Force

"You can't force people," Jane says. Her long curls shawled around thin shoulders, she sketches.

Exercises. Each child practices. Jane and Jack sketch. Lucy pounds scales. Myra holds Betsy. Joe recites fragments of Ozymandias as he balances breakfast dishes to the kitchen. Enveloped in morning work, world politics intersect conversation. A presidential debate, and Jane's tracing free will beyond beyond chores, beyond theology.

We review the contenders, but her main question: Why don't people DO what's right?

You can't force people.

"It's like a lot of things with Christ," I say, "he just presents the truth and lets us choose." I sip my coffee. "He never forces us." I say. The washer lud-thuds in the background. Jane zigs a few zags on bumpy line of  zigzags. Encircled in the navy stripes of her shirt, she chews the idea.

"It's like truthfulness is it's own defense," she says.

"Huh, yup," I say. She hardly looks up. Three quarter length sleeves and navy stripes, I watch her

Truthfulness is it's own defense. And it's own antidote. Speak it at any time and freedom will follow.

We slip the idea into our pocket like a smooth stone and carry on.





Gratitude:

5660. "If you want to play Trouble, Momma, I will," Joe says, "Do you want to play Trouble?" he says. Yes. Yes, I do.

5661. "Just a minute," I say. "One minute is like A THOUSAND minutes," he says.

5662. I discover migraines are a possible side effect of the vein procedure I had. At least I'm not so worried about the headaches I've been having.

5663. Thrift store finds, clothes for Jane, the backing for a quilt.

5664. Fresh shampoo, vitamins, and medicine.

5665. A new belt for Craig, black, simple, perfect.

5666. We learn to make pizza as a family and make it every night for a week.

5667. "Why does our conscience lead us with fear?" Jane asks me. "Because it is afraid of what we might lose." I say. "It steers us from evil, but it's God's goodness that draws us to him."

5668. Betsy starts calling me MOMMA, loud, clear, and with expressive eyebrows.

5669. "Mom, look how big of muscles I have," Joe says, his arms contorted in an almost flex.

5670. I make a new counter cleaner that smells just like a lemon San Pelligrino.

5671. I finally throw out the last garden bouquet, dried to a crisp, brownish on the countertop.

5672. Joe accidentally crushes half a carton of eggs in an unfortunate fall "helping" Myra make eggs for me.

5673. We find baby blue cowboy boots second hand. Jane and I share them.

5674. I continue to turn to the great grace and mercy in Christ. Perfect love -- this miracle encircles me.

Farmer

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"I hope I marry a farmer," Lucy says. "I just really hope I marry a farmer." There in my peripheral, I look up.

"Yeah?" I say. My feet propped, post-varicose vein procedure, I peer at her over my toes. She sits on the sunroom step.

"I just hope I get to be a farmer's wife," she says.

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"Why is that?" I say.

"I think it would be fun to learn to make lots of things out of one ingredient," she says, "like milk." I let the sway of her words lull me, milk elongated into a whole mouthful.

"Oh," I say.

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"Like you can make ice cream and cream and butter," She tilts her head as if perusing an invisible list in her mind. "Stuff like that. I just think it would be so. fun."

She speaks with the constant motion of a conductor's hand. I find the gait as pleasing as her words. She dreams in gentle 6/8 time, all things triple and soft.

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Gratitude:

5642. Lucy plays me endless board games as my leg recovers. Win or lose, affection beats quiet time between us.

5643. Craig and Jane make homemade pizza as I convalesce -- and that after he made pancakes for breakfast.

5644. Craig washes the sheets and remakes our bed.

5645. He has the children clean the house and tidy up their school boxes.

5646. He finds me red patent leather shoes at a thrift shop.

5647. We find reasons to laugh together; more of a special bond ensues.

5648. Almond flavored homemade ice cream.

5649. Fresh sweet potato fries.

5650. I read more of His Utmost For His Highest and find true gems of contentment.

5651. Mom comes and visits with me as I rest.

5652. A friend blesses us with a good deal on a couch. The old red couch of many years, and many, many holes, finally gets replaced. Celebration!

5653. Betsy starts pulling herself up on things.

5654. She loves hugs and leans in to snuggle.

5655. Jack gets ready for church early so that he can double check if I need anything before he leaves.

5656. Knitting and more knitting, I continue to get great enjoyment out of the simple knitted project.

5657. Joey finally gets to go to church and help in Craig's class. "I just can't wait," he keeps saying all. weekend.

5658. Jack works to clear the garden of harvest debris.

5659. I still my heart to look into the eyes of my children and my husband and see them. This is true pleasure. I try not to miss a moment.

