brenda’s thoughts, watch out I’m Christian

What can I say?

It is done.

Besides the old lady who didn’t understand the questions being asked her I was the calmest one in there and the only one without an attorney.

It reminds me of a story my mom told me about a woman at the funeral of her husband. Mom said the woman was hysterical and throwing herself at the coffin, which breaks my heart to hear. My mom’s outlook was, “I guess they didn’t know about heaven.”

I guess today I knew, and maybe no one else did, that no matter what happens I’m in God’s hands.

I missed the sunset but walked the dirt road in the dimming light anyway. We’ve had several hard rains so the swamps are full and puddles try to stretch across the roads.

At the end of the road is a gate with four NO TRESSPASSING signs hung on it. The river is just past the gate. I cannot see the river but I can hear it. I t calls to me. Like a lover that I have not yet married I desire it anyway. Foolishly and excitedly I climb over the gate.

Once over I follow the sound down a dark lane. An owl screams that it’s awake. Coyotes howl and whine like small dogs tangled in barbed wire.

The river is high. I stare at it. Something swims quickly downstream. I cannot see what it is. The moonlight reflecting off the surface of the water dilates my eyes. For a minute, when I turn back toward the lane, I cannot see.

I’m back over the gate and night has settled. The road through the swamp, usually enchanting has become ominous. An animal jumps in the water as I approach. I smile but my pace hastens a little. The water on either side of me is dark and moving. All of a sudden, way too large of a splash to my right sends my heart racing. My chest aches and my arm tingles. I am walking as fast as flip flops allow.

Finally I am off the swamp road and back on solider ground. My heart slows. I relax. A brown mouse skitters by my feet. The owl screams. The coyotes whine.

By the time I reach the car I am using my cell phone to see and the frogs and crickets are deafening.

Cushioned seats, air conditioning and headlights! If I had had the foresight to bring a cold water bottle it would be perfect.

Why did I come out here tonight anyway?

I’m swimming in a sea of lesson plans and un-graded papers. There is no land in sight. I’ve traveled these waters many times and though they always seem overwhelming I always make it to the shallows if I just keep swimming.

I am suddenly reminded of an incident from my childhood. We had an above ground swimming pool in our backyard and the neighborhood kids were always at our house. I spent most of my waking moments in that pool and became a very good swimmer because of it.

One year my father bought an inflatable canoe. We, of course, threw it in the pool. We were deep in the middle of a wonderful game of ‘king of the raft’ when, as I got pushed off, my foot got tangled in the ropes around the sides of the canoe. I was caught. My foot was tied to the boat. I was under the boat. The boat was surrounded by lots of jumping and screaming children.

I distinctly remember trying to swim up and being blocked. Trying to get their attention and not being noticed. I punched and clawed and pinched and swam and kicked and hit. Then my strength left me and I drifted to the bottom. I felt the seam of the pool’s lining against my shoulder. I was still holding my breath. I could see the watery, blue figures all around me. I closed my eyes.

Then I was grabbed and lifted. The air was sweet to my lungs but I could not move as I lay in my mother’s arms.

Sometimes, often times, I find myself in the same position, unable to move and out of breath just resting in my heavenly father’s arms.

It’s an August morning in Georgia and my skin is sticky within moments of setting foot outdoors. Deer flies, which have lately left me alone, make up for it by leaving three welts on one arm within minutes. Still I persevere.

Again I startle the same heron and egret as they wade through the tall green grass. Carefully I duck under webs where sleeping spiders wait. Dragon flies land in my hair. Large fish stuck in receding marshy ponds take no notice of me as I stare down at them. Clams, as big as my hand, slowly withdraw into their shells, when I reach down into the cool water to pick them up. I feel like a wood sprite.

I usually have my Bible in the car with me when I go out to the woods. I also listen to Christian radio while I’m driving out there. The woods are my haven, my sanctuary, my heaven.

The fella on the radio is saying that in Psalms 84 the writer wants to be with God so much that he is jealous of the birds that nest in the roof of the church. I can understand that.

Sometimes when I’m on a spiritual high I don’t want to go out in to the ugly world when I’ve been bathing in God’s beauty.

Other times when I just can’t take the world any more I long to go home to the father who will hold me in his loving arms and keep all sorrows away.

I understand wanting to go to God now and stay with him forever .

It’s ironic that as I’m sitting in my camper/home reading Exodus 15:1-22 before going to bed (which is where Mosses and the Israelites sang praises to God for delivering them from Pharaoh’s army) that I am also keeping a weather/worried eye out for a large roach which I swatted but got away. It’s ironic because I’m always so disgusted and awestruck by the Israelites inability to trust God to deliver them, but here I sit needing to see the bug dead rather than trust God that it won’t crawl across me while I sleep. We can and should take even the smallest most ridiculous things to God because it only strengthens our relationship with him.

Ah, life in camper…Remember the Ugandan children! One pesky bug is nothing in comparison.

Thank you God for air conditioning that’s works, new toenail polish, my NIV study Bible and friends who take me out for coffee late at night.