The lips that resuscitate linger, a kiss that heals the blue and gasping, and I know it again on a Saturday.
“Could you hurry up and dry already?” Son rinses off enamel bowl, slams it into sink. “We’re going to be late!”
“We’re not supposed to yell, so why don’t you stop that already?” Younger brother drags a dishtowel around a pot.
“Boys…..” It’s only 8 am and my shoulders feel old and my head hurts and I still need to grate the cheese for the salad and we’re already to be on that four hour road to the family reunion. I find the grater. “Boys, could we please…”
“Who has seen my other brown sandal?” Daughter flusters through kitchen the twenty-ninth time, her voice shrill, eyes only slightly desperate.
Dishwashing son spins, water dripping. “Well, if you’d ever put your stuff away where it goes…” Daughter erupts in lava flow of burning tears, younger brother howls that his socks are wet from the dripping, oldest son hollers from the back door, “We’re lllllllaaaaattttte!” and dishwashing son reddens, stamps foot in disgust.
I rake fingers through hair, a clawing for some stone to climb onto and out of this storm.
His hand finds me.
The back of my neck, a gentle stroking.
“Is there anything else I can help with?” Farmer Husband’s words, soft and low, brush my hair. “I think I’ve got the last of the food loaded up.”
Before I can answer, the wind blasts from the side.
“If you aren’t going to stop bugging me, then you dry the dishes!” Younger brother flings the dishtowel at Older brother, fumes past us and out of the kitchen, flinging mudroom door behind him. The floor shakes. Tsunamis surge black and mother’s ride the foaming crest… or drown.
“I can’t seem to turn us all around today.” I choke out the words, whisper scalding. “Or is it just me?” This storm of my own brewing….
He blurs in my sadness and I just need something to hold as the waves keep pounding in. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s this storm crashing in, but I can’t tread anymore. Clock can march loudly; the four hour drive can wait. It’s either sink or seize. I’ve got to seize. “Will you ring the bell?”
He glances up at the clock, and I know he’s anxious to leave, but he reaches for bell’s wooden handle, there by the sink, and old iron clangs and children come, moths to the light.
I hand out the Light.
Eyes question mine because, yes I know, we’re supposed to be on the road by now, but maybe they read my thrashing and flailing, maybe they’ve been groping for a shaft, an anchor, and no one says anything, just finds their place at the table.
“Psalm 73?” Farmer Husband nods and I flip the pages, hungry and hopeful, fingers desperate to cling.
Our voices begin, barely audible.
“When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Then His hand finds me. The back of my heart, a gentle stroking of His Word.
“Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.”
I run fingers across thin page hard as granite.
“Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. …”
I give way and lay my head down on parchment. And it holds. The weary lay down on words and rest. The inner churl calms and I rain quiet drops of relief after the storm.
What if there were no Words?
What if the world kept rising and frothing and surging and there were no Words to cling to, no Rock to drag up onto? What if there were no Logos and it all just kept sweeping me away, far out and away?
Their voices are louder, surer, revived:
“But as for me, it is good to be near God.”
Good to be near to God who birthed me by the Word, feeds me by the Word, sustains me by the Word, rescues and woos and caresses and holds me by the Word, the story of saving embrace that I keep reliving, reliving, reliving. The Words I’ll want on my deathbed are the Words I cling to on the life walk.
I know we have to leave, find our way through the day, but for an island of time I lay here on His chest.
Listening to Heartbeat in letters.
Photos: my great-grandmother’s Bible, tattered photos tucked in the anchor that holds, laying on my prayer bench
Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart. Currently, the series focuses on the art of Scripture reading.
Next Week: Consider ministering to the community by pondering and posting: “How the Word Lives”…
Today, if you’d like to share your story of The Word that Woos…. just quietly tap in your URL….
