The other morning my return home greeting was dropping a small juice glass in my farm sink. Yep, it broke. Broken glass is not so bad to clean up when it is contained. I was careful in my search for all of the pieces and put them into the bottom of the still intact vintage glass. No cut fingers for me.
And today I feel much like that glass. Broken and useless. The message I heard on the radio was about spiritual warfare. How appropriate I think for how I feel. We have finally had some seasonal rain and now all the trees are budding and the grass and weeds are in full growth mode. My allergies took a nose dive into the tissue box and my head is in so much pain. Honey did not wake me up for my asthma need this morning, so I slept in until past nine.
“—A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” —Ecclesiastes 4:8b (ESV) The fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes has a lot of little nuggets in it. This is one of my favorite. In the passage, the wisdom is for people to work together in unity. Two people pulling in opposite directions are only striving after the wind. One person cannot stay warm on cold nights without an electric blanket. Two are better than one to defeat an assailant. So many little treasures of advice.
The last two Sundays I was blessed to go to church with my mother. The first week there was a missionary and the second week there were two baptisms. This same week a friend of ours shared a video of a testimony from another church in the same community. Seeing the Holy Spirit working in others lives is so uplifting. Staying the week with my mom and sister and her two little ones was more work than I thought it would be. By the end of the week though my old habit of not being able to fall asleep returned.
The first night there we let Kona sleep on the bed with us. Not very restful considering he has never done that before. In the early dawn hours, he woke up forgetting where he was. His frightful bark and the big fat tears in his eyes told me he had been very scared. I snuggled him into bed with me and he settled back down. The rest of the week he slept in his crate like ususal. Sleeping with dog on bed is not my preferred pet method. We both need the complete night of rest to be able to put up with each other all day.
Kona struggled with kid magnetics the first few days together with my little nieces. By the second day they had learned to co-exist and him not be so attracted to their every movement. By the fourth day a real rhythm had been set and he was learning to cue some things. His alerts at first were a little loud. He finally decided it was okay to inside bark that the baby was awake. He also cued some of the alarms around the house. The best was the “importance” of my mom’s pill minder. The last day he decided to walk outside with my mother. She just picked up the leash and took him with. Hmmm-I though she did not like dogs. And he also began noticing if the door did not shut all the way. That was helpful also. Pocket full of treats kept him very busy trying to earn a treat!
Meanwhile, my dad’s world had some bad news the past week. It was really hard to hear such sad happenings. But the day I called to take care of the flowers, he had had such a rough day. It was a blessing to keep in touch with him and hear him reciprocate my “I love you dad.” He has only told me he loves me a hand full of times. I think it meant much to him that I reached out even though I was at my mom’s for the week.
Returning home was “fruit basket upset” for me. I felt bad for not being happy to be home. The moving about and putting everything back in its place gets me pretty frustrated. My eyes just don’t always see what I think should be there. I took a detox bath, but it really did not help much. It wasn’t close enough to bed time to actually work.
The cutest event of the week was when the little girls were getting ready for bed one evening. My sister was making the bottle, and I was trying to “settle” them instead of wind them up. So I sang a silly song about the sun going to bed and so shall I. I taught them the actions of the sun coming up and traveling across the sky until it hit the floor again, then laid down to fall asleep. The third time the girls had the actions down and even Kona layed down on the floor to fall asleep for pretend. It was so cute watching them all interact so sweetly.
When it’s my time to go, I wonder how I will behave. Watching our elderly parents prepare for “the day” is hard. Some get listless and empty, letting go of the daily duties with quite a struggle. Getting them to understand that food is their first need and let someone else do the food preparations, can be such a battle. Others will not allow a hired help to come clean the house just for “privacy” sake or something.
I know it was hard for me to let go of the green house chores for the week and trust others to water, rotate, and watch care. Each sibling handles letting go of the parents differently also. Some just let go before it’s time to even relinquish their elder to this earthly suffering so that they do not have to watch the falling season. Some hang on so hard they won’t let anyone else take certain “cares” on because they have to have some control. In the end, the broken glass just goes when it’s God’s timing. We never really know when the glass will slip out of our hands and the pieces will be left to discard. We don’t even know what pieces we will be left with. God give me the grace to handle each broken glass with care.