“‘Stop!’, shouted Kirk with a suddenness that made me jump. ‘What do you mean by wildness and what grounds had you for not expecting it?'”
~C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy~

The past few weeks in my Bible class we’ve been studying the New Testament. We’ve covered the gospels written by Matthew and Luke, the books of Acts and Romans, along with the additional letters of Paul. I use the word studying loosely. In my mind, studying means thinking deep and long about something. I’m surrounded by multiple open books, turning pages and taking notes. The hot drink that miraculously never gets cold sits close enough to be reached for and sipped. I reread the instruction for one of this week’s assignments, which is to write 300-500 words answering the question, “Who is Jesus?”

How much time do you have, because I could tell you some stories. When I go in for these counseling appointments, lately happening every two weeks on Tuesdays, we have fifty minutes to talk about whatever direction the wind is blowing that day. Only once have we ever accidently gone fifteen minutes over. One can adapt to molding themselves around other people’s requirements, to staying within the bounds set forth. In this semester’s Bible class, as long as you complete and turn in your work, full credit is given for the assignments. This means that even though I enjoy the class and find it to be enriching, I haven’t been putting in as much time and effort towards it, because I don’t have to.

And that bothers me. Especially with a subject as infinitely minable as the Bible, there is always more to be revealed. The fear of missing out on a new or particularly divine tidbit or takeaway takes up more space in my mind than the content of the pages I lightly read or skimmed. She and I have talked before about the reality that you can’t read it all, that our actual lives typically do not allow us to sit for hours uninterrupted with our books, as heavenly as this version of studying sounds. And yet, the screen time report that pops up every Sunday preaches to me weekly, that clearly, I could’ve done more.

There is a balance to be found, but only after I have voiced the true expressions of my soul. Could I be thankful for a class that I found to be easy, that was not overly stressful, that challenged me to write more, and was also on a subject I loved? Absolutely yes. I want to be the mom who leaves warm crock-pot meals all ready to come home to when I walk out the door for class Monday evenings. I want to be the wife who does her husband good and not harm all the days of her life, whether I ever inspire love songs again or not. And I am still to remain this muddled non-illusion of who I am and who he is.

The past few weeks in my Bible class we’ve been reading about Matthew, Luke, Jesus, Paul and his letters of the New Testament. I wish I could say I’ve been taking the time for diving in deep and drinking this class up for all it’s worth. Instead it’s been more like enjoying a lazy river ride from the surface. This class is the kind where as long as you are doing the work that is asked, then you’re going to get credit for the assignments.

Over the next two weeks, in addition to our normal readings, we’re supposed to read through Hebrews and Revelation. Our final exam is a six page essay on Finding Our Place in God’s Story using the readings we’ve covered through the semester. I don’t know what I’m going to say for that yet, but the idea of finding my place in God’s story resonates with me, particularly as I consider what it means in regards to church life.

If you spend enough time with the older women in church, you’ll hear questions wondering how to get more of the younger women involved. The reality gaps between the generations frustrated me. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t see that with everything else younger women had going on with their families, showing up for a meeting and dessert at 9PM was like the last of their desires and priorities. The older ladies, having put in their years, were ready to retire their service to the more able-bodied.

Meanwhile, the younger women are feeling good most nights to get supper on their own tables, dreaming of the day when they’ll have time for such trifles (I’ve talked to another pastor’s wife about this so I know it wasn’t just me). For a long time I have felt cut-off when it comes to church. One of the things I had to grieve last year was the way church involvement had ended up looking in my life. The day my baby rolled down the handicap ramp and tipped over in his stroller while we were finishing up our VBS meeting, I was done. When I felt like I had richer fellowship with the ladies’ Bible study than I did with my own husband, I stopped going to be home on those evenings.

I can’t say any of that made anything better. One of the things I’d go back and do over if I could is to not cut myself off completely from the outside things that I was doing and enjoying. I remember last year around this time praying that God would bring back my strength with the return of the leaves. That’s not exactly how it happened. Even a year later my leaves have not completely returned. Sometimes it feels like I can see what God is doing in my life in a more personal way, and I do think we can see more in retrospect. In real time, however, we really don’t know, other than turning to the promises he’s made to us. I think sometimes it’s good to come back to the truth of simply trusting God, without the attachment to an earthly outcome or story. Being with God is enough to grow into the story we are daily living.

