Sabbath

Another not-so-well-known Van Gogh painting, "Sabbath Rest". (I did a Google search for images using the word, Sabbath, and that got me interesting results usually beginning with "Black", so I added the word rest). We still have a man living with us until he finds more permanent digs, and it's been the battle of the blow up mattresses, which has sort of become a metaphor for life these days. The first mattress I put in the room he's staying it lasted for about three weeks and sprung a seam leak. He was afraid to say anything, but it was hard not to notice a flat mattress in the room in the morning for no particular reason, and the sound of the air gun to blow it up at all hours. So during my recovery from the plague, I ran to Penney's and picked up a single chamber, outdoor camping style thing. It sprung a pinhole leak in less than two weeks and the same routine happened again. So yesterday between classes I picked up a small double decker with a pillow form on top. Ok. We shall see how long this lasts!

There is something rather sad about a slowly deflating mattress. The inability to change the situation and the general ease of making it much worse, the small sssssss of air leading to a corresponding loss of comfort that will not end until you're on wooden floor planks. And there is nothing that can be done to stave off the floor. Eric, my husband and I got a good laugh out of such an irritating thing and we all agreed, we are sort of all on life's mattress with the circumstances going ssssss out from under us. Eric is working 12-16 hours every day at a waste management plant. How he does this I do not know, and his wage is so low in comparison to the effort he puts forth it's ridiculous...my husband is back down to himself as his own employee, which means weekends and 12 hour days until the volume goes back up, whenever that may be. I am running. All the time. Running to class to get skills for a decent job, running my kid to work, to school, to whatever, ministry responsibilities....sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

We cannot do anything about the pressure of living. We all know we are where God wants us. All of us cannot leave the situations we are in without something serious falling to the wayside. We can do something about the ssssssssssss. Sabbath is the literal emotional, spiritual and physical mattress that maintains the comfort of the soul. A friend is combining a motorcycle trip of a lifetime out West with other responsibilities. There has to be, within a day, a week, a lifetime, times that simply bolster and restore the soul, that cause rest. If that does not happen, we're on wooden planks without a fill kit.