My heart is like the frozen snow covered limbs of this tree…beautiful in its reflecting iciness but cold hearted nevertheless, brittle nevertheless, less than its springtime version, less than its fruit-filled summer flavor, less than even its bright warm colorful autumnness. Always less than….
I curled up in a ball in the Bunn’s room, on the floor, with my black sweatshirt tucked under my head for a pillow, and I cried out to Him with hot black ash tears. “I don’t know how to get from here to there, Lord. I don’t know how to live like You want me to, like You showed me, like I had always imagined. Help me! Please please help me!”
Bunn (my grandson’s rabbit) never murmured a sound, not even when I reached out to scratch the favorite place between his perked up ears. He just stared at me just like I was staring inside myself, just like I had sat on the cold pre-dawn morning staring at the frozen tree just beyond the apartment building. “Oh Bunn, what is the answer?”
I got up, put the black sweatshirt back on, and turned off the light. No answers. Never any real answers. Just a lot of dreams and perfectly rehearsed phrases from the psalms. Just another walk out onto the porch to stare at the frozen tree, another thought frozen in space, another God who probably cares…but who knows.
Yes, that is what it is like to be God’s Denim Daughter, to be blue collar human, to read Words that have monumental power for only a monumental moment. Then the see-saw of reality settles in, the houseplants die for lack of water, the dishes collect mold for lack of washing, and the six eggs burn in the saucepan on the stove.
The see-saw of reality…
I believe…I don’t believe…
I just don’t know…But oh how I hope…But oh how I pray…
That You are listening, Father God…
That You care, Father God…
That despite the ups and downs of this life…my life…You still love me…That You will always love me…Because life as I know it here would be unbearable if You did not!
“But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.”
Oh Jesus, Your grace abounds in me every time I doubt and fret, for you Love and Care regardless. Oh Lord, may I not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.
I curled up in a ball in the Bunn’s room, on the floor, with my black sweatshirt tucked under my head for a pillow, and I cried out to Him with hot black ash tears. “I don’t know how to get from here to there, Lord. I don’t know how to live like You want me to, like You showed me, like I had always imagined. Help me! Please please help me!” 
The see-saw of reality…