18: To Write
Every day I think it will be the day – the day I hang up the 31 days thing.
Most planned ahead for months, wrote their 31 pieces in advance, mapped out their timeline. They have a virtual pantry full of what they will be serving up in the next 2 weeks.
Not me.
As much as I crave certainty, I seem to also be addicted to the “fresh.”
I heard about “31 days” and signed up – on October 1. (It began on September 30th, so I’ve pretty much been a day behind all along.)
There has been no getting ahead, and only a little “recycling” of my older material. Somehow the raw stuff seems more relevant, and I am compelled to serve it up daily.
The thing that makes me laugh at myself in this daily quitter-toss-up is this: no one asked me to. No one is holding me to it. No one will get mad if I break the rules and skip a day or 2. BUT I have a hard time letting go.
Until I’ve declared that I’m letting go my fingers and my mind are sunk to deep in the thing.
I either want all ties severed or to be all in.
I scramble for certainty.
I want to know what my day looks like tomorrow.
And then there is manna.
God gave the Israelites manna in the desert…after they whined and complained rather than asked.
Ridiculous people!
I don’t know anyone who would do that!
…except maybe myself and the rest of the world.
Any way, when he did provide the food it was on the condition that they only gather enough for each day (with an exception for the sabbath). Whenever they tried to store it up it went bad – just like he told them it would.
I’m not saying I shouldn’t plan. I should.
But sometimes there is a message in the wild clutching at air. The string that pulls the certainty we desire one step further for every step we take toward it – that string is there to instruct us in something….to dare us to define our certainty….to have faith in the alpha and omega behind the string.
In this crazy writing deal – when I’ve wanted so badly every. single. day. – to be able to store up posts, to get ahead for the rest of the month – there have been road blocks. (I know you find this SHOCKING, given that I have 3 small kiddos and paperwork for special needs world coming out of my ears, but I have this knack for neglecting the obvious.) This has happened for 18 days straight now.
It’s still the toss of a coin, whether I’m going to make it to 31 days, especially with allume next week.
Yesterday I was determined to emancipate myself, but today, as I pulled weeds I thought about how the work of rearranging our homes, our yards, clearing the clutter – how it gives clarity to all in the home. Writing gives a similar clarity in the mind. This sorting words on paper….opening our eyes to the beauty in our ordinary, maybe this is the daily manna, the beauty rearranged, that my father knows I need.
We can’t cram in the necessities and be done with them. Eating a week’s worth of food one day and neglecting to eat the other 6, it won’t play out so well. Neither will trying to stock up on prayer and time in God’s word. These are our daily sustenance, and as much I want to be done with needing – it’s a part of life and breath, and I suppose I’m glad that in it there is a freshness, a surprising newness, to whatever lies around the next corner.
As God writes our stories he only lets us see a page at a time.
I’m forever the kid trying to flip the page before the words have even been read. Maybe I just need to relax into the crook of his arm and hear the words…enjoy the story as he has written it, and as I copy pieces in my little notebook here. As I scribble I learn to define my certainty…in Him, and Him alone.
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26
a Rearranged Life 