Dwelling in your house

Evening, God.

I have so much to say and a few hours ago I felt like saying it. Right now I'm wondering when it might be decent for me to climb into bed and my eyelids are drooping at the very thought of it. But I'm going to make the effort. That's big of me, isn't it?

Here it is. Earlier today I read this:

'One thing I ask of the Lord
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.'

Psalm 27:4

I read this and I thought, 'Yes.'  That's what I want to do. I have read this psalm a few times and this was the first time that it leapt off the page and made my heart respond, 'Yes.'

I don't know about the 'One thing I ask of the Lord...' part; I have quite a list of things I regularly ask, but I know what this psalmist meant. I look forward to the day when I simply sit in your house and gaze up at you. I will live with you and I will spend eternity watching and listening and singing and soaking you up. I can't wait.

So on one hand, this is what I long to do. This is what my life aims towards; it's what I'm for. I have this longing because I was built and wired that way. But...and there's a big 'But'... there are a few obstacles before the eternity thing, aren't there?

The biggest one is the need to go on living life until it's time for eternity.

Tonight I made a lovely nutritious dinner for my family that took quite a while to prepare. I asked my eldest daughter to clear some toys from the table (yes, even if they weren't actually her toys but those of her little sister) and to set the table, which she did, grumpily, with heavy sighs. When the food was ready they both complained that their television programme hadn't finished. Eventually we did sit down to eat, but the meal was over in the blink of an eye. A tiny fraction of the time it'd taken to get ready. Elizabeth wouldn't eat her vegetables, Katy wouldn't eat her mashed potato. I found myself clearing pots in an empty kitchen once again and wondering why I bothered.

As Bryan was reading a story to the children I decided to run myself a bath; a rare occurrence in the week as I can always be sure that the moment I climb in to the bubbles one or both of the girls will shout or appear at the side of the tub with some pressing request or grievance. I put in my lovely new fragrant bath foam, I placed a book and a towel to rest my head by the bath and I stepped in.

Brrr.

There hadn't been enough hot water left after the children's bath and two loads in the washing machine. It was a very brief bath. I found myself getting dressed again muttering the word, 'Grace. Grace.' under my breath. Time for bed with a coffee and a book.

Nope.

I made a coffee, I put my feet up, I picked up my book. That was about the time that the children organised themselves into a tag team and came in alternately for the next half hour with many and varied requests. At one point I even ventured downstairs and microwaved my coffee warm again but it soon chilled for the second time. By the time the girls had conked out in their own beds, my eyes were too wibbly to concentrate and I ended up putting my bookmark back in the book in exactly the same place as it had been when I optimistically placed it by the bath.

How does life fit in with dwelling in your house?  I know that being close to you isn't something that only happens after I die. I know that life is made up of the things like this - the demands of family life, keeping on doing the things that nobody notices, trying my very best not to be devastatingly grumpy and snappy when there's no hot water left for me. I need to get the two things to live together, somehow.

Grace.

I need so much more of it. I find that I want peace and quiet when the children want attention. They should get the attention, but it's so hard. I know that they will only be young once and if I don't take them up on their offer of a Moshi Monsters' Mission now the invitation might not be extended again. Hmm. Perhaps that was a bad example. I know that a time will come when they no longer want 'just one more story', and yet I find myself resenting the fact that they won't go to bed and leave me alone. And then there's the guilt.

I feel as if my desire to dwell in your house is a selfish one. For me, it sounds great. But just as it wouldn't be fair if I were never around in body when my children need me, it's not fair if I'm continually trying to be somewhere else in spirit either. This is why I need to try to find out what dwelling in your house means, while I'm on the go. While I'm cooking food that nobody seems to appreciate, while I'm stepping on and sweeping up discarded Rice Krispies, while I'm grinding my teeth because there's no hot water left for me.

Sometimes I amaze myself. Katy asks me to lie down with her (again) at bedtime for a cuddle and I find myself sighing and looking longingly at the door because my evening is tantalisingly close, if only they'll just settle - I have to remind myself that my five year old daughter wants another cuddle. That Is Not A Bad Thing. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. Pull myself together.

Does that sound awful?  I love cuddling Katy.  Despite her protestations to the contrary, she won't be wanting Mummy to lie down with her when she's twenty-one, will she? How can I rush her and disappear to do my own thing?  It makes no sense. Oh, the guilt of motherhood. The way it messes with my head.

Some people say that there will always be a tension between the fact that we are not at home here in this world as we are citizens of heaven, which is our true home. Is that it? Or is it just that I still haven't got my head around the fact that I can't always do the things that I want to do at the time I want to do them?  It's all very well seeking to be with you but I have to learn to do that at the same time as the juggling of daily stuff that requires energy and patience when I'm already running on empty. Retreats and Quiet Days are wonderful -I could definitely do more of those - but they're only of so much value when it's the day to day hamster-wheel that needs shoring up by you.

