holy ground

It struck me this morning, as I gazed down at my feet, that the ground beneath them—the stretch of real estate that runs past my kitchen sink, from the refrigerator to the stove--is holy ground. I don’t often think of it that way. Usually, when I am there, holiness is the farthest thing from my mind. But it is sacred nonetheless.

For this ground is the first place I go to in the morning, and the place where I wind up when I can’t sleep at night.

It is where I prepare my family’s meals, sometimes lovingly but more often than not with a lot of sighing and grumbling.

It is the place where my husband kisses me good-bye in the morning and hello in the evening.

It is the spot where countless arguments have begun and where many have ended.

It is where I stand to watch the birds flock carelessly around the bird feeder, and where I stare out the window, fretting about the future.

When I read the day’s mail, I lean with my back against the counter there, ready for whatever might come my way.

When I am on the phone, whether it is with a friend in need or I am simply on hold, I pace back and forth along that stretch of floor wondering how many feet have trod that same path.

And, when my children don’t know where to find me, it is the first place they look (of course it is the only place they look before they start yelling).

In this place, I have received good news as well as bad; found reasons for celebration as well as for remorse.

In this place, I have shed many tears and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe.

In this place, I have gotten a lot of great ideas, and lost my train of thought more times than I care to remember.

I have poured out countless doses of medicine on the counter there and cleaned what seems like hundreds of scraped elbows and knees under the faucet.

I have watched generations grow older here--my parents, my siblings, my children—and I have set down and torn up roots only to set them down again.

Perhaps what makes this ground holy is not what I do here but what God does. For this is the place where I least expect to find Him and the place where I most often do.