My son Ben leans up against me for his morning hug and kiss. He needs my affection, this simple morning routine, to start his day; to confirm the goodness of his existence and the security of my love.
He is needy, always. Pleading for peanut butter. For a tattoo. For Christmas. Calling to me from the bathroom to do for him what no mother wants to do for her adult son. Insisting that I make his bus magically appear at the end of the driveway.
I once was an eager college student flush with conviction, laying my life out for Jesus. His love had captured and transformed me, and I was driven by the wonder of it. I would go anywhere, do anything, I vowed. And I did. It was difficult and painful and exhilarating and beautiful, while it lasted.
But somehow I didn’t expect it all to come down to this. With the ministry over and the children gone, to have my existence circled around the care of this man-child, “the least of these”, as Jesus described him. When I said I would go anywhere, I was imagining an exotic faraway land, not a remote town in northern Minnesota. When I said I would do anything, I imagined kingdom impact, not caring for a 30-year-old man who still refuses to change his socks.
And yet, where else should I be but the place that Jesus has sent me? What else should I be doing other than His loving assignment?
A city set on a hill, Jesus said, cannot be hidden. Its light spreads across the countryside, its shining towers visible from a great distance. Crowds are drawn to such a sight. And some of us are those cities, with platforms and support teams and publicity that boost our visibility and our reach.
But most of us are the single, small lamp, our simple flames flickering in the smaller, humble corners of the world. In ordinary places like homes. Offices. Waiting rooms. Our lamps are not any less important for their obscurity, in God’s estimation, but sometimes they seem so, in ours.
This is my assignment and my place, here in the hidden circle of a quiet life. It is a blessed assignment, and a meaningful one. So I will thank God for this beautiful, remote town and the circle of friends He is giving me. And the sweet, incalculable privilege of caring for Ben, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16
Andrea Sanborn 
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