In the mornings, when I’ve just woken up, and the place under my eyes is darker than I’d like, and pieces of my hair are sticking straight out of my birds-nest-of-a-bun, and my teeth need brushed again, and my face needs washed again, there I most richly have found Jesus.
It’s been two months of sleeping in this old wooden bunk bed, unconventionally tucked to the side wall of our little white kitchen. The bed planks underneath my mattress have over time moved around to hold my back specially; it’s a wanna-be-sleep-number-bed-sorta-good if you ask me.
There’s usually tee shirts hanging on the end of the frame, because I lost my towel months ago and have been using my clothes as a makeshift hair-turban to dry my hair. At home I fell asleep to the hum of a fan, but here I’ve drifted off to the sound of our clinking refrigerator. I awkwardly like it better, because most things associated with food are comforting, and when our power went out weeks ago and the refrigerator fell deathly silent for a few nights, I had a hard time sleeping.
The two small tables in my kitchen/bedroom are nearly always covered with the remains of rushed cereal fiascos from the mornings before ministry, trails of happy feasting ants, and random sets of brushes, and paints straying from my art supplies collection that I forgot to properly tuck behind the curtain again. We deep clean as a team almost once a week, and then we nag one another about who should be cleaning the other 6 days, but when there’s many different ideas of what “clean” really means, you pray often about things like grace.
Every morning, light streams through the rooms glass door much earlier than I’d like, and my eyes slowly peep open to see those golden rays cascading over the bug-infested, crumb-dusted floor. With subtleness, and intensity, I feel uncovered by these mornings. It’s as if God’s drawn close while I slept, and peeled back every grimy layer of makeup, and flattery, and false identity, and breathed wholeness into something discombobulated and weird.
I’ve been reading my Bible before the day begins, as I lay there taking in the first hours of dawn, all nuzzled into the warmth of my well-worn sleeping-bag. When I started this rhythm, I expected every hearty word written to be my bread for that day, but what I’m growing to love isn’t the profoundness of the words – though the words are deeply full – but I’m more so just loving the voice of The One reading to me.
For all the times that I begged for hope amidst my piles of dirty dishes, and unkept kitchen counters, and strung-out-mosquito-bite-tainted-sleep, his voice has been what penetrates through the grime. His voice is my bread, and my everything, and the unraveling, and end of every fake thing I dreamt of before I first heard. His voice is the fullness of mysteries like love, and music, and oceans, and peace. His voice cradles sorrow and suffering. His voice is the voice of a husband, first embracing his wife in her stark natural beauty.
I need not try to contribute to the graces of this morning by reaching for my cellphone, or buzzing on about to-do lists to be completed, and step by step instructions to go over for cleaning up messes, and loving through messes, and breathing amidst messes. For now, I’m exceedingly content to sink back into the curve of these bed boards, to just be, and know my husband’s voice. His voice is what I need before I’ve even begun, and what I can always awake to, vulnerable and exposed.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. – Psalm 90:14