“For Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…”
~1 Peter 3:18~

Before the prophet died
He baptized me in prison
Not with human hands
But with eyes

As one from whom men
hide their faces aghast
With thirsting to offer
a thief on the cross

All creation hopes mercy
means God stops the pain
He didn’t for me and
He didn’t for him

Neither did he save himself
We hung there, suspended
Criminals in darkness
Kingdoms could see

His blood flow the innocent
river of life, in paradise
restored, adorned
not with a robe

But with heaven’s decree
My Lord there rejected
and covered in shame
He shined on me

The kids won their conference track meet on Tuesday. Today we split up as there was a baseball game and track meet in different directions. Dad took the baseball game and I had the track meet, which we each left in time to meet back up for the evening service. The wind was horrendous, enough to be a main topic of conversation with even the parents you knew well. The baseball game ended with another third inning mercy rule.

We are nearing the end of the Lenten season. I think I am actually going to miss it, though with the soothed and lighter missing that brings joy and not sorrow. It’s a time for us all, to look forward to the weekly services culminating in Holy Week, and finally, the risen Lord. It’s become a kind of comfort almost, this remembrance of our Lord and yearly walk to the cross. I love that it happens here in the warmth and closeness of extended winter.

These little moments keep passing without the chance to stop and process them all. The boys at the track meet asked me for money. I had three dollars. When I went to give them the money, one of the dollar bills blew out of my hand. One of the dads momentarily tried to chase it, before it whipped behind the concession stand. I certainly wasn’t going to run after it. The boys took off around the corner and came back with the dollar.

Jesus, Thy boundless love to me
No thought can reach, no tongue declare
Unite my thankful heart to Thee
And reign without a rival there
Thine wholly, Thine alone I am
Be Thou alone my constant flame
~Paul Gerhardt, LSB 683~

Back in 2020, I wrote out my funeral choices for hymns and Bible readings. I put the paper on my husband’s dresser and texted it to two of my sisters. I’d at least thought about the songs before, but had never taken the time to write them down. When my kids were younger, I wanted to make sure they played Jesus Loves Me. I wanted a comforting and familiar song that they’d know. Another song was Amazing Grace.

But the number one song I wanted was one I first heard at a chapel service in Seward. It was around the time of 9-11, and we sang it out of the paperback Lutheran Hymnal Supplement. I fell as one with the words, as they were passionate and extracting, yet allowed the fire to stay inside me. At church again I chose it, this hymn as my life-prayer, calling from the heavens every energy and power back to the place from where I came.

I ended up throwing the paper away. I didn’t like how it was sideways sitting there, collecting dust. The superstitious part of me thought I might be also jinxing myself, not that I believe in superstitions anymore. I’d written it down when I was spent from the pains and trials of sinning. Everybody knows you don’t pray for patience, and I dare not do it either, indeed, I didn’t. But for mercy, I will pray, and did pray, and received it.

Sometimes it feels like I’m still hiding behind words, like I’m not showing up in the simplest, truest, clearest way for people to see me. I don’t want to be seen and don’t care to be seen, which I feel somewhere as the angry truth, like I’m avoiding the hard work of sitting down and figuring out what it is I’m trying to say. It’s like I’m lighting the fireworks then running away as to continuously keep the reader’s attention over there.

Sometimes the firework goes off, sometimes it doesn’t. Most of the time, I don’t care what you think, “you” being the person who is outside of me, the person not in my circle, not in my world, not in the space where you can light the fire with me. “You” is the one who has no idea I’m even out here. “You” are forever the multitudes of regulars, who are not behind the barn beseeching the mountains, horses, and electric fences.

Suit yourself, I don’t care what you do, as long as you’re not telling me I should be more like you. Call me a hypocrite if you want, I don’t care, because a hypocrite is exactly what I am, sometimes. But call me a name that isn’t true, and you’ll be the one with hell to pay, not because you so righteously hit the nail on the head, but because you missed it again, again, again, and again. Not that I can truly stand to hold this flame against you. I won’t lie.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
~Romans 8:16-17~

We headed out for the double-header on Saturday. The first game we missed because of a church work day in the morning. The men cleaned out the garage, trimmed bushes, and raked leaves outside, clearing the landscaping of autumn’s remains. The boys stumbled upon a nest with nearly a dozen eggs. They’d scared off the mother, who came back soon after the distance between humans and hidden places was restored.