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Just Think

"Just think of Sodom and Gomorrah," Jane says. Tuesday and we're traveling together. "It doesn't take very many good people for God to save a lot of bad people," she says.

Blue sky and intermittent clouds, we glide down the highway to Grammie's, our drive the usual hothouse of conversation.

"Yep," I say. For the sake of ten good men God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah. Would have.

"And God still did save the good people," she says.

"Yep," I say.

"Ya just have to make sure you're on the right side," she says. She directs the conversation with full arm gestures from the very back seat. "The right side in God's eyes," she says. Children chatter tangents on her words. They lace ideas, one looped around the next and the next.

As politics spiral, as the narrative of Revelation reads easier and easier each day, one thing is clear: persecution will come. Every ilk will find it. Ya just have to make sure you're on the right side.

I pray righteousness finds us, that we grab on with both hands, fall on our knees, and devote ourselves to the one thing, the one Person, that will make every struggle worth it. Jesus.

Gratitude:

5627. Spices. New spices and herb blends for the simple kitchen. We bake a promised land of food from the simplest ingredients.  The pantry brims with fresh stores.

5628. I knit three quarters of a new pair of pants for Betsy.

5629. Coral peach yarn, I plan an Easter sweater for her.

5630. A knitting book of prayer shawls.

5631. New jars for the pantry spices.

5632. "I lied," Joe confesses. Slowly by slowly he grabs on to truth.      

5633. We play Settlers of Catan again and again. Symptoms of good sportsmanship emerge.

5634. I meet a friend via e-mail who has a daughter with the same name. Myra. Such a pretty name. We exchange knitting stories, our lives parallel from different sides of the country.

5635. We work to grow the children in kindness, kindness in adversity, kindness to the ungrateful. Siblings provide the perfect lab.

5636. The children bake apple crisp for Craig and me.

5637. Jane begins to learn Come Thou Fount. Lucy starts Holy, Holy, Holy.

5638. We receive TWO letters from George. Jane started writing the sponsor letters, and we received TWO in response.

5639. Betsy starts army crawling. The turn of one night, and suddenly she is into ev. ery. thing. Bits of dust, curls of hair, scraps of paper, snips of yarn, corners of furniture, everything makes it to her mouth.

5638. I try to slow the moments and enjoy each one. Each stubborn interruption a triumphant marker of the great responsibility God has entrusted to me. I marvel at this fine gem.

5641. At each turn I find Craig. There he is, doing the last thing I needed.

Myra

"I like sitting here snuggling you," I whisper, "even though I can't talk right now." Myra smiles. Adult conversation swirls around us. She's folded up like a map of the universe under my arm. She nods. I lean closer.

"I'm just trying to get a booger out of my nose," she whispers in full voice.

"Oh," I say from the corner of my mouth. I peek to see her cleaning her fingernails. Surrounded by a labyrinth of plaid, the old red couch engulfs us. It's a micro-universe.

"I got it," she says.

"Ok," I say.

Conversation splays in front of me. Craig and I talk principles and worldview. I try to listen more than I talk, but all the while this other universe unfolds just below the surface. Counterpoint. Many melodies at once, the chords interlock.

Gratitude:

5616. Cerissa gives birth to a new life. Baby Theo arrives safe and perfect. Life resplendent greets us.

5617. "I cannot believe how sweet that baby is." Lucy whispers. She utters it absent minded as if still up that hospital room holding him.

5618. We have dinner on the farm and pick two boxes of apples, then swing from the rope up in the barn.

5619. I make a pan of lemon/lime bars from scratch.

5620. We start soup season with a stockpot brimming with chicken stock.

5621. Craig takes me on a date of thrifting, fast becoming a pastime of pleasure for us.

5622. Cerissa and Dan's kids while away the hours waiting for baby Theo at our house. Cousins, what joy.

5623. Mom and I have coffee and a morning of fall together. We gather groceries and run errands, laugh and speak life to each other.

5624. I start reading Oswald Chamber's My Utmost For His Highest. What a gem of a book.

5625. I finish knitting a bootie and hat set for Betsy.

5626. We thank the Lord for another week together. Character and love grows between us.

BIG

"You are going to get very BIG," Myra says.

"Yeah," Joe says.

"'Cause people about your size get VERY big," she says. They nod, a collection of facts lolling between them.


***

"So if you forgive someone, does that mean they don't have to DO anything? Anything at all? Everything just goes back to normal?"

"Well, surely they have respond in SOME-way."

"But if they have to respond are you really forgiving them?"

