I Lived

My husband is making music in the living room, playing an old acoustic guitar that is seasoned with millions of notes and the resonance of life. I think I am hearing snippets of "Beautiful Things" and it is, indeed, beautiful.

I am exhausted, after one of those 13-hour days with no breaks. My brain sort of stops working at some point and I just long for stillness and quiet. I have it this evening. The house is still, as the kids are hanging with their dad and the girls went back to Harrisonburg after a quick trip home. The guitar sings through the quiet house and all is still, and well, and good.

We made real music this morning, played the blues this morning that opened up a time of honest and authentic praise and shouting and prayer to God. I think the church is absolutely a suitable place for the blues, because what are the blues if not the deepest cry of our souls? Don't tell me David didn't write those Psalms as blues lyrics, mournful and heartfelt as any 12-bar renditions you'll hear today.

We played good music tonight, hearing from different people who are singing their own songs and standing tall in the gifts they've been giving while bowing down to offer themselves to God.

And in the middle of it all I shared a meal with my family, my mom and dad and husband and all but one of my children, at a table big enough to hold us all, over biscuits and roast and potatoes and carrots and gravy. I made it all but ate none of it, because I cannot partake as I stick to my conviction that changing the fuel for my body is changing my body and my mind and perhaps, even my heart.

It was a good, long day, and I have a large, throbbing bruise on the heel of my hand that hurts now and will hurt more tomorrow. My shoulders are yearning for a deep, long massage and my hand hurts and my eyes are dry and I feel like I am alive, like this day we were given was used up to its very core, every crevice licked out and shaken until there was nothing left.

I feel satisfied in my Savior today, in the glory and grace of a day I lived.