A bitter wind that those bare, black trees just can’t hold back.
My hands are raw like a nurse’s, from all that hot scrubbing.
Because though it’s Thanksgiving week here in America,
for me it will be another seven days of much the same,
if I want to look at it that way.
Loading and unloading
dishwashers,
washing machines,
wee ones in and out of beds.
Washing and scrubbing
walls,
floors,
toilets,
faces,
feet.
It’s sacred ground, you know, my home.
Sacred, with Jesus here.
Beside me as I labor, as I stoop.
Just as He did, right before He died.
Servant-like, He washed all the black off His disciples’ feet, just like He’d wash their hearts.
Just like He washed mine.
And so it’s sacred work, too, that I do.
Washing little hands, little feet.
Not easy. Not easy not to pipe up about what’s fair, and who’s pulling their share of it, and what I need to be happy.
No, the work’s not easy, and it goes on and on.
But what’s easy, really easy, is to go looking for something to give a bit more meaning to it all
when the sacred is disguised as tedium.
I know it’s not there, yet how often I go looking
for something to fill that deep, deep hole.
And yet I know, when it comes down to it, where to be filled.
Filled up and overflowing.
Where I can find the strength to serve and keep on serving.
And I can’t afford not to take the time each day to be filled up,
filled up and floating on all that love, all that grace.
He’s here. Beside me.
But I need to turn and look Him in the eye.
And as I scrub, I need to look them in the eye—my little souls.
They won’t sleep under this roof forever.
And while I’m kneeling, sometimes I’ve got to remember to keep them there, pull them to my lap.
Lean with our elbows on the windowsill to see what’s what.
With our eyes, trace the shape of those big, black trees,
the colours in the sky,
catch some geese in flight,
work together on our smile lines.
Acknowledge the sacred.
Because it’s right here.
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She rises up as morning breaks She moves among these rooms alone Before we wake And her heart is so full; it overflows She waters us with love and the children grow
~ Andrew Peterson, “Planting Trees”
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“It was November–the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”
~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
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Avonlea x
Happy Little Sigh
Finding beauty in the everyday ❤
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A Dozen Cosies to Warm Your Heart & Your Hands and Bless Your Week . . .
Spread a blanket and have a picnic lunch inside. Or a candlelit picnic at night when the children are abed?
Buy a bouquet of fresh flowers and divide them up in jars around your house. Don’t forget your bathroom and your bedside table. And don’t forget to give them a smell.
Rake some leaves and jump in the pile. Go in and warm your hands and your soul with some tea.
4. Bake something with cinnamon. Apple pie?
5. Go for a walk and pray until your nose and cheeks are red. Then go in and warm up with some tea.
6. Watch Anne of Green Gables and laugh and sigh when Anne is “in the depths of despair.”
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
~ A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Wellies by our backdoor in Scotland. Two of the pairs are mine – John does not wear pink!
Findlay having a wee adventure at Glamis, our local castle and favourite place for a family day out when we lived in Scotland.
*It’s been a rather long time since you’ve heard from me, I know. It’s just that life has been a bit of an adventure recently, and not in the inspiring, tramping across fields in wellies sort of way. Adventures usually includes a few surprises, it’ s true, but this move to America has included just a few too many surprises to make it a nice, comfortable sort of adventure. A few weeks ago our house was burglarized and almost everything of value taken. This included our laptops, of course, which housed my many notes and photos. The whole experience has been a bit traumatic, I must admit, and the loss of our files was devastating. But . . . I have found myself being forced to look at my life a little differently since it happened, which I pray will turn out to be a good thing. I’ll have more to say on the subject, I’m sure, but until then, I give you this small offering–a little quote and some photos in honor of this colourful, wet, puddle-filled season we call autumn . . . or, on this side of the world, fall.
happy little sigh 