My sister lives at the end of a long and winding road.
There isn’t much at the fork in the road to indicate safe harbor. In fact, the jarring yellow “Dead End” triangle warns you away.
Oh, but there is nothing dead at the end of this road when you venture past the strongly worded warnings and come through the curve of trees dripping with ivy. The gray-green glow at the bottom of the hill hovers over you with a living light.
There is a squat brick box of a house, square in the middle yard, with an incongrous bamboo forest towering over the back of it. It is full to bursting, this house. Stuffed with tiny humans, chocolate chip cookies, gourmet cheese, memories, laughter, chaos, tears, bicycles, cheerful plastic kayaks, a boatload of books, and more than a few pieces of my heart and soul.
It is my safe harbor, this brick box with it’s faded swim dock hovering in the gray green.
Tired mommas – what a gift it is to know we have safe harbor, not just on a dock in a quiet cove, but wherever we may be, safe in the arms of a Shepherd, our Rock who promises us peace and rest.
I had an epiphany after my first child … Sunday, Sabbath, the day of rest … wasn’t going to be a physical day of rest for me anymore for a very long time. With each successive child, the chaos grows exponentially. And so I turned, in desperation, to seeking rest for my weary soul.
(And for the record now, I have three children under the age of seven, sleep is my Holy Grail and rest is a fleeting thought in between toddler screaming matches and sick babies and an emotional daddy’s girl whose daddy has been overseas for eight months. One of those things I vaguely remember from years ago. It’s tucked in the recesses of my brain with my size six jeans and a boatload of now useless information on helicopters.)
And so I found it here, Truth, and rest.
“You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7, ESV).
And here too … “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, ESV).
It’s not easy, the turning over of our burdens, and somedays, it’s more incoherent than not, a heart cry born of fatigue and desperation, but it comes, oh it comes in the most unlikely ways.
Safe harbor in a world of chaos.