Feb 5, 2013

when we read the Bible . . .

There's snow on the ground, half melted with mud puddles, and Mama has crutches.
Tired circles beneath all our eyes, and we have to go places tomorrow, but wish for a snow storm.
A snow storm so we could all be home, even though tomorrow's just Tuesday.
Dishes in a sink need to be washed, even though tons of others have been washed before them.
And still there's a magnet on the fridge, it says this:




We all get together, every night. This is the reason we get up, we go to work, we teach, we take care of kids, we wash faces, and make sure all the dishes are done: because we know at night we'll all come home, we'll all be together.

We'll sit next to each other on couches and sofas, and rub shoulders, put feet up, and pet kitties. And we open Bibles.

This is the reason we sing through a day away from home, so we can look forward to all of an evening and a night in our house, with our family.




There's kitty feet and socked toes and pens to mark the pages where it means a lot.

Brothers who lean hard over verses and wonder at every verse when it's their time to read. They ask questions hard sometimes. Their asking's good because it makes me think, too. And I love it when the frowns melt away into understandings and I smile again because it's come clear for me, too.





You read about Joseph in Genesis, all these sons who become a nation in the sight of God. In Exodus, the leaving book, the sons' nation all are slaves and God chooses Moses to lead the leaving. Around and round the room the stories go, reaching from voice to voice, a story told, passed down from mouth to mouth. 

I think about what they've done, this mother and father of mine. They didn't get this when they stood shorter than our youngest, neither of them. They didn't get the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before they slept. They weren't given the chance to wonder at all these people or ask the why's and get answers that satisfied, they didn't get the passing down from mouth to mouth, from mother to son or father to daughter.




And here they sit, next to sons and in between daughters, almost thirty years they've done this, and still they do it. They lean hard with the children who ask questions and they answer them again, night after night after night. Nodding their listening to us. Answering with a loving grown stronger with years.

And they don't wonder what they could be doing, they don't wonder what worlds they could be saving, or important hands they could be shaking.

They saved our world, and gave up what they could be doing, for us. They grabbed our hands over the latest cover of People Magazine, and bandaged our knees and mended our wounded hearts, and I wonder sometimes . . . 

Is it because they didn't get that when they were knee-high to a yearling, is that partly why God saw fit that  they give it to me?


When it's all over, this reading of the Bible, she brings it out. A picture. Just a picture in a book with a little name under it. Naysila. And I don't know why it makes me cry.

Maybe its her shy way of standing, the look in her eyes wondering if she's doing it right, if there's a certain way she has to be when getting a picture taken. Maybe it's that inexplicable joy just making my sister smile cause there's this little girl she can help voice all these stories to. Maybe it's the thought of Naysila hearing she has a sponsor after 246 days of waiting, and the uncertainty failing, and a grin, big as her face just spilling joy right over!

. . . and my sister doesn't wonder what other worlds she could be saving.

3 comments:

Emily said...

So beautiful and meaningful, Kay! Makes me that much more thankful for my parents. I love reading pieces of your heart.

Laura said...

Wow.... how wonderful. :) I love you so!!!

Katie said...

I have never never been sorry that I have dedicated my life to my family. It has been worth it all.
Love you bunches, Mama.