I'm a stay at home dad on Monday. Kristen and I have it worked out so JC only goes to daycare 3 days a week. He loves it when he's there, and sometimes I wonder if he would rather be with his friends that with me on Mondays. And when I let it, being a dad can be harder than working in an office full of raging hormonal women! (you know it's true). But the truth is, there's nothing like spending the day with JC. Taking care of him is only frustrating when I am being selfish. Yeah, it's hard to take the Huskers 80 yards for an X-box touchdown when he's turning the TV off every few minutes, and I miss showering alone...but when I'm with him for him, not for me, it becomes a blessing. It's hard though...we have this game where I put him in a room, run down the hallway to hide, and jump out when he comes down the hallway. When it's about me, we do it a few times, laugh, and then I don't hide and the fun is over...but when it's about him, there's no telling how many times we'll walk the hallway. How could I not hide again, knowing how big he's smiling as he walks towards me? We played that game today until I hid and he stopped off in the kitchen for some milk.
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Life throws interesting pitches. There are a good share of changeups, curveballs, screwballs, spitballs, knuckleballs, and sinkers, all of which will blindside you if you don't see them coming. For those, you adjust or you look like a fool.
But right now, life is throwing hard fastballs. You know what's coming, and life knows you know. Life stares you in the eye as if to say, "There's no way you'll hit this. You better not even swing." And all you can do is stare back with a, "Try me."
Life hurls a heater, swing-and-a-miss. The second pitch comes faster than the first, but forget the strike zone, this one's coming in high and tight. As you pick yourself up from the dirt, you're glad to be alive. As you foul the third pitch over the third base dugout, you give the pitcher an "I dare you to throw another one" wink. The pitcher miss interprets your wink, and tries to put the ball IN your eye. Here you sit, 2-2 count, and life isn't playing games. You dig in for another fastball, because you know it's coming. It's you against life, and life isn't backing down.
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A Prayer of Moses, Man of God*
God, it seems you've been our home forever; long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,
from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"—you are God.
So don't return us to mud, saying,
"Back to where you came from!"
Patience! You've got all the time in the world—whether
a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you.
Are we no more to you than a wispy dream,
no more than a blade of grass
That springs up gloriously with the rising sun
and is cut down without a second thought?
Your anger is far and away too much for us;
we're at the end of our rope.
You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed
since we were children is entered in your books.
All we can remember is that frown on your face.
Is that all we're ever going to get?
We live for seventy years or so
(with luck we might make it to eighty),
And what do we have to show for it? Trouble.
Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.
Who can make sense of such rage,
such anger against the very ones who fear you?
Oh! Teach us to live well!
Teach us to live wisely and well!
Come back,
God—how long do we have to wait?—
and treat your servants with kindness for a change.
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
then we'll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
we've seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you're best at—
the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
*Psalm 90, The Message