The women vacuumed the pews, brought the palms out of storage, and shined the altar and communion ware. I stayed for nearly half the morning, before snatching my daughter for a trip into town. The goal was to find a dress for Easter or Palm Sunday. She has a dress leftover from last year that she wants to wear again for this year. I found a dress I didn’t love, but could wear if I had to, along with yellow sandals to complement.

The ride was beautiful with sunny skies. We’d had pancakes and bacon for lunch, with homemade syrup. The first game they’d won 14-9. The next game called for the mercy rule, which is when the game is ended after three innings if one of the teams is down by 15. At the end of the second inning we were losing 19-0, so we weren’t at the game as long as we’d planned to be. We packed up the blankets and chairs and headed home.

But worthless is my sacrifice, I own it
Yet, Lord, for love’s sake Thou wilt not disown it
Thou wilt accept my gift in Thy great meekness
Nor shame my weakness
~O Dearest Jesus, What Law Hast Thou Broken, LSB 439~

The boys and I took a field trip to Walgreens after school. I didn’t call it a field trip originally, but while we were there, we ran into an older lady from church. When I called out her name from in front of the cashier table, she was the one who said something like, “Hello! Field trip today, eh?” We haven’t done field trips in a while, but I liked the idea that maybe this is what our field trips look like now. The woman at the cash register said, “It’s nice to get out of the house every once in while, isn’t it?”, to which I agreed.

We were there to buy thank you notes and stickers. While folding laundry I’d had the impulse to go buy a rug for the living room. It didn’t take long before I decided not to do that. The thought that came after was the reminder that I’d been wanting to have the boys write thank-you notes from their birthdays, which is something my grandma once taught me to do. We picked out several different stationary sets, and found a pad of stickers that weren’t primarily pink and purple. I let them pick out a candy bar or bag of M&M’s or Skittles. I picked up some more vitamins.

I wanted a card for Dad as well. I’d been thinking about the parenting load these days, and how he’s been doing a lot of the heavy lifting over the past several years, especially with all the high school things. You can get so used to a husband or wife doing something quietly that you don’t even think to acknowledge or thank them for whatever it is that is making this life less formidable. One of the boys brought a birthday card to me. He said that except for the birthday part, everything this card says is true about Dad. I read it and agreed, blessed that he could know it too.

The first thing she asked me when I walked in the door is if I’d be interested in a trauma-informed yoga class starting up at the counseling center. This wasn’t a chaotic wind kind of day. I haven’t been feeling the greatest and have also been experiencing more anxiety again, the kind where my leg muscles spasm and my hips wobble when I’m sitting up straight and breathing out. I had actually planned to ask her if I could sit on the floor so I could do some of my yoga stretches, which I haven’t been doing as regularly these past months. I am not as dedicated with it when I’m feeling better.

I told her I was absolutely interested. I’ll have to consider it more to decide whether or not it’s doable with our family schedule. We’ve got another four weeks of Monday night classes before breaking for summer. After Easter we’ve got a 13-week GriefShare group starting at our church, which I’m helping to facilitate with our DCE on Wednesday evenings. The yoga class starts at the end of April and would be on Thursday evenings. The kids still have games and meets through most of May, including one tonight which I’m currently home from. I thought I was going to try to go, but I decided to stay home.

Not that I don’t love my kids or want to be there for them. I likely would be there if I didn’t have a paper I needed to finish by tonight. It’s only five pages, and I’ve got a good portion of the process done, I just need to finish saying what I need to say and writing what I need to write. I tried a different strategy this time. Instead of procrastinating and thinking about it for weeks, I procrastinated on purpose, but without thinking about it or intending to work on it until yesterday. My plan was to get up early and just start “angrily typing the damn thing”. I wouldn’t want to wait and do that with a longer paper, but for this one it worked well enough to get the job done.

“But that now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”
~Romans 6:22~

In vain I waited nicely
For all my dreams to go away
For every love to be ordered rightly
For every thought and gleam* to fade

So I threw myself before the Father
Saying please do with me what you will
If only you would cease my torment
He said, “I only love you still.”

I am a sinner dearest Jesus
Writing letters in the night
Please have mercy on me Jesus
He said, “Come into the light.”

No other gods can even hear me
My heart and flesh can hardly move
Please don’t pass me by or leave me
He said, “I will come to you.”

Jesus, no one else can save me
No one else knows how I’ve felt
For only you both loved and made me
All for you and no one else
.
.
.
(*the original word)