Why Worthy?

November 19, 2024
Beloved:
          The HOA sent a painter to refresh my front door yesterday.  I was expecting the same sagey green but instead he applied the softest silvery blue.  I looked on the Sherwin Williams website for a close color and now I want my whole living room done in #6225 Sleepy Blue.  My neighbor also thought she’d get green so she came over to see mine and we agreed it will be extra pretty with her yellow siding.  I got all my laundry caught up and prepped my lunches for the week.  A friend who’s helping with some house projects screwed my puzzle board to a $2 revolving tray* from Goodwill, making it the toy of my dreams.  Then I picked my grandgirl up from preschool and we stopped for jr. frosties on the way home.  She took her shoes and socks off in the car to dump out the playground sand, because 

everyone knows that sand in your socks is the worst feet feeling ever.  In the evening I finished three quilt tops and backs that have been 99% done for weeks.  They are pressed and ready for the quilter.  All of which is to say I went to bed believing I’d had a good day, because it was so . . . . productive, because I got so much accomplished.
          I may have climbed in bed satisfied but I woke up uneasy.  Uneasy as I remembered the costs I’ve paid over the years on days that were not productive, when very little seemed to get done.  On those days I felt not good enough, unworthy even, almost as if I had failed, though I couldn’t tell you what I had failed at specifically.  Being good enough, I suppose, probably because I got so much positive feedback from my parents and teachers for working hard at whatever work was before me.  The feedback was even better when no one had to tell me what or how to do something, when I surprised them with my maturity, my dependability.  The feelings such feedback inspired is the high I’ve chased ever since and the tender regret I had this morning.  Because while they may be honest feelings, they are not my deepest values.        Human beings, including me, are not worthy because of what we accomplish.  We are worthy, we are enough, because we exist as creatures in creation.  We are welcome and wanted here by the Maker who made us and loves us as we are, not for how tidy our spaces are, how orderly our finances.  Living in sync with our deepest values is the essence of integrity, of being so integrated that thoughts, feelings, actions and deepest values lay one upon the other like transparencies that form the whole picture of one person, everything fitting rightly together.  Integrity is a project to be sure, not unlike making a house into a home, bringing one room at a time into sync with the rest, with much grace toward oneself as they do their best day by day.
          The dog just came in positively filthy but only on one side of herself,  while the neighborhood looks sparkling clean after the rain.  Everything to its season, don't you know.  I pray your day is fine in all the ways that truly matter.

~ peace & prayers, 
pastor annette

*I refuse to use the term lazy susan. ​