Lord, don't be mad at me or anything - I need to tell you something but don't go all Job on me and be like, "You think you have problems? I'll give you a problem." It's just that I am exhausted. David tells you his whole being is shaken with terror and I'm not scared, but I've been shaken and stirred and this isn't a recipe for a mixed drink- just some verbs to get at what it feels like to live that Proverbs 39 life. "I didn't say you had to be that woman all at once," is what I bet you're gonna say back, and that's sweet, but what I really want you to say is, "Those aren't my words, a man wrote that and I couldn't stop him because of the whole free will thing. It's been one of my more haunting inventions." And so then I'd tell you about the smashed watermelon in the grocery store parking lot - bright red and green all over the grey - and I thought, "She was holding too much. She was trying to put away too much," and isn't that such a judgmental statement? To assume what was done wrong, to tell a woman to just put something down. God, as if. But this is the day You gave us this is the day You made and as broken and smashed as it is, today, there is watermelon and it's the kind with seeds - I can see them right there on the parking lot pavement - the kind that is meant to be eaten in the backyard on a day when the sky is blue and the grass is (finally) green and we get to take and eat and see who can shoot the seeds the farthest. Why are we trying to make seedless watermelon, Lord? Do you know? There's no flavor and there's no fun in a seedless watermelon. I want the inconvenient grace of the mess So I buy a watermelon and blueberries and peaches too. The cashier holds the watermelon and says, "A lady was just in here and bought one but it dropped in the parking lot." "I know! I saw it! I parked right next to it!" I say, and I am probably too exuberant over this fact because the cashier smiles and nods and we are silent for a minute but because I can't ever let a thing go I say, "But she came back." "Huh?" the cashier says. "She came back and told you." "You know the watermelon broke," I tell her, "because she came back and told you." Lord, I am Sherlock Holmes figuring out this mystery, aren't I? "Yeah," the cashier says, "I told her to get another one; these things happen." The watermelon is the last of the groceries I take out of the car. I hold it with both hands and walk as carefully as I can but also rushing because there is so much to do and I am so very tired and I can't wait to eat this watermelon and shoot the seeds across the yard and I don't want this fruit to break and I want to believe all will be ok if it does.
Gail Grady says
Wow. Just wow. Something tells me this is just how you are feeling. Right now. Rushed.