Monday Musings

(To be honest, I might, just might, be writing to avoid the piles of laundry sitting just a few feet from me.  I also might be writing just to share with you what's been filling my days.)

I'm sitting at my prayer table in my laundry room.  You haven't seen it yet, but you will.  It's beautiful quiet right now, with three sweet heads laying down in sleep: Simon in his bed, Levi in his, and Eliza snuggled up in Mommy and Daddy's, her head upon Mommy's pillow and a book falling from her hand.  There are so many things I'm thinking as I look out my back window, watching birds wing from tree to tree and listening to the sound of traffic, that weird amalgam of industrial/modern with nature that makes up the urban landscape.











 

My laundry room at this very moment.

Today, Eliza was Cinderella.  She told me I was Cinderella, too.  And the happy look of belief on her face was one which I wished I could mirror.  I don't feel like a fairy princess.  I feel like a fat, frumpy housewife whose hair is never in place, who has long given up on the wonder of makeup.  My house is certainly not in order, as Cinderella's would be.  After all: she spends her days cooking and cleaning and knows how to make a floor shine and a window glisten.  My kitchen is full pots needing washed, dishes needing cleaning, every floor is dusted with crumbs from a toddler boy who likes to carry his food and mash it as much as he likes to eat it, and well... There's that aforementioned laundry.  But my daughter does see those things when she looks at me.  Instead she smiles, her face lit by the beauty of certainty and love, and called me "Cinderella Mommy."  She was pink Cinderella, and I the blue.  And all the way to the library and to Walmart she called me that.  Daddy is my prince, she told me (indeed, he is) and Simon is hers.  She looked at me with those piercing blue eyes and said, "Mommy, all boys should be princes."  Indeed, they should, sweetie.  And you deserve one who certainly is, precious girl.











Yesterday, I went into church with a heavy heart.  The Lord has been working in my heart.  Exposing sin, bringing me to my knees in repentance.  My heart was heavy, not from guilt or breast-beating, but just for some relationships gone awry.  For the feeling of "other" I sometimes have in my own church-body.  Is it possible to change and for others to see it, when they only see you once a week?  And do I have a place of belonging better than I really understand, or is there some work to be done?  How do I know what's right and true or just my perception of things?  There is a perfect storm gathering, I feel, where the Lord is going to do some work.  I don't remotely believe I am at the epicenter, but I see Him drawing some things together to do a little maintenance in my life.  This deep calling to sit here at this prayer table and spend time with Him.  Our Bible study is now going through Priscilla Shirrer's Discerning the Voice of God and the first week admonishing us to expect Him to speak.  Yesterday morning, He did.  The opening bars to "All Creatures of Our God and King" begin, and a still small voice whispered, "Worship me."  Don't worry about all those other things, Stacey.  Don't take upon yourself the work that might be Mine.  Leave these things to Me; leave them at My feet, and worship Me.   The tears began to flow and I worshipped.

(That is not to say that I left them there, at His feet, and let Him be God.  By evening, I was handling them again, worrying over them, studying them like they were a Rubix cube.  And again, I had to realize that I cannot hand Him something for a time and then take it back.  I had to put them back into His hands again.  Then it was "Follow Me.")


 

Tomorrow, is a busy day followed by another busy day, followed by another busy day.  I find myself longing for the quiet ones.  Do you ever do that?  Stop to look at your calendar and note all the penciled-in or candy-colored spots?  When did my days begin to look like Valentine's conversation hearts?  It's a wonder anything gets done at all, the way we run around.  I can't say, "like a chicken with its head cut off," because at least, at some point, the chicken quits running!  Perhaps we're more like the proverbial hamster on its wheel.  We need to slow down, as afternoons like this, with quiet enough to hear the person in the next room breathing, will begin to disappear.