Katy has a mysterious rash and the very lymph nodes in her neck that the consultants are keeping an eye on are vastly enlarged. Probably it's a miscellaneous infection; I know that in children these nameless viruses sometimes manifest with a rash where in adults they don't. She's waking in the night agitated but can't tell me why. She's well in the daytime, no raised temperature, eating well (except mashed potato, it would seem) and is happy and energetic enough. The rash is probably nothing much and the new level of enlargement of the nodes probably only because of the nothing-much-rash. But...perhaps I should tell the consultant?  Watch and wait, I think. Feel free to interject if you have other ideas, will you?

It's a glorious evening and the garden needs so much attention but I am exhausted. I want to sleep. I did want to have a bath, then a read, then sleep, but right now I'll settle for just the sleep. The weeds in the garden are waist high in places and I have a beautiful new plant that is looking for a spot to live. Don't let me leave it in the pot to die before I clear it a space.

So, Father God, show me how to get the balance right. Show me how to find space when space is to be found but not to resent the times when there is no space. Give me grace to replace the bookmark when someone wails and not to look at them witheringly when their crisis turns out only to be a misplaced piece of Lego. Help me to carry on providing meals and coats and dinner money and fill in forms for school trips with a smile even at those times when nobody seems to appreciate the behind the scenes stuff.

Perhaps I'm dwelling in your house when I'm scraping mashed potato into the bin or loading the dishwasher. Maybe I'm gazing on your beauty as I watch my beautiful girls sleep. Maybe lying next to Katy as she sucks her thumb and plays with my hair at bedtime is seeking you in your temple - and finding you there.

Help me to pick up one more set of pyjamas from the floor and locate Scruffy Barney one more time. Help me read one more story. Help me clear up one more mess.

And help me put the water heater on in time next time I want a bath. 

What really matters

Hello God.

It has been ten years since two planes were flown into the World Trade Centre towers in New York and exploded, causing them to collapse, and planes hijacked and crashed in Washington killed nearly three thousand people in total. I imagine you remember.

A New York couple had recently got back from their honeymoon. The husband got up early for work that day and wrote a note for his new wife, who was still sleeping as he left the house. The note said:

'I love you more than I can say. Already looking forward to coming home.'

Of course, he never did, did he? He worked somewhere high up in one of the World Trade Centre towers and he died that day. There are so many stories like this that break your heart over and over. Hundreds of people knew that they were trapped and many, many of them used their phones to call someone that they loved to say goodbye and 'I love you' one more time. There are so many stories about the last conversations, missed calls, voices on answering machines. When faced with a situation like this, it seems that people wanted to connect with their loved ones before it was too late. It focused the mind on what was important and it turned out that what was important was other people.

I've no idea if people prayed, or if they turned their panicked attention to thoughts of what happens after death; I've no idea how many of those who died already knew you. I'm sure that just as it is said that there are no atheists on the battlefield, there were probably few on the upper floors of the North Tower as they watched the South Tower collapse as their own structure burned beneath them. I hope so. I hope that in extremis those people fell to their knees and acknowledged you. You would have been quick to respond.

I can't imagine how those people felt as they went through all that. I can't imagine the terror and the confusion. I can't imagine how awful it must have been to take a call from my husband both knowing that he was going to die. Perhaps worse than that might be to have missed a call from him and play the voicemail later. To know that someone you loved was trapped and terrified and minutes from death. It must have been more than we are built to cope with.

What words would be enough for a fleeting call like that? What could I say? And if there is something that needs to be said urgently in a situation like that then I am sure that that thing should be said anyway. Perhaps many times over. My God, if anyone I love goes out one day and doesn't come back, or goes to sleep one night and doesn't wake up in the morning I so much want to be sure that they would know what I would say if I'd had that phone call.

What made me think most was that those dreadful minutes crystallised to those unfortunate people exactly what was important. They wanted to connect with someone. How much they earned didn't matter, and what they were wearing didn't matter, how fat or thin they were didn't matter, and their job title didn't matter. Nothing did, except whatever thoughts of death and beyond they had, and the need to reach out to family.

I do not compare my experiences with those I've just described, but on the same continuum is what happened to me as I waited for Katy to come back from surgery some weeks ago. I left her in the anaesthetic room and cried for a while, had something to eat and then settled in a little courtyard in the hospital to wait for the call to say that she was in recovery. Bryan paced back and forth and I sat and tried to read, tried to pray, tried to relax my shoulders. There had been a few issues about jobs and finances and so on hanging over us for a week or two and we hadn't addressed them because we were already pretty stressed out about Katy's impending surgery and some hassles we'd had with operation dates and so on. As we waited I suggested we talk about what we were going to do to sort things out.

I sat, Bryan paced, we waited. 

