Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

I was looking up some Bible verses this morning and stumbled onto a passage that contained “and your heart will rejoice.” I’ve been thinking about it ever since because it goes deeper than laughter or happiness—your heart rejoicing.

I’ll be honest here—lately I’ve found it difficult to achieve any of the above, though Dave and I still manage to make each other laugh. Barney Fife still makes me laugh. And Daddy. But this whole year has been a doozy, and it has taken its toll. I’m dog-tired of 2020. Can I say that out loud? I think I just did. The other day, Mama and I were talking about all the people we miss spending time with, and I said, “I even miss my doctors.” Because I’ve only done telemed this year. And I really like my medical team. (If you think it takes a village to raise a child, wait till you’re pushing 60 and realize how many highly skilled medical professionals it takes to keep you going.)

But enough of my blah-blah. It’s very important, now more than ever, to laugh, to find joy every day. Reader’s Digest was onto something with that “best medicine” thing. Laughter really does have some healing power, I think. And while it might not be actual joy, laughter can help lead you there. Those daily joys are reminders of the everlasting kind:

Therefore you now have sorrow;
but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice,
and your joy no one will take from you.
John 16:22

[Image by Chance Agrella @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

There’s a cool wind blowing in the trees this morning—what my mother calls “a little touch of fall in the air.” The heat of another summer is passing, the chilly winds of harvest season are here, at least in the morning.

As the weather cools, we’re coming to the end of the strangest, most turbulent year in my adult memory, though I have vague childhood recall of the 1960s. And there’s some comfort for me in the changing season, in the constants of nature. No matter what turmoil humans create, nature will continue on its course.

Harvest season will always remind me of my Uncle Bud, whom we lost recently. I won’t write much about him here because he was a very private person, and I don’t think he would appreciate being put on “that computer.”  (I can see him shaking his head as I type.) But I will say that my cousins and I had a great example, in Uncle Bud, and continue to have a great one in Uncle Chick—brothers and cotton farmers—of stewardship, of respect for the land that sustains us and humble gratitude to God, who gives it to us.

There’s a special peace in the simple cycle of seeds in the ground, rain and sun from above, and red fields covered with clouds of cotton. It makes me think of a passage from John, when Christ teaches about stewardship of our spiritual landscape:

Jesus said to them, 
“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me,
and to finish His work. 
Do you not say,
‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’?
Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, 
for they are already white for harvest! 
And he who reaps receives wages,
and gathers fruit for eternal life,
that both he who sows and he who reaps
may rejoice together.
John 4: 34-36

Sunday Morning Serenity

I’ve always loved pretty boxes—wooden, glass, fabric-covered, floral-printed—containers that don’t look like they’d be doing something as utilitarian as hiding letters, stickie notes that have lost their stick ’em, story research, and all of my “to be dealt with later.” If the box in question has a hinged lid with an attached satin ribbon for lifting, all the better.

I put just about every box I own to work yesterday.

In the final days of finishing my book manuscript, the Story Shack became virtually uninhabitable (this always happens). There was stuff everywhere and almost nowhere to step, let alone work. So yesterday, I did the post-completion purge—threw out, stacked up, filed, vacuumed, Swiffered, cleaned the windows, and pseudo-dusted. And I boxed—computer cords in a red glass cube, unstickable stickies that I still need in a pretty stationery box, Southern Living work in a fabric storage bin.

All the previous chaos is still there but now it’s manageable. I know where it is when I’m ready for it, but I’m not letting it invade my mental or physical space till the time comes.

The result? I couldn’t wait to get out here this morning, and I can’t wait to start something new.

We all need mental boxes right now. Lots and lots of them. Because there’s just too much happening at once to cope with it all at the same time. If you try to take it on all at once, it’ll overwhelm you—just like my glueless stickie notes, scattered around my desk and distracting me from the screen where I needed to focus, the place where I could actually exert some control and make good things happen.

The real beauty of boxes is that they’re empowering. They say to your daily challenges, “Get in there and don’t come out till I say so.”

My biggest daily challenge right now is my physical health. Between all the sheltering-in-place comfort eating I did and an I-have-no-time-to-exercise attitude for the past six months, my preexisting waistline issues have become serious (make that horrifying, as in, I think I heard the mirror scream). But given my current fitness level (nil) and some post-COVID shortness of breath when I exert, I’ve had to accept that I can’t walk two miles like I once did. That goal went into a box. Right now, my goal is to just move. Short walks. Ten minutes of step aerobics. Whatever I can do right now, not what I hope to do a month from now, because if I focus on the unattainable, then I’ll just end up feeling hopeless and not do anything.

The point of my ode to boxes? Do what you can when you can, and put the rest in a really pretty box till you’re strong enough to take it on. And to quote my dear friend Jane, whom I miss every day, "Sometimes you gotta let the rough end drag."

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34

Finally, all of you be of one mind,
having compassion for one another;
love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;
 not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling,
but on the contrary blessing,
knowing that you were called to this, 
that you may inherit a blessing. 
1 Peter 3: 8-9

[Image by Pexels @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

 

Sometimes we feel more than we can verbalize. Sometimes words fail us. We can only be still and quiet and receive God's grace and peace.

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 14:27