If it could be knocked over, it was, breaking as it went.
If it could cause even the slightest trigger for a meltdown, it did, the smaller the issue, the larger the meltdown.
If it could be asked a million times, it was, despite being answered a million times.
If it could be repeated like a broken record, it was, stuck on the same groove, both from their mouths and my own, as entreaties and rebukes were unheeded.
And if it could break, it did, at the worst moment.
Full of dirty water and even dirtier clothes, with the cloth diaper pail waiting it's turn, the washer breathed out it's last breath yesterday. Expecting it to happen, with hints of a final coupe for the past three weeks, didn't make it any easier. Without a dryer and no clothesline (yet) it is essential to do 2 loads of laundry a day, and at a consistent time each day, or the stream-lined system gets backed up.
We're backed up and then some.
Valuable time for writing and school and keeping house and spending time with children was spent instead, googling broken washing machines and then, pushing, pulling, banging, and prying the thing apart. The energy exerted yielded nothing more than a washer in pieces in my bathroom.
Handsome has promised he won't come home without a new-to-us one tonight. Frustrated we have to spend the money, yet agerly anticipating what he will make materialize for us, the laundromat must be visited in the meantime. The diapers are now one day overdue of a washing.
For those that don't cloth diaper, trust me, this is a crisis in itself.
(Unless you don't have Type A, OCD tendencies that cares about pure, clean smelling diapers that didn't have time for stink to settle into the fabric, in which case there would be nothing to worry about.)
The chaos and disorganization of our surroundings became a bit too much yesterday too. I spent the remainder of my interrupted day, obsessively cleaning the areas I could get to. Murphy's oil soap used to make wood shine. Organizing toys in their crammed space. Cleaning kitchen cupboards. Somehow really clean, made it feel a bit more doable, this jumbled, piled one room living situation.
Doable but not enjoyable.
Venturing out into the being-renovated space and I hastily withdrew. It has become Handsome's dumping ground. His ticket to disorganization because it's the no-man's land I rarely go into. It was too much to take in at quick glance.
Anger then hopelessness. "It's a disaster. We'll never live in a finished house and I'll always be in disorganized chaos. And we'll never be able to bring our heart children home! :*( "
This burden was an umbrella over everything else as the hours wore one. "Am I not wanted in this new direction? Have I offended? Have I done something wrong? Where do I fit?" The questions whirled round and round, dancing with the washing machine dilemma. Several times found me on my knees, asking the One Who knows the answers to all questions to speak to my heart.
He reminded again, it's not about me or what I want or what I think I should do. It's about Him, about what He wants, what He thinks I should do for Him.
The truth of this had to duke it out with the human emotions of insecurity and rejection.
Waiting up for Handsome and I vented before falling asleep. Only to be woken around 11 or midnight to the news that a young man --father to a 2 year old, who's Mama I have mentored for years and is a little sister to me -- who has been missing for one and a half weeks was found.
Dead. In the bay where he and his family had been vacationing.
If I thought my world was rocked by the preceding hours it wasn't.
It was now.
I kept seeing his body in the water, hours into the early morning, unable to sleep. Wondering how his 2 year old would understand where Daddy was and what her Mama was going through.
How does one process news like this? How does the heart grasp the horror of a death so very wrong?
Comfort came in Romans 8 this a.m.
When life is lived in accordance with the Spirit, the mind is set on what the Spirit desires.
Not fixed washing machines or an identity recognized by man but refined gold that reflects Him, praise the overflows even when everything is wrong, and peace the doesn't depend on surroundings or circumstances.
His will, His way.
His way hurts.
Sometimes.
Not always.
But often.
Daily irritations that crawl beneath the shell created by self, sidelined into obscurity, frustrations that no amount of control can fix, and heartaches too big to be carried alone. All of it, accomplishing all that the Spirit desires.
While it accomplishes, He intercedes. His prayers rise for the frail heart that feels it's too much. With groans beyond utterance.
He groans for us. For me. My groans echo within His groans, yet the groans are pale in comparison.
Mine are groans of sinful self-pity and annoyance and broken human tears.
His are groans of longing to see my purity and sanctification. For me to get it. To pass the tests when they come, with joy that He knows best.
And when it has nothing to do with what He did, but it's just life happening
(for life causes broken washing machines and drowned twenty-two year olds, not God)
He groans because He can see the good that will come out of the bleak and bad but He knows my eyes are blind to it, scaled over by humanity that cannot yet see the eternal.
"For our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us."
Yesterday with all it's horrible, no-good, wrongness?
It's the catalyst for the glory yet to be revealed.
In me.
Because of Him.