It might have seemed a funny time to initiate a difficult conversation but actually it was the perfect time for us. The reason it was a good time was because at that very moment, it didn't matter at all. All that mattered was how Katy's surgery was going. How long it would be before she was back. Whether she was alright. Income and job security and pension plans didn't seem remotely significant in comparison with our lovely, small, vulnerable four year old daughter and surgery to her neck.

We didn't solve any problems that day but we worked out a plan. The funny thing (not funny ha ha, funny peculiar) is since that day a month ago Katy regained consciousness, was discharged from hospital, recovered beautifully and has now started school, and as the concern over her receded, other worries then crept back into my head. My in extremis prioritisation has become muddled again. All of a sudden the things that seemed trifling have assumed a magnitude that oppresses me again. I can see it and it makes no sense.

You are important. You are most important. My family are important. Other people are important.

That's about it. You'll take care of it all, won't you?

'Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.'

Matthew 6:33 (Good News Translation)

The clue is in that verse. Be concerned above everything else. Seek ye first.

You come first. Then there are important things and there are less important things. You can take care of them all. I suppose if I were more mature, walking so closely with you, if perhaps I had the mindset of St Paul, I might have been able to write today about how Katy's surgery did not alarm me in the slightest because I had such faith that you were in control. That there was you, and no other important things. That on that day her situation was just as supremely insignificantly not-worrying as our (lack of) financial stability. If smaller worries took a back seat then perhaps one day I can learn to push my larger worries behind me as well. Did St Paul have a poorly four year old daughter who needed surgery? Surely some things are still important and worthy of worry? Aha. I'm coming unstuck.

That's too much for now. I'll come back to it.

I suppose all I'm telling you about today was a little re-ordering that went on in my head back on that day outside the children's ward. It's no more than a step in the right direction, I guess. Maybe I've even regressed from that little revelation in the last weeks as life has taken on a more normal pattern.

As I talk to you now I realise how far I have to go. I feel as if I was an excited child who came bursting into her Daddy to say, 'Look! Look what I've learned!' and you're saying, 'That's great! But there's more! So much more...' 

Thankyou that you are a God who cares about our little steps forward and forgives our steps in the other direction. Thankyou that you can rummage through the mess in my head, find a nugget of Good Intention and hold it aloft in celebration even if it's covered in filth.

Thankyou that you love me no matter what.

Help me to get my priorities straight. And then keep them there.

You sat down next to me

So last night I inadvertently stabbed myself in the eye with something sharp and pointy.  


It wasn't a pleasant experience, Lord, and not one I'd want to repeat, so next time you can see it about to happen, by all means feel free to intervene. Three and a half hours in A&E wasn't particularly edifying, either. In fact, yesterday wasn't up there with Great Days of My Life for many reasons.

But you can bring some good out of any situation, can't you?  And I have to say that I was touched last night at people's concern, and coming to be with me in hospital for three and a half hours was way beyond the call of duty I am sure.  


I sat there, unable to open my eye properly, tears streaming down my face (and no handkerchief, imagine that when your nose is running out of control), thoroughly miserable,  and I felt someone sit down next to me.  


Friends like that are worth their weight in chocolate. 


But the one thing that has come out of it is that life can be rearranged if it needs to be. Thanks to some good friends and my Mum I didn't do any school or nursery runs this morning and after sorting out the children with breakfast and book bags/hair bobbles/snacks/items for show and tell/money for school trips/shoes/coats/gloves/hats etc I took myself off to bed and slept for a record five hours. 


I ended up missing a meeting last night that I really wanted to go to and had something planned tonight that I've had to cancel too. At the beginning of this week I was quite stressed out about how to fit in everything that needed doing before the weekend and now... I am getting extra sleep instead of rushing about like a mad thing. 


What do I learn from this? That I'm not indispensable?  That my health is more important than individual things that only seem important?  That it is actually possible to re-order priorities at the drop of a hat when I have a hole in my eye?  


Or that I have some very good friends who will sit late at night next to me in the overstretched emergency department while I clutch at my head and sniff and cry intermittently?


I am blessed indeed.  I'm blessed that I have two eyes that work, and I'm blessed that I can stab myself in one of them and get it treated and that it'll be fine again in a few days. (Not that I intend to take that one for granted). I'm blessed to have friends I can rely on, and I'm blessed that I have one friend in particular  who has the heart to do something lovely and unasked for and perceptive for me despite her own tiredness and stresses. I had a chance to sleep lots today but she didn't. I am more touched than I can say. I hope that one day I have the opportunity to do the same for her. 


Well, I don't, because that means that she's sitting in A&E having injured herself in some way, but you know what I mean.


I was trying to pray while I was waiting on my own last night and all I could come up with was 'Lord, be in this with me'.  


And you were. 


You sat down next to me.