Let go.

Just what I needed...

I battle to fill each day with good things, to achieve the things I've given myself to do.

Monday was cleaning day, and while I did three loads of laundry and got it all put away, and made beds and cleaned rooms and accomplished a lot of tasks, my to do list still stretched into the distance at the end of the day, and worse, I felt dissatisfied, empty. Everything I had tackled with a focused determination, blocking out as much as I could all the other things, the more important things... reading to my kids, noticing something funny or beautiful, thanking God for something good...it was all a blur, and there was no satisfaction at the end of the day, just a long list of more things to do.

Tuesday I determined to slow down, to enjoy my kids and the rest of life. It was better, but Christopher Robin's attitude was difficult, and Peanut Butter woke up from his nap grumpy and needy... a leisurely time of reading to them all together, stretched out on the floor with Raindrop happily climbing and crawling over my back and my arms wrapped around Peanut Butter and holding the book because he "needed" me to hold him, wasn't enough. It was time to make supper and he still "needed" me to hold him more, and I felt that familiar frustration of trying to fill his needs and him never satiated, never done needing.

Wednesday I had no agenda. I try not to have one on My Hero's days off. Just two things on the schedule... coffee and breakfast with a friend in the morning while My Hero watched our kids, then later in the afternoon staying with my grandfather while my grandmother kept an appointment with her doctor.

Let life fly. Who are we take words and color and hold time tight? Hands open in worship is the apex of art. Wisdom.

The breakfast outing with my new friend was a drink of pure, cold water, refreshing, strengthening, filling me with love for life and making me feel more alive. The rest of the morning with My Hero and our kids was family life in harmony, joy brimming and sloshing out of me with every movement.

I arrived at my grandparents' house in the afternoon to find my grandfather in his wheelchair near the bathroom and my grandmother facing the long, difficult task of helping him with the business. She called her doctor's office to let them know she would be late. Then she offered to let me help, and I entered a little into the care of this man to whom I owe so much of my heritage, and the joy of assisting them, lending my strength to his weak limbs, dipping into the process of their daily life, new to caring for the elderly, and marveling at how familiar it feels, how similar, really, it is to caring for the tiny helpless new lives that have entered my own new young family these past 5 years. Again I spoke to my grandmother about setting a regular, weekly time to come help, maybe on Mondays? And she lit up as though she was ready, now, to set a time to make it happen. I long to be a part of their lives, to lend some of my strength and energy to their days, to give a little freedom to my grandmother, to know and be known to them, for my kids to know them and be known.

Sometimes I wonder how it will be to add something else to my days when already I can't get it all done, and yesterday was my answer.

Lord, why is it that when I pry open my hand to let go of life, more of life can fill my palm stretched-out?

I came home and we had an hour or two more of afternoon to fill before it was time to go to our Wednesday evening small group, so I suggested we go to the basement and clear off our deck table of all the yard sale items we had sorted out a month or two ago so we could bring the table out to our deck. "Box the yard sale items," My Hero suggested. Yes, box them and keep them separate, so next time a friend hosts a yard sale we'll be ready to join. We all worked together, Christopher Robin enthusiastically putting himself in charge of wrapping glass items in newspaper. Table was cleared, items boxed and stacked, table brought out to deck for summer use, basement was tidied and swept, three large boxes filled with outdoor wood scraps for next winter's kindling, then a quick easy supper, most of yesterday's casserole, a bowl of homemade baked beans, and thick slices of honey oatmeal bread with butter. This morning I go down to the basement to witness the miracle of yesterday. Our basement, the one that clutters my mind with new tasks to finish each time I pass through, swept clean, neatly organized, peaceful. Miracle. I could never have done it myself if I spent a week of stressful, focused, task-oriented days.

Lord, why is it that when I pry open my hand to let go of life, more of life can fill my palm stretched-out?
Funny, how I forget that.

What could I let go of today?