The Serenity Prayer

I posted this week on my songsofachristianhomemaker.blogspot.com site. If you go there, you will have a song waiting for you to listen to! It's called "The Serenity Prayer" and I'm excited to share it just because it's always a double blessing to share what we have. Anyway, don't expect great! Just expect just me! :-)

Happy listening!

Love,
Carolyn

A Hen Named Howard

Hen laid eggs gathered from backyard. Were they Howard’s? Howard  lays them green, I learned. Well, they’re placed on breakfast table all natural in the pan they were scrambled in and comfortable next to the bread left over from dinner last night. We broke it then and the chunks missing are reminder of that sweet communion.

We commune again this morning. Break more bread with these followers of Christ we haven’t seen for fourteen years, but our sprits know one another as if a mere day had passed. Because time doesn’t mean anything in the Spirit realm that is realm in this bright kitchen with white washed cupboards, cloth napkins, tea candles and dish towel rumpled under Howard’s eggs and plate of local bacon. It was purchased that morning and wrapped in butcher’s paper and it could make a bacon eater out of the likes of me.

And it seems to me that highest Spirit realms are at commonest table where time melts like butter on homemade bread and miraculous happens all communion.

All common. Something rumpled. Something lit. Something heavy iron pan. Something savory. Something scrambled. Local-est pig common, and berry jam and butter common and common grain. And Bread. Saturated. And I’m melting right into Bread at table. Right into Jesus.

We prayed together in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we talked as the disciples must have talked in Jesus’ presence. Quest conversations to know Him better. To understand His life.

 

Did Jesus talk of His childhood and did His disciples laugh with Him at the “I remember when” stories? Surely. And surely there would have been many to tell. Raising the Son of God? Being sibling to the Son of God? Playing with Him? Childish teasing? Working with Him? Saying “good night” and “good morning” and “thank you” and “please” to Him and hearing Him say the same back? Praying with Him and bowing head at table with Him? Oh yeah. There were stories. He was born of Mary!

The begotten Son of God had a flesh and blood mother and if that’s not enough to put us on quest then we have lost child-like questions. Those wide-eyed “how?” and “why?” questions that look up from below knee level because even a grown-up like me remembers better to be as child when I bend knee and sit back on heel to become small with large perspective. Narrow the eye, lock the knee and stand grown-up tall and the common miraculous shrinks to just common.

My quest to understand big God begins where my big is cut off at knee.  

“Make me small. Hen height in large backyard.” I’m humbling myself on purpose. Looking around like this on purpose. At whatever is backyard-ish behind front edifice, common and hidden at back door in a front-door, curb-appeal world. And I’m seeing big. Asking big why’s and how’s and amazing large at big and letting my feathers get ruffled.

“Be small and have big perspective. Be wide-eyed and see big." And He laughs teasing,“Don’t worry if what comes out of you is odd green egg!”

“Oh, cluck-cluck!” I laugh hen “ha.”

Howard

What comes out of me is odd. It’s Christ, I hope. Hope only because I am filled with Holy Spirit. Hope because the life of Christ is being formed in me. And I hope all through trust that somehow others may see that I am large with Him. And laboring to deliver Him to this world so barren. To give to the barren, Christ.

 The labor is as labor is. It just happens. Because life is too big to be held in. And labor just comes when it’s time and I can’t make it happen and I can’t stop it from happening.

What do the labor pains feel like when delivering Christ? It feels like pressure. Holy Spirit pressure. It’s like a cramp that can be sort of ignored until it can’t be ignored any longer because it’s persistent and nagging and increasing. And, really? I try to ignore holy pressure because it cramps? Cramps my life?

I want His life pushed right out of me. Delivered. I really do. It’s just uncomfortable. His life birthed from mine. It’s engulfing and breath-taking and everything in the world is swallowed up by it. By the effort. And then swallowed up in the joy. And it’s life changing. Every delivery.

And it’s scary. Because, “What if I deliver You; deliver Hope; and the breath never takes?” It’s happened before. Still-born delivery. It’s heart-sickening. Hope deferring and heart-sickening.

“Trust Me.” He says it so simple.

“But where are You when the breath of Life doesn’t take? Doesn’t fill Spirit lungs?” I tremble it out because I know it’s not because of His neglect. But, “Where are You in this?”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” and His answer confuses me.

