And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind...                -Acts 2:2

About 30 miles north of Nairobi, Kenya, is a small community called Kijabe, the place of the Winds. It is perched on the escarpment wall overlooking the Great Rift Valley. When I lived in East Africa, one of my assignments was to write about the work at the mission hospital there for donors in the U.S. The views from Kijabe are extraordinary, and I always enjoy my visits there.

One afternoon the nursing director and I were trying to concentrate on a quiet task together when the wind became particularly gusty, blowing our papers around. "Wind can be so unsettling," I remarked as Norma got up to close the windows.

"Yes, but I think maybe that’s its job here on earth - to rearrange things," she replied. With the windows closed we were nearly oblivious to the wind. It howled around the buildings as we carried on our task.

Later, thinking about what Norma had said, I remembered how the Holy Spirit came with the sound of the wind at Pentecost. The Spirit came to rearrange people’s lives, changing their priorities and reordering history. For the people who were there, nothing was ever the same again.

Am I open to that Power in my life? Or do I close my soul up tight at the prospect of change? Am I willing to let God the Holy Spirit blow out the cobwebs and reorder my comfortable routines?

Holy Spirit, I want to keep open the windows of my heart and let You rearrange my thinking and my doing.

-Mary Jane Clark