Ps. 119:73
MONDAY
Honesty first. Today was mostly good with a little smidge of this:
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But let's be real. We all feel like that at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Especially if we've been tricked into wearing overalls all day. Poor little chap.
After a long weekend of hard work (including Jon and Pete spackling late into the night yesterday), our new bathroom now looks like this:
I could not have imagined at Christmas time that by spring I'd have a brand new bathroom. So my joy tank is pretty full. But at the same time I've had to learn to live in a construction zone for the past two months. We have a one-year-old in a house full of power tools. We have dust everywhere. (Everywhere.) We have lights removed and a hallway full of drywall sheets and no free Saturdays and a thick bundle of Home Depot receipts to tally up. I've had to suspend certain expectations and desires for the sake of something greater. Construction forces that. Construction requires time and materials and energy and space that would have otherwise been used in other ways.
Living in the construction zone means that things are inconvenient, messy, temporary, and constantly changing. As I step over two-by-fours to reach my hair dryer, I think about the mess we are always living in, in our own souls. My heart is not fully finished. Or, if I think it is, there's some part that's about to be demo'd so some renovations can occur. My soul is constantly being upgraded and made-over. In my home, I yearn for an end to change and for the freedom to live without disturbance. And though life-after-construction may come in my house, it will never happen in my heart.
Living in the construction zone means that things are messy, but it also means that things are on their way to being better. To wish for an end to change is to wish for a partially-unfinished project. And when God starts a renovation, he never leaves it unfinished. My heart will be a construction zone for all the days of my life. It means I'm never fully settled, things are never totally convenient or neat or finalized. But it means I am constantly becoming more like the finished project I'm meant to become. And waiting for that is worth putting some expectations on the shelf.
I'm looking forward to the finished project in my house. But in my heart, I'm content to live under construction indefinitely.
As a side note, Pete had rehearsal at school until late, but Henry and I had this for dinner. It is so good it needs to be on the menu every week.
WEDNESDAY
My boys love the garden.
My two favorite people, sharing joy over pebbles from the garden.
A sled, but no snow left.
Mossy brick patio in warm spring sun.
This is perfection.
THURSDAY
Our school produced The Sound of Music this spring. I have to confess that I was prepared to be unimpressed. Not only does the classic movie set the bar miles too high for a tiny private school to reach, but I've also seen two other stage versions (in both of which my sister had a lead role) and I am a bit biased toward those particular productions. I wanted to see our efforts, but I was hesitant to raise my hopes too high.
Tonight I attended opening night and the cast stunned me. In the first scene, our Mother Abbess, an eighth-grader, gave me chills with her outstanding voice. Our Maria, a senior, and our Captain, a senior who had never been on stage until this show, both delivered polished and convincing performances. Our Uncle Max, also an eighth-grader, is on student council and often stumbles over his words when doing morning announcements over the school loudspeaker. But he nailed every line of his dialogue and his songs. Elsa Schrader, Admiral von Schreiber, and Franz were also new to the stage and made impressive debuts.
Entrusting a show of this magnitude to a school of no special merit, with limited budget, limited casting pool, and limited stage space might seem a big risk. It did to me. But our students came through with a stellar production and I was very proud.
Did anything give you a pleasant surprise this week?
PS: The handsome guy in the pit orchestra on Trumpet III was my husband. He did a great job too.
SATURDAY
I have not thought of myself as a foreigner. Or as a compromiser. Or as unfaithful. But Nancy Guthrie's talks on Redeeming Love at our Women's Retreat this weekend taught me that I am all of those things and only the free love of Christ can peel those labels off and give me a new identity.
Using three stories from the Old Testament, Nancy showed us pictures of Christ and what his love can do for us who are empty and lost. In Ruth, in Esther, and in Hosea, we see people who need a savior. The redeemers in these stories are mere humans, but what they do points to our greater Redeemer: the grace he has shown, the protection he provides, the promise he gives, the abundance he offers, the sacrifice he made, the doors he opens, the kingdom he prepares, the patience he displays, the restoration he undertakes, and the devoted way he pursues us, regardless of our behavior.
I won't try to reproduce all that Nancy taught, or boil her hours of teaching down into a few sentences. But here are a few thoughts I walked away with on Saturday evening:
1. Wow, the Bible is rich. Did you realize that the fields outside Bethlehem were the setting for Ruth gleaning in Boaz's grain before he marries her, David sheep-tending before he's anointed as king, and the shepherds watching their flocks before the angel appears with the good news? Those are fields of grace, fields where big things happen in ordinary moments!
2. Things that seem like not-really-a-big-deal to me are actually great wickedness to God. The Israelites' slow slide into baal worship must have seemed pretty mild to them. They still loved Jehovah, after all. They just added some baal worship to the mix too. Any time I find myself worshiping anything except the Lord, it is prostitution. But God does not punish me. He's already punished Christ in my place. He is patient and tender. He convicts me, renews me, and slowly purifies me.
3. The practical questions of the Christian life that I'm always trying to answer (How do I love that annoying person better? What should I say when that issue is raised again? Where is God leading my family and how will I discern His will?) matter a lot less than I thought. The heart of the life God has for us is not finding answers to these questions, even if by "finding answers" I mean diligently praying and seeking the Lord's will. The life God has for me is not defined by "getting it right" or by anything external. Ruth's life was not defined by her Moabite heritage, nor Esther's by her status as queen, nor Gomer's by her prostitution. Instead, my heart should be dwelling on what Christ has done and the names he's written across my life: Beloved, Accepted, Forgiven, Mine.
SUNDAY
This was a hectic week. And at the end of it, Pete and I were both busy all weekend. But we started something this weekend that I think will be good: Sundayte. I was inspired by an instagram post by Val Marie Paper in which she mentioned weekend "Family Meetings" she has with her husband. I realized we needed something like this: a check-in to discuss the upcoming week, share things that we've been storing up to talk about, make each other aware of anticipated plans, and just open the floor for addressing those deeper things that a busy week doesn't allow space for. The plan is to have our Sundayte on Sunday evenings, after Henry's in bed. We'll have special drinks, special snacks, anything that will make it feel like a mini date, and we'll talk. This weekend, we had it on Saturday night because Pete anticipated being at school late on Sunday night working on plans for the week (which turned out to be true). So our first Sundayte was a Saturdayte. Oh well.
Do you do anything like this in your marriage or family?
Grateful this week for:
warm porch
new sippy cup
checking off a to-do list
Bible verses coming to mind
buzzfeed
Henry signing 'please'
fake flowers
folded clothes in piles
a perfect night's sleep
basement sump pump
patio bricks
dirt
seeds
corner brownie
Nancy Guthrie's messages
borrowed toddler clothes
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