Gratitude for things that don't look like gifts the first time you open them.

1.  Nora refusing to get out of the car at the grocery store.  Deciding to stand outside the car with my face pressed into the sunshine with my eyes closed listening to the thaw.

2.  This is harder than I thought.

3.  Split fingers that burn when submerged in the Murphy's Oil Soap, wringing clean.  The hands that have found work on the wood floor worn to the soft grain beneath.

4.  The stiffness of a curled, protective posture reminds that standing up to one's full height is not necessarily a sign of conceitedness.

5.  Again, I'm struggling to name what it is from today that challenged my willingness to give thanks.

6.  Being perpetually late to preschool no matter what time we wake up.  Working through the negotiation of getting dressed.  Patience and a reliance on understanding rather than time.

7.  [                                                                                  ]

8.  Feeling so far behind on school work and wanting to do so much more than I'm doing.  Learning that what I am allowed to do each day is God's portion-size for me.  Still...I am thinking try harder.  Try harder.


9.  Finding so many books I'd like to read and knowing there is only a small amount of time to read them.  I must be loving people instead.

Who is it that states my discomfort as a sign I am growing?  He does.  Who is it that brings me to the edge of routine to snap me into presence?  He does.

I am putting the bags and bags of groceries away, thanking God for each thing slipped into place on the shelf where there was an absence before.  I am rushing.  I am worried I am not thankful, that I am greedy--all the bags of things to sustain us, but I could still be fine with less.  Father, what would you like me to give away?  What of this isn't mine?  What have I stolen?

Do I love Him for what He gives me or do I love Him for who He is?  I am pressed to the edge.  And I know this is where He brings me.

Once you start...

I'm wide awake--the kind of awake them means I could get a lot done if I wanted to, so I started the laundry.

I have to admit:  I'm excited.

There is a bathtub sitting in my bathroom right now.   I might actually relax every once in awhile now.  Do you folks feel the same way I do about baths?  Bubbles.  A good book.  Bliss.

Was it in The Screwtape Letters that C.S. Lewis commented on how angry it makes the devil to see humans enjoying a bath?  I think it is...so.  Take that, you big old meanie!

I am stunned by how much has been fixed in the last week.  I don't want to bore you with a long list, but I will anyway:

Salt in the water softener
Dishwasher working
Toilet flushing correctly
New filter in the furnace
Shelf in closet for Nora's clothes
Bathtub
Car (Okay--that was 6 weeks ago, but...)
Plants repotted
Cookies baked (I consider not having cookies around a sort of "brokenness")
Hibernation habitat constructed for stuffed animal ladybugs

Love is a hard worker.   I thought I deserved broken stuff.  Love keeps proving me wrong.

I am honestly:

1.  Eating more than usual.  I've been all sorts of weights and I know there is a connection between the up and the down, the "full" and the "satisfied"--the "hungry" and the "empty".  Anyway, I don't want to spend too much time thinking about it (this worryenergy needs to be diverted to more productive, less self-obsessed channels).  I know I don't simply eat food to fuel my activities.  I eat food because I yearn, because I love taste, because I'm bored, because I need to chew something, gnaw through my own worry.  I eat to celebrate.  I eat to mourn.

2.  Wanting to spend time with so many people and not sure where the day goes (as the cliche goes).  And I look for ways to open those spaces.  Mom and Mike have been here since Friday putting in my new tub and the noise and work and movement are so comforting.  And I want to live in a giant house with all the people I love.  And I will.

3.  Wondering how I will get everything done.  We all wonder this.  ...all things are possible...   But what of the ways I stop myself?  What of the ways I worry/doubt/fret/read and reread/crease brow/sweat it until all my energy is spent and there is little left for the real work?  The liar makes a convincing and deadly argument.  But there is Another who Set It Straight.  How do I learn to train my ear to hear this Voice above the other?

