Gentle Reader,
The laundry tumbles in the dryer, fighting for space with six wool balls that insist upon keeping the clothes from clumping together in a big, ever-damp ball. A roast simmers in the crock pot, ready to be shredded for French dip sandwiches. (I’ll be eating mushrooms on my hoagie roll). A peach crisp bakes in the oven, its scent tickling my nose. One dog dozes in an oversized, comfy chair. The other looks at me with an expression that I’m sure I’m supposed to understand.
There’s nothing special about this day. No anniversary, no birthday, no special remembrance.
But I sometimes think that God makes God’s presence known all the stronger on the ordinary days.
We talk about meeting God in the highs and in the lows. But what about in the flat?
Chris replaced our living room window on Saturday. Our home is a little over 50 years old, and most of the windows are original. Some are missing screens and so can’t be opened unless we’d like to play host to an assortment of critters, which is not my idea of a good time. Some are stubbornly stuck in their tracks. It’s a real, all-day-long process to take the old windows out and put new ones in. Chris says he learns a little more about the quirks of our house with each project – the window frames aren’t quite square, years of different paint colors reveal themselves when the shutters come down.
I wonder about the people before me, who sat looking out this front window. Did they try to count the various shades of green that met their gaze, as I do? Did they breathe deeply when a breeze flows in and lifts the curtains a little? Did they watch the clouds pass slowly by?
Was their contemplation broken by the insistent bark of a dog who has lost her ball underneath the bed?
Did they feel a joyful ache in their hearts, the kind that comes when God’s finger touches you and you just know that God is here and you are loved? Even on an ordinary day?
The yearly gnat swarms are buzzing in the front yard, flying into the mouths of the unaware. There’s dirt on the (false) wood floor that I swept earlier, a sign of dogs happily coming and going. My indoor plants reach the tips of their leaves toward the light, almost as if they’d like to hold hands with the rhododendron and an unidentified bush that smells like a skunk when it blooms. I’ll need to flick on the porch lights soon. The last of the summer light fades into the golden tones of autumn.
An ordinary day.
A day God made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
GRACE AND PEACE ALONG THE WAY,
MARIE
Image Courtesy of Annie Spratt