“Child”, I muttered in frustration as I looked down at the little hands holding tight to my shirt, and the tear stained face that was upturned.

I picked him up, and carried him to our worn beige couch. He nestled against my front, his little hand reaching up to wrap tight around my neck. His mother isn’t escaping him this time, no sirree bob.

Momentarily distracted to hear a movie playing in the background, he carefully squirms around on my lap until he is able to face the tv, while still retaining his real estate on my lap.

I feel a particular niggle in my brain. That funny little feeling one gets when one realizes ones baby is managing oneself.

“Ok, ok, listen kint, you are going to be happy while Mama goes outside to mow the grass”.

He stared balefully back at me and said firmly “no”.

I picked him up, settled him down beside me on the couch, and got up all in one sweet, ninja Mom move.

Less ninja like, I got a piece of my precious hoarded Lily’s chocolate for him. All of a sudden a whole swarm of children are around me holding out their hands. Way more children than I have. I don’t even know what is going on.

Who are all these people?

What is happening?

I hand out chocolate until most of the bar is gone. I don’t even bother being sad about it. The Lord giveth chocolate and he taketh it away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

I am fascinated by this small son of mine who is much too busy eating his stevia sweetened chocolate to notice his life giver going out the door. “This child needs teaching” I grumped in peasant German.

My mower is waiting for me. It does not gleam, nor does it look happy. It looks petty and angry. I pay it no attention as I crank it to life, drive out to our acreage and commence doing what I always do. Think.

Think and talk to God.

You see, God can hear over the roar of the mower, and oddly so can I. We have excellent chats together, do God and I, as I make hay and bat grasshoppers off my legs.

“God, I get it, ok, I get that everything matters, but I don’t get where to put commas”. My mind goes back to a comment I left on Facebook, and have since spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to decide if my commas were placed at the correct places.

The discussion was on friendship, which is a completely redundant point. You only need to hear the comment I made, to judge my comma use. This is the kind of post that I’ve written several long comments to, only to delete and start over.

“And just so you know, I expounded at length on science, spirituality, enneagrams, and even briefly, on my own feelings.”

Would it be correct to say a comma should also be between even and briefly? Or no? Which is right?

I do not know.

Perhaps later I will consult my children’s Language Arts books,

But surreptitiously. It would not do to let them smell weakness.

Especially my little toddler that is in the CIA. He has little CIA journals he stores under the floor, that he only gets out at night with a small ham radio to update and keep track of my every move. He is also a little ninja. He can run down the lane after me on my power walk doing a good 15 mph, but walking into church is a no-go. His legs just fold. Something about the parking lot being like a waterless desert.

Back to the comma though, “I think I overuse commas, God, don’t ya think.”

“Wow the sun is hot. I wonder if I am getting a nice tan today.”

The man I am talking to is big and strong. He is kind and loving, but he is also cares about justice. “Vengance is mine, I will repay” he tells me kindly. “Fine” I mutter.

“I am not sure I can trust or serve a God that allows babies and children to suffer.”

“How can God call himself love, when he allows so much suffering in the world?”

If God did not allow pain and suffering, we would be automatons. What kind of a God would that be?

I know. A dictator.

I don’t want to serve a dictator. Man made religion and rules serves no purpose. It merely weakens and trips those following in its wake. It frustrates and looses. It’s not enough. If you want to turn your vitriol against something, turn it against the pharisaical vipers. Don’t eat their words, and expect to go unscathed. Their hands may be clean, but their hearts are nasty, steaming piles of filth. They voraciously eat the innocence of their youth, spitting them out as bitter adults who give as good as they were given.

The God I serve is not a God with a stick, demanding you perform perfectly. He is a God of peace and rest. In him I find my entire identity. He is ok with my prayers spilling out like water dumped a few feet short of the sink, abruptly, and with no finesse. He hears me anyway, not so much my words as my heart cry.

He hears you anyway.

Even when you don’t have the feelings to match.

“Come to me”, he says. “I will give you rest”

“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” he promises.

I came and I found it so. No more guilt filled days. No more having to carry anger, bitterness and unforgivness. I exchanged it for love, peace and a sound mind.

Peace

Love

And a sound mind.

You can’t find those at Costcos during snack hour, er, tasting hour.

You also won’t find it by accidentally opening random doors in a hallway.

You gotta go after that granola with a purpose.

Do it.

You won’t regret it just like my friend didn’t regret taking my pregnant self to Costco during snack hour. “Can she have two since she is eating for two?” my friend asked the little old ladies standing sentry over the snacks, as she took a third piece off the plate. The old women shook their heads furiously as she popped it in her mouth, the wrong mouth. Not the mouth eating for two. I probably had the baby a week earlier because of all the belly laughing I did that weekend.