lovely monday

After the hubbub of Sunday, filled with a lot of talking and laughing and praying, a lot of gearing up and catching up and meeting and greeting, we spend Monday mornings in the quietest ways we can find.

Today, we're keeping an eye on the wood stove.

Dave watches from the couch where, at 10:18, he sits still clad in his black and gray plaid robe. I'm in the low-to-the-ground legless rocker scooched right up next to the fire. My robe is green, and I intend to stay in it as long as possible.

Fernando Ortega sings in the background, a soothing accompaniment to our laziness. We hum along here and there. At other points, his words blend in with the Psalms I'm reading. When his "Give Me Jesus" begins, I leave off reading and let him voice my prayer.

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
But give me Jesus

More coffee is poured. Another moss-cloaked log joins the pulsing embers in the stove. We talk briefly about putting on real clothes and taking a walk in the mist, but those murmurs die away quickly. Why walk when there are more words to read, more music to hear?

Fernando's songs give way to Glory Revealed. And song number two, as it always does, makes me lean back in wonder and close my eyes. I'm aware in an all-over-again way that every blessing in my life--this lovely Monday, this man, this warmth, my cleansing and healing and hope--has come to me because of the wounding of One.

Give me Jesus.