There are soundtracks to life, to every season. I hear strains of a particular song and am reminded of that season, the pains, the joys, and the comfortable familiarity. I am listening to one such soundtrack as I type of my history study sheet and this post. I am remembering a season spent on a living room floor of a small apartment, late into every night, while two small boys slept upstairs and their father worked the graveyard shift. A makeshift mother with none of the fruit, only a nanny. I cried a lot during that season, journaled even more, and spent every night on my face to this soundtrack begging the Lord to pull through and pull me through. For that season I am thankful. For this soundtrack I am thankful.
He and I walked along the river, the budding trees brushing our shoulders and the tender ground, newly unfrozen and testing its strength, beneath our feet. We meant to do homework, but it was chilly and our pages wouldn't stop turning by the mystery that is wind and not speedreading, both convenient excuses to lock our books in the car and forget responsibility. We talked about pollution and factories. He talked about hiking and scientific facts of which I have no understanding but the greatest admiration for those who do. I talked about this morning's sermon and conviction. He reprimanded me for feeling guilty; I reprimanded him for not wanting to know a little something about everything. The spring air blew around us and the sun kissed our faces. We were friends once, and young.
The prayer I have been praying with sincere and earnest desire is that discipline would rise in my life. There are those who say to me to rest, prophesy that even the warrior needs a quiet place to go, to slow down, to take time for fun and to remember that this is the best season of my life. And maybe I'm obstinate to the point of ridiculousness, but I'm also convinced that as long as I have the go ahead from the Lord that my portion is to redeem the time above all else. But I haven't been walking in that in its fullness. Which causes me to wonder if one of two things is true: Maybe I don't have the go ahead from the Lord, or maybe I am just lazy.
February 2006