October Through the iPhone

October was big for us, but I’m not exactly sure how just yet. Things have been unsure and unstable – in my heart at least – but we’re moving again and the horizon is starting to take shape.

All month we’ve been talking and praying, and God has been speaking, and peace has been creeping back into my soul. I wasn’t sure how – I wasn’t really completely aware of it – until I started dumping photos last weekend. Watching them flick by, from my phone to my iPhoto, I scanned for a theme and was almost disappointed when I started to notice a trend.

Work

How completely uninspiring is that? October was about … work?

But there it is, because, look – eight years of marriage is work, friends. Walking on a sandy playground? Also pretty hard work. Ministry is sometimes more work than I’d like it to be. Gardening is work. I started some new work with an old friend this month, and some new friends expanded on old work with a Grand Re-Opening.

And let’s be real: It never stops. You work at work, and then you come home and work at home – laundry, dishes, and on and on. Even days off and weekend outings are work with a toddler.

There is no rest, only do.

We went to the last Trail of History in October – the end of an era for sure. You hike(d) through the park, to a valley that – for the weekend – becomes home to a sea of white canvas tents. A whole town of early American settlers, and do you know what everyone is demonstrating? Their work. There’s an ironsmith, a weaver, a woodworker, a school, and a whole pre-colonial food court.

When we’re not working, we get a kick out of – and will actually pay money for the privilege of – watching other people use their spare time to pretend to work. If you think about it.

(Oh, and this is the most casual thumbs-up ever. “Ya mom. Take another picture. So cool.”) 

But it’s good work – feeding loved ones, and facilitating discipleship, and building a family, and bringing home some proverbial bacon, and all the rest. It’s work that builds something inside of you as it takes a lot out of you.

It’s the day to day that feels so mundane and so ordinary and so unspectacular.

But it’s the day to day where artists and professionals and masters are made. It’s the work that you do because somebody has to, because it’s been entrusted to you, that creates more than a final report or a finished meal or a better relationship. It’s in the diligence and the faithfulness of that daily offering that we become who we were designed to be.

There are sabbaths and seasons of rest built into the glorious grind. There are times to be still and know.

But maybe I’m learning how – as we grow, and seasons change, and life throws curve balls – to carry that stillness into the busyness. How a peaceful spirit is not at odds with busy hands and a racing mind, or even a bold uncertainty. How to put my hand to the plow, even when I’m not sure what is going to be planted.

Because what is required of me, but that I do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God?

And if it turns out that I am rowing toward the wrong horizon, I will be a little humbler, a little more in need of Him, and I will have left a wake of justice and mercy behind me.