As the scent of ylang-ylang dissipated in our bathroom this morning, I set the shower spray back in its place and laughed. I was remembering Jason’s and my first fight not a few weeks into our marriage.

“I just think you’re using too much,” I told him one morning as he set down the bottle of ylang-ylang shower spray.

“Babe, seriously, how expensive is this stuff?”

“That’s not the point. I just think you’re spraying too much. It’s wasteful.”

“I just don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

We went round and round about the shower spray until silence overtook our weary argument.

And now, three years later, three years into this marriage thing, I can’t help thinking about all the love we’ve laid as our foundation since then. All the times we’ve laughed together, danced alone, cried with each other, and dreamed one another’s dreams. At the same time, I also can’t help seeing all the petty fights and hearing all the words I wish I’d never said. But I suppose when it all comes down, so many of Jason’s and my disagreements are about something deeper than whatever surfacy thing gets our blood hot. It’s about our need for compromise. For communication. For humility. For love. Words we keep learning and steeping ourselves in.

Tiffs are gonna happen. We’re both gonna keep saying stupid things that frustrate one another. And as rookies at this covenant stuff, we still have decades of unfinished business where love is concerned. Because we are unfinished.

But then there’s the hour-long conversation over dirty dishes and cold chicken. There’s our out-loud laughter in the quiet library. There’s a sweet baby boy on the way, the evidence of our overflowing love. And I just can’t imagine that there’s anyone else in the world with whom I’d rather grow and learn. No one else with whom I’d rather journey and fall down and get up again. No one else with whom I’d rather fight over shower spray.

(And, for what it’s worth, Jason was right about the shower spray all along.)

Happy Anniversary, my most beloved.

The cardinal outside my window made me think of Gram this morning. If she were sitting here, she would have seen it, too. Would have heard it chirruping and warbling. Would have watched it for a long time, caught up in some thought or prayer.

It would be her birthday tomorrow and, though I may not remember how old she would have been, I remember the important things. Like that Christmas Eve I spent the night at her house.

After we made peanut butter cookies with criss-cross fork marks and a Hershey’s kiss in the center, we spread peanut butter on pine cones and rolled the sticky cones in bird seed. Then we hung our little craft project from her tree just outside the kitchen window and watched for the cardinals. They came all afternoon, bright crimson against the pristine snow.

Gram sang like a bird, too. Her own lilting song filling the house as she hit soprano notes in a steady vibrato that made anyone in hearing distance smile. Her laugh sounded that way, too. A lovely strain of tweets and trills.

I remember so many things about Gram. The way she always smelled of Freedent gum and dime store perfume. The way she ate a triangle-cut, white-bread-and-ham sandwich always with her pinky finger properly held aloft, her long lovely nails making her dainty mannerism all the more elegant. But today I linger on the way she loved birds. And how I can almost hear her singing along with the cardinal at my window.

Or maybe that’s just some memory of her laughter I hear.

I caught a glimpse of myself – my 24-weeks-pregnant self – in the mirror this morning while getting ready. And I started crying.

Because it is beautiful.

The curves.

The ever-growing bulge.

The soft cocoon that is housing my most precious gift.

It is beautiful, this place where he lives and breathes, where his heart beats and legs kick.

Yes, I love my pregnant belly. How could I not love this place that is home and haven to my sweet baby?

A friendly tip for fellow Type-A List-Makers:

Save one to-do list. (I know this goes against the very great pleasure you take in admiring your fully crossed-off list or transferring undone items to a new list, and, finally, throwing the beastly list away at the end of the day . . . do it anyway.)

Then look back at it in a month. All the details done and undone.

Remember how keyed up you were about that pile of laundry or that mail-in rebate or the gift for your husband’s step-brother’s step-daughter or making that appointment?

Thirty days, five laundry cycles, and a dozen appointments removed, all those scribbled-off to-dos from January don’t seem so important, do they?

It was time for Eucharist. And as we sang, “Hosanna in the highest” in preparation, dozens of children scrambled into the sanctuary to find their parents. We knelt and prayed; it was surprisingly quiet. You could have heard a pin drop while the priest broke the Bread. The remaining moments were filled with a melodic rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer.”

