The scars. The dents. The ink scratched unseemingly upon its finished and polished bark. As I wipe it clean crumbs scatter the floor, my child lies in a sunbeam on the wooden floor and she whispers to the imaginary bees, "It's all right. It's going to be all right." I am living a memory... this moment has already passed even as I wade right into the middle of it. I clutch my wet dishrag, return to the sink. Plunge it in.
We were made to be worn. Scathed. A serving surface with marks to show the miles. Like chairs that creek and wobble from holding so many bodies. There are better tables to be had but this one, it's the one I sat at with my family before everything fell apart. There's power in symbols. Redemption to be had. So I rescued it out from under motorcycle parts and metal tools to sit my husband and daughter at it instead. New life.
I woke that night, or rather much too early, from a dream where someone had died. It was 2ish in the morning. The house stood quiet and still, as it always is when one of its members wakes when they shouldn't. The mother's fear was thick around me. I tossed and turned for the better part of an hour as worst case scenarios paraded through my sleepless mind like a bad picture show. Then the faintest breath of life, the scripture comes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. - Proverbs 31:25
It is sobering to acknowledge that I don't know how to do that. How to be that. In a way I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Security and safety wasn't anything I experienced as a child. We moved often, changed schools even more. My sisters and I made stories in the air, fairy tale homes of sticks and branches in the apartment woods until neighborhood boys gleefully tore them down. Nothing was certain. Nothing. The future least of all.
Are the sweet moments made so much sweeter when you know they could be ripped from you at any moment? Or does the sweetness suffer from the ever expectant dread? Dear God I want to be that: fearless. Open armed. Full of holy courage that comes from knowing even the faintest lines on the palm of the One who has written it all. Knowing and accepting all from Him, like Job. So I scribble down thankfulness on a simple piece of paper taped to the cabinet door in the kitchen. Gratitude for pain and pleasure alike. And slowly, slowly, the seasons of my heart will turn. I know I'll find the pattern of Him in it all.
We were made to be worn. Scathed. A serving surface with marks to show the miles. Like chairs that creek and wobble from holding so many bodies. There are better tables to be had but this one, it's the one I sat at with my family before everything fell apart. There's power in symbols. Redemption to be had. So I rescued it out from under motorcycle parts and metal tools to sit my husband and daughter at it instead. New life.
I woke that night, or rather much too early, from a dream where someone had died. It was 2ish in the morning. The house stood quiet and still, as it always is when one of its members wakes when they shouldn't. The mother's fear was thick around me. I tossed and turned for the better part of an hour as worst case scenarios paraded through my sleepless mind like a bad picture show. Then the faintest breath of life, the scripture comes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. - Proverbs 31:25
It is sobering to acknowledge that I don't know how to do that. How to be that. In a way I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Security and safety wasn't anything I experienced as a child. We moved often, changed schools even more. My sisters and I made stories in the air, fairy tale homes of sticks and branches in the apartment woods until neighborhood boys gleefully tore them down. Nothing was certain. Nothing. The future least of all.
Are the sweet moments made so much sweeter when you know they could be ripped from you at any moment? Or does the sweetness suffer from the ever expectant dread? Dear God I want to be that: fearless. Open armed. Full of holy courage that comes from knowing even the faintest lines on the palm of the One who has written it all. Knowing and accepting all from Him, like Job. So I scribble down thankfulness on a simple piece of paper taped to the cabinet door in the kitchen. Gratitude for pain and pleasure alike. And slowly, slowly, the seasons of my heart will turn. I know I'll find the pattern of Him in it all.