The ever-shortening weekends leave me ragged.
Not enough time to get done what always presses to be done, I find myself longing for the workweek, so I can ignore domestic chores again, calling it "for the benefit of my sanity".
It's a vicious cycle, one that I'm choosing to ignore. There are far more pressing items to contend with, such as a brain that won't shut down; thoughts that can't be organized.
So excuse my rambling thoughts, as there is absolutely no cognitive order to any of it. I need to process it all, and this place is how I do that.
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Realizing as my husband walked out the door that today's his birthday, I was overcome with guilt that I didn't plan anything in advance. I am usually the one in the family who makes a big deal out of birthdays.
I prayed a quick prayer, that God would show me what to do, special, for my hubby, while I writhed in my busy-ness.
I was not really expecting a response, but I definitely got one.
"Don't use your relationship with Me as an excuse not to think."
Uhhhh...crap.
That does not help.
At all.
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Today is also Veteran's Day.
A day of reflection for me, one near and dear to my heart.
I find my small-ness in this day, not a product of, or a result of, but rather a tiny cog in the mighty military machine of this country. Twelve years of my life given to this country, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
It isn't for the experiences, it isn't for the mission that I ache with remembrance.
It's the people.
Some of the most amazing people I've known in this lifetime served alongside of me.
Others served before me, setting the stage for legacy upon legacy of national service and dedication that could only come from the generations before.
It's the closest my 'pre-Jesus' life offered of community, outside of family. (Yet in a dysfunctional family kind of way.)
So this weekend, when we learned of the unexpected passing of one of the guys we turned wrenches with, the strangest thing happened.
My heart kind of broke. We weren't close, but plenty were. He was an AWESOME person. One of the funniest people I've worked with, and made a sometimes really hard job not so bad.
He's not the only one, there have been others.
Zooming out from the perspective of my life, and those in my sphere of influence, the grand-ness of the day presses in.
I am not an attention person, so the discomfort that comes from all the recognition on Veteran's Day is unsettling to me.
Especially when there are others who have given so very much more.
Thank you doesn't seem big enough, appropriate enough. But this humbled and thankful heart says it anyways.
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The trendy word going around in the discipleship circles is "Tribe".
At first I scoffed at the choice of such an odd word.
But the more I looked at the group of families we've been planted in the middle of, I'm finding that the word just fits.
One of my girlfriends and I discussed it on the way home from a retreat last weekend; a conversation that dominated the majority of the three-hour trip.
How each of us, (speaking for the girls) have something to offer someone else.
(I'm sure it goes the same for the guys, but we laughed about how they didn't have a clue about these things the girls pondered over. Fast forward a week, and a cold-morning conversation with my hubby over coffee and cigarettes on the deck totally proved me wrong.)
Every single one of us is in different stages of our lives. Yet we stand together in a bond we can't fully understand yet.
We support each other, no matter what form that support comes in.
Sometimes it's in the form of a collective prop, holding one another up in the hard times.
**Believe me, there are hard times. This is Life. There are always hard times.**
Sometimes it's in the form of a listening ear, and hands that are opening the beer or the bottle of wine.
Sometimes its coffee on the porch, Halloween candy, and a fire pit.
It's been words of encouragement for steps taken towards callings, and it' been the grass-cutting fairy. The dog sitters, the girls' nights, the (attempted) monthly dinners, the help while one is away.
Sometimes it's the prayers for understanding, other times it's the prayers for peace, for clarity, for perspective.
There is the grace to realize we are all very different people, and the love to know that who each other is.. is okay. Right where we are.
Community.
The bigness of the term seems too large to grasp sometimes. But that's when God shows me I'm sitting right in the middle of it, almost wherever I am.
I see it in my military family.
I see it in my church family, small and large.
I'm starting to see it at my work.
And again, instead of seeing my "role" in all of it, I'm seeing the tiny cog that I am.
This mighty machine of dead bones with regenerated flesh, with renewed breath in its lungs.