But then, just as the first row of congregants was silently directed toward the front to receive the elements, a simple cry echoed against the tall ceiling.

Daddy, the little girl called out.

The reverberation interrupted my awkward and distracted prayers for mercy, for forgiveness, for grace. The solitary exclamation reminded me of my own lone plea.

And I followed the little girl’s lead. Daddy was all I prayed, a cry bouncing off the high walls of my heart. A child, eager to be in His embrace. A daughter, desperate for His grace. And skipping up to the table He’s prepared for me.

“I promise you one thing. A lot of good will come out of this. You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. And you will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. And you will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season…”
~ Florida Gator Quarterback Tim Tebow, after loss to Ole Miss on 9.27.08

Finish well, GATORS!

I found several articles today at Google News saying most people aren’t making New Years’ resolutions for 2009. I’m not sure how the media knows what 300 million people are planning for next year, but I can concur that I, too, am not making a resolution this year.

I’ve never really made resolutions, but the difference this year is that I don’t feel guilty about my resolution-less entry into 2009.  In fact, I didn’t give one single thought to a resolution until I skimmed aforementioned Google News.

What I did decide was this: Rather than resolve to do anything, I’m going to be about listening this year. Specifically, listening to the voice that calls me Beloved. Because simply receiving my name, my deepest identity, and knowing the One who sings it over me, is far better than any of my meager, grasping, halting, nagging, and selfish intentions to be good.

…the Sunrise from on high has visited us, to shine upon we who sit in darkness & the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of wholeness & shalom.
~ Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1

By His example, He inspired us – even commissioned us – to love one another. After all, His law is love and He displayed that by bringing us the gift of wholeness, healing and health (in other words shalom – the fullness of peace).

He also breaks every chain and comes to destroy all our oppression as well as the bondage of our brothers and sisters in every corner of the earth. In fact, the mention of His very name annihilates injustice and invites freedom.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to raise my voice and sing a song of gratefulness and thanksgiving. I’ve seen this breaking of chains, this shalom, this love that He brings – and it makes every part of my being respond by ascribing worth to His Divine Name.

Does it make you want to fall down on your knees? Can you hear the angels’ celestial aria? Some distant strain from ancient places? Just at the thought of that sacred night, that blessed and peculiar night, when Christ was born? Can you believe that in all the grime of a stable and a little town called Bethlehem, it was a glorious night? A holy night?

May mercy & grace, peace & love from the very heart of God be multiplied to you this Christmas. And always.

*Inspired by O Holy Night.

Jason was taking artsy pictures of our nativity scene a couple days ago as we enjoyed a leisurely Advent morning.

“Look at this one,” he said, holding up the camera’s preview window. “I’m calling it, ‘Wiseman With a Missing Hand.’”

We laughed at the stub on the wooden figure and my smile lingered as I remembered how his hand had recently been broken off. Visions of my brother dancing around the living room, mimicking the dancers in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, came to mind. And, with one hilarious flourish of my brother’s left arm, the wiseman bringing myrrh was without a right hand.

It’s funny. Every year I’ve had this nativity set, some small piece has broken. Part of Joseph’s staff. The angel’s ‘Hallelujah’ banner. Mary’s foot. I smiled as I thought of the lost pieces and how they fractured; I smiled as I walked away from the ragamuffin nativity pieces.

The memories of the breaking better by far than any pristine presentation.

This, said Joseph to himself, is the one of whom the angel spoke. He dropped to his knees beside the manger. This was the messiah.
~ Jim Bishop, “The Holy Birth”

How humbling for Joseph to kneel before the manger of this son Mary had just birthed, a son he had no part of.

How curious that Joseph should call his earthly son King, Holy, Messiah; to know Jesus from the moment of His birth and know Him as the Son of God.

How liberating for Joseph, aware for the first time as he peered over the well-worn feeding trough, that he was beholding the One who would forgive his sin and redeem his soul.