“You can’t be deferring this hope. Because it is Yours….” I can’t even whisper it because still-born questions empty lungs that want to hear birth cry lusty and lung full.

“Trust. Hope. Faith-breathe.” Is all He says. And this “all” isn’t the “That’s all there is-the end” kind of all. It’s the“beginning of everything” kind of all.

It’s pisteuo kind of all. My life word. Believe, trust, and hope all through word.


I think about this and it hangs with me all the way back home til the next day.

Then, “Ahh! If hope deferred makes the heart sick, then what defers hope? Where does this heart sickness start?”

“Misplaced trust defers hope.” He answers and it’s all scrambley to me and how on earth do you unscramble eggs?

“Why does your fear of a still-birth keep you from pushing Me into the world?” I know what He’s doing. He’s unscrambling eggs.

“Because what if it’s because I don’t push at the right time or hard enough? I don’t trust myself enough to do it right.” My answer gets stuck in my throat because I’m hearing what I’m saying.

He nods.

“Ohh!” I breathe out relief and fill lung all “God! I’ve misplaced my trust!”

I get another nod and I think He’s offering me a green egg.

“My hope is not deferred by You!” I take the egg and give Him my trust. Put it all in His hands. Again.

“Pisteuo.”The word in etched in me. “Believe, trust, and hope all through.” The whole word, because believing isn’t enough. Faith without backbone and skin and nerve endings and blood flow and tear flow, isn’t enough. By itself it’s a bookend that’s not weighty enough to keep a row of books from dominoing down. I have one. It looks heavy. It’s shaped like a book with an owl promoting “Who’s Hoo”as if it knew. But at least it’s not hen clucking.

It toppled as bookend and “Hoo-hoo”sounded like “Glue! Glue!” I glued and it supports boxes of tea now, feather light.

I’m at my own kitchen table. Sipping tea and thinking, “I don’t want faith that supports tea bags.” Black tea for energy. Chamomile for rest. Ginger because it’s my new favorite. Cinnamon for Christmas. Chai for latte. And Echinacea for health. Yeah, I sip these because I have really cute tea cups hanging on wall above it all.

I’m swallowing ginger now. And my thumb is cradled between blue ceramic butterfly wings at top of handle and caterpillars and butterflies crawl and flutter circles in raised ceramic relief.
Only my thumb holds down the one ready fly right off handle.

And there you have it. Faith in a tea cup. It goes down strong spice nipping my tongue because it’s steeped long and it pours out real where caterpillars believe they will fly. And then do. And where butterfly perches ready to go at any time. If it should ever break off, I will miss it but I won’t be surprised and my “faith cup” will then become my “pisteuo cup” because believing isn’t enough. Trusting belief that flies because it hopes? That’s pisteuoenough.

Pisteuo is freeing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Mat

“Do you have a welcome mat?”

“What does that have to do with pisteuo?” He puzzles me.

He knows I do because He saw me drag it from front door and place it seven paces away. Seven stepping stones to front swing.”

“Why did you move the welcome mat?”He asks.

“Because I am afraid of arriving guests. Because I can control the swing out front, but not everyone inside.” I confess it. And there it is. Fear all thumb pressing down pisteuo that would welcome if I lifted thumb and let trust in God fly beautiful.

“Wasn’t the welcome mat spread for you by people who haven’t seen you for fourteen years? And hadn’t they met you only once before that? Didn’t you eat Howard’s green eggs and local bacon and break homemade bread together and share Me? And weren’t your lungs filled full with My breath alive and life’s cry strong?” He’s helping me remember.

“Yes, Lord.”

“This is your life word. Your pisteuo.” And I love God so much and tell Him so.

“I love You so much!” I’m looking always for pisteuo. It’s my life practice. Every day.

I sweep off welcome mat and place it at front door. Pisteuo welcome.

I wash sheets and fluff pillows and place items in baskets that a guest might forget to pack and bake fresh bread and scramble eggs and give them a jar of berry jam from my pantry that my mother made.

And I am surprised by pisteuo.

It fills me up and is sticking like sweet jam to my soul. It’s scramble in me and spread in me and melts in me and saturates me. I gave welcome in the way I was welcomed, and received pisteuo.Again.

