Little Josephine

Her little body curled up into something smaller than a basketball that settled on my stomach, the top of her head barely reaching my chest. She did not move. I didn’t either, not wanting to break the magic of this sleepy moment. It was rare to have a moment with only one baby from the children’s home. During the day, the dozen babies, ranging from a few months to almost two years, crawled and babbled and cried over one another like a box of kittens seeking attention. But now, after supper, the other babies had been cleaned, changed and laid in bed, and Josephine dozed on my chest. She was six months old. 

By then, Josephine had been living at Noah’s Ark for three months. She and her sister were taken away from their family by the police after their mother, who was very sick,  tried to drown the girls in a pit latrine. Without any other known family able to care for them, both girls were put under the care of Noah’s Ark. This place, and this family, became their home. 

Josephine with one of her best adult friends, Auntie Joanita.

Josephine was the first Noah’s Ark baby to fall asleep in my arms. I remember softly singing to her. I remember exactly where I was sitting on the couch. Eight years ago, and that image is printed in my memory. 

Most of our relationship is fuzzier than that first memory, but there are snapshots here and there that play like a viewmaster to get us where we are today. 

I don’t remember exactly when or exactly how—probably there was nothing exact about it—but Josephine became a regular at my house when she was three years old. She and other toddlers would escape the watchful eye of their aunties and come to my house even before they had eaten breakfast. And after breakfast, and before and after lunch, and after school. At the time, I was living in the closest house to the children’s home, making it an easy escape for children who wanted to play outside of their own playground. I didn’t mind. It kept the house lively, and then I could blame the mess on people other than myself. 

Three-year-old Josephine was one of the official flower girls in our Ugandan wedding. On the day of wedding number three, she and Daisy donned matching pink-and-white dresses and silver sandals we had bought in the Netherlands, and some aunties combed their unruly hair into something uncharacteristically smooth for the occasion. They were, for lack of a more descriptive word, adorable. 

For three years after that day, Josephine asked me when Christian and I were going to get married and if she could be in the wedding. Apparently our wedding day had less of an impression on her than it did on me. 

Josephine, more than almost any child I know, yearns to be helpful. If she comes to my house and finds me washing the dishes, she asks to help. If she finds me hanging laundry, she asks to help. If she finds me cooking, she asks to help. If she finds me sitting on the couch, she asks to help, to which I ask with what I need help and she shrugs her shoulders, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 

One day she raided the dress-up box before offering to wash my shoes. It was a precious sight, a four-year-old in a tiara scrubbing my red-soiled sandals. 

Another time, Josephine disappeared in my bathroom longer than her normal business should have required. When I checked on her, she was brushing her teeth. With my toothbrush. 

Later, in a similar situation, she scrubbed my entire bathroom floor. With the toilet brush. 

Years later, she decided she was old enough that it was important to lock the door when she used the bathroom. That in itself was not a problem… and I think you can see where this is going. She may have been old enough to need bathroom privacy, but she was not yet old enough to shimmy a finicky key into unlocking. Nor was she old enough to understand our directions to remove the key and slide it under the door so we could open it from the outside. There was no other option—if we wanted to open the door, we had to remove the lock. 

We did not have a flathead screwdriver. Our neighbors did not have a flathead screwdriver. We used a butterknife. 

My first fear was that Josephine would panic and there was absolutely nothing we could do from the living room to comfort her. Now and then I shouted through the door, “Josephine, are you okay?” She shouted back a cheerful “Yes!” which led me to my second fear: that she was trapped in her preferred place of mischief and might repeat any of her past offenses or, as suited her character, come up with an entirely new way to “help” me. 

When we finally set her free from the bathroom, we hung the key so high even I can barely reach it, and it hasn’t moved since. 

Our first morning in Uganda after we returned from our American and Dutch weddings, we intended to sleep in. The flight arrived in Entebbe at 10:30 at night, followed by an hour to get out of the airport and at least two hours to drive home. We deserved a morning of rest. Or so we thought. 

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock. 

A cultural difference between Ugandans and Americans: Americans knock three times and wait for an answer. If we don’t hear one, we might knock three more times, but after no reaction we leave and try again later. 

Ugandans, on the other hand, knock. And knock. And knock. Being home and not answering the door is not an option, because if the person at the door knows you are there, they will not go away. This applies to adults and children alike. 

We tried to wait it out. 

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock. 

