a time to sing

We should give this hour a name, when the afternoon swells like a bruise and we all feel molasses-slow, our faces stretched into unending yawns, and still, we have work to do. I want to pour myself another cup of coffee, but I think I have consumed more than enough caffeine today, and something feels wrong about such in-your-face dependence. I can do this, I think, but really, that’s a mistake. On paper, it’s easier to see the temptations, the subtle ways I rely on myself.

I hold a sweet potato in my hand, scrubbing the skin with my fingers while water from the tap sluices over, splashing over my hands, against the bottom of the stainless steel sink. I have this one and four more to wash, plus fresh broccoli and cauliflower to steam, onions and peppers to julienne. I’ll cube the potatoes and toss them with oil and spices–paprika, cinnamon, a dash of cayenne–for roasting, and then maybe I’ll be ready to start on the meat. Always the vegetables first. And who are we, I wonder, to have such a feast of food, enough for the whole week, without wondering how, without walking miles to trade my life, without my own hands digging, my own sweat dripping into the dirt? Who am I, to have the ability to prepare it? Just that quickly, God draws me back to himself. I begin to see the tenderness of His hands cradling my own, how He’s doing this hand-over-hand, and I give thanks.

I think of David’s poetry, his overwhelmed songs, how in pain and weariness he turned to God and began to worship. David was honest. “Oh that I had the wings of a dove,” he wrote, “that I might fly away and be at rest! I would flee far away…I would hurry to my place of shelter (Psalm 55:6-8).” David dropped every kind of feeling right down before God; he wanted to run away from it all sometimes too. So, we let lament take the place of complaint. Lamenting feels like climbing a ladder out of a pit—sometimes a ladder made of other people’s arms, other people’s shoulders, always a ladder made of God, always moving me toward Him. But complaints, they only have me running in the wrong direction. With this in mind, I dial up a worship playlist on my phone and set the volume low. Almost immediately, I start to hum. I finish the washing and dry my hands on a towel, picking up a knife to cut the cauliflower. The words of God, they slice right through me, dividing the things that matter from the things that don’t, the truth from the lies. The music softens the thunk of my knife against the cutting board.

Quietly, Adam drifts away from the mind-numbing repetition of phrases—bits of songs and movies and videos he madly plays on repeat—toward the center of the room, drawn to the music. He rehearses those well-worn grooves of thought and emotion like I nurse old pain, the remnants of conversations that hurt me, the things I say to wound myself. Both of us need the break; the music cuts us free. He hovers over my phone, leaning in, and only belatedly do I see the way he looks at me, the lift of an eyebrow bent in question, the tilt of his ear toward .worship.

“You can turn the volume up if you want to,” I say by way of an answer, and Adam grins, lifting my phone to tap at the buttons on the side.

I spin around and open the cabinet to find some pots for steaming, catching a phrase and softly singing, spinning back toward the faucet and the water. David said God is enthroned on the praises of his people, and I begin to understand, because I feel a new foundation rising beneath my feet, as though suddenly I too have somewhere steady to stand and a new song in my mouth.

“Ooh, I love this song,” Riley says, and she also begins to sing, until joy erupts, and she stops mid-phrase to laugh out loud. “I love it when you dance and sing,” she says to me, dissolving, and I grin, because it seems the three of us are now climbing together, ascending a ladder of praise, scrambling over each other to safety. This, then, is what I needed, what my kids needed too, though I hadn’t known how much.

You made a way, when our backs were against the wall, and it looked as if it was over, we sing, our voices loud and dreadfully offkey, while I peel the weathered skin from the sweet potatoes in long, thin strips. The peeler could be an instrument, with its rhythmic slish. It carves a fresh, unblemished path.

“Ooh,” Adam croons, reaching to flick my ear with his fingers. I hear the laughter in his voice, too. It’s the sound of relief, as though at last, after so many wandering miles, we have all finally caught a glimpse of home.