Overwhelming Sorrow

I really liked this thought from Heirs in Hope:

When the angel of the Lord commands Lot and his family not to look back, I do not think he is creating a supreme test to determine whether they will be faithful. Instead, he seeks to protect them from a horror they cannot encompass. He warns them so as to save them from the becoming enmeshed in the destruction that befalls the cities on the plain.

Some things are too big for us. Some losses so great, they will destroy us. Some experiences so fraught with destruction, that only by God’s grace can we avoid being engulfed too. We have been created to shut down emotionally, to be unable to take in that which is overwhelming. But that very act of shutting down can become destruction if there is no awakening: when Lot’s wife looks back, what she sees is so overwhelming she becomes “pure, distilled tear-stuff, the physical manifestation of sorrow.

. . .

I think I can better understand the apostles who fled the crucifixion. In all history, that must have been the greatest horror anyone could have faced. How look on the sight of the man you know to be God being tortured and killed by those he came to save? How survive that? Sanity would drive them to hide, to believe they had perhaps been mistaken. But those who stayed – his Mother, John, the other Mary - those who bore it without being utterly destroyed, we know they received tremendous grace, were given the ability to see him die without becoming “the physical manifestation of sorrow.”

His grace is real, overcomes the most devastating sorrow. None of the ugliness in this world, not even the horrors men release on each other can impede the grace that is ours through Christ. And perhaps, one day we will meet Lot’s wife whose utter sorrow will have been transformed into absolute joy by the sight of His overwhelming love."

Domesticity

I've been in a sort of slump the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure why but it's been difficult to get up the energy to accomplish much of anything. Fortunately this weekend I got over the hump and lots of things were achieved.

What got me there? Dom mopped the kitchen floor.

It's such a little thing but for some reason that dirty floor was the unsurmountable obstacle standing between me and all the dozens of little things that needed to be done around the house. I hate mopping hate it hate it hate it. And having it done for me was just the spur I needed.

Once that was accomplished I managed to vacuum and straighten the living room and dining room. Purge some clutter from Bella's toys and reorganize them. Give away a box of miscellaneous kitchen stuff some of which hasn't been used since we got married.

Freecycle, just the ticket for packrats like me who can't stand to throw away useful things. I know they went to a good home, to someone who wanted them. And I didn't have to take them anywhere. The person who wanted them came to my house and took them off the porch.

I moved a bunch of clutter to the basement and generally tidied up and even rearranged a few things. Now I actually enjoy walking into the living room again.

Of course them I discovered the mouse droppings and had to take everything out of the corner cupboard in the kitchen so the kitchen table is currently piled high with stuff. But that is only a temporary, emergency state of affairs. I can live with it.

And to top it all off yesterday I woke up and baked blueberry-apple-oatmeal muffins (recipe here). And then baked my first ever loaf of bread. I decided it was finally time to brave the final frontier of baking. I've certainly watched Dom do it enough times. Despite having forgotten the butter until the last minute and having a rather soupy mess when I added it to the dough, the final product turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.





The bread recipe is here, I just substituted whole wheat flour for about half of the bread flour.