I want to be a Tabernacle Mover!

This morning I did the right thing. Or at least I thought I did. I was sooo proud of myself. I had to fight a bit to do it, after all, I am in a battle here - a raging battle. It's the battle between dark and light. No! not that good vs. evil thing... literally dark vs. light. See... I love the night but I am no a big fan of the morning. How could I be? If I don't go to bed before Midnight, how on earth am I gonna wake up at 6 am cheery and ready to go?

          However.....


.... I do love my tea. Yes indeedie I do!
                   I really love HOT tea most and I especially like sipping my hot tea in the quiet and calm of a lovely candle-lit room.

some of many

One of many

Well, in this house when in the world am I gonna get a quiet, candle-lit room in which to sip my hot tea? ONLY at about 5:30 or 6:00 A.M.   Yep, that's what I said - IN THE MORNING!

Elliot Ness Farhart

So, I did what I knew was the right thing to do this morning and that was to get up with the pup at 5:45 (when he decided to awaken) and just stay up. I lit some candles and made myself a cup of very hot tea (the only real way to drink it... it takes practice) and settled in at the table to inspect the new computer program our church added to it's website. I was gonna investigate the Examen Me program, listen/read (yes, the program actually reads the passages to you) our scripture for today and begin my on-line journal.


I have to admit, I was very proud of myself. I won the battle over the sleepy, droopy eyes and excitedly settled in to my chair as I listened/read along to Numbers 8-10. We are reading, as a church, the Chronological Bible and each week our pastor is preaching a message from a previous reading. I love that because as we trudge through some difficult parts of the Old Testament we know we are in good company and he shows us weekly how Jesus is in the Old Testament too. That's not new to me but I am sure it is to some. When you see Jesus there, Leviticus and Numbers aren't quite so difficult.

But no sooner did I emit a gentle "ahhhh" as I began to listen I heard and saw with my own eyes this:

15 On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony. And at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning. 16 So it was always: the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night. 17 And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, after that the people of Israel set out, and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the people of Israel camped.18 At the command of the Lord the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the Lord they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. 19 Even when the cloud continued over the tabernacle many days, the people of Israel kept the charge of the Lord and did not set out. 20 Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle, and according to the command of the Lord they remained in camp; then according to the command of the Lord they set out.21 And sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning. And when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out, or if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted they set out.22 Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out, but when it lifted they set out.23 At the command of the Lord they camped and at the command of the Lord they set out. They kept the charge of the Lord, at the command of the Lord by Moses.

I was aware of this....

               I had read this before.....

But I never really KNEW it. I never really THOUGHT about it in practicality. 

THIS is the tabernacle and the encampment
with the pillar of fire at night

                   REALLY?


Look at how huge this thing was? Look at all the tents and what I am sure we don't see... livestock and other things that we don't realize are part of this encampment.

I had to wonder... how many people woke up on any given morning to see the "cloud by day" ever so slowing drifting away, only to whisper "Man.... we have to take that thing down again? We just put it up! I am so sick and tired of moving over and over and over again! For What? Is there really anything so wonderful ahead of us that it's worth all this work?"

And as I found myself immersed in that image I almost screamed "YES! YES THERE IS! I promise you if you persevere you will see what amazing land God has for you. ALL His promises are true and YOU are so loved by Him and in spite of what you see and hear and feel He has amazing things planned for you!"

And then, I found myself unable to breathe... I wondered those words because, knowing who I am... the lazy, selfish, wicked woman that I am... those words would have been mine. Why? because unlike today, back then they didn't have the rest of the story.

                        I am not a Tabernacle Mover... not yet. I want to be, I am determined to be.

This is how I would prefer to spend the afternoon
This is not the image of a
Tabernacle Mover

I realized how little I like to work. Oh, I will, when I absolutely HAVE to. When it will reflect badly on me to not work, regardless of what the work entails, I will jump in and do it cheerfully (well on the outside). I am as happy scrubbing toilets as I am anything else... as long as my doing it will earn me kudos.

But, here, in the confines of my home, not so much. What is the difference between the Tabernacle that God had the Israelites build and my own home? Granted, we usually compare it to our church building and I totally get that but to be correct, isn't our home just as much a place where God meets us? Honestly, isn't everywhere we are, our Tabernacle? Doesn't God, in this New Testament age, meet us everywhere? And aren't we to reflect that constantly?

