Easter
Working on my blog was not on my list of “to do” today. If I am perfectly honest, it hasn’t been on any list in the last 18 months. I even included it in my 2024 goals a.k.a. New Year’s resolutions as at least a monthly task for both 2023 and 2024, but took no steps toward that goal at all. None.
I have always wondered why I go through vast dry times where I don’t write at all. Writing has always brought me the most consistent joy over the years. It pulls me out of my overthinking old self and gives me a different way to express the moments of sadness, harshness of life or extreme happiness I may be bottling up and not sharing at any given moment. I was in a creative writing class in my junior year in high school and it stoked a literal fire in me that has always been there for me, comforting, soothing, chastising me at times. I have learned a lot about myself from my own blogs or even my short Facebook posts. My writing has forced me to be real.
Today has been one of those dry days. It is the most beautiful day in all Christendom, Easter. Today should have been full of contented memories, calmness, reflection. But instead I have found myself trying to claw out of an impending darkness in my emotions. I have family members who are going through difficulties and that has added to it, but I have been studying myself today and realize that is not the root of my current emotional state.
I started out the day trying to distract myself.
I listened to a sermon. It was interesting and insightful, but was not what my heart and mind were looking for. My response inside was “ok, that’s done”. I read from a couple of great writers and sought their greater thoughts as a balance to my more shallow ones, but that was kind of flat and uneventful as well.
I went to work a bit in my garage to try and free my state of funkiness with working on my online store. I do this every day. It is nothing new. I can do it in my sleep. So that didn’t provide me any kind of respite and rest either.
I glanced out the window of the garage when I heard the children’s voices. I live in the same home, different wing, with my daughter and son-in-law and their four kids, who range in age from 5 up to almost 16. The smallest was running and giggling, chased by one of the twin brothers. The other brother came up behind. Shortly after, the 16 year old went by, quiver, bow and arrows strapped to her back and headed toward the backyard archery set up to work on her skill. For a few moments, I forgot the heaviness I had been feeling. Once they were all out of my line of vision and I was out of earshot of their sweet laughter, the heaviness set in again.
I thought about going back to work hoping that would help to push me forward as I filled up my head space with a billion thoughts about potential crises pending in the coming week. I looked out the window again just as a bird flew into the glass with a loud crash. It then flew back up into the Japanese maple next to the window and sat for a minute, fiercely shaking its head as if it was gathering back parts of its brain shrapnel , then proceeded to fly at the window once again. Over and over this same pattern happened. This went on for about 5 minutes. Then the little bird flew out of the tree and landed on my windowsill. It sat there for several minutes, preening, turning its head when the children would run by, but never flew away. It just sat, mostly unmoving, blinking, listening. A leaf floated past its head and I watched it fall very slowly to the sill, and still the bird didn’t move. It wasn’t in the least uprooted from its watchfulness, it just rested in the simple moment.
God gave me an epiphany.
I was that bird. I flew around today trying everything to make the crazy mind racing and running thought pattern calm and to no avail. It was only when He sent me that little group of children by my window and that tiny bird that I could see the whole picture.
In 1 Kings 19:11-13, God told Elijah he was going to tell him something. The Lord sent a crippling wind, followed by an earthquake, then finally a fierce fire. But nothing came to Elijah in the midst of all that noise and confusion and disturbance.
After the fire, came a gentle whisper…God ministered to Elijah through a mundane thing, something quiet, something almost unnoticed. And that is how he ministered to me today.
The laughter of the children distracted me from my own problems and thoughts. Their smiles calmed my spirit. The bird preening and fluffing was comical and soothing at the same time.
The bird flew away and somehow took with it my personal noise. I was left with a feeling of peace and utter repose. I thought of a few mundane things to do to continue the trajectory of the quietness in spirit. I pulled out one of my favorite coffee cups, and filled it with donut shoppe coffee and a splash of hazelnut creamer, and as an afterthought grabbed two windmill cookies for dunking. I went back to the window, sat still with my coffee for a long time. I watched the leaves roll across the driveway, other birds come to the feeders and eat, our kitties jump and play in the grass by the ravine. I allowed God to minister through the earthly mundane things to bring me heavenly peace.
I knew it was my mandate to use my long time skill to minister to someone today….so I began to write. Writing feels so very shallow but there is a depth to be explored and recorded, and that is my ministry, mundane though it may be.
There once was a little bird…
Today is Easter and I am looking out the window of my home office watching cars pull in and out of the cove across the street. Families are gathering for church and dinner, kids are opening their baskets of goodies, the weather has a nip in the air for afternoon egg hunts. If the cars were older, the clothing was more vintage, the hairdos were bit more formal and tailored, this could be 50 years ago…nothing much has changed since I was a child. The traditions and trappings have remained intact over the years, but I have certainly come through many changes.
In the business I am in there are so many wonderful twists and turns, fun things and memory-creating moments. I love seeing people come in and find some of the beloved childhood items that were in their homes growing up. A lamp reminds a young person of their grandmother’s home, musty with peeling flocked wallpaper and braided rugs over the scuffed hardwood floors. A man picks up a bag of marbles and his eyes fix on them as he remembers many days spent kneeling in the dust and dirt, hovering over a circled string on the ground, trying to shoot best to win that prized aggie. I watch as an old woman picks up an antique handkerchief and holds it softly to her nostrils and breathes in, hoping to smell the light scent of lavender that had pervaded her own mother’s lace and trims when she was but a tiny girl.
My favorite customers are those who wander in, find treasures like these, and give them new life through a repurpose or redesign. Most often it happens with a piece of furniture, but I have witnessed the birth of an entirely new heirloom from old door hardware, wooden windows, a scrap of fabric tablecloth or a wooden barrel or box. All of these have come through countless hands, been in more than one home oftentimes, and now landed in a place where others can purchase them and give them a new purpose and a new life.
As a small child of 7, I met Jesus on a hot August day the last service of a tent revival in my church. I was just a little kid, but I knew there was something more to the life I was living, and so did the Lord. He knew I needed a makeover and I am so grateful He was willing to give me a new life. Many years and much water has gone under the bridge and my life has not always been what He intended it to be. But with great patience and a steady hand, He continued to sand off the edges, add a bit of color here and there, and spent hours and days and years waxing a beautiful patina into my life as I plundered through the milestones of my journey. And somehow, He is still working….and I am still grateful.
I think about my own ultimate repurpose when I see others take pieces and bring a new glorious life to them. I am humbled and continue to see the beauty possible in this old piece of worn out furniture I call my life. And I look forward to see the purposing again of my life in this, the latter half. There is always something amazing in making the old new again.