Down to the bone

On a hunt for beauty, you find just what you need to face whatever is in front of you for this day: lament if you are mourning, joy if you are celebrating; work if you have the strength for it; rest if you are weary. Beauty is like a gemstone, cut with many facets, and as you turn it in the sunlight, it reflects all of life on it's different surfaces, the good, the bad, the ugly. I play a song one day, and it is the deepest longing of my heart I hear, and it is good to be known and to hear that I am not alone on this path. The next, the burden lifted, I hear the song of my salvation, and I am glad someone dances with me.

Today I watch the farmer making hay bales, his coif of white hair blowing in the hot furnace of the summer wind, chaff whipped up by his tractor and blowing over my feet on the sun-drenched porch. He is dripping sweat and smiling, hard at work. The kids are gone to Grandma's all week, free from the little cloud of cancer we were stuck under, swimming every day and calling me exhausted and happy and brown as berries in the evening. Aaron and I, my mother, my aunts, we work, work, work to bring some organization and simplicity to this house that has been too long without a good spring cleaning. Clutter makes for difficult work and I am ready to be free of it. We haul out bag after bag of trash and donations for the local thrift store, and slowly the bones of the farmhouse emerge like the first time a girl wears a swimsuit in springtime.

The last two nights, I watched feel good movies. I'm reading an uplifting book for the first time in months. I'm reading the book of Esther and Ruth in the Bible, because I need some happy endings. To remind me to bask in this happy ending. To remind me it is okay to smile, long and wide, for this happy ending. To drink lots of iced tea and spend lots of time sitting in my swing in the summer evening sun, to bring the kids to the pool 8 extra times this summer and sign Rosy up for gymnastics and do messy crafts and work so hard my bones ache to organize and deep clean my house. We are free! He has delivered us!

Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong right up to the end, and he will keep you free from all blame on the great day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will surely do this for you, for he always does just what he says, and he is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (I Corinthians 7:7-9)