I‘m finding it, this pisteuo life, more and more as I practice the search. I look for it and stir up hen house to find it. In the unlikely. In the normal. In the common. In a hen named Howard who lays green eggs in the backyard and in delivering Christ to backyard souls who want more than edifice. And I’m finding it in everything in between.

Believe and trust and hope all through every day. I find it in crumpled dish towels and lit candles and rumples laundry. I find it in scraping eggs dry stuck off pan and paying bills and buying groceries and seeing “Do Sabbath Love” on calendar square at fridge door. It all has to do with faith and trust and hope all through because it’s life.

Life.

Lived normal with hope that somehow something Christ and green egg odd will come from me.


written by: Carolyn Roehrig

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Must Know Right Now How To Turn On The Hot Tub!

Do angels have pillow fights in Heaven? Because feathers are falling right out of sky and it’s snowing this still morning.

She’s fifteen but I still sit soft on bed and run my fingers through long tangles light brown and blonde. Still marvel at creamy skin and long lashes resting light in upward curve while she rests on pillow. I just amaze a moment like that.

I touch light her sleep warm cheek. Lashes flutter and, “It’s snowing.” I lay my head gentle on hers and whisper it.

She’s not the five year old anymore. I know because a five year old springs out of bed and pads barefoot race to back door and breathes breath smudge on window pane and would run outside like that except mother stands prepared with boots and coat in hand. No. She’s not five. She’s fifteen.

 
She’s fifteen and it’s really great that it’s snowing because she knows my heart melts faster than Texas snow.

“Wanna play hooky today?” Because isn’t this a day to be glad and rejoice in? To slow enough to hear what this silent flutter is loudly proclaiming, “This is the day that the Lord has made!”

And if angels can have pillow fights then can’t we flap snow angels and have snowball fights while earth spins and clocks spin on classroom walls? Yes, we can. And we are!

She’ll sleep a tad later and that’s fine. But just so she knows. It’s snowing. Later she’ll sled the slope with a plastic garbage bag and her sister and cousins. It’s just a slope. Not a hill. Because this is central Texas, after all. And it’s garbage bag because who has sleds leaning ready against fence here?

And I’m the one who runs barefoot to back door, cell phone in hand, because I must know right now how to turn on the hot tub!

I slip into the nearest footwear. And really? Well okay. I shuffle out in leather slippers twice as large as my feet. Bless that big German who walks tall and leaves his slippers everywhere but closet!

It’s all flutter and feather and angel down this morning. I taste it and this yellow dog walks funny. No running with tail arrowed this morning. Just timid steps and paw prints gentle exploration. Her brow is furrowed question. Her first snow.

 

 

 Hot Tub and Berries

 

Hot tub is one-hundred and one degrees. Bowl of frozen summer berries in one hand, towel in other and I’m so out of season in this hot-pink swimsuit!

There is real feather flutter out here. Red bright cardinal. Black flock. Jay blue. White-tipped some kind of bird. Hawk? Is there such a thing as white-tipped hawk? It’s just all knockabout flutter and I’m tasting it. Sticking berry-stained tongue out like I’m five. Tasting snow.

And angel white and heaven pure, follows seeing magnificence magnified just as surely as today follows yesterday. And that magnification was yesterday. I saw it.

 

Rain drops. Yesterday.  Streamed down every branch and twig and cane and strung together and hung heavy and heavier til tiny drop and teensy splash. Tenacious drops unbound and also strung together, strong and also fragile, held tight and let go loose.

I looked. Not at it. Into it.

Looked into a drop and saw magnificence.

Hanging inside dangling water globe was pure magnification of what it hung from and what was behind it. There! A droplet suspended at leaf tip and I saw large the miniscule sawed edges at tip.

I wondered right there yesterday, “Can hold it? Or would it burst and rivle down?”

I opened finger. Held finger tip close beneath water globe. It pulled stretch and in one single strain detached from leaf tip to finger tip and there must have been a groan in the stretch and a plink in the transfer. I just couldn’t hear it.

But I held this globe up high and, there! Bit of branch and sky hung off my finger all magnified and I felt like Atlas holding the world and I thought how God holds earth and the heavens above it and the depths beneath and my little bubble too.

And how He holds my world together when I groan in the strain.

