While the Coffee Brews

The last thing I want to do when I am angry is be thankful.  Today, breathing flames, I sat down at the table and opened a small Mickey Mouse notebook, less than the width of my hand, and resolutely wrote, "freckles on a nose," next to the circled number 83.

It was hot.  The day was long.  There had been too many days of too little to be done.  This particular brother and I were beginning not to see eye to eye, and we finally had it out about the vacuuming that was not being accomplished.  I cleaned (because that's what I do when upset) while he finished his task, and when I was sure I was of clear mind, I assigned the extra work that he would not want to do.  He collected the eggs that I required, then ran upstairs to put off the rest of the chore.  I began brewing a pot of afternoon coffee, then sat at the kitchen table with my miniature notebook and one of my favorite pens. 

84. a mind of his own

85. grace to extend

86. temper as red as mine

With those numbered lines came memories of a fiery redheaded girl who, like one young brother years later, said things in hot haste and fought long the imagined injustice of her world.  The coffee maker gurgled peacefully.

87. quiet to soften heart

88. coffee as black as ever

89. memories of my own childish temper

The silence of a summer afternoon fell around me.  I got mugs off the shelf.  I called up the stairs to the boys that I had coffee done, warning them not to bounce too hard off the walls when they drank it.  The first thing that my brother said as he walked into the kitchen?

"I'm sorry I was a grouch to you again."

I told the boys my story about not wanting to do a task, about the temper of a ginger child when she thought she was wronged.  We understood each other.  The tension was gone.

Then one boy used a quarter cup of honey in his coffee and moved extraordinarily fast, the other drank his entire mug before I sat down and said his eyes couldn't focus on anything, and we all three laughed very hard.  I continued to sit at the table after they left.

97. relationship restored until next time

98. coffee hastily swallowed

99. caffeinated young brothers

Redemption doesn't just happen once.  Sometimes, it seems like nothing I do or say is right.  That most of my words in relationships are apologies.  But redemption in relationship is grace upon grace.  Thank God for redemption.  For reconciliation between brother and sister.  For all the emotions of relationship, happening while the coffee brews.

Breaking up the Fallow Ground

I keep Bible verses, poetry, the Nicene Creed, and the occasional hymn taped up on the walls and furniture close to my bed.  I like words that mean something.  A few days ago, as I meditated on what would be closely linked to my last post--namely, the futility of my existence--my eyes fell on a particular index card rendition of Hosea 10:12.

Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes to rain righteousness on you.  

At a time when every career seems bent only on my betterment and I question the purpose of such a life, I find this verse a beautiful and challenging reminder.  Sow with a view to righteousness, not survival.  Reap in accordance with kindness, not professional courtesy.  By this time in the verse, I begin to be convicted.  But I read on.

The Google dictionary, which allows me to look up a definition without getting off the couch, defines fallow as, in part, "Plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility..."  Break up your fallow ground.  Loosen the rested soil once again enriched with the minerals essential to strong production.  My sinful heart resounds with fallow.  It is time.

It is time to seek the Lord until, as the judge gave protection to the persistent widow, He comes to rain righteousness upon me.  Jesus asks after his parable, "Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?" (Luke 18:7)  A friend lovingly reminds me that weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning, and Ecclesiastes proclaims the time for weeping, as well as for laughing.  Do not be afraid of the times for mourning, for there is also a time for dancing.  There is in fact an appointed time for everything.  And there is a time for every event under heaven.

But a time to seek the Lord?  That is every time.  That is now.  For it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes to rain righteousness on you.  "That is your purpose now," I say to a freckly face, which frowns at my reproof.  Righteousness is the purpose.

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.   ~James 1:25

As I turn from the mirror, it is far too easy to forget what kind of person I am.  

What Does Man Gain by Toil?

Three weeks before I graduated from college, I looked into the future and saw the emptiness of Ecclesiastes stretch before me.  Three months later, the vanity of existence still looms before me on an ever darkening horizon.  I once hoped that by 22, I would have found my purpose in someone else's.  But my plans continue to be solely self-promoting.  One thousand options, and not one appeals to me without coaxing.  I find little wonder that C.S. Lewis warned of thinking too much of the future and too little of the sparkling present.

