Footprints

I was folding blueberries into the muffin batter when I felt the shard pierce the skin of my left foot.  Fussing, I hopped over to the sink to remove the piece of glass.  I knew it would find me sooner or later, after a glancing blow knocked a segment off the rim of a mason jar an hour previous.  Meaning to sweep the floor, I instead moved from one thing to the next while I set to baking a cake and muffins at the same time.   I was thankful I stepped on the wayward object and not one of my children.  I berated myself and kept mixing batter because if you leave blueberries in batter for too long without baking them, the batter  becomes an offensive off blue colour.   If baking came with colour swatches soggy blueberry muffin batter comes in somewhere in between “this looks like blue mold” and “my grandmother’s blueberry muffins were never purple.”

It’s a baking thing.

Onward I went, a valiant warrior, adding baking soda and flour to different bowls, spraying muffin pans and scooping mix until I slipped and about fell over.  “Why is the floor wet?” I asked in a most exasperated tone to the empty kitchen.  People with baking shows don’t slip on wet floors, why must I suffer so?  I assumed a guilty child had splashed water on the floor and left me to slide to an uncoordinated yet impressive manner.  I groaned, put down the muffin pans and looked at the floor. 

Then I screamed. 

Then my daughter, sitting in the next room came running into the kitchen and looked at the floor.  She groaned.  Regaining her composure she looked at me, “Mum what the heck?”

“Clearly, I’m bored and bleeding out,” was my snotty reply, which was entirely unfair.  All the poor kid did was show up in order to help her me and I was being bloody and grumpy.  Sighing, my dear girl marched upstairs, rummaged under the bathroom sink, came back into the kitchen and wordlessly handed me a Band-Aid. “Do you need Dad?”   “Nooooo,” was my civil reply, Dad didn’t need to witness this kind of skill set, he knows who he married; best not remind the poor fellow.  

It was all quite exciting really, if not a bit gross.  But it was interesting because it got me thinking about the foot prints we unintentionally make when we are hurt.    

Three days later I was having a seaside moment with my youngest when a woman walking down the beach caught my eye.  She was older, dressed in a black coat and dragging an umbrella in the sand.  Wandering the beach, she pulled her umbrella, leaving squiggles and swirls behind her.  The thought of leaving a mark came to mind once more.  I reflected that when we have first been hurt, it is easy to make a mess as we navigate crisis.  When the suffering is protracted, we can leave a bloody trail of anger, frustration and despair as life takes us to places we never imagined.  Pain marks a soul and without intentional actions to heal, it will mark our footsteps as well.

I followed Umbrella lady down the beach, thinking about the difference between the lovely swirls she left and my bloody footprints the kitchen.  Why is it when pain comes into a life that some people are able to rise above it and leave a legacy of beauty, yet others bleed and never recover from their wounds?  I was getting all church about the issue, thinking about the role of faith in suffering when Umbrella Lady stopped walking. 

You realize my friend, that when I recount a story it is often more clear in hindsight than it is in the moment.  At this moment thoughts were floating through my mind and I was trying to make sense of suffering with grace versus suffering without it.  I walked up to where Umbrella Lady left her scribbles in the sand, wondering what a 70 year old writes as she doodles her way down the beach.

I was not disappointed.

And with this message in the sand, I found some peace for I believe that it is a grateful heart that can and does make all the difference in our walk.

I’m praying for you this week,

xoxK