When I stretch to let go before I drop beneath the weight of too, too much.

When I detach because I’m hanging upside down and God finger is right there to catch me in the transfer.

I feel the pull and let go and He is holding my little world right side up and He holds it together. And His finger print is magnified there in my globe.

His print large in my miniscule.

Nail print too, because without that in His hand my world would splash, break and become puddle.

 

The back door opens and there she is. Fifteen in hot pink bathrobe and snow boots! She is so much like her mother, I laugh pink.

Red cardinal flaps snow at his earth-toned betrothed.

“Is he washing her?”

She is like fallen leaves. He blood red. And I watch it play out. The washing.

Blood red. Washing the color of fallen. White as snow.

And how on earth does that make any sense? It doesn’t. It makes no earthly sense at all. Yet, here it is. Right there on earth.

And all I can say is, “There is One who can wash you.”

And, “Thank You for washing me like this.”

 

 

 

Red Cardinal

 

I’m still earth color. But don’t be fooled. The washing happened.

I held water globe yesterday.

“Ahh,” my brain is bending.

“Surface tension holds wet drops together til they spill out under weight too heavy.” The ponder hangs between me and God as I dip finger tip into hot tub water. Break surface and draw up what? Drops of water bent globe-ish round til they drop spill and tension breaks open.

"Holy tension broke under weight of sacrifice spilt down.”  He magnifies the magnificent.

I see it here. See it all spill and run together. Just see it because what is behind it is magnified. There is magnificence in this little water drop I’m holding.

And there is magnificence in this little drop of life.

God magnified in my life. And I see it. Here.

And it’s His victory that my world is held together in His hand.

Sacrificial print in His hand magnifies larger than my sin.

His victory that His print is magnified in my little world bent like droplet.

He holds this bent lens. Contact lense. It’s bent like that. And I see Him clearer through contact. Through contact. Through “when He holds me and my world in His hand right before His face” kind of contact.

And it’s all victory His.

 

I was thirteen when He held His hand just under my bent world. Holy tension breaks open and I spilt open. Just spilt it at thirteen, “The likes of me is a sinner just like everyone else!”

And God hand scooped up spilt me.

“You cried tear drop. Sweat drop. Blood drop. And all spilt. Under the weight of sin. Under the weight of sacrifice for it.”

“You are cleansed by it.” The snow is so white!

I’m held in this holy tension. And isn’t this the only tension that can hold any of us together? Hold falling pieces and drip and bent spin, in peace hand?

Brow knits. Nostrils flare tear sting. And wet drops spill down cheek and it’s not because I’m in the hot tub

It’s because it’s true.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig

Ten-Thousand Shards

If Jesus was in no hurry to meet real heart-stopping deadlines. If He didn’t stop everything and go straight away to Jairus’ house because his twelve year old daughter was almost dead. And if Jesus didn’t turn right away back around to Judea because Lazarus was almost dead. And He didn’t. Didn’t hurry breathless to meet and beat deadlines. Then I’m thinking I shouldn’t either.

Pounding hard after deadlines. Isn’t that what it looks like to not trust God with my time in every place and zone? It’s not the race I want to run.

And I’m choosing not to. Chose not to today.

And time has been rearranged. Really! It has!

Without any help from me and I do have a deadline today.

 

I have guests coming from out of town and call me crazy but here I am writing and watercolor painting as if I hadn’t a care in the world because I just choose His peace today plain and simple and He isn’t pressing me to race because, guess what?

He is enjoying this!

He is happy watching me trust Him with time. I feel His pleasure and would hear later that my guests were going slow too, because they also have chosen the slow peace way and they arrived hours later than we thought and God rearranged time and I sweat not a drop because I chose peace. It works!

He. Is. Peace.

And it seems He rearranges time every time I choose to live in His peace. Choose slow and attentive.

Because there aren’t just four time zones. There are five. And I’m living in the fifth as best as I can because the fifth is where time doesn’t tick of clock face but Father heart.

 

Time is measured Father heart tick. And in this time zone, deadlines don’t pass away. They just hold their breath for a really long time.

It’s a peaceful place, but not without pressure. The absence of pressure isn’t the definition of peace.

Jesus was pressed on every side. Jostled by crowds. And His own time pressed His own heart. Pressed tears right out of His heart. Jesus wept. Shortest verse presses hard.

