my opinion remained.
One just does not demand adoration Lord.
Yet everywhere in the Bible, those who loved Him bowed in adoring worship.
What was I to do?
What if that was what He wanted? With a frown resemblant of my mother’s that first day in Holy Cross Church, I raised my hands in worship and realized I’d been doing that, albeit in my heart, from five years of age. I bowed my head, hands over heart, to realize I’d been doing that internally too.
I adored God. Such a relief. The only difference now was that my body, soul, and spirit were in unity of adoration.
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