Doing

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8

We are catching up on Doctor Who episodes during meals.  I know - turn the television off and talk...  But that's exactly what we do.  We talk.  There is action; there are strong characters; there are choices to be made.  It is concrete enough for my daughter to talk about at her level, and it explores interesting concepts and situations - darkness and light, forgiveness and hope - so that my husband and I can carry on our favorite 'what if' conversations.  

"So, what if you knew you only had one day to live?"  He asks me.  "What would you do?"

I think about his question for a half a second - just enough time to fleetingly picture different times and places.  One day to live.  I try to imagine my favorite things.  Going to the beach, camping, sightseeing, spending an afternoon at the amusement park.

A little more background.  We are in the process of getting our house ready to put on the market - and it has involved days, weeks literally, of work. The kind of work where you fall into bed before the sun has gone down and drop to sleep despite the stiffness in your fingers and hands, despite the redness of your knees and the aches in your back and shoulders.  This is what tired feels like, and I admit, I'm not used to it, and I'm glad I don't regularly do this kind of labor.  But, my favorite army guy, my husband, took a week off to get the 'big stuff' done, and we've been laboring together where the weekend melted into those precious week days, and then, too soon, the weekend again and he must return to the his Army job.


But I keep coming back to the work.  In our last move, we acid-washed, painted and re-tiled a pool together.  We've built fences and done landscaping work - spreading tons of rock across planters and flower beds.  We've stained and hung cabinets; we've constructed countertops; we've laid entire houses of floors, ceramic tile, travertine, bamboo, laminate, and now slate.  Together.

I tell him this may sound very strange, but this working together thing, is what I would do if I had one day to live.  Funny, huh?  I would choose the tired, the aches, the pains, the practically falling asleep on my feet feeling.

"When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.”

Thomas Merton

Not so funny when I really think about it. We are working together toward a common goal, a common vision - which is concrete and seeable as we go - and therefore, fulfilling.  We fellowship - while our hands, feet and backs labor, our minds connect in conversation, planning, joking, laughing.   We work through issues and make decisions together, partners in the project.  We are mutually tired and mutually sore - so we even commiserate together.  See, it's not really the work I'm choosing; it's the time -

moments becoming days - shared.

God has chosen us for His day.  We are his creation - his work, his time.  I don't want to waste His day on rumor and gossip or fighting.  I don't want to waste it on one-ups-manship or keeping-up-with.  I don't want to waste his day in fear, or sadness, or despair.  I don't want to waste it on drama.

He chose us.  He created us.  Don't I want to live in thankfulness for that?  Don't I want to glorify my Maker?  I will do my work well.

There is joy in that.

Linking with Unite

Before the Day Begins

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:21-22  (NIV)

I can feel him breathing next to me, in the dark and comfort of the bed he made from redwood rails and wrought-iron trellises.  It is not the deep-sleep breath of slumber, and I know that he, like me, is already awake.  It is early and the day is ready to hold us in arms of hustle and bustle.  It is early and I push my back deeper into the mattress trying to capture some few last moments of rest.  I can feel him breathing next to me, and I know that he knows.  We are awake.  Again.  Before the alarm.

Too soon we will hear the rooster crow.  Too soon we will throw off the dreams and sighs of the night and face forward to a new day.  Too soon we will fill our cups with steaming coffee, fragrant coffee.  His will be black; I take mine with cream, thank you.  Too soon he will put the uniform on, the zippered, velcroed uniform with his name and the flag and the pins and the badges.  Too soon he will be official again, and will walk with the measured step and straight back.  Too soon I will feel his goodbye kiss on my lips.  Fleeting warmth, already a memory.

I can feel him breathing next to me.  I reach over and press my body into his.  Hip to hip, knee to knee, spooning; I store up the feel of him next to me like a miser.  I know that he is awake; we melt into each other in the early before dawn.  Before the alarm.  Before the day begins.

Linking with 5-Minute Friday

It's only five minutes with a prompt.  What you start with is what you get because there's no time to change your mind.  Lisa Jo Baker has been hosting this link-up for a lot longer than I've been blogging.  This week she is passing the baton to Kate Motaung.  The prompt is "Begin".

You Are My Home

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.

Genesis 2:24  The Message

I am a military wife.  I am proud of my husband and the choices he has made to serve his country and to provide for his family,  He has been deployed three times - away from us,  his family, three times.  Many have handled more separation; many have handled more separation with younger families and little or not support.  Even so, even though we understood the circumstances, even though we were able to communicate on a regular basis, even though we knew the limits of the time we would be apart, and even though we had amazing support through family, church, and my own work - even so - deployment is difficult.  Worry is always lurking - worry for safety - prayers for wholeness - physical, mental, and spiritual.  The families left behind find ways to pick up the slack left by the absence of one of their members.  Find ways to attend to the emptiness, the missing, the hole in their everydays.  Lives get smaller, or busy-er.  Lives are torn apart, or pulled closer.

I heard something the other day.  You are my home.  So true.  It allowed me to better understand my husband's deployments - our separations.  Sometimes, in the moments, it's too hard, too close to label.  I'm one of those people who believe if you can name it, admit to it, take responsibility for it, then you can better determine how to handle/change/fix it.  You just can't fix everything.  At least, not without the waiting. This poem is my label.  The part of me without my daughter, without my job - the isolated connected-body-and-soul-to-my-husband part of me that just wanted him near.

