Pause

by charityrattray

 

Somedays you wake up and grief has been hammering your subconscious all night.  I’m learning to be honest with those days.

Deep sorrow often has the effect of stripping life of pretense, vanity, and waste. (p 74) “A Grace Disguised”

Vanity is stripped in the months after grief moves in, but a slow good day, can bring a ton of healing.  After two consecutive retreats I needed to waste an entire weekend.

Pause:

Slower than normal we wake.

A long night still playing like songs on your ipod.

The sound of days done resonating in our tomorrows.

Everything needs rest, silence.

Amazingly responsible mothers and fathers need fresh cold sheets to sleep in.

We left the car, the travel for another day.

Slower than normal we wake.

The rain is drizzling, threatening a second day’s good hair.

I’m extending Saturday’s blow out, resting from the pursuit of beauty.

On Sunday we drink hot espresso with steamed soy milk.  And then black tea.

Rest your soul and body.

Watch the morning light chase the shadows out of the room.

My children like kittens have grown.  They rouse themselves and pour milk over cereal.

The gracious simple gift of rest.  No labour here.  No grand plan.

We drive to a small town for hot soup.  I wear a cowboy hat, leggings, and Sorrels.

He has a warm flannel.  We pause from racing in our errands, and loiter.

A kitchen shop calls out to me.  An old bank remade for wine tasting.  They pour Brut from

France.  My heart whispers celebrate.  Slower than normal love wakes.  He looks good to

me.  He is easy to love.  Tall, kind, effortless manhood all comfort me.  They pour a red.

Art conversations and a younger couple enter the room.  A dinner plan rising to the surface

in the quiet waters of my mind.  We drive home in two cars.

We wash dishes and clean the counters to perfection.   He opens the bottle of red.  William

Churches, Bishop blend is poured into tall Cabernet glasses.  Slower than normal we enter

a second evening.   Strengthen the gift of today.  Pause.  Slow.  Set the table.

Offer thanks.

 

My pain is teaching me the value of a day.  The ability to call home.  To hear their voices, loud, soft, singing, playing, laughing.  So little matters so much.  Family.  Will this deaf world wake to the gift of our children, parents, lover, and friends?  Unlock us from the fear of loss and the unpredictable nature of life. My continued prayer, “Jesus hold me in the tension of an excellent love of living and free me from the pain of her death.  And in it all to God be the glory.”

 

 

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” CS Lewis

 

Featured Image by Megan Holloway, Owner and Photography at Ink & Grain