Lying face-to-face on our mattress on the floor, we opened our eyes just enough to glare at each other (the glare of course being meant for the person at the door) and then squeeze our eyes shut again. No one ever needed us for an emergency, and anything else could wait. We had hardly been back in the country for twelve hours. Whatever had waited the six weeks we were away could wait another hour or two.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock. 

Then silence. But not for long. 

The footsteps that disappeared off our verandah appeared a few seconds later outside our bedroom window. 

“Auntie Katie, I am here!” It was a sweet voice, even early in the morning. 

“Good morning, Josephine,” we greeted groggily from bed. 

“I am here! I am coming to the door!” Footsteps. Then again, knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock. 

It’s a good thing she is so cute. 

After that, we talked to her about waiting to visit until the curtains are open in the morning and not knocking incessantly. She is still often the first person at our house after breakfast, but at least now she waits until we are awake. 

Josephines seem to easily work their ways into my heart, because this Josephine is not the only special girl in my life by that name. “My” other Josephine is 23 years old, so we got into the habit of referring to them as Little Josephine and Big Josephine. Which one is Little and which one is Big is an ongoing and ever-changing debate, for what the younger Josephine lacks in years and height, she more than makes up for in personality and stubbornness. Drawn to each other several years ago by their common name, these two girls have formed a sister-like bond that has come to include playing, teasing, tutoring, and many gifts from and for both parties. 

For two years, Big Josephine (the actual big one) attended a school a mile up the road from Noah’s Ark. It was a boarding school and families were allowed to visit only once every few months on Visitation Day. After the first one or two visits, once Christian and I felt more comfortable with the system and what happens on such occasions, we began to bring Little Josephine along for the adventure. She would walk with us from Noah’s Ark a half mile up a dirt road to the main road, which had far too much traffic (and traffic that doesn’t stay between the lines) for a six-year-old to walk by herself. So I would hoist her onto my back and walk the next half mile with her arms around my neck and her commentary in my ears. 

When we reached the school, almost without fail, she played the typical child’s game of feigning shyness and not speaking a single word to Big Josephine for at least an hour. Big would try to play with Little, and Little would keep her mouth closed and look away. Big would offer Little food, and Little would either pretend she had not heard or take it silently. Also without fail, by the end of the visit they were best friends and Little Josephine told us she was going to stay there while we walked back home without her. When all was said and done, I can’t tell you which Josephine appreciated the reunion more. 

As I sit in the office writing the last of this post, the culprit herself has entered and silently taken up a place behind me, patiently waiting until I am finished and can give her something to do. So let me turn my attention to this girl in the flesh and see where she can best help me today. 

You Are the Mountain

Walking around these walls

I thought by now they'd fall

But you have never failed me yet

Waiting for change to come

Knowing the battle’s won

For you have never failed me yet

Eleven plastic chairs formed a disorganized circle around a metal pole in the front of the church from which a speaker hung, quietly playing an Elevation Worship album. Eleven of us sat, some with heads bowed, some with raised faces. Some sang quietly along, some listened, some prayed. Some sat with closed eyes, and some looked around at the rest of the church where people were taking communion, reading scripture, writing on the floor with chalk and sitting at tables making art for God. 

Holy chaos, it was called. Six different stations, six different avenues for meeting with God during the youth service that night. 

The fire outside had already faded to sleepy embers, but every time someone threw a folded or crumpled written prayer in the place where the fire had been, orange flames would engulf it for a few seconds, just long enough to make the paper, and the prayer, vanish up in smoke. 

Christian and I had taken communion together early in the evening. Having grown up in a Lutheran church, my first 250 communions were administered by a pastor, and only a pastor. I find something deeply intimate in now being able to give and receive communion from my husband, who I must admit is also a pastor of sorts. Kneeling together before the imposing cross in the back of the church, we laced our fingers and thanked Jesus for his sacrifice, for giving us such a horrible and beautiful gift that we get to remember in this way. I asked for forgiveness for my pride, and that Jesus would humble me before him and others. We broke the matzah, drank the juice, and vacated the mat to make space for the next worshippers to kneel before the cross. 

After visiting a few of the six stations, I pulled up a chair by the speaker as quietly as I could, so as not to interrupt the teenagers deep in their own meditation or worship. 

Your promise still stands

Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness

I’m still in your hands

This is my confidence

You’ve never failed me yet

My closed eyes welled with tears as the truth of the lyrics washed over me. I smiled as a few teenagers began to sing along, quietly but not timidly, in harmonies they had learned from leading this song in their own worship team. 

