After Long Furlough

There are many ways to start this, except that for perhaps the first time in the history of my blog, I don’t know where I’m taking the topic today.  I sat down to do this because I haven’t in over a week and the backlog just keeps piling up.  The topic I was going to write about last time seems to be less pressing in light of another development in the past nine days.  Yet, I’m not sure I should take this post in that direction.  Perhaps I will give it a go and see what happens in the future.  Again, this is the choice only because it is more seasonally sensative than what I’ve been holding back on the past few weeks.

Two Sundays ago was Father’s Day.  It was a hard time for me and has been for a few years now.  I know it’s a time to recognize fathers and to show them we appreciate what they do and all that, but the only thing I have been able to think about the past three years at this time is the desire to be on the other end of the festivities of Father’s Day.  I love young kids.  I love playing with them. I love how dependent they are on adults.  I love the simple, silly, innocent things that come out of their mouths and show how their minds work. 

So on Father’s Day, Jason’s sermon was on “The Big Two” responsibilities of fathers, instruction and correction.  I was sitting next to Johnny Brunk in the front row as I always do, taking notes as I always do.  At the end of the sermon, which was very good, Jason asked all the fathers to stand.  Jason worded the instructions in such a way that if people hadn’t known it was Father’s Day, every male in the sanctuary would have stood up.  Johnny peered at me as if gauging me to see what I would do before closing his eyes and bowing his head for the prayer.  I remember thinking to myself about how badly I want to have kids one day and I stayed sitted even during the closing song just wrestling with all that those thoughts bring up.  Of course, for me to have kids now would be to put the buggy in front of the horses, as anyone can gather.  I wrestled for a while and went about the rest of the day, probably visibly withdrawn.

Then, this Thursday, I went to do some drywalling at the church before and during Worship practice.  The four year old C was there half unsupervised.  He’s a frequent play buddy of  mine and tore me away from my tedious work with joint compound to throw a ball backa nd forth. Next, we ran around the sanctuary as all young children do. We played basketball with the ball we’d been throwing and then weent into the nursery to eventually play baseball with the stand from a toddler’s colored ring toy as a bat.  To put it bluntly, I had a great amount of fun and so did he.  It is these moments that are so bittersweet for me right now, because of that “not yet” aspect.

Obviously, the “not yet” is because I’m still single, or just simply single.  yet, I was also reminded of that fact this past week.  A friend from church that I graduated with got married Saturday afternoon.  We’d been in the same college class our first semester before the experiences spiraled us into different spheres.  Still, another person I grew up with was married, joining quite a handful of couples.  I have always felt out of place at big weddings and funerals and similar gatherings, like a fish out of water.  I am a introvert, only recently outgoing enough to start a conversation with my friends, much less strangers, yet in a gathering of this kind, there were far more people that I didn’t know than there were that I did. This contributes to my awkward, uncomfortable, reserved moods at these events.  In light of the previous week, my struggle just below the surface raged on.

After the reception, I went to church to finish the drywalling I’d done.  About 6 o’clock, the Yost’s came to church to set up their sunday school class.  J and A wanted to “help” me with some sanding I was doing.  I told them it wouldn’t be the best idea, since they were still all dressed up from the wedding.  Nevertheless, J took the sanding block and began to rub it across the spot of mud I’d been working on all week.  A noticed I had a length of tape wrapped around my thumb and asked me what I’d done.  I told her about an incident the afternoon before at work where I’d been careless with a razorblade. She wanted to see it and I offered to show her the cut on sunday because I didn’t want to get drywall dust in it.  That was acceptable and within a few minutes, the Yost’s had left me to my work.

Redundancy rings bells in my head, as it did with Storms and my dream about snakes.  In this time, all I can do is cling to 2 Tim 1:12b;  “For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to Hm until that Day.” Now, to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen.