Tuesdays

Originally written September 2013

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      My mind is on the third anniversary of the death of my eldest son.  It's coming Tuesday.  I know this because I can feel it in the pit of my stomach.  It's the familiar ache, the one I felt on that first day. 

      Tuesday is coming.  Tuesday is coming for us all.  We will all have days that transcend human reason, human strength, human fairness.  There will be days that leave us gutted, lying and bleeding, fighting for breath.  There will be days when breath seems a bother.  There will be days when all the eggs in our basket lie shattered at our feet as we frantically try to piece them back together, rewind time, wish it had never happened, fail to make the connection in our minds that this life will never be what it once was.

     What do we do with our Tuesdays?  Not the first or the second ones, but when they start to come year after year.  The first years, they are meant for grief, but after that.  What do we do with those days that start to hold us captive, the anniversaries, the birthdays?  What do we do when we start to hear Christ calling us to freedom from our Tuesdays?  I hear Him calling....I want to be free.

     I will trust Him.  I will remember His promises, but, at this moment, not without a shaky resolve.  Today, I feel as though I am standing on the edge of an abyss, waiting to furl myself into the darkness, with the hope that I will feel His arms gather around me as I answer His call.  Freedom can be found in the arms of my Father.  I know because I have been there many times.

     As Tuesday comes, I want to dare to be as Christ in my thinking.  I want to dare to celebrate Tuesday, to see from eternity's point of view.  I want to dare to be unselfish, to give my child, with open hands, to the King.  I want to dare to be happy, on my Tuesday, because Jesus paid our sin debt and there is hope in the cross.

     As Tuesday comes, I want to be about my Father's business, an impossibility within my own strength. I want to love my family, my friends, my students.  I want to be faithful. I do not want to come down off my Nehemiah's wall.  Fatigue grips me at the thought of loving anyone besides myself on my Tuesday.  It will be the Holy Spirit who will need to do this improbable work.  I cannot. 

     My mind is on doing the hard things.  My mind is on Christ.  Tuesdays are the days that go far beyond anything that we could ever repair.  They are the days that our Father sets aside to reflect His glory, the days when we can only point to Him between our labored breath and whisper, It is He, not I. May I point to Jesus on my Tuesday.  May you point to Jesus on your Tuesday.  May we whisper His name to a lost and hurting world.  May we point them to the cross of Calvary.

(c) 2017 Victoria Paxton


                                                                      
                                                                     
                                                                  
                                                                   
                                                                   
                                                                    
                                                                   
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