Stand In

It's Friday night, Saturday morning really, and she sits here.

For a moment wondering. What will life look like?

For a moment she gets a glance into a life. The real one that grown ups keep talking about, regarding work to get done and kids to entertain-- to listen to-- and meals to make and errands to run and the passing of time happening on a schedule more often than not.

It is just a glimpse. After all, I just have a paper to write (and I am) and they're only mine until Sunday around 4. An experiment. A familiar one at that-- stand-in is a role she's played for years now.

There's less time these days for standing in. These days when she's expected to grow into her own role, her own life. And in these moments, in this chair, looking across this kitchen, she swells with gratitude.

Thankful because while her own future seems pressing, the present in this place that is not hers brings such comfort. There is another place that is not hers where she finds comfort.

Perhaps the present peace stems from the similarity.

It is the will of God. And like this weekend offers just a glimpse into the eternity that is parenting once it begins, she will only get bits and pieces of that will at a given time.

It's Friday night, Saturday morning really, and I sit here.

For a moment, determined. Life, the real one that grown ups keep talking about, will look a lot like bits-and-pieces-collecting for a seeming eternity.

She takes pictures and journals the bits and pieces-- taking thoughts and images captive and reconciling in her soul the idea that her life-- my life-- might not look like a pretty floral chair in a kitchen of olive green with the wooshing of dishes and clothes washing and the peaceful, assured rhythm of lub-dubbing hearts nestled in warm beds. Understanding that every bit, every piece of life now exists but by grace.

I'm at his mercy even now. Surrounded by the comfy and the glimpses into possible grown up scenarios. The lub-dubbing of hearts and tip-tapping of fingers. Gifts. I refuse to miss them in the now.

My future is at the mercy of his discretion. If I bring myself out of a glazed over, typical experience of now to know the love with which He extends his gifts, his grace now, I get the bits and pieces of what is next. What will be.

And where those bits and pieces of will be could (and sometimes do) feel overwhelming or scary, I know better. In what is-- the grace, the now, the gifts-- I know Him to be loving and worthy of praise. I say it with my words and click at it with annoying frequency from behind a pocket-sized Nikon because I just can't stand to forget what I know Him to be in this moment.

If there's anything I know from sitting amidst the olive and the floral patterns and the wooshing and the lub-dubbing, it's that life will change. Whether it's to look more like this or not, life moves ever forward. And on different days I will feel different ways.

So on this Friday night, this Saturday morning really, I sit here telling myself what she knows. What she will have to choose to remember come all the changing. Come time to stand up tall in her own role. Come time that bits and pieces, glimpses are seen to reality.

He made each of us, every one unique. There is no real stand in. This is it. I, we, do not fill our roles perfectly. But there is no one else. Here and now, in collected words and images unique to the view from this chair, I know God to be loving and worthy of praise.

His character is not unique to my view from this chair.

He is the same God from where you are sitting.

But I cringe at the thought of me abandoning this role-- of God letting someone stand in for that role-- which He has prepared uniquely for me in order that I may better understand the love and the worth. I want to know it fully, right where I am, for myself. For my future.

No stand ins.