So.... being a Tabernacle mover is as much hitting the streets of Jackson with We Will Go Ministries even if it's taking me out of my comfort zone, to picking up my house when I'd rather just shove the clutter around, because clutter makes having a calm and organized school day virtually impossible. Maybe it means that I need to give up my desire to watch ANOTHER Law and Order (which I hate to admit isn't all that redeeming - although give me a blog post on that and I could find a way to view it in a redemptive way) and grab my precious gift from God, snuggle up on the couch and read to her. Even more, give in to my new teenager's desire for me to read aloud his latest assigned text instead of him reading it himself (he's a beast of a reader) if only because it speaks love to him in a way that it doesn't to me. Maybe it means recognizing each morning that I, in and of myself, am a lazy, selfish slug and without audibly asking God via the Holy Spirit to take me and make me a Tabernacle Mover I will crawl back in bed and miss time alone with Him basking in His Word, happily sipping my hot tea, enjoying the aroma of the candle lit that morning.

These are the hands of a
Tabernacle Mover

Renew my spirit Lord, only you can recreate what I have ruined. The piece of clay that you so beautifully molded has been altered by years of careless handling. Throw me back on the wheel and do whatever you need to do in order that I may delight in the work you have for me. Whether it be moving a Tabernacle when I'd rather be relaxing in front of the TV or reading to my precious children when I'd rather be reading for myself. 

Don't let me lose sight of YOUR BEST for me and my family and my life as you have created it. Yes Lord, I want to be willing to be a Tabernacle Mover!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening...

Whose woods are these I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

   

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

  

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

No one would argue that this Robert Frost poem is most likely one of his best. Tonight, it became the definition of my life. Until tonight, I couldn't articulate why I have felt the way I have and why I seem to fight who and what I know I am.

Tonight, I was simply watching Criminal Minds. A show that I really like but I find gets increasingly disturbing every season. At the end of each show the character most focused on throughout that episode has a short soliloquy and often ends it with a famous quote. This night the show ended with "But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." And suddenly, in the midst of ironing one of the 2500 shirts piled on the chair beside me, I began to cry. Well, that's how it started anyway but as the tears began to flow, the complete and total understanding of what I had just heard sunk in and crying turned into weeping.

I have this poem in a children's book that is beautiful but I couldn't bear to take the time to weed through the hundreds of books lining the shelves of our dining room turned library, I ran to the computer to look it up.

And as I read I remembered all the bizarre explanations of what Frost meant by "this" and "that". What a way to ruin a great poem. No, I am convinced I know exactly what the rider on that horse was doing.  He was a man of action. One that was typically in demand and on the move. Obvious, because his horse was confused by the premature end to their mission.

It wasn't an end at all though, it was a respite, it was a wish that bubbled up from the depths of his being. He had been there before; he had ridden past that place many times. But on that night, that deep, dark night, the snow reflected off the moon in just the most wonderful way that even he, a man of many responsibilities couldn't resist.

And he stopped...

He stopped and took it all in.

He stopped, took it all in and realized that he'd been missing a lot. He realized that there was more to his world than what he knew living the life that he chose to live. He realized that should he have the time to slow down, breath deeply, and really look at the beauty of the world around him, that somehow it all might be a little different.

And yet...

He couldn't succumb to the temptation. He had made promises and a man of action, mission, and honor (which he must have been because he rode away from pleasure for work) must not sit idly by in a dream world but must forge ahead to fulfill the commitments he had made. And he appeared to do so without resentment or hesitation.

And what brought me to tears? Realizing that I am that man but that I don't have the honor that he had. I have made those commitments; my own important commitments. What I do have is the resentment and a hesitation that only exacerbates the helpless feeling I am currently wrestling with.  I want those commitments to go away and I want to stay basking in the beauty and quiet and unencumbered nature of... well, nature... and my own selfish desires.

I want more than my requisite 15 min of vitamin D each day, but home-school beckons.
I want to sleep later than 6am regularly, but the puppy whines.
I want to do what I want, go where I want, eat out whenever I want, but the children, the husband, and
the budget require my presence and self-restraint.

I want to sit out in the woods on a deep, dark, snowy evening, wrapped in a warm blanket with a huge cup of hot tea watching the snow glisten off the moonlight... alone... in complete quiet... for an amount of time of MY choosing ... lost in my OWN thoughts...

but I have promises to keep
       and miles to go before I sleep
              and miles to go before I sleep.