Tuesday, December 9, 2008

This December Life



Late last night we heard a tapping at our back door and there was Anna D., her hair covered with snow, shivering and cold, she’d just got off work at the hospital and was snowbound, needing a place to stay for the night.

We’ve been getting snow now for the past two weeks and Denis has been out shoveling quite a few times, but yesterday afternoon a storm that began with a few flakes and swirling drifts ended with six to nine inches by this morning. People have been hurrying past on their way to work, breath steaming, walking up the middle of the street. I saw a neighbor wade through the snow to his front door with four Canadian geese by the neck – he’d been out hunting! Others are scraping cars and running their snow blowers.

Seems like long ago when on a hot day last summer I saw these little tutus in a pricey store in the Nashville airport and immediately thought, Christmas for granddaughters! They were alarmingly cute, but not for $85. So I sketched them, avoiding the stares of the clerk who was pretty sure I was going to shoplift. This week I made one for Paige and Isobel. I know little girls dream of being the princess or the dancer. They do.

I don’t know if they’ll like them or not, but making them was almost reward enough. There are a lot of things we pretend to do for others, but really, it is for ourselves. When finished, I admired the layers of tulle, the sequins and silk flower petals floating in the folds. I felt some kind of accomplished, like maybe I’d have worn them myself, tapping my three year old brain parts. Soon enough most of us we learn we can’t become anything we want. When I was a girl one day Dad taught me how to take care of a horse that had a very nasty cut on his fetlock. That was when I abandoned dreams of ballet. I soaked and cleaned his leg every day for ten days. The horse adored me as though he knew the pain I caused would heal him, and I thought, not that I wanted to be a veterinarian, but a people doctor who squirted disinfectant on fetid wounds, sewed cuts, removed tumors.

Only later did I learn I’d no capacity or resolve for that sort of education. Am thankful God’s destiny was a different one. How often do we know what our future holds and how we will manage to live it? Over and over again, we experience God’s care in shepherding us through places that hold both sorrow and deep joy.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I don’t know if they’ll like them or not, but making them was almost reward enough."

i'm afraid this has become my christmas-present-making mantra.

and those last two sentences - how true!

domandkat said...

Hmmm, I'm thinking you are "a people doctor who squirted disinfectant on fetid wounds, sewed cuts, removed tumors" or at least a nurse. Just not the physical kind, but the spiritual one instead. You guys help people see that they need and can be in relationship to Him by introducing them to the Great Physician.

david, kelly & sam said...

oh, such lovely tutus. do you want one for your birthday next week?? hee hee.

Margie Haack said...

Kelly, yes please.
Kate, always nice to have compadres.
domandkat, thanks so much, would love for that to be so...

Beckye said...

Those tutus are adorable!! My guess is they will LOVE them! So sweet, and I bet they'll remember them and what a special grandmother you are for making them forever!

Alina said...

Yes, I agree there is perhaps more reward in making something and accomplishing a challenge. I would have loved one of these tutus as a girl.

I am in the midst of learning to rest in God's shepherding. I don't like the wild ride that it is, but then again I am grateful it isn't always boring and predictable.

jenni said...

I really hope my future daughter wants to wear a tutu most days ~ I find them highly cute myself.

I also wanted to be a vet at one point, too. Looking back, I can see why God led me elsewhere, or at least so far.

Anonymous said...

Oh! So cute. Will you show me how when you come?

Travis said...

so is it odd that brooke and i bought our new daughter a t-shirt with a skull and crossbones? maybe there's a black and grey tutu that she could wear with it.

Margie Haack said...

Sem, I'd gladly show you.
Trav, no I think it's typical. Of you. And amusing. I'm sort of sold on anticraft myself.

Anonymous said...

Lovely tutus!