There’s yellow beeswax burning to my left.
It’s a small votive, in a rounded glass pot, with a single flame blazing.
I’m told that beeswax, all yellow and non suety, and honey-scented…purifies the air. It clears out, and it rings in all kinds of calm, and that’s why it’s here. My home and heart need that.
The husband just reversed out of the driveway to begin his ministry day. He’s meeting with all manner of people – over meals, over multiple cups of poured coffee, over open scripts. Some in crisis, some in problems, some wanting to find God again, some just in sweet camaraderie. And he loves this. All extroverted and serious about salvation and sanctification – he loves getting eye-to-eye and heart to heart with anyone who longs for more out of life.
Even me. And he does it often….his ministry and his walk starting right here at the hearth, his wife being his most frequent ministry recipient. Bless him.
My oldest boy, my dawn rooster, he has already risen. He is laying on my bed behind me, reading a Little House book – all lost in the green farm country he longs for. The younger two, thankfully, are allowing me some typing time here – still burrowed under blankets catching z’s.
As usual, the window is in its upright position, allowing all the songs of the suburban morning to blow in. I hear a winged thing welcoming the world to a new day, probably a red cardinal my son is saying, that lives on the cul-de-sac out front. There’s a dog barking, wanting back in from it’s bathroom break. There’s the hum of the nearby highway – all those folks finding their way to a paycheck.
The house is still dark, but for the window letting daybreak seep through and the flamed, ignited beeswax.
I’m sitting here thinking about what Monday morning felt like in Oxford, England. The cloud cover that’s hanging low outside is taking me there, I think. We felt somewhat out of place in that town of scholars on a school day, but we busted out of the bed-and-breakfast early and found ourselves an Anglican church, to receive communion. It reminded us no matter where we are on the map, we’re bought and sealed. And after we stepped down the famous steps of that cathedral into the courtyard and out to the sidewalk… the sun had pushed through clouds to shine bright on us that English day.
I’m hoping the sun decides to do the same in the next few ours.
I’m a far cry from Europe today. And that’s okay. The daily grind is good….a gift. I’m going to do my best to treat it as such as I start the week. Lord, help me. Contentment doesn’t come easy to restless hearts like mine. Remind me, God.
My beeswax candle is a few centimeters lower than it was when I started pushing keys in the dark quiet this morning.
The youngest has emerged from his den and is repeatedly saying my name as I type these words – wanting milk and breakfast.
A gift, God. Keep telling me this.
The oldest has pulled out the leaflet from my nightstand and is drawing an underground railway – a subway coming to life on paper.
And that middle girl, she just peeked her blonde head around the corner to give me her morning embrace.
They didn’t find me finding Him this morning in open scriptures and bended knees. That will hopefully come in a quiet stolen moment later in the day. But they did find me seeking Him through the thing I feel called to here. And that’s a fine thing for a child to see, too.
I’m blowing out the beeswax. Breakfast is up now, friends.