lay it down.

you bring what you have to the table.  you lay it down.  sometimes it's in pieces.  sometimes it's tears. sometimes it's a full blossom.  sometimes it's a pebble of hope.  or hopelessness. or a seed of unknown.  or laughter. or confusion.

it doesn't matter.

you give what you have.  you bring what's been given to you in that day, this week, a minute. you bring the incessantly barking dog.  and the seizing cat who finally died yesterday afternoon, with the moments that followed of grave digging and brynies voice shouting "my mom can sing amazing grace at the funeral!"

you bring your best efforts at kindness.  you bring your failures in sacrifice. 

you bring the time that slowed down enough that you could taste it.  you bring the hours blended together into blurry days.  

you bring the smell of your kids hair, and the book that they're making on 'my life in uganda', and their words on the goodness of it all. and roses constant chatter and zoe's growing insight and the way the light illuminates all kinds of green.

you bring another persons recurrent cancer.  you bring your feeling of failure.  and the fear.  and the sorrow. 

you bring your own years of loss.  and the times when you cried out on bathroom floors. and the times when you sang out in praise, goose-bumped and crying in joy and thanks and awe- at this God who sits at the table.  who welcomes all, and all of it. openly.  willingly.  expectantly.

i bring my distractions, my choices, my grappling attempts at self soothing.  i bring my wandering.  my lostness.  and my memories of being found.  i bring my trying. my getting back up.  my desire. 

i bring them all, the good parts and the ugly parts- because they are already known. they are already forgiven.  i lay them down so that i can be free and not alone. i lay them down because sometimes i am tired and weary and in need of rest. and sometimes i am in need of remembering.  and sometimes i just need to feel the everlasting arms.

then i go. back into the week of collecting things.  and working on it.  of gathering new bits and smoothing them with old bits and learning and shifting and adjusting.  i go into the wild unexpected- in both it's monotony and it's unforeseen joys and terrors. life will unfold before us. whether we like it or not. it will be and we will be in it.  and again we will assemble what we have and go to the table and lay it down.