new locks

Yesterday was one of those bad days.  The sad days, when the road you're taking makes a sharp left and you're left staring at the brick wall ahead... or the plummeting cliff.  Unaware the path has changed direction.  It feels like a dead end.  Like an immovable obstruction, obstacle, perilous fall.  All in your way. 

But in time, you always realize, you just have to move your feet.  It's still winding and confusing and it's still not so hopeful.  But it's not the brick wall, not the cliff anymore.  It looks a little bit more like cooking dinner and messy applesauce and damn if it doesn't look like one hundred body weight squats at the gym and $4.99 drapes from Ikea. 

I guess I don't really know what happened.  Actually.  No wait.  I do.

Judah and I were sitting in the funny doctor's office waiting room.  And he was snuggled up in my lap playing with a dinosaur I know had yucky germs on it.  We were one of funny doctor's first patients, almost a year ago now.  They know us by name.  They love my little, brown boy.  So when we walked in, they asked about his ears, and they squeezed his cheeks.  Then.  I let him walk.  He toddled around the office and I just beamed with pride.  Funny nurse kept looking at his chart, marveling at how this ten month old was moving so quickly.  He got to stand on the big boy scale to get weighed. 

And when we went into the examination room, I took his little shirt off and there he sat in my lap.  All 26.6 pounds of him.  Each time a stranger came in the room, he would tuck his shoulder in my armpit and rest his cheek on my collarbone.  This is new.  My boy isn't shy, I didn't think.  But here we are, and he's being bashful.  I am his safe place.

Also.  I was right. 

He has an ear infection. 

Good call, mom, Funny doctor said. 

Of course, this morning I woke up with a cold too.  After wrestling with Judah to take his pink medicine and falling asleep to Shark Week and wishing he would walk through the door. 

But you know the other thing that happened was I got a quick faith check.  A gut check, if you will.  It doesn't happen often because I'm surrounded by people who are at a higher caliber of righteousness than I am.  And that doesn't challenge me.  Not a bit.  What challenges me, what measures my faith, is when someone else doubts. 

I may live in a gray world where sometimes I haven't a single clue what's going on.  Is it right or wrong?  Good or bad?  (Usually the only definitive question is whether or not something is wise or foolish, but then again...)

When I hear someone say, out of the hurt and confusion they feel, they don't know who He is anymore... I get a little bit antsy.  Popping up out of my seat, trying not to blurt out the answer.  My answer isn't your answer... but I do have one. 

I have a pretty good idea of who He is, after all this.  Maybe I would question Him if my life looked a little different.  If I had experienced more loss.  I write this and laugh a little to myself, realizing that I have claimed to have no hope and yet here I am.  But I do know who He is.  And when I take a second to acknowledge, and wonder how I might describe Him... the answers come faster. 

Yesterday still sucked though.  And I'm still really lonely.

Today I have a cold, so today sucks a little bit too.  But forgetting who Jesus is... is not something I want to happen.  Not to you, not to me.  Even when we're tired of it all.  Even when we're tired of Jesus.

But part of what redeemed yesterday was a gentle acceptance.  Not of loneliness, not of singleness, not of forever-aloneness (although, I looked in the mirror today and I look really old today and I thought, ah shit).  But I thought about what's about to happen. 

What building looks like. 

Part of what redeemed yesterday was Jesus heard me say I didn't believe in miracles anymore and that pissed Him off.  Oh please, Anna.  Yes, you do.  And then he reminded me. 

A few weeks ago I signed a really ridiculous contract, which flirts with the wise/foolish property line.  I'm dancing on it.  E came out to do my inspection on this purchase, with his cigarettes and his wandering eyes and his attention to detail and his off color sense of humor.  And when E came out to do my inspection he left a dishwasher door open.

Now I have new locks on my doors. 

Because a few days ago, Jesus must have heard my muttered whisper about not knowing how much new locks cost.  Not knowing if I'd have the money for new locks, because I didn't know. 

Now there are new locks on my doors and a contract set for three weeks from now.  A move out date.  A move in date. 

He reminded me those miracles I decided not to look for anymore, are bred in those decisions we're not really sure are wise or foolish.  Miracles happen when we trust, when all those eggs go in one basket, when we're willing to change our minds.  And live anyway, even when it doesn't make sense.

Miracles happen where there are new faces and names and $5 pizzas and basketball in the court.  Cookies in the oven.  Where we plant seeds and hope.  Trusting not only that they will grow but did we plant where we should have, that the birds won't take off with them, that if we're going to put down roots... we chose the right spot. 

Miracles happen when we ask the ridiculous questions.  Trusting looks like, for me, when I turn to God and say angrily "Hey! You heard me!" 

Miracles look a lot like the prayer I prayed years ago, that all my thoughts would be considered prayers.  A prayer asking the Spirit to pray for me when I hadn't a clue what to pray for, or the right words to use. 

And to this day, my thoughts are recycled into prayers.