Getting the Right Captains on Board
Submitted by kim on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 23:37 in
We fight all day. Not out loud, in our hearts. He fights the voice telling he failed us. He bruises. Van keys left in a pocket, taken to work. A son can't get to college or to work. A scramble, searching for a solution. I call. He doesn't answer. Why? Why when I need his help to problem solve does he not answer? I leave a message. He never calls. I fight the voice telling I am not worthy of his time. I bruise. We travel through the day like ships approaching a small harbor, each apprehensive of the other's destination. We collide.
In the laundry room, late in the evening, listening ears gone: a collision. Words spray, drenching each of us. Salt water burns our eyes, but doesn't escape. Stiff clay hearts need the watering of tears. "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers." But this struggle must be ours. We rule our boats. His side. My side. Both of us soaked from the self-defending. Finally, a drop of salt water leaks. A watching heart softens.
"Remember bathing the children?"
"Yes?" The knots we've been traveling slows.
"Remember using the washcloth on their feet, up their shin, getting to the knee, only to hear them yell, 'Stop! Don't touch that!' Remember those skinned, bruised knees?"
More salt water leaks. "Yes. Always skinned knees that I knew were there, but then forgot in the bathing."
"This is not about you taking the keys or not calling. But the powers of this dark world use those silly things to bruise me. I have skinned knees you don't see. Do you have your own that I don't see?"
Boats anchor. Kindness and Compassion climb on board, the new captains rule.
Fox Catchers: Ephesians 6:12; Ephesians 4:32