I’ve seen you move, you move the mountains

And I believe I’ll see you do it again

You made a way, where there was no way

And I believe I’ll see you do it again

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I began to pray fervently for the youth around me. “Dear God, you know things have been dry and dormant here for a long time. You know we need you, your Spirit,  your life. Revive us! Revive them—give them your life! I have seen you move them before and I see you doing it again tonight, just like you can move mountains, you can move the hearts of these teenagers, you can—“

“You are the mountain.” 

That shut me up real quick. 

God has a way with words. It’s not often that I hear something so distinct and direct from God, but when I do, he is to the point, and he is usually telling me that I am wrong. 

No, it wasn’t wrong for me to pray for the teenagers or to ask God to fill them with his Spirit. What was wrong was assuming that because they were rebellious, immature, prone-to-peer-pressure young adults, they were the ones who needed God to move them. They housed the problem that needed to be fixed. 

That’s what I get for asking God to humble me, right? 

I am the mountain. 

Good to know.

(un)comfortable

The outlets in Uganda are different. It is not enough to plug something in and expect it to work, or charge, or do whatever it is you want it to do. You need to plug it in, and you need to switch on the outlet. It is not far away or a complicated switch. Every outlet basically has a light switch attached to it that turns the outlet on and off. Simple. 

You would not believe the number of times, in my first months in Uganda, I forgot to turn on the outlet. 

I could come back ten minutes later or the next morning, only to find that my phone or laptop was dead because it never charged. It was a small thing, but on top of all the new and challenging and uncertain obstacles before me at the time, sometimes the outlets were just too much. An outlet I forgot to switch on could easily make me cry. I forgot so often because it was unfamiliar to me. It was different. 

It was uncomfortable. 

(I couldn’t decide if I should call this blog Comfortable or Uncomfortable, so the title is both.)

In time, I got used to the outlets. I almost never forget to switch it on, and when I do it doesn’t bring me to my knees feeling like a failure like it did in the beginning. In fact, now that we are in America it feels strange to be able to plug something in without flipping a switch. Funny how things like that change. 

I have come to learn that “comfortable” is a word of the affluent. I don’t mean people whose salaries are in the six digits and who send their children to private boarding schools in Europe. I mean affluent people like the average western civilization citizen, or even below average. I mean the people who make enough money to plan what to do with it, or who have the luxury of asking once in a while, “What do we want to do with this?” instead of “What do we need to do with this?” I mean the people who are affluent enough to make, in one day, more than enough money for food and shelter for their family that day. 

As I read through 2 Corinthians, one passage in particular clings to me and won’t let go: 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

Many of us have trouble relating to this passage. As Francis Chan so plainly puts it: Most of us are living comfortably already; therefore, we don’t need a comforter. 

When the Bible talks about comfort, it also talks about suffering. Being comforted is a response to something; being comfortable is a stagnant position. If there is no suffering, there is no need to be comforted, and no need for a comforter. 

The New Testament expects suffering of Christ-followers. It makes sense—just look at the experiences of the first followers of Christ: stoned, imprisoned, crucified, exiled. It wasn’t something people chose by default or out of peer pressure. The response today, when someone is asked why they follow Jesus, is sometimes, “Why not?”. Early Christians had a hundred different answers to that question: 

Because you might never see your family again. 

Because your friends might call you stupid or foolish. 

Because you will need to give away a lot of your possessions. 

Because you won’t be popular. 

Because it might physically hurt. 

Because you won’t be the one in control of your own life. 

Modern-day western Christianity has eliminated all risk. Faith has become a form of insurance, when it should be an adventure. 

Moving to Uganda was uncomfortable. Painful, in some respects. And not just because of the outlets. It meant being halfway around the world from family. It meant breaking off relationships that didn’t make sense long-distance. It meant packing up my sweet little apartment, not knowing when I would see or need some of those memory-filled keepsakes again. It meant new vaccinations. It meant learning how to hang things on my new walls (tape didn’t stick, nails didn’t go through the walls, and putty-sticky-stuff could only be found in Kampala). It meant not knowing how to hook up my gas bottle to make a cup of tea. It meant days without electricity, needing to lug my toaster to my neighbor’s verandah because that outlet worked, sitting awkwardly outside waiting for my breakfast while he slept on the other side of the wall. (That all worked out in the end. I married him and now we share electricity.) It meant being scolded for hanging my underwear outside to dry or not ironing my skirts. Very little came naturally, and very little was comfortable. 

