11.14 // Toilet Paper

While creating our “thankfulness turkey” today, Benson told me that he was most grateful for toilet paper.

And that just about sums up the day.

There are seasons and weeks and days when the bar for acceptable gifts to be thankful for gets lowered.
Lowered to base level.

I am thankful we have just enough milk left in the fridge;
that the soup didn’t turn out completely awful and the bread isn’t that burnt;
that the baby spit up on someone we kind of know, not a total stranger;
that I got four hours of uninterrupted sleep at one point last night.
I am thankful for toilet paper.

These days aren’t bad. There is nothing that went horribly wrong.
And yet, in a way, these days can be even more difficult than the disastrous ones because there is nothing to blame, nothing to label as the “problem.”
The day was fine.
My life is fine.
But I don’t feel totally fine.
So what’s wrong with me?

I tell myself over and over: We have so much. Our kids are healthy and wonderful. Our home is warm. We have friends and family available to us. Our needs are met.
But I also feel numb and slightly anxious all at once.

The thankfulness turkey is taped by the coffee maker and reminds me to whisper humble thanksgiving as I walk by. The bird is a little wacky—with his green swirly eyes, rooster comb, and affectionate name: “John Turkey Woolly Worm.” And he makes me smile, reminding me not to talk my life too seriously. Or my spiritual practicing, including the examen, too seriously.

I am thankful for honeycrisp apples;
for laminate flooring that resists marker and colored pencil and paint stains;
for Benson’s goofy turkey hat that he made at MOPS;
that when the kids have quiet time, I can hold my baby, drink another cup of coffee, and watch Gilmore Girls in the kitchen in the dark.

Jackson comes home right before dinner and does, indeed, find me in the dark, watching Lorelai and Rory on my phone propped up by a dinosaur toy.
He laughs and lets me be.

As he walks by John Turkey Woolly Worm, I reminded of small, trite, and often overlooked gifts:
I am thankful that Jackson came home— that he is not afraid of all of the mess and the kids and his wife in the dark;
that John Taylor will still sleep in my cuddled in my arms;
that a dear friend from Michigan still lets us use his Netflix account.

After the kids go to bed, we have one those hard conversations that you have to have every so often when you live with another human being. We resolved and affirmed one another and recognized our loneliness.
We talked about how our MOPS topic for today was friends and how we pass “Friendship Boulevard” on the way to pick up Olivia from school, and how watching Gilmore Girls just reminds my of my own mom and sister.
And my eyes well up a little.
A little loneliness drips out.

There are days when I just want to walk in the front door and watch the drama unfold for the hundredth time, to be sitting next to Anna and my mom and laugh and share snacks like we used to.
I feel the tears and the numbness break open a bit.
Numbness making room for plain ole sadness.

I’m left to sigh gratitude, because I know no other honest way:
I am thankful for sweet memories with my family— whom I love and who love me just as I am;
for difficult conversations that used to end in anger, and that now end in understanding— how far we’ve come;
for vulnerable, homesick tears that probably needed to come all day;
for a God who is near when everyone else feels far.

And so as I sit down to write at 10:30PM, I concede that there is no deep spiritual insight today.
When faced with the temptation to try to “wing it” or comes up with something impressive, my heart replies a simple, No. We are too tired for that these days. The spiritual life sometimes looks just like this.

And so I have to write what I know, what I’ve lived today:
Sometimes, there are days when I don’t feel God in equal vibrancy.
I know He is near and working, regardless of my numbness or fatigue or loneliness.
I don’t have to pretend to be invincible or always happy or unaffected by the challenges of my given life.
No, I can feel deeply and listen to my body— they both reveal so much.

And yet I am invited to continue in faith anyway— by continuing in gratitude, praying small prayers without ceasing.

I guess this is the unglamorous part of faith. It is not always, big, big, big stuff and events and revelation and elation. Its not freedom from our humanity or from slow sadness. Its not incredibly impressive manifestoes or wordy prayers or rockstar worship sets— as much as I love all of those things. I really do.
In fact, I much prefer them to the throb of days like today.

Yet, the Christian hope is that even in days where life is mundane and gray, God is near.
When there are few friends close by, God is near.
Whether we feel holy or peaceful or patient, God is near.
And when our honest gratitude is simply “toilet paper,” that is praise enough.