Did you know...

I failed at resting.  I was too agitated, even though I was exhausted.  So, I did my laundry last night/early this morning.  Much to my surprise, I discovered that Paul and Marie had fetched another set of sheets and remade their bed for me!  The dirty sheets were piled up waiting for a wash.  Mercy!  Mercy!  Mercy!

I stripped my charge's bed and put on the new sheets.  I gathered up all the toweling and sheets and my laundry.  And I set out to conquer the world.  Well, the ironing pile that was already significant is still there and now overflowing.

I had five loads, but I washed seven.  By this I mean I spent quite a bit of time on the quilt that my charge had used.  There were some food stains on it and two large stains that I just could fathom what they were.  Two nearly perfect, large, yellowish circles.  I pre-treated it out the wahzoo and then decided to go for broke. I washed it with bleach and OxiClean.  Only, well, I forgot to change the washing machine from cold water to hot.  The stains were better, but not gone.  So, I threw caution to the wind and repeated the process with hot water this time, adding in the older old quilt I had that is actually from when I was in a car wreck when I was five years old.  Someone threw it over me at the scene and I've had it ever since.  I am rather pleased to report that using bleach and OxiClean and Resolve twice did not diminish the colors of the old fabric.  To me, the quilt is brighter now.  It is also stain free and ready for another visit.  The other smaller quilt is also much cleaner, but it still has ink stains on it from when I was a tad careless in college.

The rest of the wash was par for the course for Myrtle's approach to laundry.  I wash everything in cold except for my whites, which I wash in hot water and bleach. And my whites are always my final load.  [I know, I practically horrify most folk I know with my use of bleach.]  I do not sort by colors at all, but rather group things that are "air dry" and things that are "dryer dry" so that I only run the dryer when it is full and it has time to finish before being needed again.  Thus, I alternate air dry loads with dryer loads.  [Boy, do I miss the ability to flash dry laundry out on the line in the back yard.  Sweltering heat does make rather short work of laundry.]

Because I now have to sort the laundry sitting on the floor since standing that long is hard for me, Amos has taken to lounging amongst and atop the piles of laundry as I work, which makes the job a tad harder.  He seems to have concerns about what goes in which pile, but I am not sure what those concerns might be.  I toss an article of clothing on one pile, and he will leap over to that pile and settle atop it, sniffing about and tucking fabric beneath his body.  Then another article of clothing will draw his concern, so Amos will shift piles.

After the sorting is done, I fill the washer, set the timer on my iPhone, and wait unit the alarm rings to go back down and switch loads.  This way, I have become rather efficient at plowing through the laundry.  Since one my of pastors was coming today, despite the late hour and my exhaustion, I decided to bake two batches of pumpkin cookies so that he could take one home and drop the other one off at church for the other pastor and his family.  Given my high rate of cookie failure, I stuck to mixes.  So, I am not sure this was a "first fruit" for a pastor other than I would have very much preferred to eat all of the pumpkin cookies myself, rather than the three I sampled (one from each sheet) ... I would have rather kept every single pumpkin cookie for myself.

Then, because I am certifiable, I vacuumed the first floor.  Remember, this has not been done since the Great Clean of October, when Marie's sister was here to visit.  Or has it?  If it has, surely it has only been done only once since October, for there were four canisters of dirt lurking about the main floor.  Because I have some sense of sanity, I did not steam mop the kitchen floor.

Finally, I cleaned the ashes from the fireplace and laid a fire so that when my pastor came he would not freeze to death in my house.  [I was counting on the fact that pastors tend to have lots of layers on keeping him warm.]

Only then did I crawl into bed.

I set the alarm. Really I did.  But I did not actually turn it on.  So, I am slightly thankful for the nightmare that awoke me a short while before my pastor was supposed to arrive.  I was dead to the world for hours on end ... not even Amos' hunger awoke me.  After my pastor left, I made a call and then fell asleep.  All evening passed without much awareness.  Awaking, I noted that it is snowing again.  Do you think I would actually be fined if I do not clear my sidewalks yet again???

I am really, really, really exhausted still.
But my laundry is done.
And my ears are full of the Living Word.

Did you know that John the Baptist not only prepared the way for Jesus' life, but also His death?  Of course you did.  You know these things.  I didn't, though.  What a wild, wonderful, and heartening thought.  John the Baptist showed that faith was a life that still included suffering and doubts and death, even with the coming of the Promised One.

Really, I just stink at trying to re-tell what my pastor spoke to me and so it cannot possibly be as good as when the Living Word was falling into my ears.  But he was talking about how Jesus was not exactly the way folk envisioned the Son of God would be ... even to John the Baptist, who was the messenger sent ahead to prepare the way for Jesus.

John the Baptist prepared the way for understanding the power of hearing the Living Word.
John the Baptist prepared the way for understanding the power of baptism.
John the Baptist prepared the way for understanding that in our doubts we are to look to Jesus.
John the Baptist prepared the way for understanding that a life of faith can still include suffering and death.

Jesus is the Living Word, powerful and effective.
Jesus is our baptism, saving us and giving us faith.
Jesus is the answer to our doubts, giving us His very body and blood.
Jesus is our suffering and our death, so that we might have eternal life through the gift of His obedience, His justification, His righteousness, His faith.

Okay, so that is just all muddled and not as beautiful as I heard it, but I had never really though about how from his mother's womb to his beheading, John the Baptist prepared the way for the coming of Jesus to us and for us, then and now.  To me, he was just the person who prepared the way for baptism.

I had not thought about John's sending of his disciples to Jesus to ask, "Are you the Expected One or shall we look for someone else?" (Matthew 11:3) as a question of doubt.  I had not really thought about John also being one of those who wondered because the Messiah, the King of Israel, looked so very different, so very un-great, so very un-mighty, so very un-king like.

My pastor also noted that Jesus answer was not merely a "yes."  He could have said, "I am."  or "I am He."  Those would certainly be fitting.  Instead, "Jesus answered and said to them, 'Go and report to John what you hear and see: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.'" (Matthew 11:4-5)

Jesus pointed back to the promises of the Old Testament and He pointed to what He has done, what He was doing, for man, for us.

Did you know that the great and faithful John the Baptist wondered, doubted, and sought reassurance?  Did you know that he, too, needed to hear the Word of God?

I am not alone in my struggles, in my doubts and fears and wonderings.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!