…or I’d never do any housework at all!
An editing client is coming by this afternoon to pick up their work and I suddenly find myself strongly motivated to clean up my unconscionably messy office. But if a cluttered desk indicates a cluttered mind, what does an empty desk mean? No time to figure that out right now – I gotta hide my bedroom slippers.
Much has happened since my last post. Turns out a few days after I was removed from the promotional venture I spoke about – at my own rather desperate request – I received an urgent phone call from our church organist who informed me that our minister’s husband was dying, and since she didn’t want to leave the bedside, could I take the Sunday service. This was late Saturday morning. Normally I would have deferred to one of the two other ministers in our congregation, but neither could be reached. So, I said yes.
Consider the timing – I’d already written all six of my summer sermons and was in the process of editing each one, running it off and printing up the bulletins. I wanted to get this all completed by mid-March so I could put all thoughts of preaching aside for a while and concentrate on the new manuscript. All I had to do was pull out one of the two sermons already run off, read through it a few times, send up some emergency prayers for help and inspiration and I was good to go. I told the mister never to make fun of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies again, cuz you never know when they’ll come in handy!
Now the really interesting part – as the time drew closer, I found myself growing calmer. What? Usually I’m cycling up to the frenzied stage by the time I have to take the pulpit. But not this time. And as the service goes on, because I have to expend so much energy in leading worship and singing, I find I have very little energy left for preaching. It is my lowest ebb in the service – something I struggle with. But this time, mercy! I felt stronger and stronger as the sermon progressed. It was a rare moment of grace. One instant when I knew, maybe for the first time, that I was standing in the will of God.
Almost immediately after the service, all my energy drained away and I spent the rest of the day on the couch, exhausted but blessed. So blessed! And if I had not gotten things straightened out with that promotional thing, I don’t think I could have done any of this with a good conscience, and oh! what a loss that would have been.
Well, some dust bunnies are giving me the evil eye. Back to work for me.
