I've been recovering.
We sent the video camera back on Friday. I arrived at the store an hour early, not realizing it didn't open until 10am.
That's how eager I was to get the damn thing off.
Fortunately, there was a Starbucks in the same strip mall, so after a moment's hesitation, I went in to order a Chai Tea.
I had a head cold over the weekend and on Friday it was just beginning to gather steam. When I gave my order, I felt as though I were speaking through layers of cheese cloth, and had to say each word with slow deliberation, both because of the husky quality of my voice and because how does one pronounce Tazo or Venti?
Ordering something at Starbucks always feels like a test of hipness that I am bound to fail. However, I did receive the correct drink in the correct size and I took it outside with me.
There was a sort of brick paved patio and ivy had grown up thickly over the brick pillars that held up the roof. Where I sat, I could see through an arched opening all over hung with green. It was beautiful, despite the fact that it looked out into a parking lot, and then to a busy intersection and then to a hospital.
In fact, there was a sign standing there at the intersection with a glowing digital display that announced the time as one hour earlier than I had supposed. So I got in my car and entered traffic to head home and then Keith called and confirmed that the sign was wrong, so I turned around and drove back.
I then sat in the car another ten minutes until the open sign blinked on and that is the sage of how I mailed the video camera back to its homeland. Which, as it happens, is not actually purgatory, but merely somewhere in the Midwest.
Despite my cold, life has been slowly going back to normal. The constant barrage of social activities, changing plans for social activities and nagging sense that we are not doing enough video taping or have enough to show or are clever, beautiful, loving, natural or fashionable enough for the damn tape are slowing easing away.
Our friends graciously agreed to sit before the torture device, and they said beautiful things about us. Hearing what they had to say was healing, after all the insecurity.
After all that, the editors will make a video only three minutes long. Heh. But at least we will know, if we sit waiting for months on end, that we did all we could.
Also I have a lot of fashionable tops now.
This morning, I came across this passage:
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
-I Corinthians 13:4-10
The deeper my relationship with Jesus goes, the more I learn to trust Him, to lean into Him, the more beautifully I see Him in this passage. His humility, kindness and patience are some of the most lovely, unexpected and moving things about Him.
"You are so comforting," I told Him yesterday, almost in surprise. As I thought back, I realized that most of the things I hear from Him are purely comforting.
And immediately, He humorously reminded me of His own words: "But when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me." (John 15:26)
Like goodness! It is not a mistake that He used that word, though I know it has many other connotations- Counselor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby, according to the Amplified Bible.
Right now, we cannot have perfect knowledge, for we know only in part.
But what we can know is the incredible loving heart of Jesus. We can be comforted that in His loving work, He never fails.
