the grip of things undone

 The undone things around this place are killing me.

Literally, suffocating me, like a vice grip around my throat.

It feels like there is not enough time to do all the things,

not enough time to do them a hastily,

and certainly not enough time to do them all well.

And a friend says to me:

“There is always time to do the will of God.”

And that sentence seems trite, and mean, and obnoxiously true, and it doesn’t match my feelings one bit. 

God doesn’t want me to do more things than I have time for, right? My mind believes this but my feelings absolutely do not.  Why is this? What pressures are on me and where are they coming from?  And how do I set them down? 

What if “God’s will for this day” actually FITS into this day? What if it includes doing some but not all of the possible things, and what if that is OK? 

If that’s true, then maybe it’s ok to just steadily work through the day one thing at a time; to set aside frenzy and panic, and to chip away as the day allows

and then take the pile of undone things at the end of the day and commend them to him… like some kind of lenten offering?

It seems so backwards to “offer” such things;

not my shiny finished things but the things that have fallen off the list,
the things that nag me, the things I would do if I were actually a machine and never ever needed food or rest; the way life would be if I had no limitations, if I was more than human.

What could that look like?

Lord this is me giving up getting it all done, here’s my pile of NOT works, anti-works, unworks. 

In giving these to you I am laying down my ‘need’ to be perfect and in control of all the things. In laying this pile at your feet I am confessing the truth that I am small; I am not the glue that holds the world together;  life is messy and I'm not in control of that either. I confess that there are things I could still be working on, there are tasks undone, and I confess that I am not even sure I have chosen my priorities rightly in the endless choices of triage. 

If I am to rest, to be OK in my own soul and skin here in this place of endless demands, I must learn to accept both work and rest as a gift from your hand, refusing to believe that I am constantly getting graded on an impossible checklist. Teach me how to let go, and how to hold on to You. Help me keep showing up because I know that showing up faithfully matters more than any of it, and when I am weary of even showing up give me your strength to borrow.  Show up faithfully for me, Lord, and for my family today, right here with all the loose ends flying around.  Amen.

---

The vice-grip around my throat is not the hand of God.

May His kind hand and his gracious presence be seen and known in our homes today.