Repetitive strain...

A few weeks ago, the farmer spread the manure over the field. Today, in the winter sunshine, he is back. His tractor pulls the plough up and down, up and down, tediously repetitive and slow. But one furrow at a time, the field is being transformed from the tired green of root-bound weeds and grass into the rich brown of freshly-turned soil. One furrow at a time. 

There is a rhythm in the farmer’s life, a repetitive rhythm. Tedious or comforting in its predictability? Depends on one’s point of view, on one’s state of mind, on one’s focus.

Monday, Monday. It can sound like a lament, or like a celebration. I confess that today, having tackled a tax miscalculation and preparing to wade into another insurance confusion for Mom, the refrain was more lament than celebration. But then as I sat in the window and watched the steady progress of the farmer’s plough, there was a shift in my thoughts. 

This is the day the Lord has made. I am up and healthy, blessed with loved ones and blessed with choices. The boundaries for me have fallen in pleasant places. Peaceful places. Places where I am free to roam. I will rejoice and be glad in this day, Monday, as I prepare to get my head around the intricacies of insurance. 

The farmer presses on until the whole field is ploughed. With God’s help, I will press on, too.

Born to be a Gramma

Maybe I was born to be a Gramma.

Folding myself into the outdoor wendy house yesterday and playing shops with Flick sure beats digging the garden or hoovering. Building towers of bricks with her while helping wee Gregor balance in a sitting position between my knees is full of laughs. Watching her imagination explode with possibilities and ideas is such a privilege – and then, after helping a bit with the dinner-time ritual, being picked up and taken out to dinner and a theatre comedy by the Grampa is just the best.

Tomorrow I get to parachute into Callan’s house and play with him, too: endless games of peek-a-boo and explorations of the surrounding area as he begins to creep from one corner of the mat to the other, not crawling but definitely on the move. 

I am so privileged in my life to have choices. I have writing plans and even a deadline; I have travel plans and hopes; I have other responsibilities and activities, but I know enough about life to know that children grow like lightning bolts and if you miss a precious moment, you don’t get it back.

This is the day the Lord has made. I rejoice and am glad in it.

So grateful to God for this life he’s blessed me with: giving it all to Him so he can direct my every step. So aware that with privilege goes responsibility, and there burns within me still a deep desire to help those caught in turmoil and trouble and not knowing where to turn.

As Paul wrote, I can do everything through God who gives me strength. (Just not everything at once...)

Intimacy and Joy

I look out the window in my prayer alcove and see the grey mist draped like a curtain over the land, obscuring the landmarks and shrinking my world. This is not a day for vision but a day for detail, a day for small things. Don’t despise the day of small things, the Bible advises. 

A day for detail and intimacy. Intimacy with my environment, with my activities, with my Lord. This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it. It is a decision rather than an emotion.

Without vision a people perish, we know, but the vision has to be accomplished in a thousand details.

How often I complain about a day like today! Shame on me. Without days like today, I might dream a million dreams and see thousands of possibilities but never actually accomplish anything. 

So, I will pay attention to the detail. Some of the detail which I enjoy. Some of the detail I just have to do. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice. Not grit my teeth and get through it, but rejoice and be glad in it.

Thank you Lord, that I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

Doggy heaven...

How fragile is life!

Last night Dusty was fighting for breath in the living room. Tonight she is under the dirt on the grassy knoll at the back. This has been a challenging day. 

For Don and me, it has been pretty bleak and gruelling. When you have such a friend as Dusty was, it shreds you up inside to have to make the decision that she is beyond recovery and time to have the vet’s intervention. (How anyone could ever do this for a loved human being, I just don’t know. And yet the watching is horrendous, too.)

The vet intervened, kindly and gently, sensitive to the dog and also to us as we sobbed away. Within minutes, Dusty’s heaving chest stilled and she slipped ... where? Into doggy heaven? Into regular heaven? Into oblivion? I’ve no idea.

So as we showed Dusty our love in such an anguished way, half a world away my mother would soon awaken to 90^th birthday celebrations enjoyed with her birthday buddy, my son Jamie, his wife and Mhairi. 

Ironic to be celebrating life on a day when we have been facing death. But as the vet proved, it is a very short step from breathing and enjoying life, to ceasing from breathing and being dead. A very short step.

The Bible tells us that again and again. This is the day that the Lord has made. Whatever it holds, let’s rejoice and be glad in it, because this is the day we have. Or the moment we have. What lies around the corner, who knows? 

God does. ‘For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil, plans to prosper you...’

Whether on earth or in heaven, doggy or human.