Only with a better ending for the song....."Yesterday, all my troubles seemed they're here to stay, now it looks as if they're far away."
I walked into school yesterday morning quiet and still so as not to wiggle the jello in my stomach. My emotions were tender and precarious, after the day before, like the first day after the flu when you don't dare eat more than dry toast. After baring my soul, and after feeling "called" to do just that, I just wanted to sit just quietly like Ferdinand the Bull, a children's book I used to read to my kids.
As I made my way through the day, first one, then another, of the kids and teachers and parents found their way to me. "I'm praying for you." Some hadn't even read my words from the day before and had no idea of my hearts' wound. It's just because the Creator of my wounded heart wanted it held extra close and so He whispered to people around me who He knew would love me into His shadow.
The morning turned into afternoon and, it being Friday, and the weekend approaching; that time when everyone but you seems to have plans to put on Facebook; I started to feel myself sink a little with the late day sun. I went into the bathroom to be alone a minute. "God. I want to panic again. I don't know what to do with myself. Tell me what to do. Ugh. I miss my boys far away." It's funny how sad can wrap itself around lonely to compound the fracture. I sat a minute and let myself cry in a gaspy sort of way, just for a minute and then I knew. I was going to go get my girl and I something to eat and come back and watch the basketball game at school. I don't even like sports. But my "family" was there.
We walked into the gymnasium, full of hamburgers and garlic parmesean fries and found ourselves surrounded by friends; the kind that make you laugh too loud. As I threw back my head I looked up at the rafters of the ceiling. "Thank you, Father. Good, good Father, for giving me what I didn't know I'd find." We left with plans to meet for breakfast and talk life the next day.
The girl and I came home and piled up 3 blankets deep on the couch to watch a movie until we fell asleep. It was our plan to stay right where we fell. Sometime during the night, I woke up from a snapshot dream. My Hannah and Rachael, my older girls, were in it. "You guys! Come look! It snowed!" Hannah's voice was excited but quiet and sparkly enchanted. When we looked out the window there was a glittery light surface white shining in the moonlight. And then I woke up sleepy and groggy. I felt a lifting, a peace, from the day before. "Father," I heard myself whisper, "hear the prayers of your children, my friends, on my behalf. Renew my strength, my thoughts, my emotions, my heart, my vision. I am Your container."
I still feel tender. But I'm not sure I need to lose that feeling. It makes me aware of how fragile, how precarious, how rough the way here can be. And points me in His direction. Because, the truth is, this world is not my home. I'm just a passin through. How deeply grateful I am, though, that He's put pilgrims beside me to help me carry the load.
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