As I walked to the library today, the clear sunshine and cold playful breeze provoked strong memories from my childhood. I am left with a thought: today would be a perfect Kite Day.

Every website result for "Kite Day" comes up with spring dates often sponsored local elementary schools. But in my mind, Kite Day takes place in the fall. Or maybe the very early spring. I'm going off of foggy childhood memories and a single picture which resides in my first picture album, a peeling white floral plastic object that maybe holds 20 photos total.

It's a shot of my mother running. My dad is standing behind her at a distance. The flat, grey Michigan sky looms overhead, a mirror to the close-mown brown field underfoot. Both of my parents are bundled in poofy coats and slightly hunched against a biting wind. They both clutch kite strings, but with my childish photography skills I couldn't get the kites themselves in frame.

I thought Kite Day was a national holiday when I was young. It isn't. It was an annual church event that my Dad came up with. My memories of it are murky - murky and cold. I know that I was very bad at keeping the kite up in the air, that my little fingers were always too cold and too painful to work the strings like my parents managed. I know I must have become sullen and tired very quickly. But I remember the strange delight in just watching my parents run across the field and seeing the bright diamonds of plastic follow overhead. It always seemed strange to me, parents running. It seldom happened, so I liked to watch.

Years later I was in college when my boyfriend picked me up for a "surprise date." He told me to bring a sweater and prompted me to guess what we would be doing.

"Are we flying kites?"

He was silent for a beat, looked over at me, and began to laugh. "How did you know?"

I couldn't explain how I had guessed. Maybe by that point I could already read Ryan's mind. Maybe it just seemed like another Kite Day to me - that floating personal holiday that returns every few years.

We drove to a secluded park on the other side of town. I was still very bad at keeping a kite in the air - apparently that's not the kind of thing that improves with age. Still we ran across the field until our noses were numb and our backs were sweaty. We laughed as we tried to figure out the physics of which direction we should run in to keep the kite in the air the longest. I grew tired and my fingers numb, and before long we just sat in the car talking.

I think it's time for another Kite Day.

I have been running on fumes for the past couple weeks. Paint fumes, gas fumes, the fumes of my own very dominable spirit. I've had this pervading sense of weariness... and wariness.

I feel like things are calming down, settling in. This is good, but for some reason, I am ill at ease. Have you ever felt like you have come through a Storm into a time of relative calm only to find your Spider Senses still tingling "beware?" I don't think there is more struggle to come. I feel that God has delivered us, and blessed us, and we ought not worry; but I suffer from aftershocks.

It's as though there is a gnome in my head shouting at my feminine intuition: "Don't let your guard down, Jamie! You can still struggle more! Suffer more! Just wait! You don't seriously think you can find PEACE in your life, do you?" I denounce this gnome as a nusance. And a false prophet.

Even as I sit here, I have to check the furrowing of my brow, the tensing of my shoulders. But I hear two gentle voices echoing in my head. The first is the voice of my mother, from approximately two years ago when Ryan and I were first starting out on our own:

"Jamie, when did you learn to be a worrier?"

"Huh?"

"Well, this isn't the first time in your life you've had to walk by faith. We've been doing it as a family since you were little. God always provides, and we can always trust Him. He is with you now, sees where you've been, and has planned out where you're going. Don't worry!"

The second voice is that of our Lord and Savior:

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matt. 6:31-33

Now that I think on it, I have been running on the fumes of last week's devotional times. I shall seek His kingdom, trust in His provision, and rejoice in His blessings.

It's been whispered among the pews, trumpeted at Bible studies, wept over at the altars, and expounded upon from the pulpet. And yet I for one still don't know if it's possible.

Revival.

I'm not talking a special service where there are more amens than usual, or a week of good attendance. I don't mean a scheduled weekend with a different preacher. 

We're talking about nothing more or less than the heavens opening up and the Spirit pouring out through our church and running through the streets of our city. We're talking about tongues of fire and healings and changed lives. A God encounter that would make history sit up and take notice.

Because I've never seen that before, have you? I grew up in a family sewn hand and foot to the concerns of Ministry. I've seen Ministry on three continents. I've felt the Spirit move on a slightly smaller scale. I've heard stories of revival. But in my own experience? Nada.

At our church now it feels like a deep rumble under the feet of our congregation, this dream of revival. A subversive sprite that whispers in the ears of our staff, our members. I myself ache for it - in my head, my teeth, my heart - it's like a surge of spiritual hormones, and I'm not the only one hitting puberty.

Am I making sense? Do you feel the yearning in your gut for more of God? More community? More transperency? For a New Testament-style back yard barbecue complete with prophecy, charity, and crazed worship. Where the neighbors peek over the fence and we invite them all until it becomes a block party, then a rave.

That's what we claim to want, right? So what's stopping us? Why have we not seen it yet? Why has God told us "not yet?"

Maybe we don't want it enough. Maybe we haven't shed enough tears in pursuit of it yet. Perhaps I'm not obedient enough in my devotional life or too many of us fall asleep during the sermon on Sunday. Maybe what God's looking for is unity in our drive. For surely, if each and every one of us were praying faithfully for an outpouring of the Spirit - if we each invited Him earnestly into our lives - if we were really living out the mandates of the faith - would God really be able to stay away? I don't think so. I think we would see fire, and see it quickly.

And really, that's what I want - just to see it. To catch a glimpse of God's back as He's departing Mt. Sinai. If God chooses not to bring revival to this city, this church, who am I to argue? But I am determined to chase Him down when He does show up, wherever that may be. Mark my words, if news of a revival reaches me, I'll be the first to sign up for a road trip to go see it, like some crazed God groupie.

But I still hold out hope that God wants to work here, with us. Oh Father, give us more of You - and when we are full to bursting with Your Spirit, give us still more.