And the worst part is, it's becoming a pattern. Uncle Don doing senseless things.
Yeah, my day was incredibly full, too. But Don mixed and poured 85 loads of cement into a huge canal-d bathroom floor in the hot men's dorm. Like, ALL day. By hand.
And before he even finished, the girls and I decided (it may have mostly been me) we HAD to have Pioneer Woman's Homemade Cinnamon Bread. So we started it around 3, which if you've ever made homemade bread, is way too late. But these cravings.
So we dirtied a ridiculous amount of pots and bowls and measuring cups, went all out, did the thing right, doubled the batch, and the dough was still rising through dinner. A few more dirty dishes, and the loaves were set to rise after dinner. Girls to bath and bed and I was exhausted. I laid down, and by the time the piping hot fragrant loaves came out of the oven, it was almost 10 pm. And they still had to be cooled and sliced before the night was through.
My kitchen, of course, was a hurricane of sweet and sticky, with enough dishes piled up to represent a four-course meal. And I just. couldn't. do it. It was such a long day, and I was done.
I left them for tomorrow, dreaming that tomorrow would not be busy and I would be full of energy and the ants and rats wouldn't have taken over.
Somewhere in there, Don came home from watching a movie with the team next door, MORE than ready, I am sure, to fall into well-deserved bed. He is a WORK horse and nothing less, and I KNOW he did the work of 3 men yesterday.
But when I sleepily tiptoe out to the kitchen at 11 to slice and bag that finally finished project, there was not ONE speck of cinnamon on my counters, not ONE dirty (or clean) dish to be seen, NOTHING but two big beautiful loaves of cinnamon bread.
Uncle Don.
How insane of him was that? Totally nonsensical.
Kind of like leaving his business for 2 weeks and all of the work and profit he would have earned to work his rear-end off down here in the blazing sun for.....NOTHING. Negative income.
Kind of like him doing that every semester since 2008.
Kind of like his family choosing to barely make it by financially instead of being comfy financially because of the months and years of his life he's given to nonsensical, unprofitable service to the Lord.
Kind of like Aunt Brenda, warming their frozen pipes with a hair dryer by herself at 3 am in Jersey, because she sent Don to make NO money with a bucket-load of Easter surprises for the girls, just to love us and help us and serve us.
Like Don standing in our kitchen alone at night after a crazy long day, washing dishes he didn't dirty for food that he didn't eat in a kitchen that isn't his at an absurd hour because of a crazy pregnant lady.
Who was in bed.
Sometimes, living at a seminary, married to a Matt, I truthfully joke about how little I know, what a dumb blonde I am.
But when I think about how crazy our Jesus was, how stupid so much of what he did must have seemed to the world, how senseless even his greatest act of love was to all human common sense, and when I SEE Don, dumbly and sacrificially loving the same way...pouring a gorgeous bathroom with perfectionism for a bunch of threadbare Haitian pastors who can give him nothing, doing dishes for a couple of young-ish foreigners who can give him nothing and who are in bed...I WANT to be foolish like him.
Like Him.
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