But oh, how I needed God in that time. 

I prayed about what to do in even the most minor of situations. I prayed before every English lesson I taught, because I was terrified of teaching. I prayed before going for a run because I didn’t know the dangers that lay out of sight. I prayed after being humbly reminded not to wear my shoes inside or eat while walking, feeling a little embarrassed for my cultural mishaps. 

Over time, Uganda became more comfortable. Culture shock gave way to culture. Experience yielded confidence. I still commit regular faux pas, but less than seven years ago. 

While the difference seems good, I find myself praying less. When my own knowledge and instincts prove dependable, I find myself depending on God less. When other people tell me what to do, I find myself asking God less often what I should do. Familiarity has begun to take the place of faith. 

The thing about being a missionary by title is that on the surface, everything you do is for God. I listened to God when I picked up and moved to Africa, so now by default I am sitting in the middle of God’s will for my life, right? Because I listened that one time? 

It is dangerously easy to stop listening when you think you have already heard. 

The more comfortable I become, the less I feel my need for the Comforter. 

It almost makes me miss those confounded outlets. 

Thomas

He had round cheeks that got a little bit rounder when he smiled. I remember that. 

Four-year-old Thomas sat on a volunteer’s lap in the nursery school hut. School was out and the rest of the children had gone home. I was new to Noah’s Ark and Ineke and I were talking about… well, I don’t remember. She squeezed Thomas tight. 

“This one is special to me,” she said. “Last year when I was here, we were sitting at school just like this when he started convulsing. His eyes rolled back and it looked like he was unconscious. So I picked him up and ran with him as fast as I could to the clinic.” I think she mentioned that it was malaria, but that part is blurry to me. “But in the end he turned out fine, and he is still here with us!” 

That was the day I learned who Thomas was. 

There may have been times after that where I forgot—in the early days of volunteering, with hundreds of new faces and everyone expecting you to remember their name, and everyone shouting your name, lots of faces blend into each other—but after time, and especially after I moved to Uganda, the faces became clearer. Thomas was definitely one of those. 

I won’t pretend I did anything special. The truth is, Thomas loves volunteers. There are some children who gravitate to the volunteers and missionaries, who make themselves known and who set the stage for those people to have fun and personal stories of the children to share with friends, families and churches when they go back home. They like the attention (and the candy). 

In the beginning, I’m sure that is how our relationship started. To me, it was personal. I felt like I had done something really special to deserve his love and that surely I was the only one know, really know, this poor orphan child. 

To him, it was just another opportunity to temporarily bond with someone who could give him the attention he craved. 

I am not complaining or blaming. Just reflecting, eight years later, on how it must have been in those first months of getting to know him versus how I saw it at the time. Retrospect can be interesting. 

Toward the end of my first three months in Uganda, I read through the children’s files. I had come to know and love these children, who are all in the same situation now. But where did they come from? Each of them took a different path to get here. They don’t all have one story. 

Thomas’s story, for instance, began in August 2009. The short story says that he was found lying before someone’s gate and taken to the police station. 

The long story is exactly the same. We don’t know any more about his beginnings than that. From there, he was brought to Noah’s Ark and has been there ever since. He was estimated to be four weeks old when he came, so he was given the birthday of August 1. 

Two weeks ago, Thomas celebrated his twelfth birthday. I am so blessed to have known this goofy boy for eight of those twelve years. So blessed. 

Thomas’s second name (there are not really surnames in Uganda) is Mukwano, meaning friend. That he is, to so many. Like I already mentioned, Thomas makes friends with every volunteer who comes, wether for a few days or a few years. After the initial novelty of our relationship, a real friendship began to develop. Every single day, I would find Thomas at my door, wanting to play or read books or help with whatever I was doing—even if I was doing nothing. He loved to be with me, and I loved it too. His presence was, more often than not, hilarious. 

When Thomas was about six years old, he told me he had a girlfriend. Jaelle was her name. She was a very cute, sweet girl in his class who also lived in the children’s home. I have no idea where the boyfriend-girlfriend idea came from, but they both told me the rumor was true—they were a couple. 

A few weeks later when Thomas was playing at my house, I mentioned something about Jaelle being his girlfriend. The way he snapped his head up reminded me of when a student is excited to finally know the answer to a question posed by his teacher. 

“I KNEW that!” he said proudly. 

