Forty Days

This morning as I lay awake in bed, overturning thoughts that seem so profound while I'm horizontal but lose all significance once I stand upright, I heard it.

In the relative silence of the winter morning sounded a raspy booker-cheeee!

And that's all it took.  I scrambled out of bed,  thoughts tumbling forgotten onto the floor, and ran downstairs in my bare feet.  This is worth noting, because the boards in our upstairs are cold, and though I shun socks for most of the year, January and February temporarily change my mind.
 
When I ran to the window, a red-winged blackbird stood sentinel above the feeder while another gobbled seeds below.  Red-winged blackbirds are to me the true herald.  Sure, robins and groundhogs get the glory, but the call of red-winged blackbirds sing spring to me.  Spring breezes and summer sun are all wrapped up in that one coarse and homely sound.

Since Christmas, I've been seeking discipline and diligence in the tasks that fill my days-- educating, exploring, cleaning, scrubbing, decluttering-- and, for the most part, I've found joy and small successes in doing so.  Moving through the bumps that will always appear, the girls and I make daily strides in learning, I walk downstairs to a clean house most mornings, and, once in a while, I find the gumption to knock something extra off The Eternal List.  I've had moments, many, when the veil has stirred, and piercing clarity and gratitude have rushed in.  Today, though, after the girls and I finished school for the day, I lost sight of where I was.  Posting snapshot after snapshot after snapshot made me dull and ugly, and by the time tucking-in rolled around, what I most felt, mixed with weariness and a dislike for my blog, was regret for the evening's words and actions.

After a long day following the heels of a longer week, I thirst for something new. Birds that warble and bicker, the wind full of secrets, green spearing skyward, buds bursting into bloom and leaf, color all unruly with a blue stretch of sky...and here I sit, heavy with regret and ice cream in this second week of Lent.

But that's why He came.  Not to save me from sweets in the middle of Lent, no, but to lift me from blinding fog and failings and all that is old.  He brings the New.  New life and a new nature. New hope of reconciliation with a holy Father.  My failings etch both my need and His perfect answer into sharp relief.  There is indeed a balm in Gilead-- for mothers who spend hours foolishly, who spend words carelessly, and who, on dark levels too deep for honesty, need One to pull them out from the muck and into the Light.