My picket fence

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
~Deuteronomy 6:6-9

I remember using this verse to defend my use my palm as highly portable notepad to my mother one day, when I was a teenager. Now, set to the little song she made up for the words, it is a constant refrain as I make a fence of Scripture around the harried, anxious, and miserable thoughts that plague these days...these sun-laden, earth-waking, wind-whipped and fragrant days of early spring that burst at the seams with joy, yet are filled with the pall of upcoming separation from everything I hold dear. The children and I are memorizing a verse a week for a memory challenge in church, hoping that we - all three, Rosy, Katy and I - can earn our certificates together in April. The only problem is, I feel as though I have constructed a picket fence that those malicious, pesky thoughts, with their wit and wile, can jump, climb through, or break down. I am the proverbial little pig in the stick house. What I want is bricks! What I want is a stone wall like those in the great mythical city of Minas Tirith, a city built into a hill with a million bricks to buttress the fortress against all foes.

May the piece I add tomorrow be a brick, by the grace of God, not a wooden picket.