That was the last time I heard about him having a girlfriend. 

Thomas loves to help with chores. Every single time I am cooking when he shows up at my door, he asks if he can help. Without fail. Every. Single. Time. When he was young, I used eight tablespoons of butter in biscuits as an opportunity to teach him counting. Later, we rolled oranges on the counter to make them soft enough for orange juice and we talked about healthy food. After I got burned, I made sure he knew how to be safe when cooking with oil. We made bread, biscuits, cookies, sauce, pasta, rice, chapatis, and much more. Sometimes he has more patience for cutting vegetables than I do. 

Something amazing about this kid is that even after helping me make a whole meal, he doesn’t expect he is going to share it. Sometimes he stays and we eat together, but it is also unfair for me to invite him to eat with me every night. The moment I tell him it is time to go home for supper, he washes his hands, says thank you (a miracle, compared to most kids his age!), gathers his things and runs home. 

If there is nothing to cook, he is just as happy to wash the dishes. I’m not kidding. 

When Christian and I married, we wanted all the children to be in the wedding—that meant about fifty flower girls and fifty peg boys, which is the Ugandan boy equivalent of a flower girl. Even thought all the children would be involved, we chose a handful who were especially dear to us to be a bit more involved. Two teenage bridesmaids, two young bridesmaids, two young flower girls, and two young peg boys. We bought them matching outfits in America and the Netherlands, and Thomas walked down the aisle in front of us as we wed for the third time. 

Thomas used to come to our house every day to play. I wondered how that would change once Patricia was born and he had some competition. 

As it turned out, I was the one who had competition. 

Thomas rolled so naturally into the role of big brother I can’t imagine our family without him. He held Patricia as a baby (which was no small feat, since she was big), learned to change her diaper, read books with her, taught her to play cards (“Okay, now you put your card on the couch… no, this is the couch… not on the floor!… yes, there… look,  you won! Clap your hands!”), taught her some of her first words, and loved her better than I ever could have asked of someone. Patricia cheers when Thomas comes to the door and cries when he leaves, even though we know we are going to see him the next day. 

I remember the first time Thomas took Patricia to the playground at the children’s home without us. My eyes brimmed with tears as I stood in the doorway and watched them walk hand-in-hand, Patricia’s tiny ponytail bouncing atop her head. That was one of the first moments I really felt like she was growing up. It wasn’t all about mama and papa anymore. We had to share.

When I was pregnant with Elliot, I asked Thomas who was going to be his best friend—Patricia or the new baby. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and went back to his game. 

Thomas was one of the first people at our house the day after Elliot was born, and a few days later he was the first child we let hold our precious newborn. He did it with such care and confidence, it is obvious he grew up with babies around. 

Sometime last year, Thomas and a group of boys his age moved into their family unit. Moving into a family unit is a sort of coming-of-age mile marker in the lives of Noah’s Ark children. Instead of living in one big house with a hundred other children, with only a bed and a cubby to call their own (but to which everyone, even the toddlers, has access), all of a sudden they sleep with three or four people to a room (not eight or ten), they eat meals with their family of nine (not one hundred), they do their own dishes and wash their own clothes, and they have a few things in their possession. Most children are thrilled to hear they are next in line to enter a family unit. Thomas was no exception. 

I was another story. The children’s home is a stone’s throw away from my house. From my verandah, I could see Thomas playing on the playground outside in the mornings and he could call Patricia without even leaving his own home. In the family units, he was only twice as far away, but there was a small forest in between that inhibited me from seeing him so easily. I knew it would be different. He would be excited about his new home and would find things to do there. With one auntie for him and his brothers he wouldn’t need to visit us everyday to get individual attention. Things were going to change. 

I cried. 

I was happy for him, but I was not prepared for that change. 

Thomas no longer comes everyday, but he comes. Sometimes he takes Patricia to his family unit for lunch. Sometimes he joins us for a family outing to visit the goats at the farm. I have heard he can be stubborn at home, refusing to do chores, but at my house he still offers to wash the dishes and help cook. He listens when I rebuke him and is an undoubtedly positive influence on my two children. He turned twelve a few days after we came to the Netherlands, so we sang happy birthday via video chat and promised to have a sleepover when we come home. 

I can’t wait.

God vs Frozen Hamburger Buns

I set a timer on my phone for five minutes. The same five minutes I always do at the beginning of TAG (Time Alone with God—what most people call devotions). Clear my head, meditate on the Lord, try to quiet my thoughts enough to hear from him if he has something to tell me. Prepare myself for the rest of the hour of prayer, Bible reading, and journaling. 