He wept because it hurt gentle heart. This press against dead line pressure. It hurt, those “Lord, if You had been here our brother wouldn’t have died” words all broken up in tear jumble.

“He is not dead. He’s sleeping.” Jesus said and deadline held breath days past rigamortis.

He was pressed from within and without and gave away pieces of heart and gives peace of mind.

 

Peace of mind. We all want it.

We chase it and might we think we can nail it down by running hard to be the first one there? At dead line ahead of schedule? Well, it’s temptation for the likes of me at least. I confess. It does feel good to be on top of things.

And I confess again. I’ve learned the panic attack way that I can’t nail peace down. Can’t drive a stake in the ground when I’ve arrived there, wherever there is. The place we call “There” is ever moving all elusive like.

No. The only peace I can have is the peace that was nailed down for me.

The Prince of Peace kind of peace.  

At cross. Dead line. Where death was conquered by Life and where I can say to all that raises mallet and wants to pound my peace into panic shred, “Go ahead! Take your best shot!” Because when the nails are all used up, and the dead line is passed, I can say, “It’s just sleeping.”  

 

 

Crowd Press

 

Peace of mind in the press.

 

How? When the very air we breathe is vibrating restless and the world spins and the headlines roll and jobs are lost and Olympians loose the medal they’ve broken bones over and this little olympian only wants to get through a day without getting brain fog and needing a twenty minute nap by three o’clock.

"How?” I ask the Prince of Peace.

“Think on whatever things are pure…lovely…of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

“Yeah, there is that…” I ponder…”yeah…there really is that.”

“Yeah,” He skips eloquence with me.

And these “whatever things are”… there. Here. Even when I turned my heart upside down looking for them. For things pure and praiseworthy. And shook heart out like a rug and swept under the bed where heart only slept but seemed rigamortis stiff to me because I couldn’t feel much after all that looking but still knelt all heart down. Still knelt down because there really is that “whatever things are” peace place that gives peace of mind.

On my knees because standing up meant the world would tilt and spin and become very uncertain. On my knees because all left to do was to wait stiff and wait while heart beat slow slumber worn out and wait silent because my mouth knew no more words to say to God. Even His own words had been said through my lips to Him til my lips couldn’t move anymore and because all I heard was “Wait. And while waiting, wait.”

 

I waited for God to prove Himself. I did. It was soul desperation.

It was, “If You don’t do what You said You would do, then I have nothing left to say to You“ desperation.

It was, “Let me see Your glory!” and the only way to see His glory is from between a rock and a hard place. It’s true. Moses saw the backside of His glory from a cleft in the rock where God Himself tucked him in. And I’m no Moses, that’s for sure.

Waited there to see Him prove all that was said by Him Self, to be. To see Him prove Himself to be at hand as He says. To be the God of peace as He says. To be the resurrection and the life and not only in the last day but in this day.

As. He. Says.

And.

I started hearing.

And.

I started waking up. Back yard. Back soul. Back side. The peace side of glory all backward from front door to world.

And.

I started finding my heart.

Pieces of it. All those pieces I gave Him when my heart was breaking olympian bone over His Word and His way and for His glory.

 

There are only so many pieces my heart can break into for its own glory because I have no peace of my own. And whatever peace I think I have, my heart will be quick broke into just big chunks and have nothing left to work with.

But for God’s? Ohh, for God’s peace-side of glory ten-million pieces gladly of my heart!

I found them, some of those pieces. And am finding them still. All those pieces. He kept them. Every broken shred.

My heart is found in Him.

And He’s piecing the pieces together and loving adoring every piece. Bringing them to His face and breathing them in just like I did when my children were restless spun and needed just arms to hold them together and to just go from pieces to peaced.

Peaced.

And He loves every piece of your heart that has broken over Him and His way. Loves you. Loves me. To pieces and then back again.

Til we’re peaced.

 

He meets the dead line after heart-line and soul-line beep and buzz flat-line.

After we stop breathing because we can’t pray anymore.

After we lay stiff rigamortis because we can’t get up anymore.

He wakes the soul and opens the mouth again when heart is found in Him. Because pieced out from what’s in God heart is love-side of peace.

