It is a March evening in Minnesota: the lingering light surprises me still, only a few weeks since Daylight Savings reset our clocks. 7 pm, and the windshields of the cars that line our street still wink up the last glow of day. As the sun sinks, the room I most enjoy is the kitchen, which faces west and soaks up the sunset.
And it is Friday: a good one, although not THE Good One...that's next week. Friday means more to me now that I no longer work weekends. Two days out of seven to spend as I please! What luxury.
Tonight Friday has meant preparation, which is a favorite form of work for me, since in this particular instance it means very little actual labor. I just sat at the dining room table with my french press pot and a plate of french toast and bananas and did some planning for tomorrow: research into when my local farmer's market opens, a few tasks related to the church bulletin, and the composition of a mighty spring cleaning to-do list. Then some garden daydreaming as I looked ahead to spring's arrival. Also some brainstorming about the impending visit of my family in just a week: sights to see, food to prepare, beds to magic into existence. (See also the aforementioned mighty spring cleaning to-do list.)
As I anticipated their arrival, I spent a few moments trying to conjure up how my new home and hometown will appear to them during their stay.
It has been three months since I changed my last name and moved into my husband's home--now my home!--in Minnesota. Part of me protests that surely it cannot have been three months already. How new and fresh everything still feels! Another part of me drowsily smiles that it has surely been much longer than that. How comfortable I am, how natural it is to be here! Perhaps that is what the honeymoon period means: the excitement and security of sharing a fresh start with someone who is also strangely new to you, and yet who feels familiar enough and is dear enough to make any new place feel like home. At any rate, that is what it means to me.
With one out of four seasons of my first year of marriage behind me (at least I trust that it is behind me: the calendar says spring has arrived and there is the matter of the daylight, even though my morning walks with Janie over icy snow-banked sidewalks remain treacherous indeed), I am peering into the season ahead, the goals I hope to accomplish, goals that would've surprised me years ago.
Aspirations to better stewardship: to gardening enough to bring a significant portion of our own food to the table this summer and autumn (and perhaps even winter, if I dream big), and to seeking out quality foods that will not burden the world in which I live, but will promote ecological and personal health. This topic, which meant so little to me that I rarely gave it a first thought, let alone a second, is now one that increasingly stirs my conscience and imagination as I learn more through online courses and personal readings. Such stirrings are at times uncomfortable, but they also gladden me: they remind me of all the good work before me, the myriad ways that I can quietly do my part to thank and serve my Creator God. That blend of excitement and security again: the newness of learning about this world and feeling called to act on this knowledge, while at the same time resting in the assurance that He controls all things, that He is the Provider as well as the Creator. Active faith and passive faith.
Then there are domestic aspirations, particularly in the culinary realm. My limping efforts in the kitchen (which have been complicated of late by my turmoil regarding the groceries we consume) daily remind me of how very much I have yet to learn.
And there is my work with vulnerable adults, which gives me such joy and satisfaction, and also ample room to grow!
Along with all these good things, I aspire to deeper relationships here in this new home. Relationships that are true and pure and have the radiance of God's love saturating their every demonstration. I aspire to a generosity that invites all to the table to taste and see that the Lord is good indeed: a hospitality of heart as well as home. To faithfulness in all these enormous little things.
I have work to do, praise God. But now it is dark, and the day is done, and I am ready to lift my soul to heaven for an evening blessing, and rest awhile.
