Sand Between My Toes

I’m awake, again.

I roll over. The urban twilight of light pollution glimmers through tiny slits in the closed shutters. It’s three o’clock in the morning.

This has been happening more lately. Especially since we moved back to Tennessee. I’m not worried, and I’m not afraid. Simply awake. When this happened back in Florida, I’d get in my car and drive to the beach to watch the twilight fade, sand between my toes.

At four-thirty, I roll out of bed. Daisy, our mixed terrier, seems to think it’s an exciting event. Bounding out of bed, she runs outside to investigate the yard, dim in the pre-dawn. She barks at an imaginary something that has offended her, and I call her inside. She snuggles back in bed with Jody, and I wish I had an off switch like that.

Deciding to fight my obsession with work, I start my day by reading a novel rather than useful nonfiction. In the novel, Gilead, an aging midwestern pastor is facing death, and his reminiscing prompts a long letter to his son. He wishes for control, the ability to provide and to be present, but the unrelenting reality that he must relinquish control presses in on every page.

One can read only so much fiction, so I pick up my Bible and read the first chapter of Second Timothy. In the sixth verse, Paul tells Timothy, “Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” I think, what is my gift that I should be stirring up?

I long for the level of certainty Timothy must have had. Sure, doubt about gifting and calling must have been a feature of his life, too. But he had something concrete to point toward. His gift and call had been named by others, and he had been commissioned.

I guess there is one rite in my adult life that is similar. I married Jody thirty years ago, and in that ceremony, I accepted the call to protect, provide, and lead her. Perhaps this constant search for entrepreneurial success that I’m walking is really me fanning into flame that gift of being a provider, a husband. If so, it is a good and godly impulse.

But if I am to be a provider, I can’t be one in an absolute sense. My skills, no matter how highly developed, are fallible, susceptible to market disruption. All I can do is steward my skills by continuous learning and application. But just like sleep is a gift, any success that comes through my work comes from my heavenly Father who loves me.

This morning, I need to receive his love more than I need to work. In unearned, unmerited love, I have stability. When I lose touch with grace, I am treading water, and getting tired. I need a place to set my feet. No more swimming. God’s love. Sand between my toes.