slow rainy days

It’s raining today. Big splashing drops that play music on the windows.

They’ve been coming and going all day. I heard them when I woke up this morning and walked through the house, picking up the random pieces of life that hadn’t been cleaned up before bed.

I felt them later as I drove the four-wheeler to the new pasture to fill the water tubs. They slid across my glasses and blurred my vision– but one doesn’t need to see much to travel over fields at ten miles per hour.

Later I rocked the babies, then rolled the pie dough, sliced the apples. A dozen new pies sat happy in their containers, waiting for a bake sale, and rain continued to dribble down the windows.

Mama came for the girly’s piano lessons and we talked, as usual, for several hours before the piano started playing. Once in a while there was a distant rumble of thunder, but things stayed mild and calm. Just raindrops falling.

The boy came over to me. “Tashie,” he said, “Tashie, I just need my school work today. Please can I do school?”

We studied the color red. It comes in so many shades, you know. And has three letters in its name. We pasted and colored, painted and drew.

When nap time came, the littles went to bed and we went back to real school. The last of the history book was read and we closed it with a sigh of happiness. Third grade history is done! We spent some time on geography and spun the globe. Alaska can be hard to find when you’re not paying attention.

Three more days of math and another book will be finished. Not so for English. “I’m so sick of paragraphs, Mommy,” she tells me. I just nod because I’m pretty sick of them too. Another week, I tell myself. Just another week.

The rain keeps falling and the house is soft and damp and dim. We use just the lamps to keep everything quiet. I need some quiet days in my life.

We read Stephen’s testimony this morning– you know, the one that got him stoned to death? And I was remembering again, the whole story of grace. How God promised, over and over, that a Messiah was coming. And the people were looking and wondering and waiting. Who was it going to be? Where was the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent?

And then the great surprise. The whole crazy thing was that it wasn’t just “someone” who was coming, but God Himself. Emmanuel, God with us.

God lived out the redemption He promised.

The glory of it stills me. Even now, even here– as the rain drips and my feet are damp and chilled and the floors need to be swept because somehow the cinnamon for the pies ended up all over the kitchen.

Even here– with all of this– the glory seeps in.

He is the promise.

He is the redemption.

He is the hope.

In the quietness, in the everyday, in the craziness of life– Oh, God, don’t let me forget. You are the One. You are the redemption.

Emmanuel has come.

Thank you.