a fresh perspective

The Lord blessed me!  Peter started the day reading the rest of his Boxcar Mystery.  An hour later he finished it, announcing that it really wasn't scary after all. He read it in a day and a half.  Since we weren't due to go back to the library for another week, I knew that at this reading pace, we'd run out of grade 3 and 4 chapter books. Before husband left for work, I ran to the library and checked out seven more Boxcar Mysteries.

We're back in the reading business!  I'm so utterly thankful!

That was the highlight of my day.  Soon after Peter came down with a full-fledged cold--Daddy's cold.  As a mother, one of the hardest things for me to endure is this:  whining.  When Peter is sick he whines; he has no patience for illness.  About every ten minutes he reviewed for me--for us all--the discomfort of every symptom, and asked continually when he would be well again (we haven't had colds here since late November).  Along with that question, he asked me at least twenty times when the two goldfinches would come back to the feeder  Ughh!  It was a long day.

After the kids went to bed, I was more spent than usual.

Then I read something humbling, beautiful, at the end of Ann's book (quote below).  I don't know what you have planned this weekend, but being a mother, it probably entails a lot of service to little people--a lot of laundry, dishes, meal prep, diaper duty, wiping up wet messes, vacuuming dry ones, sweeping crumby ones.

I quote Ann Voskamp's  One Thousand Gifts ( pp 193-195) below...for you, for me. No matter how long, how rough, our days are, by switching our focus, we can serve our families with the joy of the Lord.

Jesus is about to let flesh be broken with nail, heart be broken with rejection, the chains be broken with bleeding love.  And in His last hours before His earthly end, He doesn't run out to buy something or catch a flight to go see something, but He wraps a towel around his waist and kneels low to take the feet of His forsakers gently in hand and wash away the grime between their toes.

At the last, this is what will determine a fulfilling, meaningful life, a life that, behind all the facades, every one of us longs to live: gratitude for the blessings that expresses itself by becoming the blessing.

Eucharisteo is the hand that opens to receive grace, then, with thanks, breaks the bread; that moves out into the larger circle of life and washes the feet of the world with that grace. Without the breaking and giving, without the washing of feet, eucharisteo isn't complete.  The Communion service is only complete in service. Communion, by necessity, always leads us into community.

Eucharisteo means "to give thanks", and give is a verb, something that we do.  God calls me to do thanks.  To give the thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living.  That our lives become the very blessings we have received.

I am blessed.  I can bless.  Imagine! I could let Him make me the gift!

I could be the joy!

Scratching a stubborn pot furiously with a wire scrubby, I remember it again, what I once read of liturgy.  That liturgy has its roots in the Greek word leitourgia, meaning "public work" or "public servant."  The meaning!  This life of washing dishes, of domestic routine, it can be something wholly different.  This life of rote work, it is itself a public work, a public serving--even this scrubbing of pans--and thus, if done unto God, the mundane work can become the living liturgy of the Last Supper.  I could become the blessing, live the liturgy!  I rinse pots and sing it softly, "This is my song of thanks to You.."

In the moment of singing that one line, dedicating the work as thanks to Him, something--the miracle--happens, and every time.  When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep.  When the laundry is for the half dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true.  I think I'm due some appreciation.  So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy.  But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. 

Friday's Gratitude:

* A boy's eyes lit up at the sight of more chapter books

* Goldfinches at the feeder--the first since March 12th.

* Squirrels taking a mesh bag of discarded meat fat (for the birds) off our tree and running behind the shed with it.

* Quiet reading time, reflecting time, for Momma.

* Sick bodies, reminding of the miracle our bodies are.

* Tulip shoots surviving the snowstorm (all has melted).

* Girls playing in the mud.

* Sending an Amazon copy of Ann's book to a friend in need, keeping the blessing going.  (A friend sent one to me.)  Please pray for my friend?  She and her husband and three girls embarked on a trailer park ministry to the poor and needy, resigning a children's pastor position at a church in Wyoming.  They planned to live on their savings while the ministry got up and running, until a salary could be generated via ministry donors.  They are down to the last few hundred in their savings account.  Big miracles needed. People come regularly to their home offering garden veggies and eggs, so my friend has faith that God will keep providing.  She homeschools her three girls, one of whom, at eight years old, was just diagnosed with ADHD and OCD; she is on medication for the OCD and receives counseling. While my friend's faith is strong, she is obviously going through a lot.  She is on my mind daily now.  Please pray?  Humbly thank you.

* Husband's cold mending quickly.

* Mopped floors, vacuumed carpets--the blessing of hard work and a body that is up to the task