We're all twirling plates in a fallen state

Do you ever have too much on your mind?

Kids, and school, and food, and being a new board member of an organization I know little about, and filling out my first W-2 in fifteen years for a job titled "director" in which I have a shaky grasp on whom and what I'm directing, and Little League, and strawberry processing, and birthday parties, and infected boo-boos, and housework

.......would be enough to be getting on with; and yet the true work is in relationships too often strained and torn by sin--where the real wrestling takes place, the struggle against the forces of our darkness.  

So I feel like a plate juggler, trying to keep them all in the air, but I'm actually distracted by something else entirely.

Yet Jesus is good to us, binding our broken hearts and holding us close.  He designs all these things for our good and never abandons His children to our sin.


Hallelujah!

Ian MacLaren (or someone) rightly said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  Our children, in particular, are navigating a strange, big world.

Ada was recently astonished to hear about my parents' latest trip:  "Nana just got back from Europe?!  I haven't even been to Minnesota!"

Caleb, being three, is working the hardest to make sense of his world.  He was playing on the back patio the other day when I heard sudden screaming and he came rushing in in a panic.  "There's a big scary thing out there!" he howled.

I picked him up and carried him outside to show me the big scary thing, which turned out to be an average-sized, slightly smooshed dead caterpillar on the ground.  He clung to me for dear life.  "Don't leave me!!"

Tons of rain has pushed back all the baseball and softball games, so when we finally got a dry enough day for Jeddy's at an alternate field, the parking lot was packed and cars were parallel parked all along the steep driveway into the grounds.  There was one space big enough for my van between the road and the big drop-off.


I'm not a skilled parallel parker in the best of times, and my children apparently have picked up on this, because Caleb and Lizzy were in the backseat crying as I inched backward toward the cliff:  "No, Mommy, no!"


I finally decided the stress was too much for everybody and parked at the top of the hill instead.

At the game they found some other kids around Lizzy's age to play with beside the edge of the woods next to the river.  They were absorbed in their play and let their imaginations run wild, so after the baseball game Caleb informed me that there was a "big, evil monster" in the woods.


The big kids told him, so it must be true.


That night his bedtime singsong revealed his psychological triumph over big, scary, evil caterpillars and other monsters:


There are snakes in the water
Big ones
I cut them up on my cutting board and I cook them
And I eat them for lunch.

Maybe God gave me children for comic relief.  Or maybe He gave me children to teach me that all my demons and fears are mere squished caterpillars to Him, and no matter how overwhelming they are to me, my Lord eats them for lunch.

My soul's refuge

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Sometimes life throws a curveball that hits you smack in the chest.


You may be humming along in your life, filled with good things, when that hard pitch knocks you right over.


And if you're like me, stunned by the sudden takedown, you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears and chant, "Lalalalalalala," and you thrash around there in the mud, pretending you're still playing the game.


And then maybe after a couple weeks of attempting to seal off your heart from feeling pain, even as it keeps springing leaks all over the place, your Father gently lets you know you're in no state to play and calls you off the field.


And then you lay down your very important responsibilities that served as your hiding place, and go away to a lonely place to pray.


And there the Faithful One meets you, and washes His Word over you as you weep out the hurt on your knees before Him.


Maybe the circumstances don't change.  But maybe your own heart does.  Maybe there you find strength to forgive, to lay down control, to pray for those who mistreat you.  Maybe the bulk of the pain is transferred to stronger shoulders and your mind starts to ponder how you yourself can bless those who persecute you.


Maybe the Holy Spirit opens your eyes afresh to see Jesus--King of glory--dying on the cross for your sins, and your indignant pride melts and your astonishment at the grace you've been given grows.


Maybe then, after some days of immersion in the Bible and prayer, maybe then you can return to the field, entrusting yourself, and your heart, and your life, and the task of healing before you, to Him who judges righteously; the Guardian of your soul.

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{1 Peter 2:21-25}

The post I meant to write last month

We moved in a year ago April 18!

A labor of love, from start to finish:  designing it ourselves, working with Gary, selecting All The Things, family and friends moving us in.  Our house is a very, very, very fine house.