[I wrote this last October, when sleep was scarce and light was low.]

Is there a lesson in everything?

Because some days – maybe most – I find myself trudging, not just my body but my heart too. I’m knee deep in laundry, and diapers. I’m neck deep or deeper in desires unmet, in hopes held down by the immediate. There’s cat litter, dirty dishes, items out of order, a fridge that hasn’t been cleaned in…. let’s move on. Piles of belongings I do not need, expired pantry goods, expired food in the fridge because did I mention I haven’t cleaned it?

There’s a sweet child demanding attention and a cat who really wants it too, and the bathroom sink is soiled too soon after cleaning. But then there are all the changes I want to make, inside and outside of the house, inside and outside of myself.

There’s a garden of dreams and books to read and books within me to write. There’s an aging body whose pains could maybe be lessened with better food and specific activities and oh, sleep. There are [every] mornings when I can’t believe I have to be the one responsible for my daughter and I secretly (until now) wish I was living in my life of years ago. I’m supposed to keep both of us well-fed? And bathed? And socialized? And rested? Well darn me if I’ll ever reach any of those goals.

And even in all this, I’m supposed to believe there’s more? That when I look up at the October-blue heavens, I will feel differently about everything? Am I supposed to feel better? Even though friends and their parents face diagnoses of concern and others grind their way through tunnels of depression, and I don’t feel I can speak my mind safely in this knee-jerk world knee-deep in cynicism and self-righteousness?

What am I supposed to learn? All the pieces of my life and my days seem disjointed, random, at odds. Glimmers of joy, bouts of laughter fade pretty quickly as the present concerns retake their ground in my mind and thus my body.

There are [most] mornings, evenings, and wee hours when I forget the point. All that is within me just aches for sleep. For inner rest too, and freedom from this world’s dying air. The only thing I get when I raise my eyes to the sky is that I am small.

Which reminds me that God is, and is big.

And that it is sunny here but storming in the Gulf. Which means I only see a small part of the sky. These storms have a cause and an end, and this clear view does too. Nothing is random except to my infant perception.

I don’t know why these limits are mine and those struggles are yours and those successes are theirs and these realities are ours. Funny though – everyone’s is the sky. Our minutiae all through to our circumstances may be unique, may needlessly isolate us one from the other, but always the sky is ours.

I don’t know why anything is — except that God says it’s for His glory, His story. I am a character asking the Author what’s going on. But the Author’s world is bigger than mine can ever be, and I am known only by the words He uses, whereas He is fully Real. He imagined me, and I became. So forgive me if I grasp very little of what He’s doing.

Lord, forgive me when I can’t see beyond my paragraph. I don’t even know how many chapters are in this thing. If there’s a lesson, a big ultimate one, I won’t know it until after the end.

So for now, for all the nows, I think my character’s best move is to look up – at the sky, yes, but more to gaze at You. And my best motive is to be with You. I thank You that these two things are always possible for me, no matter how deep my knees or neck are in duties and struggles.

The sky is ours, and we are the sky’s, being always under it and subject to it. Such is our relationship.

And You are ours, and we are Yours. And I will henceforth be head-deep in Your abiding love.