How to give up
There was a patch of carpet in the house
where I grew up, just beyond the doorway leading from the kitchen to
the dining room, where my father would lie down to take a nap,
sometimes, after lunch. Not long, just 20 minutes or so. Long enough to
absorb the warmth of the sun that seemed to fall on that particular
spot at that particular time of day, before going back outside where
the steam from the cows' noses reflected the mid-winter sunlight as
they crowded around the feed in the barnyard. Years later, my mother
would still fuss about the dirt on his overalls, and I noticed that sometime along the way she had
put a throw rug down over that spot.
The sunlight seemed to grow out of that carpet, harvest gold, with a vaguely sculpted floral pattern, that scratched for the first few seconds, then softened as I settled into its warmth. I would lie there sometimes, in the afternoon, when the patch of sun had moved farther toward the other wall of the dining room, when I had nothing else to do, or my sister was busy reading and didn't want to play, or I was waiting for my turn at the piano.
Doing nothing was easy then, lying on the carpet listening to the choir on the radio singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy," or the recording of My Fair Lady, borrowed from the library for the umpteenth time. With my bare feet up on the rungs of my mother's metal typewriter stand, I would wonder what it was that I would do when I got to heaven, that one thing that I could do better than anyone else, the thing that God really needed me to do. I knew from Sunday School and listening to my older sisters that heaven was a place where we did things for God. I could play the piano, but so could every other little girl in that Dutch town. How many piano players would God need, after all?
I thought I've known, a few times in the years since, what God wanted me to do. The one thing I could do better than anyone else, that thing that would make Him need me.
What is that thing? Is it talent, or work, or money? Are you richer, faster, better, smarter, taller than anyone else? Surely God needs you to do that for Him.
And over and over, the thing that I thought I could do for God, because He needed it, was gone, and I was left with nothing to do but lie on His carpet. Over and over we cling to what we think we need to be worthy, and over and over He says to us, "Aren't I enough?" Until the answer is, "Yes."
The sunlight seemed to grow out of that carpet, harvest gold, with a vaguely sculpted floral pattern, that scratched for the first few seconds, then softened as I settled into its warmth. I would lie there sometimes, in the afternoon, when the patch of sun had moved farther toward the other wall of the dining room, when I had nothing else to do, or my sister was busy reading and didn't want to play, or I was waiting for my turn at the piano.
Doing nothing was easy then, lying on the carpet listening to the choir on the radio singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy," or the recording of My Fair Lady, borrowed from the library for the umpteenth time. With my bare feet up on the rungs of my mother's metal typewriter stand, I would wonder what it was that I would do when I got to heaven, that one thing that I could do better than anyone else, the thing that God really needed me to do. I knew from Sunday School and listening to my older sisters that heaven was a place where we did things for God. I could play the piano, but so could every other little girl in that Dutch town. How many piano players would God need, after all?
I thought I've known, a few times in the years since, what God wanted me to do. The one thing I could do better than anyone else, that thing that would make Him need me.
What is that thing? Is it talent, or work, or money? Are you richer, faster, better, smarter, taller than anyone else? Surely God needs you to do that for Him.
And over and over, the thing that I thought I could do for God, because He needed it, was gone, and I was left with nothing to do but lie on His carpet. Over and over we cling to what we think we need to be worthy, and over and over He says to us, "Aren't I enough?" Until the answer is, "Yes."
Comments