It’s a gray, rainy afternoon, brown leaves matted on the wet sidewalks. Outdoor autumn tasks beckon me – raking, cleaning up spent beds, mowing once more, mounting rabbit fence around shrubs those ones seem to find tastiest, putting away yard tools and boxes in the garage so there’s room for the car. I enjoy the work, but physically I can’t bear the cool damp. And with only certain days and hours available to me to do such things, I wonder if my experiment will work.
I live five days a week in one location but return to another for rest. This home is, as my superintendent called it, my “cottage”. For five months I’ve explained to whomever wonders at my keeping two places that I plan to retire here. "If," I joke, "God doesn’t laugh too much at my plan."
One day of the week I spend in a fiercely protected sabbath time. I need that rest. If I only worked five of the remaining days, doing all that needs to be accomplished at home would be easier. But I spend part of that sixth day “at the office” on my sofa or at the dining room table. If I was married, my spouse might be willing to help with some of those much needed chores, in or outside the home. But for now at least, there are no such possibilities (and having traveled that road before, I recognize the very real possibility that this imagined person would not share my interests or concerns.)
Until today, I hadn’t thought about how my brilliant experiment might not work. Maybe it’s that I’m tired. Knowing what lies ahead in the next week, I wasn’t as still yesterday as I needed to be. An hour ago, as I stepped away from my sermon work momentarily, I thought, “I may not be able to keep this up.” Then, in the fleeting sadness that followed, I knew that if I must surrender to something other than what I long for, God won’t be laughing but rather grieving with me. And something else good will come of it.
I hope it doesn’t turn out that way, but it's a comfort to remember that this God I strive to honor and obey truly wants joy and peace and love for each and every one of us.
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