Threads and Loose Ends

Today and tomorrow are my last days to sleep in, probably ever. E starts school on Wednesday and has to be there early, seemingly the crack of dawn (8am), and its far away. So I will begin a long year of waking up early to get her there in tact and prepared. I don't know how its going to work out, obviously only by the grace of God.

Some of you know that I tried to do 'some preschool' with E at home last year as a testing of the waters of homeschooling. I'm deeply grateful to God that I tried this out because it turns out that E and I drive each other crazy and that the chances of her learning anything at home, let alone reading, writing, arithmetic, and the love and grace of God, are very very very low. So she is very excited to go off and has clothes for it, and supplies for it, and a lunch box and can't wait. And I am grieving and wishing she weren't already 5, and digging out my books to try my experiment again with A, who seems to be a very different little person than E.

So this week everything changes for us, even as the march toward Baby # Four drives relentlessly on. I was so tired after church yesterday, Matt got in the car and looked at me and said, 'wow, you're really pregnant,' in an amused way. Wanted to hit him but didn't have the energy. Which brings me to the real reason I was going to post this morning, and that is to link his sermon, which he has helpfully posted himself on Stand Firm. I've been trying not to constantly link to SF on the assumption that all of you who read me read there first anyway, but I was planning to post his sermon and he beat me to it.

The last few weeks, as I've mentioned before, I have been moved and fed by Matt's sermons-a surprising happenstance, especially when I've read the sermon ahead of time, as I did this week. I'm posting this one because many threads came inexorably together as I was listening to him, winding themselves into the firm tight Point that it is now time, more than ever, for me to Count the Cost. I've been counting the cost in vague and disorganized way. I go about my life at church and home knowing on some level that things in the wider church are getting hotter and messier, but basically not worrying about it too much.

But yesterday as I listened to Matt I was thoroughly bowled over by reality. This isn't going to get better, right away any way. The communion stands to be unraveled. The American church is on the edge of dissolution and destruction. Good Shepherd has been and will be affected. Me, I am in this mess also. I've written these things down before, but today, somehow, they seem real.

So, we're going to clean the house seriously today. And get some groceries in. And get my mother's room ready for her. And make sure E has everything she needs. But also, today, as I do all these routine things, I'm going to seriously count the cost, and ask God to show me what is required, what I must do, how I must be, even as he judges the church and my own small heart.