Recognizing Grace

They tramp in loud and fling themselves out of their coats like cicada splitting skins, leave boots a trail of droppings.

The Tall-Girl lets the door swing loose and it slams the fingertips of Little-One and she yelps a pain dance of salty tears.

In the tussle out of a stubborn sleeve, a big brother swipes hard the head of a little brother and Small-Son wails the mad fists and there are coats and boots and books and who has time for all this more—more work, more mess, more stress?

I can feel my pulse quicken fierce. Entering fully into the moment can overwhelm, a river running wild. I will forget again, and again, and again.

But today I do remember. I breathe and I reel and I hold my ground and my tongue in this torrent coming down. I’ve staked my claim to the miracle.

I know the way to the Promised Land.

I do what I always need to do. I preach it. I preach it to the person I need to preach to the most. I preach to me. The skin’s tugged hard by the rush of time and I say it aloud in current pounding past, words I need like water:

Calm. Haste makes waste. Life is not an emergency. Life is brief and it is fleeting, but it is not an emergency.

I pick up a coat and thank God for the arms that can do it.

Emergencies are sudden, unexpected events — but is anything under the sun unexpected to God?

I call a son back and hand him a hanger and thank God that he can do this too.

Stay calm, enter the moment, give thanks.

I thank God for boots and we line them straight and the little hands help.

And I can always give thanks because an all-powerful God has all these things — all things — always under control.

I breathe deep and He preaches to me, soothing the time-frenzied soul with the grace river in whisper.

Life is not an emergency.

I soothe the cheek of the mad-fisted child. I give thanks for that one curl that always lies on his forehead beckoning. He lays his head on my shoulder. I stroke his hair, wind my finger round that curl. I can feel the heat of his cheeks. I can feel time’s current in my blood ease … meander. For a moment, longer, I hold him — and life — and I hold it mindfully, attentively … thankfully.

Life at its fullest is this sensitive, detonating sphere, and it can be carried only in the hands of the unhurried and reverential — a bubble held in awe.

I carry the Small-Son boy to the table.

When those hungry eyes and empty tummies circle round the table, smiles big just like their daddy’s when he’s eyeing something good heaping high on a platter, they are all story and loud talk and hardly able to restrain the waiting for the nod, and I grin it too. “You may …”

They dive.

I watch them feast. They quiet. Taste buds savor it long. It’s that same recipe my mama baked up when I was a kid, cowlicks sliding up the front of my hair, just like theirs.

The Boy-Man mumbles, his mouth sticky full. “I am not eating mine fast.” His tongue licks chocolate off lip. “Wanna taste it all.”

A boy takes a big bite, too big, smiles knowingly. I look around at their faces, their taste buds all alive, eyes shining delight in the sweet.

When did I stop thinking life was dessert?

Only in the slowing, the sitting down at the table, when His hands held the bread and the thanks fell from His tongue, do the open-eyed, the wide-eyed, see the Face they face. The fast have spiritually slow hearts.

It takes a full twenty minutes after your stomach is full for your brain to register satiation. How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full?

I weigh the moment down with full attention here.

Life is dessert — too brief to hurry.

Time is not running out. This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there’s this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.

The Small-Son pauses between bites, wiggles his tooth with tip of his tongue. I watch him and I smile. He sees me watching and he grins. He takes that last bite of chocolate-melt and with mouth still full of gooey good, he serenades soft, “I love you, Mom … and all this.”

And all this.

This cathedral moment, this time before it bursts.

All this.

Father, with all the gifts I count, You are filling me, giving me more time to recognize the significance of the story You are writing on these days. Cause me to see more of these beautiful cathedral moments You place in my life every day. I want to slow down today — and truly taste of Your goodness.