You Are My Home

She tried them on

Like new clothes

Words

In her mind

Treading softly

Through cathedral caverns

Of memories and 

Threads of conversation

You are my home.

Not lost

Not afraid

Not timid

Outside of herself

She roamed

In the needs of others

Winding and twisting

Like a mountain road

You are my home.

Busy

Hovering, pushing

Thoughts and images

to the periphery

Away from living 

Away from yearning

Moment by moment

Today

You are my home.

She accomplished.

She did

What had to be done.

As anyone would.

Not special.

Not strong.

Leaning 

Like a tree in the wind

You are my home.

Soon

Boots on the ground, soon.

The hardest part

The looking-forward part

The can't-forget-him part

The getting-ready part

Anticipation

And restless waiting

"You are my home."

She breathes to her soldier

Upon his return

From far-off

From far-wide

From worlds away.

Bodies grown together

Like a lifetime.

No letting go.

"You are my home," he whispers back.

I am constantly amazed at the works of God.  I don't believe in coincidence.  We are always in His divine plan.  After writing this post, I was looking through and catching up with my friends on facebook.  I would like to share this video - posted by a friend in Texas.  Timely and beautiful - called Shadow Dance.  

Heavenly Father. you are an awesome God.  Thank you for small reminders, everyday, of you, you who are in charge and in whose hands we live.  Thank you for my husband - for the gift of his being home.  

Do I Get to Choose?

How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

1 Corinthians 7:16

So many things rushing through my mind.  Images.  Snapshots.  Snippets of songs, videos, visual/audio clips.  Words.  Kind of a kaleidoscope of thoughts - look through the lens - scraps of color and shape.  Turn and the scraps become a quilt, a pattern, a stained-glass window.  Turn and they move - change - reform - reorganize - repattern.  Endless design, endless thoughts, endless outcomes to endless decisions.

Today I saw a video on Facebook.  A video about self-image.  You can see it here.  I recognized myself.  Not literally, I wasn't part of the making of this video.  Figuratively.  How many times do I look in the mirror and only see what I consider my faults?  How many times to I push and tug at wrinkles and bulges.  Pull to stretch things out that were smooth thirty years ago.  My head knows that I'm getting older, my heart knows it doesn't matter.  It's a struggle.  Outer - what I see, what others see, versus inner - how I feel, how I act, how I think.  And the people around us - the people who know us - see that inner us.

The woman fussed at her clothes, pulling the gathers to the back, adjusting the scarf.  She loosened the belt to sit lower on her waist.   Her brow furrowed at her husband in the mirror; she tugged again at the waist that was a little too tight.  She was getting to that decision point in her weight  - eat less, exercise more, or give it up and start buying a new wardrobe.  Ugh.

One last flip of the hair, turn and check out the back...she continued the turn to face her man - her partner and best friend.  

"You look fine."  She could see it in his eyes - appreciation, admiration - a little bit of that come hither thing she got such a kick out of.  "You look better with a little more umpff on you," he put his hands on her shoulders, purposely eyeing down, then up, stopping at her eyes and smiling.  "Really.  You look healthy."

She shrugged his hands away.  She was never going to see her goal if he kept this up.  Couldn't he tell how unhappy she was with this body - this lumpy-extra-chin-cottage-cheese ick?  The weight had been slowly gaining on her for the past couple of years, but she hadn't really noticed the difference in her clothes until recently.  It was like everything had just - pouf - exploded out on her.  Another ugh.

"You don't really listen to me," her husband was talking again.  "I see it in your face."  Now he had his hands on her waist, turning her back to him.  Intimate space.  Close.  "I know, you think you're fat - I'm telling you, you aren't."  He tilted her chin up.  "You are beautiful - just as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside.  And I love you."  He kissed her - a quick good-morning peck - just a brush of the lips.  "And I want you."  He kissed her again - longer this time - lingering.

She smiled.  "Then I'm either going to need a new wardrobe, or I'm going to have to go naked - because these clothes don't fit..."  She was enjoying the attention - undeserved - but nice.

He laughed.  "Do I get to choose?"

I have a friend in Texas who is stunningly beautiful.  I don't think I'd like her very much - just out of jealousy - if she weren't so darned nice.  Her inner beauty shines from her - it shines from that God-place inside of her that holds Jesus delicately and reverently.  She is one of those people who become lovelier over time - more beautiful in the knowing.

My eyes see a different me than my heart sees - than you see.  Unless we are only looking at the surface - we end up seeing a person's heart.  Through that God-place, the one that holds Jesus delicately and reverently.  You know, God made us in His image - He is beautiful and He is ugly.  He loves us all.  As a teacher, we have pictures taken a couple of times a year.  I remember one, taken a couple of years ago, where my colleague said "Nice picture - they caught your friendliness."

Hmmm...a new wardrobe doesn't sound half bad...

Thank you, God, for my husband, and for men who tell their wives they are pretty.  Help me to shine with your beauty and joy - to live up to the inside - the heart that others see.