As I was simultaneously (now, for the cognitive professionals out there, I know that this was not necessarily neurologically simultaneous, but, for the sake of picturing my kitchen table at this moment) texting tomorrow's babysitters, arranging carpooling to my graduate classes tomorrow, organizing my lecture notes, sending off some emails and studying up for class tomorrow, I was talking to my husband about juggling the week's schedules together when he asked me...
Do you really think this is going to work?
Now, I realize that the above statement looks snide without the accompanying 94% of my husband's communication, so let me elaborate. My husband is one of the most compassionate people that I know. As a couple, we build a family on hopeful realism, and that said, he is also one of the only people who is able to bring the realism to my hopeful without sounding doubtful. As he asked the above question, I thinking he was alluding to more than just schedules.
I think he was referring to the intricately delicate miracle which is the fact that this, this schedule, this time in our lives, the fact that we're doing parenting and professional careers and ministry and graduate school and normal people stuff like making the bed and eating, does work.
I operate much of my life and work on the distinct probability that wonderful, restorative and lasting hope is not only possible, but exists, despite some of the most grueling circumstances. And everyday, I see hopeful events occur in my own life. Little events of grace, like, someone being willing to watch my highly active, two-turning-three son for free. Like my son taking a really long nap on a day when I need to send a dozen--or more--emails. Like somehow being able to pay the bills each month. Like serendipitous things that we've really needed, like a second mode of child-friendly transportation, a bike trailer, showing up on Craigslist for scandalously cheap prices right around the same time that really generous people unexpectedly give us more than enough support to purchase said bike trailer.
In fact, while I was flying to Texas recently to see some friends and raise some support for our ministry, as I was mid-air between Phoenix and Austin, I was empathizing with the highly anxious folks out there. I know some of these people, and they are brilliant people who are capable of thinking about all the different ways in which every little thing could go wrong. And it was in that moment that I was thinking about how every little thing was not. In the 11th hour, the week before, several people called to say they'd be willing to provide support to help pay for the airfare to get to and around Texas. As I sat on that plane, I thought about the sheer miracle of God that I was even able to afford sitting on it. And, for that matter, it was miraculous that all the pistons and turbines and fuel injectors and various other aerospace technologies that I do not understand were not malfunctioning. My comfortable, turbulence-free skip across the United States was a merciful miracle of God, as were the willing friends and church families who picked me up and fed me and helped me make connections.
Whether here or there, whether scrambling together a family schedule or planning an event with Damascus Road Tucson, our church, or somehow biking down the road with the kids in the trailer and not getting hit by a vehicle, those small miracles, the little things, are filled, from top to bottom, with grace.
And while that is something that I am entirely ill-equipped to schedule, I'm beginning to think it's something that I can expect, even if it's not on my terms.
I'll sleep on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment