I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. Sunday morning and it is seven-fifteen. The alarm should have gone off. I jumped (or rolled) out of bed and quickly donned my clothes. Although we are now watching church on-line during the COVID era, Sunday is special.
Judd remained in bed. That should have been my first clue.
Hurrying to the kitchen, I turned on the coffee pot, grabbed some Panera bagels from the freezer (we always have some kind of sweet rolls on Sunday), and made my way to the garage to begin my daily chores: feed the cats, fill the grain canisters, and make my way to the barnyard.
It could not have been a more beautiful morning! My heart was full of joy, and I softly sang: “Good morning, Lord, it’s great to see the sun again . . . “
The chickens and ducks, happy to be released from the pen, ran quickly to their bowls of grain.
Since Donkey and Goat were visiting the Troyer’s front pasture, I made my way across the gravel road to drop them a little grain and say “good morning.”
On my way back to the house, I stopped to check for the Sunday paper. The box was empty.
That should have been my second clue.
Grace Baptist’s curch service was scheduled for 8:00, so after grabbing a cup of coffee and a bagel, I began trying to check in to Facebook for the service. I was having a difficult time getting it to come up.
That should have been my third clue.
When Judd emerged from the bedroom, he noticed breakfast on the table and questioned, “So we have bagels this morning?”
“Well, yeees,” I replied as I continued looking frantically for the church service, “at least I am.” Judd went out to the front porch to enjoy his coffee and bagel.
Fourth clue that I was missing.
I gave up. Frustrated from searching and not finding a live service by now, I figured that there must be a glitch in technology.
Fifth clue?
Looking out the kitchen window, I noticed the Troyers were still home. They had started going back to church once it had opened, but with the virus currently in pandemic mode, we older folks were not going.
Maybe someone in the Troyer family was sick and they decided to stay home. So, I called Sara to find out.
“Why didn’t you go to church this morning?” I wondered aloud as she answered the phone.
“Go to church? Why would I go to church this morning?” She sounded very puzzled.
“Well, isn’t it Sunday?” By now I was beginning to feel a little bewildered myself.
“Mom, it is Wednesday.”
Okay, this is not easy to admit, but I had lost my sense of time. Is this what being in a sort-of house arrest does to you? Was I “tetched” by COVID?
For several days after that, as Judd and I lay in bed in the morning, I would say jokingly, “Is it Sunday morning, yet?”
BUT, what if no one had corrected me? Since I thought I was living in Sunday, should anyone correct me? Wasn’t what I imagined or felt important?
Or was it better to be brought back to some sense of reality?
I prefer reality, and if it takes someone living in a rational world to reflect that reality to me, please, for the sake of my sense and soul, and regardless of what our culture says today, please tell me Truth.
Shut down for a year; once again, we are planning our annual Christmas event. Bethlehem Revisited is central to much that goes on here at the farm. Our grandchildren have grown up living through all of the stages: planning meetings, workdays, the days of the event, which usually begin early in the day with preparation for that day and into the late hours of closing down for each day, and the final clean-up afterward. For them, it means not just work, but community, a vital community, working together for an eternal good: telling the story of Redemption.
w how God walked with us through all the years of unwrapping His presence through everyday life. In the midst of that walk, Bethlehem Revisited emerged as a vital component of how God desired to use this farm. My book, Searching for His Presence, On Kitten Creek, was written for all who have or will visit the farm. The book is my testimony of the faithfulness of a God who yearns to make every moment holy.
