pure and simple

I'm sure I'm not the only one to find life such a busy whirlwind!

When I sit deliberately with the Lord in the quiet of midday, sweating from the stuffy heat and from the constant buzz of the past 7 hours, it is the verses of "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and mind your own business and work with your hands" (1 Thess. 4:11), and "he who believes in me will flow rivers of living water" (John 7: 38) that prod deep amens from my soul.

Simple. Pure. Refreshing.  Loving my husband, loving my children, being wise and kind (Titus 2:4).  Ahhhhhh.

While things always feel a lot more simple and pure after an hour or so with Him, the rest of my day is easily caught up with the other kind of pure.  Pure insanity.  There. Is. So. Much. Going. On. And. So. Much. To. Do. Every. Moment.

Yesterday at the heat of midday I found myself instead, in the middle of the market, Back to School Shopping.  Family, I wish you could have been there.  You and I would have made eye contact and thrown our heads back in laughter :)

You don't just "buy cloth."  You have to buy ribbons.  Barrettes. Buttons. Socks.  Not just socks, but navy socks.  Not just navy socks, but navy socks, size small, with HUGE amounts of navy lace and ribbons sewn ALL over them.  And the wheelbarrow that has the navy socks in there somewhere is located right next to the mountain (MOUNTAIN) of live chickens, piled on top of each other, splashed with various fluorescent colors to keep their ownership apart.

The red thread needed to stitch "Lily" on the bib of her dress is located right next to the rotting eye-bally fish.  The crystal buttons for her shirt jammed in a tiny dark shop located in the middle of hundreds of overflowing sacks of beans.  Thousands of plastic flip-flops and gaudy bras and toilet bowl cleaner and wagons full of lollipops must be delicately circumvented--all the while hopping over piles of fly-swarmed garbage and teetering over small rivers of open sewage--to find the barrel of pencils.  

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of men and women trying to sell all of these things, hundreds of men and women trying to buy all of these things, with ALL of them trying to sell and buy at prices that suit their bills and their moods.  

It is bizarre, it is surreal.  Matt says it is ghastly, and he typically emerges just short of a panic attack.

But I find it fascinating.  To plunge into the market is the plunge into the throng of Haitian life.  See all, smell all, be all with everyone.  

It is, without a doubt, the opposite of pure and simple.  

And yet, twisting this way and that, ducking tarps and dodging motorcycles, I was completely mesmerized by many small beautiful  things, magnified by the craziness of it all.

Lily's blond head, normally shyly stooped to the ground and tucked tightly behind my skirt in social situations, was bobbing contentedly through the steam of people, completely unafraid.  

I tell you, she wasn't overwhelmed in the least.  She held my hand only because I forced her, and she wove in and out following Noel's skirt like an expert, jumping puddles without being told and taking it all in...smiling brightly at a very bizarre large turkey standing in the midst of the chicken section like we were at the zoo...staring longingly at the overflowing sacks of grains and beans, tempted to stick her little hand in...ducking around vendors and smiling slightly when she saw little ones tucked between mother's knees.  

My girl.  She is Haitian in so many ways, ways I haven't even realized, and I was proud of her.  She is far from perfect, but she is in a very small group of people who have lived their whole lives in a dual-culture life, not really fitting into either, and watching her be at home in the middle of life yesterday brought me joy.  

Then another small girl, maybe five or six, caught my attention by tugging on my hand.  

"Buy one? Please?" she asked me, holding out a cold plastic sack of water.  

She was lovely, braids twisting off in each direction and a gap between each tooth.  Far too young to be alone.  Far too young to be working.

No one stopped pushing around me or hollering out prices, but things became simple again.  Just her and Lily and I, talking over water, my heart stretching with her smile.  

I handed her a small bill, 61 cents, and took two small bags, and she pulled a ripped bag out of her pocket.  She was struggling to do the math, and then to find the change, and as she handed it to me, I put it right back in her bag, some pitiful 50 cents, and the confusion...shock...delight in her face as she grinned back up at me...for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny the world and to live sensibly, righteously and godly, looking for the blessed hope (Titus 1:12).

Drive the hour home from the market...pot-hole, stray dog, motorcycle, tap-tap...make several stops, bread...dish soap...vinegar, get home, Sofie... lunch needs served, a visiting team is painting the porch rails (THANK YOU, North Ireland!), laundry needs brought in, visiting professors coming, going, meals, cooking, staff retreat, dishes...go get the mail, keys, Matt's meetings, boo-boos, books, bedtime...

Jesus Christ, who gave Himself...to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.  Titus 1:15

I am well aware that every dish scrubbed and every dime given comes with a choice.  

If I'm working from me, the busy, sticky, messy, burnt, dusty, non-stop means I'm putting out snappy, grouchy, judgmental, short, dry, surface ME.

But if I can stay close to the Source, the only thing each day that I MUST do, that Living Water will freely flow....freely flow HIM.  In the market, at school, in my home, in the yard, in my emails, in my marriage, with my children, first thing in the morning, when dinner was supposed to be served, when they didn't tell me they were coming by today, when we have five minutes to be there, when others are refreshing and when they're not.  

Pure and simple.