Fashion plates

I found them at a garage sale...and was transported, instantly, to my friend Erica's yellow farmhouse, the fertile must of the cows, the murmur of machinery, the hot, stifled air of the piano room at the front of the house. I never had this toy, myself. But she did...and I think she was rather confused by my interest in it as the fascination, for her, had long ago worn off. The quick and easy perfection of your creation as you slid the wax stick over the raised fashion plate, the hours you could spend coloring in your own combinations of dresses, pants, tops, hair styles, accessories...I was smitten! It seems funny to me now, looking back at my childhood, which was mostly a story of sports, outdoors, tomboyishness - those fashion plates, and my dozen or so baby dolls, were the feminine moment.

Rosy, of course, loves them. We've had a few half-sunny/half-rainy days since my surgery, and the air is cold and dank. So we are huddled inside, mostly. I am in pain, and curled in bed with books for the most part. The kids all have a head cold, and they've been pretty content with quiet activities. I think we are settling in to the news that summer is going to be different than we had thought. Settling into the goodness of it, and getting a feel for the different sort of work it will be. I can't just be idle...either in my humanness or in my faith. I am just not wired that way. Aaron and I are busy discussing the grand possibilities of the non-cancer life: work? School? Summer vacation? All seem possible again. We step - tentatively now - forward. So many times we have thought the carpet was finally still beneath our feet, only to have it yanked out in a new and unexpected direction.

Days of quietness are unequivocally the gift of God. I praise Him for these past few. I find it interesting that themes of "peace" and "quietness" are often given a feminine slant, like this in Isaiah 32, to the women of Israel:

The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. [wow - imagine that forever!] My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free. (verses 17-20)