4.  Turning my house into a jungle.

5.  Hoping to spend some time this summer recording 17 minute piano epics and learning a few Hymns.

6.  Still not ready to say everything.  And then I am.  It was said for you.  But you still need to feel it in your mouth, taking shape in breath and sound and sigh.  All the things you thought you couldn't say.  Because this is part of letting it go.

7.  [                                                           ]

Stillness

A farmhouse sunk in snow.  The quiet bed.  It's later than I thought.


Let me not fear the chaos of a life in motion.

Some Littles

1.  Watching Calliou in bed with Nora after getting my dishwasher to work because a working dishwasher means at least 20 minutes more a night with my girl.  And younger looking hands--well, until garden season.

2.  The brass ensemble in chapel today was...it reminded me of why God gave us metal, really hot fire to bend the metal around, and the ability to blow zerberts.  It sounds funny, but when you put all those things together, something celestial happens.

3.  Teaching:  today was intense.  There are no hardened hearts to speak of--only speaking hearts.  And I love them.

4.  Peace where there shouldn't be.

5.  My mom calling just to say she loves me, which was a coincidence because I happen to love her, too.

6.  Working up the courage to drink a soda pop at a remote gas station.  Because there is adventure and then there is hiding under the booth.

7.  [                                                 ]

8.  Did you know the 7th wave is always the largest?  I didn't, and this means I'm growing.

9.  Making it home safely in the snow, cuddled up around the space heater, and even though my eyes are drying out, I'm safe and warm as kittens.

10.  All sorts of vision.  How she teaches us to see.

11.  So many amazing women emerging of late.  The utter blessing of community.  I wonder if it is too early to sew aprons for everyone...

12.  I have my seed.

13.  Yes.  yesyesyes.

My New Bathtub is in the Back of the Pickup

Mom and Mike took a good chunk of their day today to drive us out to Menard's, hunting down all the parts and pieces I'll need to install a bathtub at the pig farm.  (The original tub was replaced with a walk-in shower for Merle and Ila in their later years there.)  At one point, I got separated from my "peeps" in the middle of all those aisles, probably dazzled by the sparkly faucets.  I wandered a bit, tired perhaps, and suddenly panicked:  How terrifying it would be to suddenly be alone here in the middle of all these building supplies.  Lost.  Doing it alone.  And what if this was like my life?  What if no one was there?

I don't really know how to say this enough, with enough emphasis:  I am okay because of all the good, loving people in my life, how they do God's loving, helping, a hand extended.  I am leaning on you, brothers and sisters.  And you can lean this way, too.

Love,
Lisa

A Window

She wakes at 3 AM with memories of a "blue furry thing on the bathroom ceiling."  I'm groggy, having only been asleep for a couple of hours.  "Like Cookie Monster?"  "No, Mommy, Cookie Monster can't get into our house.  Remember you have a rule about monsters in the house."  "Oh, that's right."

Her eyes refuse to close and my eyes refuse to close watching her eyes.  She analyzes shadows for danger.  I am holding her.  We listen to her sleepy-time music again.  At 4 AM, she's still fear addled and sleepless.

I sing to her....my God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do...

The moutains...His.
The rivers...His.
The stars are His handywork, too.


I will admit something to you:  I couldn't sleep alone until I was 12.

Fear, the shape that fills us when we momentarily forget: love.  I tell her I love her, that God loves and protects her.  But how do I make her FEEL this, to replace this terror with the warm constant comfort of His love, the goodness of His makings and doings?  I sing again.  God is bigger than the Boogie Man.  He's bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV.  She soothes for a moment.

5 AM:  Mommy, I just need to talk to you.


I sneak into one of my younger sisters' beds.  Even the small, warm assurance of a foot against my foot comforted, stilled.  I would sleep and wake ashamed that I had no courage.

I can sleep in the empty farmhouse alone.  And I'm not afraid.

How is this even possible?

I sleep walk, stumbling into the living room mumbling, cold-sweated, disoriented.  Mom leading me back.

Now, I simply leave no space of my heart unoccupied.   I let Him in:  The knocking at the window was real.