“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”    ~Screwtape Letters

As I look ahead now, I find it easy to question the purpose of my existence.  Once I foresaw a life of meaning, of living for others.  Now I find that I must act for myself, and the idea is unattractive and useless to me.  When my life stretches before me, and all I can see is work to keep myself alive, to further my weak ambition, to stretch myself academically, I think I would not mind dying young.  Then, at least, I could make a difference.  When you have no goals, no ambitions, no drive to accomplish for the sake of accomplishing, every step in your career seems made to pay your own bills, to move up your own ladders, and to fight for your own survival in a Darwinian society.  

When I was younger, I used to lose myself in fiction so completely that I forgot the beauty of my own reality.  Now I lose myself in reality so completely that I forget the beauty of life.  I'm a good reformed girl.  I know that my purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  But I am also human, and frail, and there comes a point when I wonder how meaningless my existence really is and will be when I am only ever fighting for myself.

When brothers come into the room to hug me goodnight, I catch a glimpse of why I continue to exist.  But what happens when they leave to start their own lives?  To pursue their own dreams?  I won't always be able to do their dishes a hundred times a day, and vacuum their rooms, and sweep their floors, and play their games.  What happens when loneliness finally catches up to me, and I am forced to admit that I am not needed?

The Prophet says that all is vanity.  I know that hopelessness.  I know the lack of meaning in a life that should be full of meaning.  I know what it is like to plan, but to see your plans only with apathy.  "What else would I do?" is my question as I shrug my shoulders, and nothing comes to mind.  At least here at home I can help others, before I leave and help myself.

I pray for a purpose.  I need one.  

"The end of the matter; all has been heard.  Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."    ~Ecclesiastes 12:13

The Other Side of the Mountain

It's easy to get complacent.  We pull ourselves out of one hole, push off in the right direction, drive for a time, and suddenly find ourselves in another hole.  How did my good intentions and positive speeches put me into a place just as murky and hopeless as before?  And then I remember the one day I was too tired to read my Bible, and how one day stretched into a week, and before I knew it reading my Bible was the exception, not the rule.  I recall, ashamed, how I stopped looking God in the eye when my sins became too obvious even to my so deceptive heart.  And the chapter of Romans that was infiltrating every portion of my mind?  It began to be blurry and forgotten when speaking it took more concentration than I wanted to use.

Going up a mountain seems like it would be easy, once you get a good start.  That's when you realize you're sliding backwards.

I'm at war with myself, all the time, every day.  People say it should get easier, over time, to be righteous, but I do not see that yet.  If that is true, then I must certainly be the worst of sinners, without hope of holiness and virtue in this life, and I wish people would stop thinking to comfort me with words that actually chill me.  I know what it is like to feel the sin crouching at the door of my heart, and I can feel helpless, sympathetic to sin that perhaps Cain also felt unable to avoid.  "Who will free me from this body of death?" I cry, hopeless in my state of degradation, every minute fighting a more often lost battle for control over my own mind.  Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ His Son, is what I should say next, but the words choke me, for I do not seem free at all.  Not yet.  My sinning heart aches for righteousness that would be pleasing to God, forcing me to remember Whose righteousness covers my own inadequacy, forcing me to remember Whose humility covers my own pride.  "Hope that is seen is not hope," I remind myself, but meanwhile I clench my teeth in frustration at my own weakness and despair at ever living what I want to live.

I prayed for humility, but I never thought it would come even in my fiercer struggles with sin than ever before.  Silly as it sounds, I envy the people who seem to get by in life with easy, though consistent, trotting toward the prize.  My efforts are ever in need of being redoubled, not relaxed.  As if any moment may see me falling prey once again to that roaring lion, and if I stop my watch for the briefest of seconds my heart will betray me.

I must always be fighting for every step.  So be it.  If my whole life is to be a series of hard battles and fearsome ends, only pushing forward through shamed tears and aching pride?  So be it.  I will keep fighting.  If every step up this mountain is as hard as the last, though it may kill me, I will move on.  Because some day, some glorious day, I will get to the other side of the mountain, and none of the glory I see will be for me.  I will reach the top truly humbled, Lord willing, and it will be all for Him.  I won't have to fight ever again.

I will reach, once for all, level ground, that only ever goes higher.