Glimpse of Intimacy
By Rachel Ingrum
It is two o’clock in the afternoon and I am sitting down for what feels like the first time. My morning of running kids around to various summer activities was immediately followed by lunch, which included a start-stop-shift operation (a common process for doing things around my house) due to inadequate propane for the stove. After throwing together an alternative meal plan, feeding four ravenous children, and cleaning up from the mid-day mayhem that we call lunch, the idea of bending my knees and planting my backside somewhere began to sound really attractive.
The youngest of my four kids is now asleep, and I am preparing to home school the other three kids during his nap. Later, I will make dinner for my family, bathe the kids (who will have become stupefyingly dirty for having showered less than 24 hours prior), spend time reading together, and then put the kids to bed. At the end of all of this, I will sink into the couch and ask my husband about his day with the ministry. Our conversation will be followed by a usually futile, attempt to read my book before I fall asleep on the couch. These are my days in Lima, Peru … and I love them.
As I reflect on intimacy and exactly what it looks like in my life, I began to consider who I am truly intimate with. I think first of my husband and kids. Because I home school, I am with my kids constantly. I know their ins and outs, their struggles, what they excel at, what makes them happy and sad, what they enjoy, their dreams, and most every other detail about their lives. I do what I do everyday because I love them. I want what’s best for them. I desire intimacy with them, to know them and to be know by them. Then it hit me, this is how God is with me. He knows me better than I know myself and loves me more than I love my kids. He knows my struggles and desires to comfort me. He knows my dreams and wants to fulfill my deepest yearnings. He loves me and knows me — I mean truly knows me. This is intimacy.
Raechel starts, stops and shifts through the days in Lima with her loving husband and four wonderful children.