And Afterward, A Fish Fry...

The girls and Husband went fishing for the first time yesterday. They went with a kind couple from our church.

They went without me.

I feel very tethered to this house and all the maintenance and half-finished projects there are in it, to do--especially when the alternative involves bug spray, humidity, mosquitoes and 90+ temperatures.

I let them go knowing full well that I would suffer the great pain of regret later. Regret for skipping this "first" in their lives. Regret for the laughter I'd miss and the squandered opportunity for family fun.

That was, of course, if my darlings came back at all. I spent the last 2 hours of their 5-hour adventure fighting off the image of them being tangled in the fishing line and dragged to their watery graves in the vast expanse of what was really a small pond at 50 miles an hour by a great killer catfish.

Yes, again--fun to be me.

But as God would have it, it was all worked for my good. As I waved a final goodbye to them from the front door, I started a list in my head of all I should get done. And as I quietly watched the van turn the corner and move out of sight, I was instantly overcome by a desire to sit down with God and pray and read and read and pray. He lifted all concern for the monkeys on back, and turned my attention to His good Word.

I'm in His Word one way or another every. single. day. But finding time and space to delve in, alone and in a meaningful way, and linger without distraction happens rarely.

Or never.

Not with three sweet, loud, lovely, talkative, well-mannered, whimsical, kind, bickering, adorable, needy, competent, flighty whirly birds traversing my 30 inches of personal space during every waking moment. Oh, how I do love them. And it's a good thing they're cute.

Ahem. Anyway...

They went fishing, and I went to The Throne of Grace. There were no grand epiphanies that day for me: I didn't dissect the Trinity, or find the lost arc of the covenant, or discover the hidden passage of Scripture that explains God's election and man's responsibility--and how both can be absolutely true at the same time.

I just enjoyed a sweet hour of prayer. I read some from Mark. And then my mother-in-law called and we got to talking about child-rearing. And she told me that it's good for the girls to get their daddy alone sometimes. And it suited me just fine in the moment to believe it.

The girls returned home with 8 catfish and more than one story of praying to Jesus for a catch. They say Fifi was a natural at casting. Cuddlebug got one or three. But everyone was a little concerned for Dumpling when they were down to their last fat, grub worm and she hadn't reeled one in. But it ended well with her making her one and only catch of the day with that final try. Yippee!

And yes...after a hot, steamy day for them and a slightly panicked, anxious day for me, we invited our hosts over for an impromptu fish fry. They had more stories about the girls--stories that wouldn't have been told if I'd been there to stop them from happening in the first place.

So I'm glad I wasn't.

And it was a good day. A very good day, indeed.