Things I love about this place:

Weather.
No goosebumps in the morning.
All of us together in the late night.
All of us together in the early morning.
Sharing food and things.
Sharing conversation and things.
Train whistle out the back window.
This table.
Hugs.
Hands.
All.

It's no secret that we are like wrung out washcloths lately. At least that's what one of my pastors said to me from the top of the stairs today. We make it through every new task with fortitude and determination, and little delight--we know that we find the goodness of God in the land of the living, but what about when all around looks like the land of the dead?

That's when the goodness of God is hard to find.

Today our congregation was a wrung out washcloth. Some caught breath in their throats, some swiped the backs of the hands across wet cheeks, some stuffed wadded tissues in their pockets, and some just let the silent tears roll down their faces, some didn't cry at all--but I think I can say with assurance that today, weeping of the heart was the portion of Christian Fellowship Center.

A passage was read today that I checked and rechecked--how could I have missed this very crucial verse? How could I have not ever seen this before? II Corinthians, that bold and beautiful book, opens with some thoughts on affliction and suffering. And here is the comfort to me today:

For we do not want you to be unaware...that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life, indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead and who delivered us from such great peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us.

I have set the belief high on my creed that God won't give me more than I can handle. And so when it feels more than my strength can bear, I grow resilient, immovable, I flex my spiritual muscles and grin and, well, bear it anyway.

Today I am set free from something: my strength.

Because here, today, and tomorrow and every tomorrow, we are burdened beyond our strength. This is too much. This pain. This wringing out. These bodies of death. These things are beyond our strength. These things make me want to put my head down on my desk and cry.

Yet, it because of these things that I can say, with Paul, that He will yet deliver us. He hasn't yet.

But He will.

25 fourth and fifth graders and I sat on the floor of our classroom yesterday morning, and we wept.

Not all of us with wet tears, but we wrung our hearts dry with requests--pleas and belief that there must be more than this. Than cancer ridden grandparents and burned down homes, than war in Iraq and babies with inside-out hearts, than unsaved families and death. There must be more than this. We recited the words of James, that the effectual prayer of a righteous man produces much. We asked for that much.

Because we can't turn Aubrey's heart in the right direction and we can't ease the suffering of Liz when she comes home from Italy this week a young widow. We can't reach in and take the cancer from the aging grandfather and we are powerless to bring anyone to repentance.

And so we pray.

I confess. The past few days have been wrenching to my heart. The whys curse through me and I startle myself awake every few moments with the reality of death. It is there when I wake and there when I go to bed, everything is filtered through mourning. Not just for Christian, or Liz. Whatever doesn't break us makes us stronger, I know that. But I mourn what the writer of Hebrews said in chapter 11, that all those great and wonderful heroes of our faith "did not receive what was promised."

And I think about the multitude of promises, broken or otherwise. I think about the words of faith arisen in my heart and the crash of them all in the face of another disappointment. I think about those things and I think "There must be more than this. Please, God, let there be more than this."

Even victory stinks of humanity.

I don't know what to say, what to write. I don't know where peace is to be found in the middle of this--but that is where my comfort lies.

And I think that for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the rest, that is where their comfort lay. If the goal had only been to make it through life whole, they failed. If only to stand and proclaim God's goodness in the face of every circumstance, they failed. If to gain entrance into the Hall of Faith, even that was a failure for so many. If, even, just to see the Messiah was their aim, they failed.

Because seeing the Messiah wasn't their goal. The culmination of promises weren't their aim and the end of the story wasn't in their sight. Wholeness and peace were only blessings above their portion.

They knew that God was their goal. Only Him. In whatever form, whatever measure, and whatever circumstance in which He arrived.

Tears wet our eyes and covered our hearts yesterday--we sought Him. Not answers. Not placebos. Not even healing. Not promises. We said, God, we need You. Just You. And that will do.

It's beginning to get cold outside. The trees have swapped their garb with us and we leave the house swaddled in the colors that make the season of snow less boring. Well, we attempt it at least.

My plan is to make all my Christmas gifts this year. Every year I find that Christmas shopping is less fun and more hurried and harried than the year before. Mostly because money is always an issue and Christmas has this strange way of sneaking up on me. I vow that it will not this year. So I pull out the sewing machine, sort and resort fabric options, peruse the internet for ideas that won't let me go, and hint for Christmas lists at every turn.

This afternoon I sat on the floor in her room and watched her make her bed, chatting incessantly about nothing because I'd just downed two cups of coffee (!). During my chatting she rummaged through a dresser drawer and dug up some fabric squares she'd had laying around for quite some time. She handed them to me and I gasped. For me?

They are beautiful hand sewn squares of vintage fabric, and immediately ideas flew through my head. All the amazing things I could make. All the beautiful gifts. One in particular stuck and one lucky lady shall be the recipient of that idea.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.

It doesn't take much to make me sad. True. But it doesn't take much to make me happy.

One of our dear family has left to spend the next half a year in another place and so in the meantime I am to reclaim my old green bedroom upstairs. I was reticent at first, after all, I want her to know she still belongs here too, but yesterday, after all my clothes were hung up and my Goya poster hung, my Mac set on my old desk and my plants placed on the windowsill, I stood and breathed.

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed having a place of my own. Or even this place. This small, green, corner bedroom with its slanted ceiling was the first place that felt like home a few years ago when I adopted it. And it somehow felt so good standing in it--knowing that for the next short season it was mine again.

Then it will be time to move on again. I've learned that moving is my lot--twelve times in the past five years. I've learned to stop getting whiplash and start learning adaptability, to stop griping about the wandering process and trust that the Promised Land is somewhere soon.

I've learned to love the small things, like Goya posters and Penelope Dullaghan prints and hanging ivy and folding wool sweaters--things that are familiar enough to make any place feel like home, and small enough to move anywhere.

This post is about thoughts. No plots. No points. Just thoughts.