More like the Master.....

Life is just so…..daily.

It begins.

A fight with the old.

Nothing new here.

And the older kids get their school work done and I try to distinguish between a “P” sound and “B” sound to third son and tutor second daughter while she attempts another letter “M.”

And I sigh.

And kids come to play from down the street and I lose my temper while snowballs fly and catch myself telling them that for goodness sake if they cannot find something productive to do the neighbors are going to have to go home. And with a turn of the heel I am inside stoking the fire and feeling bad that I will be the bad Mom on the block from now until eternity.

And we run out of diapers and she should be beginning potty training but diapers are easier.

Sorta.

And I feel it coming on.

Again?

Again.

And I am nervous and anxious and beyond tired today.

And one cries because the “M” is not happening and I am ready for the rapture to start happening and I see one of the kids devotional books and read the word “Maranatha.”

“Christ is coming.”

And for a minute I breathe and feel solid and overjoyed at the thought.

My life is all about His work. His coming.

And I fold laundry.

Joel knows me.

He sends me upstairs to rest until we leave to take the kids to AWANA and grab a short coffee date.

We head to AWANA and I am short in the van and feel too sick and anxious for coffee and can I just go home because I am a mess and leaving mess every where I go.

The kids are in bed and I am on the couch and Joel brings me my contact case and offers to make me tea for the sore throat that makes me scrunch up my nose while scanning my email.

I mumble something about any kind that doesn’t have caffeine and he brings me a cup of steaming peppermint with a broken candy cane sticking out of it.

And I melt along with the candy.

And I crouch by the fire in the otherwise dark kitchen.

Everything still including me.

Finally.

And I remember.

I remember something I read this morning about Amy Carmichael from the book, “The Promise” by Robert J. Morgan.

Amy took some children to see a goldsmith refine gold.

“He was sitting by a charcoal fire and had made a small crucible from two roofing tiles. Into the crucible he placed a gold nugget surrounded by salt, tamarind fruit, and burned brick dust. Every now and then he would take it out, let the gold cool a little, rub it between his fingers, then place it back in the flame and blow the fire hotter than before.

It could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now,” he explained to her children.

Finally Amy asked, “How will you know when the gold is purified?”

The refiner answered, “When I can see my face in it, it is pure.”

And I watch the logs burn and the words burn in my heart.

The aches, the discomforts of life are purifying me.

And it will come and I will be in the fire and He will take me out and let me rest for a while.

Before heating me again.

And again.

Each time knowing what I can and cannot handle.

And he will do this until He sees His face.

Until He sees His image reflected in me.

To the neighbors.

To my homeschoolers.

To my Husband.

Tonight I love Mono.

I love it because it is making me into the image of Christ.