Picking my "one thing"

I am what my eldest brother would call a mystic. To those who are true mystics I'm nothing close, but I do search for meaning in everything. I could tell you a person's story before I could tell you their name. I'm most likely to mix up actual lyrics in a song but fully embody the meaning and emotion found there. I spent years loving variations class in ballet because we could learn steps, each of us learning the same combination, and then when the music began, find the life behind them.

Lately I've been searching for meaning in this time.

Each time my poor Caleb struggles with his tummy and spit up and digestion I search for meaning. Why does this thing he needs cause him such a struggle? If any time in life should be easy and effortless, shouldn't infancy be it? I remembered today Genesis 3:17-19 specifically this "in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life". God made him to be a man, and even here his struggle begins. How gracious that he can learn how to struggle while being held in his mamma's and daddy's arms. This is the rest of his life imaged in a bit of spit up we each wear. And I know that I will wear his struggle for the rest of his life because he's my baby...

We have this rule with Olivia when we go to the grocery store. She may pick out "just one thing" on our trip. For a long time she would pick a doughnut. She has finally learned that she pretty much just likes the sprinkles and that's only like 1/8th of the doughnut so it's not the best "one thing" to pick. Mostly now she chooses chocolate almond milk. Often when we're going through the store, if she's already picked out her "one thing" she forgets and asks for others instead, then of course comes the re-evaluation of priorities. Which is better. I will say for her that she is rather good at finding contentment with her one thing. I need to learn that. I walk into the display of life and want it all. I live like happiness is having all my desires met. I wish I could keep track of the "one thing" (though in fact they are many) that I've picked for myself and find delight and joy in that without being constantly discontent over the rest of the store that I'm leaving behind. I chose Olivia. That choice has pooled over, pressed down, overflowing into other choices. Here I am, four years later with my own family. It's exactly what I imagined I'd be doing by this point when I was young, but somehow it's not what I expected. Maybe I never considered that my mother must've made great sacrifices in her life in order to give us ours.

And when it comes down to it, Olivia and I are downright spoiled to have even "just one thing". So here's my meaning in today: God always gives better to his children than we fallen parents give ours. I have been given at least one thing today. Remember what it is and delight in it. Besides, who would really pick a couple sprinkles over a whole box of chocolate almond milk, right?

You've missed your train

"You've Missed Your Train"

Innocently singing along
'Till those four words escape.
"You've missed your train" was all it took
a matchstick burst to flame.

Ignites a trail of memories
that have no right to be,
claiming corners of my mind
that I entreat released.

Ten years now have marched along
I thought by now he'd go.
The price I payed for his missed train
was greater than I'd known.

Innocent then too, I think,
when feeling for his pain,
I offered he could come upstairs
I truly meant to wait....



Uneducated in the code
of stairs and coming up
unknowingly invited him
to play we were in love.



The matchstick flame of memory
burns wildfire down the years.
I wish that they would burn away-
cauterizing pain would seer.

But even though He paid the price
to cover these mistakes
my misplaced values of the past
my mind will not vacate.

Living fearful of a word,
or song or smell or thought
to spark to life dead memories
ignoring I've been bought.

Bought and paid for by His blood
Him knowing all this shame.
My virtue lost, and at His cost,
He lets me bear His name.

"A child of God!" I can announce
to combat memories
that all my mind would occupy,
His dwelling place redeemed.