 

Soup and Pan

 

Pieced out is serving soup and cheese quesadillas to her mother when she didn’t have the energy to serve herself. Thank you beautiful girl with tomato soup splotched on your shirt!

Pieced out is listening all through with patience slow. No interrupting. No formulating a response til they’re done. Thank you gentle mother, friend of mine! I watched you piece this out. Peace it out. To your children and you blessed me and didn’t even know it.

Pieced out is what has been under guardian peace of God.

And rejoicing is pieced out. Re-joy-sing. Joy and singing again and again.

And the pieces that have broken and shattered out in prayer from abasement and in abundance.

And the requests. All the again and again re-quests of heart made known to God and to know God.

All those heart pieces may be found in Him when we seek heart peace in Him.

Ten-thousand shards of my heart would willingly shatter ten-thousand times more to find more God heart and to feel His peace thread the pieces and pieces and pieces together. There. Here. In the “Whatever things” places.

The places where I hold breath as long as it takes in the waiting.

Because sometimes it takes a really long time to find the lovely and the pure and praiseworthy. I wonder how many of us seeking Prince of Peace kind of peace have been waiting so long with breath held that Jesus has had to assure others, “She’s just sleeping.”

But doesn’t He do some of His best work in those “whatever places?” Where the lovely is sought dead serious and peace transcends understanding? Seems to me He does.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig

 

I’m Not Going To Worry About Deadlines

Faint ribbon of light weaves through leaf litter and hems ridged press of pecan bark. The limb fell down to sleep on the ground sometime in the night while I slept. But there is this strand of light now looping in the press. Leaf press. Bark press.

And life itself either presses into the light or presses it out.

I stand here and awe hems up thoughts thready. “The crowd pressed the Light,” thought ravels.

“The Light wove through throngs of sandaled feet,” more thought threads.

And it’s uncanny how those leaves shuffling across yellowed grass resemble sandaled feet.

 

This strand of light. This weave of sun light that’s unraveling longer and longer the higher it rises and it walks through the press here. It’s going somewhere, but now it lingers here.

And I think of another Light pressed in another crowd. And of another weave training over ground. A threadbare hem dragging in dirt where feet trod and pressed the Word Himself because there are places to go and deadlines to meet and who notices the hem? The thread between the lines?

The woman who bled out life noticed. The outcast notice. The starving notice. The shunned notice. Those who can’t remember the last time they were touched. The threadbare souls. They notice.

 

And she bowed dirt low. And grimy feet walked by her face. And she touched hem of Christ. He noticed.  

“Who touched Me?“ He said.

“Where is she?” He looked for her in the crowd. Yes, He had a deadline to meet. A father frantic worried because his daughter was dying on that line.

“I want to speak to her.” He’s always aware of where He’s going, but awake to where He is. It’s hem speech to me when I stress over deadlines.

I want Him to look for me in the press.

I want to touch threadbare hem and know that He moves deadlines because of it. It’s holy and thready and can drag out long and linger because Jesus presses light between the lines of here and there.

It’s thready. It just is. This trusting that deadlines merely sleep and Christ will wake them and move them when I’m certain they’ve passed away.

Trust is thready.

And I trip over thread. And sometimes trust unravels a stitch or two in the press. But the light presses through and weaves seeking strand on and on.

 

Tree Limb

 

The limb. Too large to snap off. Creaked heavy groan and cracked and echoed and fell frozen and dry and old. Would Jesus say it’s just a sleeping deadline?

It looks dead to me in this morning backyard vigil. Backyard and back soul. Where I hear vigilant whisper. That Voice. Behind me. Saying, “Turn here. Go there.”

And I’m hearing all vigilant this Vigilante Voice. Vigilante Christ. Volunteer of the Trinity. It’s what a vigilante is.

“A volunteer from an organization to punish crime when the law is inadequate” (web dictionary).

Only, He is Vigilante Grace. Because, yes! The law is inadequate!  My Vigilante broke the bread. Did it echo crack? The echo reverberates still over two-thousand years.

The branch lay on the ground. Groaned and “It is finished!” cracked mighty weight.

And Vigilante did not punish criminal soul, but became criminal sin. And saved my soul from the ultimate deadline. When others mourn He will say, “She’s just sleeping.”

