Choosing Mary

 I can hardly believe it, but I am just now sitting home alone in the deep quiet after a whirlwind weekend of graduating my daughter from high school and hosting an open house to celebrate her.  Working on the senior slide show from the dark side made me grey in a day, and I sweat gallons, I'm sure, staying up all night for nights on end trying to do something quite beyond my skill set.  Seemingly, beyond lots of people, and oh.  The agony.

I sit still and try to recover some of me that was torn away.  To process.  To celebrate and to grieve, again, that I am growing old and my children are moving on.  To thank Jesus for being my close friend, and to hold my cupped hands heavenward to give my life back again.  To say to Him..."Ah...I clutched it again, Lord.  I spent the whole week striving and stressing instead of walking and resting.  And.  I'm sorry, Lord."

Now to sit with Him and regain the knowledge of His presence all along.  That He is in every detail...even the wretched slide show, and in the frog-eyed salad.  That He is in my daughter's eyes, and in her smile at receiving such a gift from her grandfather.  In my oldest son's ever-resting arm on my shoulder that helps me to remember to slow and to know...that this life is blessed.  That Christ dwells richly here, and that we are blessed.  All blessed.  In all the laughter and all the playing of all those children!  In the capable hands of my helping friend who becomes more like family to this heart here.  Just her smile that helps me to know that all is well.  No fear.

And the reminder that came to keep the eternal first.  So that each morning as the pressure to be Martha crushed me beyond bearing, I sat alone at the feet of Jesus and opened His Words to me.  I.  Sat.  Listening.  And smiled anyway when time ran out and there they all were at the door...

And when the boys' bathroom was yet unscrubbed and just gross...

Jesus and me sitting in all that calm before the storm.

Bernadette