Tuesday, December 11, 2007

I don’t recommend splitting wood during a downpour. Quite honestly, I didn’t intend to try it myself, but the wood had to be split and it was only drizzling when I started. I was swinging the heavy, red maul over my head when I noticed the sky suddenly grow dark and the next minute I was strangling in a toad strangler. Hurriedly I cracked down on the last log, snatched up the split logs and rushed the wheelbarrow to the sheltered porch to unload—just in time for the downpour to cease, leaving me completely drenched.

It’s been raining now for nearly a week. Days on end without rain still fill my stomach with little, anxious butterflies. The flood is still too recent in my memory, even though I know the concept of flooding where we are, or even being flooded in, is pretty far-fetched.

Shopping in D-town has taken on a very distinct pattern. Adventure is not a word I would normally use to label my outings. Today was no exception. I returned my book to the library, unread. I just can’t seem to sit down and read a book these days—unless it’s my Bible. Restlessness is certainly not conducive to reading. I also made a daring excursion into the bead store—and spent far too long picking out supplies for the Christmas gifts I made for the girls who are headed home this weekend. They turned out pretty decently—necklace and earring sets for three of them, and a curly-headed key-chain for Emily.

I wish I could say I’d made a point of sharing my faith. I offered the bank clerk a million dollar bill, which she said she’d seen before, so I desisted. I asked the bead store lady about the Christmas Carols she was playing, and then fell silent. That was the extent of my eternal shopping. Why is it that D-town seems to be such a formidable harvest to me? The excuse “I don’t want to keep them from their job” isn’t coinciding with an eternal perspective. Why am I so slow to do this one thing I can’t do in heaven?

Lord, I get so caught up in

Myself, which is a grievous sin

And use excuses for my sin:

“I just can’t inconvenience them.”

To inconvenience them or me

Could purchase their eternity.

With my secure eternity,

The truth? I think too much of me.

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