"If you expect anything, is it really forgiveness?"

A debate. Theology circles our dinner table. Pizza and salad, brownies, pie, leftover dessert, we weigh and flex scripture against experience. Conversation flits like a flock of birds. Murmuration ensues.

"Surely they have to do something," someone says. "What if I punch you in the nose, and you forgive me, but I still say you deserved it? What then? Ya can't just go back to normal. Can you?"

"But God forgives us before we even ask," someone else says. "Forgive them for they know not what they do."

"But some people DO still go to Hell," someone else says, "even though he forgave them."

We turn it over again and again like a coin with two sides.

"When you forgive someone they don't have to DO anything," Jane pipes up. Childish candor becomes her; she speaks in step. "But in order to RESTORE the relationship they have to acknowledge it in SOME way," she says. Acknowledge. Restore.

The room hushes around her words. As if gathered from the four corners of the room, she synthesizes air down to a single breath. Forgiveness. Restoration. They form a bag of waters around us, sustain us and hold us, give us our first breath.





Gratitude:

5606. Myra and Joe make me breakfast.

5607. Jack and Joe debone a chicken for me.

5608. Betsy continues to roll all over the house, pulling stuffing out of a hole in the couch, chewing on rogue flip-flops, biting up bits of paper, and calling whole conversations of Hi there.

5609. We wait with anticipation for the birth of my nephew, the children one big hoorah of excitement.

5610. We attend a funeral in Craig's hometown, his aunt laid to rest.

5611. New yarn.

5612. A polkadot headband for Betsy.

5613. Guacamole, we develop a signature recipe.

5614. We continue to pray for the fruit of the Spirit and watch our lives conform to the particular challenges that cultivate character.

5615. Each night rings in another victory: life together laid one brick at a time. We build castles of affection.

The Wedding

"I think Aunt Laura is an interesting person to visit with," Jane says.

"Me too," I say.

The reception hall a splay of jubilee, Jane and I thread our way back to our table. Relatives and strawberry shortcake, music and dancing, a fall storm held off just long enough to complete an outdoor ceremony, my cousin got married.

Something happened there in the squirreling wind and sprinkling rain, an act of God: marriage. Corey and Olivia became a new unit of family. We watched and beheld the glory. A holiday of love, merriment ensued.

And in a small moment between Aunt Laura and the cousins I rarely see, I turn. There is Jane out on the dance floor. Flip-flops lost under a folding chair, twinkle lights holding the room, she breaks into dance. We all step into a new season.





Gratitude:

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5594. Corey and Olivia get married.

5595. Spur of the moment, I invite a neighbor to dinner. He accepts. And he brings three pies!

5596. I discover I love pumpkin pie. (?!)

5597. I lose my phone and then find it when the small diner next to the grocery store calls with it.

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5598. A friend stops by out of the blue.

5599. I get hammered by a migraine and rise again.

5600. I discover how to knit a bonnet by Elizabeth Zimmerman.

5601. Craig surprises me with a date to a local pizza shop.

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5602. We settle into the arms of autumn enjoying warm afternoons and brisk nights.

5603. I make one of the best lentil soups in years.

5604. Craig prints new family photos for our living room.

5605. We tumble into Sunday evening exhausted, spent, and full.

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Trials

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Sigh. "Today has just been like a trial and a tribulation," Jane says. She shakes her head, curls swing around her, a bowl of steel cut oats slack at her hand.

"Yeah?" I say. I watch her from the kitchen door, Sunday afternoon bunched up around us. Her daily chore just barely finished: tidy the living and dining room.

"It's like test, test, test," she nods and whirls her hands in a wheel motion. Myra left oatmeal smeared on the table. Lucy splattered water on the floor. Jack didn't put his laundry away. Joe hazed the table in crumbs.

"I think you are doing remarkably well," I say. "It's always hard when you don't get enough sleep."

"It's just like I wish they could be staggered a little," she says. She tilts her head, sighs again.

"I know what you mean," I say. Chores, the act of laying down our lives again and again -- it's serious work.

She scoops a swath of steel cut oats and swipes it into her mouth. She gathers more bites, the tink of her spoon, marking the tock of time.





Gratitude:

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5587. My parents throw the annual party for summer birthdays. Another round of encouragement and love, it's so good every year.

5588. We take the kids out for bike rides. They burst with bliss.

5589. A neighbor invites us to can pears.

5590. Another neighbor passes on leftovers.

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5591. We go on a walk and chit-chat with the people we see.

5592. A friend passes on hand-me-downs.

5593. We continue to step forward confident of God's goodness.

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