It’s what I hear looking at the backyard branch. It’s been days. And it’s still not time to heave it onto the brush pile. I know it’s not because I’m still hearing, “Don’t worry about the deadline,” every time I look at it. And trust is still too bare. And I’m still tripping over thread.

It happened just now. The trip. Happened mid-thought. While pen poised over journal page and while thought formed and life just shoved into my space. By my German.

This tall German with a financial question. Does my frustration show? Brow line threads shadow I’m sure. I retrieve beat up red folder from green box and find the requested receipt.

And then I hear this Vigilante Voice saying, “Ask him if he’d like you to make a breakfast egg sandwich.”

I don’t want to. Because thoughts are cooking on the back burner.

“Would you like me to make a breakfast egg sandwich for you?” I hear myself offer.

 

I’m slicing bread. Heating cast iron pan. Breaking eggs open. And I recall what a friend said yesterday, “You married him for better and for worse, but not for lunch!”

"Well, this is breakfast,” I mumble beneath breath.

“Shell holding life in must be broken to let it out,” the Voice is back burner at back of mind.

I grate cheese and, “Sprinkle on some parmesan today!”

“My but You’re enthusiastic about this sandwich,” I reply.

I get it. It’s going the extra mile. Because my German likes parmesan. I fetch it from back of fridge top shelf.

“Break an egg open for yourself while you’re at it.” I sigh. Did the Voice just speak German voice to me? He doesn’t think I eat enough.

Another egg sizzles on iron. I eat standing up all dutiful. Grab my pen and race to there. To journal. Scrape thoughts together like scrambled eggs. And my pen is spatula all poised over page…and now what? 

The doorbell rings urgent. Not once, but three rings trip all over themselves. It’s Fed Ex. A time sensitive package and I give it to large German hands.

And then this Vigilante, “Place your own time sensitive package in My hands.”

He’s talking about my journal. My pen. My thoughts. And, “It’s not time yet, is it?” I ask because I’m tripping thready all over light.

It’s time to touch the hem of His garment. Because what I really long for is to be looked for and spoken to while time just passes and I don’t want to worry about deadlines. I want Him to show me that time is not passing away and deadlines are only sleeping. To show me that He’s not worried about deadlines so why should I? To touch hem of Christ and have thready trust hemmed up.

 

 

Scrambled Eggs

 

How many mornings ago did I find this branch? How many nights ago did it fall? And every morning I stand here and hear, “Don’t worry about deadlines.” Said by the One who waited til Lazarus was dead four days before going to him. Because He moves deadlines. He wakes them because they merely sleep.

And if He’s not worried about life and death kind of deadlines then I’m not going to worry about my kind of deadlines. I’m just not going to. It’s choice and it’s trusting Him. And I long. I long to see Him wake them when I think they’ve passed away. Long to see Him move them out when they press in.

I heard it again this morning. And the branch. It’s dead line literally. And it just lays there. Sleeping? Day in and day out?

And I’m waiting for Him to say, “It’s just sleeping.”

Because He moves deadlines. I know He does.

I just need to see it again. To touch the hem of His garment again while He speaks it because sometimes deadlines are hard when they pass in the night and leave life lines behind. “Be aware of the deadlines, but awake to life lines,” runs ravel through my mind.

 

“I love you.” I hear Vigilante Voice at my back while I look at this dead wood but see light thready there. And this is it. The thread that hems up trust.

“I loved Martha. And Mary. And Lazarus. So, when I heard he was dying, I stayed away for two more days.” He says the strangest things. But I’m getting it more and more. It’s taken me days and days, but I am starting to get it.

“Are there not twelve hours in a day?” He is speaking John 11 to me. And it’s almost time to move the branch. I know it is because light is threading and I’m not tripping on it just now.

 

“I loved Jairus. And his twelve year old daughter who was dying. And the woman who bled out twelve years. Twelve hours a day. Twelve hours a night. Twelve years bleeding out life and twelve years little girl life.”

“What is it about love and time and hours and years and being aware of where I am going but being awake to where I am and trust and choice?” It’s all is weave and hem and light that drags through earth dust.

And I don’t understand what it all is. But I touch it. And I drag the limb to the brush pile. And I’m not going to worry about it. The deadline. I choose now. In the drag.

Thready trust is flexing.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig