wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, hefty, hefty, hefty

Oh the weight bearing down upon me! How can I be expected to stand up under the pressure? What shall I do to pull myself out from under this rock? How can I possibly live up to my own expectations as I sit here and run my fingers over the keyboard in an attempt to compose my fiftieth post?

Yes, I do realize fifty is a somewhat wimpy number to be celebrating, but if you had seen my relief upon actually completing number five, you would understand. Be that as it may, I have the task in front of me and know it is unlikely I will set forth the great opus, yet it will still qualify as a landmark simply by making it to the page. Do I then set my sights lower knowing that, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter? Nay, then I would be succumbing to the baser side of my nature and not fighting the battle set forth in Romans.

Last night we didn’t take all of the kids to football. It was a bit of a bleak and drizzly day. Though the clouds had cleared up by eventide, my husband took the boy off to football by himself. The child has to be there two hours before each game, but by 6:45 that evening (it was a 7 o’clock game), R and I had decided we simply couldn’t not go. N stayed home to watch the other peons.

It was a good game. For the first time, my little man was moved up to starting offense. Our team won their first game of the season – a much needed morale boost. But it was as I was driving home after the game that I experienced a “Eureka” moment.

R was tucked safely into her car seat in the back row where she proceeded to observe the world in total silence. S was riding with his father. As my driving music played and I cruised down the darkened rural stretch of road, my being suddenly swelled with the feeling of aloneness. I felt the full-fledged freedom that lifts me from myself and draws me in to the creation surrounding me. It is a feeling I often associated to being single and childless. And yet, I felt glad of the maturity that has come with motherhood, wifehood, and age.

Revelation - it is not being single which brings that intangible tingling awareness of life. It is closeness to God. Suddenly I understand Paul’s argument that it is better not to marry if you are not tempted in that direction. The distractions are so much less that way. I am reminded also of the prayer-closet, and Jesus taking the boat out from shore simply to be alone with God.

While my children have taught me valuable lessons about the need for rules and obedience that I never learned while I was young, while their very birth made me understand the Father’s supreme sacrifice in ways I could never otherwise have fathomed, while the love that flows through me because of them all is sweet nectar, it is aloneness with God that speaks breath into my lungs and sends the blood coursing – that sparks my nerves with anticipation and wonder.

I am glad that God is big enough to work around the busyness and give stillness to my soul even as chaos crashes against the walls of our shared solitude.