the extrordinary Ordinary of the days we live

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 I'm sitting here in the sunset of a  profoundly ordinary and extrordinary day.  They can be like that, can't they?  So methodical and trying and mundane....and yet also so unbelievably wonderful.  That is what today is.  Actually, it's what every day is....but today I am finding some words to write about it.  Some days I don't.  I'm asking Father God, just now, to help me find the words to tell about today.  

The plan for today was to have extra kredit go on a longer visit....and I had high hopes of getting some time-sensitive work done because even though we are on Christmas break, I have a job.(  and no daycare.)  A storm rolled in that turned into a blizzard and canceled his visit completely....and changed my plans abruptly.  I wanted to be frustrated about my plans changing but instead my heart broke again because this little friend has endured more disappointment than most have over the course of their life...and he is just a little bit of a thing.  We had wrapped gifts for his visit and he was so excited to go.  So we adjusted.  The infamous "pivot".  I'm super sick of that word, too.  Claire was supposed to go spend the day doing last-minute shopping for the wedding and enjoying her life-long friend but that was postponed as well....and instead she began the tedious process of sorting things into a keep, dump or give-away pile because in a little over a week she is getting married and moving out.  It was good work and we enjoyed moments and memories but the weight of it is heavy in my heart.  Profoundly ordinary and extrordinary....all at once.  

I jumped onto facebook this morning and a suggested friend request popped up.  It was for a child I had begged and prayed and longed and wept over, someone I wanted to adopt.  I wanted to be her mama so so badly about 12 years ago.  We were in the process of adopting Precious and and I was met with a hard "no" followed by a season of pruning my heart and my character and my purpose and it was hard.  Hard.  Hard.  Hard.  I sent this child now a young adult a friend request and the extrordinary thing is that she accepted it.  crazy.  I get to know her, if just a little bit, yet and still.  

Outside the storm rages on and I have bbq ham balls and cheesy potatoes in the oven and its starting to smell really great in my kitchen.  The boys are watching another hideous thing on the apple TV that is loud and obnoxious but for the moment they are not fighting or tattling or arguing....and I am acutely aware that I am listening to Handel's Messiah.  I have listened off and on all day, in the snow storm, while I made snack mix and worked and parented and its pretty cool to hear it in the middle of all of the profoundly ordinary and extrordinay that I am holding.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve....and a long, long time ago, some profoundly ordinary and yet extrordinary things were happening as Mary and Joseph prepared to welcome baby Jesus into the world.  Say what you want, world......be a hater and deny it if you need to but truth says this.  All of this is unto something much bigger than the you or the me.....its about the Christ that came as a child and grew up to do the work that would pay the price that would allow my ordinary day to be an extrordinary forever, in Jesus name.  

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