Setting my phone down on the floor next to me, I glance up at the skylight. It is nine in the evening and still light, which feels like a miracle after being in Uganda, where it grows dark at seven in the evening without fail, year round. Clouds blanket this Dutch city, holding in the chill, which is why I am wearing my fleece onesie as I sit. 

Meditate. 

Be still and know that I am God.

Inhale… exhale… Father.

Inhale… exhale… Jesus.

Inhale… exhale… Spirit.

You. Are. God.

Inhale… exhale… Father.

Inhale… exhale… Jesus.

Inhale… exhale… Patricia is still awake, I can hear it. I put her in bed half an hour ago, late for her, but we were running late with everything this evening. She is reading. Well, “reading.” This afternoon she fell asleep with a book draped across her stomach, a position with which I am very familiar and proud to have seen on my two-year-old. Her voice is so sweet. What is she saying? When I told her I was going to read my Bible she also asked for her Bible, so I know she has her little cardboard Bible-counting book. 

But wait, I am still meditating. 

Inhale… exhale… Spirit. 

You. Are. God.

Inhale.. exhale… Father.

Inhale… What other stories about Thomas should I include in my half-written blog post? There are so many about him, but how many can I remember well enough to vividly recount? I wish I had had time to finish it already. What I wouldn’t give for an hour or two of silence—during the day, when I am not worn out at night—to just write. Without interruption. Without background noise. How I miss being able to concentrate. My writing has really gone downhill since having children. Something about only being able to write two consecutive sentences at a time—

Oh wait. These five minutes are for God. Get those other things out of my head. 

Inhale… exhale… Jesus.

Inhale… exhale… Spirit. It was really fun to talk with the other mom at the playground this morning. Christian said he was proud of me for striking up a conversation in Dutch with someone I didn’t know, and keeping it going without her suspecting (at least to my knowledge) that I am not from around here. Well okay, I did mention I live in Uganda so she knows I don’t live around here, but it’s still possible she thinks I am from somewhere else in the Netherlands. Funny, when most people hear that I live in Uganda they start to ask questions and be interested, but she didn’t pry into that. We just talked about our kids. Why didn’t she want to know more? 

Ugh, that is one hundred percent not the point of this time. 

You. Are. God.

Inhale… It was really fun to see Ineke and Claudia today. How refreshing to spend hours talking to people who are familiar with Noah’s Ark and Uganda and not needing to explain the basics of what we do and what the organization is. I’m so happy they could come. 

Oh, come on, Katie… 

Inhale… exhale… Father. 

Inhale… exhale… Jesus. 

Inhale… exhale… Spirit.

You. Are. God. 

Shoot, I wanted to prepare a lot of tomorrow’s cooking tonight. I could have made the potato salad tonight, even the bean burgers to put in the fridge so that tomorrow while the kids are awake I don’t need to spend my time cooking. But I also want to go to bed in time so I can wake up early to do TAG and go for a run in the morning, and I know from experience that if I don’t go to bed early enough it dashes my chances of being able to start my day in a very positive way. Then I won’t stay up late cooking tonight, but I can at least get the frozen hamburger buns out of the freezer before I go to bed. 

Oh wow. God, are you frustrated with me yet? If I were you, I would leave me alone and go listen to the prayers of all your children in Afghanistan who are running for their lives—for you. Am I really getting distracted from you by frozen hamburger buns and cookies I didn’t remember to bake? How can I let myself do that? What does that say about the place I give you? What kind of Christianity do I have compared to those in Afghanistan? 

Inhale… exhale… Father.

Inhale… exhale… Jesus. 

Inhale… exhale… Spirit.

You. Are. God.

Inhale… exhale… Father. My hands feel really dry. 

Inhale… exhale… Jesus. 

Inhale… exhale… Spirit. Patricia stopped talking. I am willing to bet she fell asleep. It makes me so happy that most nights she falls asleep without a fight. 

Agh—

You. Are. God.

Why do we need to sort the trash in the Netherlands? It is so complicated, what goes in each bin and what counts as plastic and what doesn’t, that I know they need to sort it again at the plant (or wherever it is the trash goes). Wouldn’t it be even easier to throw everything together and they can sort it all—

Timer. 

Five minutes. 

For God. 

Only maybe not.