I don’t go there every night.
Sometimes I’m held up.
Distracted.
For night is the end of another day, another twenty-four hours that seem to have taken me no closer. No closer to my dreams. To my goals. And so in my worry I mull them over.
Dreams, goals, regrets . . .
Dreams for this house, like those black and white photos of the children I want printed out and framed, and the upcycled furniture I’d like when we finally remodel the breakfast room. I could lie awake for hours planning it all out in my head. As if someday I’ll get there, you know, to my real life, my forever life, where every closet and drawer is organized and my house is decorated like a Pinterest fantasy.
My real life, where I’m fitter and stronger and have smoother skin than I did at eighteen.
My real life, where I have hours every day to sit in the garden and paint, and read, and write, and play with the children, and somehow the cooking, and cleaning, and shopping doesn’t take much time at all.
My real life, as if it’s a place where I’ll one day arrive. As if one day, everything that needs to be done will be done.
It’s easy to forget with all that planning for tomorrow. Easy to forget that my children will never be as young as they are today. That I will never be as young as I am today. That we can never get today back.
It’s easy to fill my days and fill my mind and hold onto these plans, these goals, as if this is all there is.
But then I catch myself. Lying in my bed at night, I remember. I feel the smallness of myself in this universe. The frailty of my body as I lie there on the mattress listening to my baby and my husband breathe. Even if we eat nothing but organic, they are not forever. I am not forever. For a while. A good while, I hope, but not forever.
And as a wife and a mother, how could I sleep with that, how could I live with that if I didn’t know. If when my children realize that the end will come for me, for them, and the tears pool in their eyes, I couldn’t lift my little person onto my lap and hold him close and whisper “Yes! Yes!”
And If I didn’t know, if I hadn’t seen, that what He says more than anything is “Fear not.”
“Don’t be afraid!”
And so I go.
Sometimes I creep, when I feel how much I’ve missed the mark. How I’ve let Him down that day. With head hung low I crawl toward Him, always toward Him, because I know He wants me there. That He’s happy, miraculously, not just to welcome the repentant but the reluctant and the angry, too.
I lie there by his feet and soon there comes His hand upon my head. “Daughter.”
Other times I run, through a field of wildflowers and hazy sunlight, my arms outstretched, and I meet Him. I meet the warmth of His robes and the strength of His love, and like a little girl I’m lifted and swung. “Child.”
The colors blur, and I know that’s home. That’s forever.
And there’s peace.
Peace like Lucy clutching Aslan’s mane and burying her face there and knowing it’s going to be all right.
No matter what, I’m safe, and it’s going to be all right.
And what could be more important than having them with me?
There in that field. In those arms. In that eternity.
There, when this house and everything in it, and every worry I ever had will be long gone. There, where everything will finally be complete and time . . .
well, it will just stand still.
We’re all together, with Him, and time is standing still.
This house—will they even remember? The color of the walls, if the furniture was scratched?
And if they remember, will I let them think it’s worth a wisp of worry?
Or will I reach out and grasp hold of this time, these hours that slip so easily into days and years, and
instead of making lists of all that’s wrong,
make lists of all that’s right?
And will I help my children, and each person beckoned through the doors of this house, to smile over every seen and unseen gift, every finer thing, and to point them, always point them, to the Giver?
And how can I remember where to point unless I keep my eyes there,
always right there
on His face?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For YOUR watches of the night . . .
Listen.
1Peter 1: 3-9, Psalm 91: 5-9, Psalm 63
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