All Creation Groans :)

I got ready for bed and came into the bedroom to find Brett snuggled in bed with a good book...and a pair of reading glasses. Stopping dead in my tracks, I stared at him. "WHAT are you wearing?" I asked. He gave me some crazy line about needing to see the words on the page. I cracked up.

After about two weeks of the nightly ritual of me walking into the bedroom, him sitting in bed with the glasses perched at the end of his nose, me bursting into peals of laughter, and him glaring at me over the rim of said glasses, he finally turned to me and asked, "Will there be a night when you aren't laughing at my glasses?" I chewed my lip thoughtfully for a moment. Stifling a giggle, I replied, "Um, probably not." I smiled; he did not.

The next morning, he handed me a book and his glasses. "Just try this," he said. I rolled my eyes and, donning his spectacles, opened the book. "Wow!" I said. He smiled smugly. "This is amazing," I continued. "Yep," he nodded.

A few years ago, Brett threw me a surprise party for my 40th birthday. Some people get depressed when they turn 40. Not me. I was so excited to be finally turning a mature age. Being in my 40's rocks. I love it. But that's not to say that age doesn't have a price. I've now got graying hair. And gray hair is odd. It doesn't lay flat. It's wiry, like a poodle. It doesn't sprinkle evenly about the head. For me, it comes in stripes and reminds me of that annoying little Looney Tunes skunk, Pepe LePew. Alex and her friend Margaret remind me that gray hair is wisdom. Fine. Can't wisdom just lay flat and behave?

I was at a church retreat a few weeks ago, and there was a rope swing over the lake. One of the girls came up the hill and announced to me, "Eliza says her mom would go off this if she were here. And now you're here." Not one to back down from a challenge, I headed on down to the lake. (For some reason that mystifies me, my kids and their friends think I'm daring. Maybe it was the downhill sledding at six months pregnant?) Anyhow, I mounted the stairs to the swing and looked down.

It was way down.

It was way, way down.

And I said, "I don't think so."

The kids were all standing there, chanting, "Jump! Jump! Jump!..." And all I could think was, "There is no way that swing is going to hold me." "Aw, sure it is," all the kids reassured me. "It's perfectly safe." But, in the end, I chose to jump off the dock. I jumped again and again and again and had a blast with all the kids. But I had to admit that my age is starting to make me cautious.

Brett has been seeing a naturopath for various health issues. It seems that when he gets one licked, another one pops up. And it hit me. All creation groans, the Apostle Paul writes. Ain't that the truth? Our bodies age, slow down, become inefficient, and eventually just stop working. The truth is that we can eat organic, exercise, take a gazillion supplements, and drink only water from Parisian springs, but sin has still corrupted our bodies, and we will never be fully free from the effects of sin this side of heaven. No doctor in the world can beat sin. So we groan for our Redeemer, and we groan for Heaven. We're sick--homesick.

A month ago, Brett brought me a gift. It was three pairs of reading glasses, just for me, in various animal prints. I love them. They've become my constant accessory. When the time comes for me to groan with the rest of creation, at least I'll be doing it in style. :)

"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved." Romans 8: 23-24