Angel Armies

"If you choose the Lord your God, Lucy, you'll SEE God and the angel armies in heaven," Jane whispers to Lulie.






Later Jane and Jack ask to try out a homemade sling with REAL rocks. Jack waves his arms and spreads all his fingers to demonstrate. The belt and rubber band contraption looks like it really could kill someone, but I let them give it a try.






Everyday we memorize a little more of the epic exchange between David and Goliath. All audacity and courage, David runs to Goliath in the name of the LORD of hosts. The LORD of armies. Hosts.

All through the house and yard, my children slay Goliath again and again; angel armies poise for victory. Heavenly ranks descend from the skies invisible except in the audacity and courage of my little ones. Goliath shrinks, a giant smudge of a man now snuffed out by all the glory. LORD of hosts, the armies await!






Later I hear from the playroom, "Ok, now I am going to have to behead you." Serious business. Yeah, David actually cuts off Goliath's head. Anyone else forget that part?

Surgery

January 13. Surgery. A pinpoint incision in the new year. Each day closer. A long tether of faith pulls me, encircles the fear I expect. Cataract surgery. On Lulie.

"The hearing ear and the seeing eye
the LORD has made them both."

I'm finding submission more and more like the deep breath of an athlete.


Ready or not





here we come.

Janie pats my shoulder, "Momma." I'm half-listening. "Momma, I'm trying to be patient with you." She's on tip-toe, "Momma, I'm trying to be patient with you. I don't know if I can, but I'm trying to." She circles me like a tether ball.

"Momma?"

Janie grabs my hand, "Can you read me a story?" A pile of books at the bottom of the stairs. A hand to hold.

A leash of love.

Confession

She's perched on the top bunk. Her blue eyes roam the ceiling as if an answer were tucked between the wooden boards.

"Jane." She avoids my eyes. "Is there anything else you need to tell me?" I stare. My eyebrows form an impenetrable fortress. She's breathing in and out like a road racer. "Jane." I bark it out sharper than I expect.

She hugs the ladder and fidgets, all elbows. Then suddenly, like a pop-tent collapsing, she claps her hands, covers her eyes, and bursts into a whisper, "Dear God, please give me the strength to say it. Amen."

As I exhale, the room seems small. Even as she wrestles the truth out like a long splinter, inside I shrink down to the size of a penny. Courage unfolds and I am undone by a thimble-full of confession.

Day Four

"GLORY to GOD. GLOOOORRRY to GOD. GLORY to GOD in the HIGHEST!" It's a shouting match in the sun-room. The piano thunders with small fists pounding out fits of enthusiasm. Jack's voice echos a half-second behind Jane's, and Lulu is screaming. Day four of Daddy's backpacking trip and the glory's getting quite stout around here. As it erupts down the hall and across my bed covers, I sigh. Morning light pools on the floor. It's one of those moments where staring far off into space never felt so good.

Barbarian husband is off fighting the whiles of mountain trails, rugged peaks, hiking on past the pit-bottom of exhaustion. Surviving on the land (and dehydrated food), a communion of man-ness happens. It's the antithesis of our safe life. The antidote. How is it that danger nourishes the heart of a man? And glory the heart of a child. Who knew I would tend such rare commodities .

Blue Shoes

Blue, that was the problem. Janie's shoes pinched her feet because they had no blue on them. If you are going to have a favorite color there is no sense in being half devoted to it. The running shoes had to be BLUE.

I showed her the entry form for the St. Paddie's Day Five. Her eyes got big. The race included a 300 m kids run! Janie squinched up her nose, raised both shoulders. Hooray! Her 1.2 miles an hour on the treadmill were going to pay off.
























Then, there they were sky blue and soft like the leather of an old purse. The shoes practically climbed off the shelf and onto her feet. Laced up like a sigh cradling her foot, they were the slipper kind of the running shoe. Once conceived baby blue permanently adhered to the memory.

This is why at half past five on a Tuesday night we scrapped plans for dinner and headed across town to the shoe store. In our love affair with baby blue I had purchased the wrong size!

This is also why I was performing radio theater David and Goliath for the um-teenth time. We are always telling, acting, becoming stories as we go places.
























"And he said, 'GOLIATH, you come at me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come at you in the name of the LORD God of the angel armies,' and he put one of the smooth stones in his sling and he began to RUN toward Goliath." I'm pumping my arms, pump-pump-pump, "RUN."

















Jack interjects his usual, "Don't scream momma."

"I won't scream. And he's running, RUNNING TOWARD Goliath." I can just picture it, he's wearing baby blue shepherd sneakers and sprinting over the dusty ground, puff, puff, puff. "He's whirling his sling and...SWISH...the stone explodes out straight for Goliath, POW!" I slam my hand down on the console, a couple of receipts and a pencil fall between the seats, "POW, RIGHT between the eyes." I'm pointing to my forehead now. No one says a word. I hear them breathing in the back seat. "Goliath is DEAD."
























Craig turns left into the parking garage. "The moral of the story is," I whisper, "if God asks you to do something HARD you should always do it," I pause, "even if it means fighting a giant or doing something dangerous because God will take care of you."

A click-click of the blinker and we're almost parked. I sigh into the quiet eddie left behind by our story. Jane stares at her reflection in the window, "I would be like David," she says. "I would just do it anyway even if it meant I would die because I have Jesus living in my heart. I would just real quick say, 'Jesus, will you live in my heart?' and then I would do it." And all at once the blue shoes are so abundantly frivolous and yet precisely right.

Goliath

The other night Janie said her prayers, and out of the blue, "God, help Momma to be strong and courageous and not be afraid at Lulu's doctor appointment."

This afternoon I confessed, yes, I was afraid. "Mom, let me pray for you," and all the confidence and courage of four years old, she prayed. She included part of David's address to Goliath before nailing him with the sling-shot. Shoulders back, legs slightly apart, she was poised for victory, her stance straight and fresh as a blade of grass.

Before we left, I told her, watch what I do when I am afraid, how I still smile, and take care of you kids, how I say, "Hi," to our doctor and visit with him, how I still do the right things I know to do. I want her to understand that we turn and face fear, that courage is strength when we are afraid.

Fear reminds us that now is the moment of courage.