Extraordinary God

This week’s blog features a poem titled “Extraordinary God” by my granddaughter, Rachel Smith. Rachel comes from a strong Christian home and is the 4^th in line of seven children ranging in age from 29 to 13 years old. She is a junior at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Rachel received many favorable comments when she was my guest blogger in October, 2023, with her first blog “Who Are You?”

As a young adult with a curious mind, Rachel wanted to know why she believed what she believed while growing up. This poem reflects her journey to a personal relationship with Jesus. She knew she could not know God without a faith of her own. So, Here’s Rachel!

“Hey Friend, My name is Rachel, but You can call be Rach. My inspiration for creating this blog is to extend hope and to help you to recognize the joy found in the simple and sometimes mundane things of life. As Jesus shapes my heart in this way, I have a desire to share this joy with you! Stick around. I am happy you are here. 😊”

              “Extraordinary God”

I looked for God in extraordinary ways.
I looked for Him in the sky and the clouds.
I looked for Him in roaring thunder and rain. 

I asked God to talk to me –
To say an audible word.
I looked for a miracle
Like I would fly or float or grow wings.

And when my seeking drew disappointment,
I told God He didn’t care.
Surely, He was keeping distance from me
He would show up in extraordinary ways undeniable. 

My thriving grew tiresome.
My anxious heart grew weak.
A foolish thing to do. 

As I began to accept,
To sit in the stillness of His given Word,
A peace that I hadn’t quite held before seeped into my heart.
God, He pursues me first, and never in part. 

My striving.
My trying.
My wearisome soul. 

My anticipation.
My Expectation.
My accusation of it all. 

In the quiet of the morning or the darkness of the night,
In the moments I worship and in the moments I don’t.
When joy finds its way, or sorrow comes today.
God sits and sees. 

For we have an extraordinary God
Who shows up in ordinary meetings.

In laundry, and coffee, and making a meal.
In walking, in running, and even when we kneel.
In math tests, and interviews, and disappointing days. 

God, He is there, in the miraculous mundane.

I think Rachel captured the essence of responding to God with a humble heart in a most beautiful way while realizing that it cannot be by our own efforts that can detour us along the way.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6