toil

The Lovely Lady isn’t talking to me.

No, it’s not for the reason you might suspect. She’s not upset—not with me anyway.

I am frustrated. I have been for weeks. Tasks which have been set before me have been tackled with purpose and intent. As uncomfortable as I am with those tasks, I want to complete them.

Wanting to is not the same as doing.

Trying is not the same as succeeding.

For a variety of reasons, I have been forced to move from several of the tasks to other ones before the first jobs were completed. It doesn’t set well in my spirit.

Today, I spent a few hours measuring and visualizing a solution while considering a task I never wanted to begin in the first place.

What I really mean is I stood in one place and, staring at the impossible mess, racked my brain to come up with a way out of the predicament I find myself in. Dinnertime interrupted the aggravation—which only made me more aggravated.

I came home, having accomplished not a single task. Not one.

I said she’s not talking to me. She just knows I need a little space. I’m not much for consoling platitudes. They only frustrate me more. She knows that.

She knows me.

I like that she knows me.

Later this evening, I needed to retrieve something I had left at the site of my earlier frustration, so I told her I would be right back, explaining what I was doing.

It would take a little longer than that.

As I walked in the door, the frustration of the day landed on me again like an unbearable weight on my chest. It was hard for me to breathe for a moment. But, as I walked back where the item I needed was stored, I noticed another task I had left undone days ago.

A thought hit me. Why not just finish that little project? I had been putting it off for days, feeling guilty every time I walked past, but never stopping to complete the work.

Tonight, I picked up the necessary tools and I finished one task. Just one.

I walked out of there with my head held high. When I got home, the Lovely Lady talked to me.

She talked to me.

I like that she knows me.

I read her part of a poem, one I remember from my childhood days. You’ve likely heard it before. A single verse from Longfellow’s The Village Blacksmith:

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.

My voice cracked as I read the words. It does that. More and more, these days.

It was only a small thing I completed.

No. It was a very small thing.

It doesn’t matter. I needed to feel the success of completion—of working at something that mattered, and finishing it.

I have often felt that way about life itself—about living my faith. I need to do something that matters. More than that, I need to complete the job.

Perhaps I won’t finish it today, as Mr. Longfellow’s blacksmith did. But still, the goal is not to start a plethora of tasks. The goal is to finish what’s been begun, be it one enterprise or a dozen.

I want to be able to say with the Apostle who wrote so many letters, that I have fought a good fight and have completed the race. (2 Timothy 4:7)

It will only be true through perseverance. It will only be true if the race is run in His strength and not my own.

I lose interest when the going gets hard. Zeal turns to disappointment; the heat of good intentions cools until there is barely a spark of dedication.

But, He knows me.

My frustrations, my sadness, my disappointments, He knows all of them. And, in all of them, He never wavers in His faithfulness.

I waver. I gripe. I lash out.

There is no limit to His persistent love. Share on X

But, there is no limit to His persistent love. His mercies have no end. Really. In His faithfulness, His mercies are renewed every morning. (Lamentations 3:22, 23)

Every morning.

Just when I need them to face the new day, with its frustrations and its challenges. Mercies.

I like that He knows me.

I’ve got more tasks to complete.

I think I’ll see what I can finish today.

I might even start something new.

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished two bags of M&Ms and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.
(Dave Barry ~ American author/humorist)

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.
(Colossians 3:23,24 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Let’s just put in a new window.

She had a point. The old single-hung window was pathetic, the lower pane broken, with a piece of plywood covering the missing glass. The combination of dirty, scratched glass and the not-so-efficient plywood patch made it seem that the natural light outside had to squeeze its way in, rather than streaming in from the sky, as one would expect. The paint on the window frame is peeling and it is easy to see that water has been leaking onto the wood for years. Perhaps it really is finished.

One might have thought that—before today.

Today, I made what seemed like fifteen trips up a ladder with the sole intent of proving the old window still had some life left in it. Fifteen trips up to a window twelve feet off the ground. Fifteen trips back down.

I carried tools up to remove the old glass, tools to clean out the old glazing compound and glazier’s points, tools to scrape peeling paint, and even a tool to make sure the window won’t keep sliding open on its own. I brought broken panes down. I carried new panes up.

In between, I stood near the top of the ladder and labored.

Tomorrow, I’ll make a few more trips up and down.

The window is going to be fine. Really. The building contractor working on the new house next door to my old one looked over at it this afternoon and told me so. He says it’s looking great.

The window is going to be fine.

I’m not so sure about me. The old legs are shaky tonight. Muscles ache and I have a slight cramp in the arch of my foot, where it rested on the rung—when it wasn’t climbing up or down the rest of the rungs.

I had a different scenario in mind when I insisted we save the old window. It involved one trip up the ladder. It involved one trip down the ladder.

No one wants to cover ground they’ve already covered. Like Longfellow’s blacksmith, we want to see something attempted and something done. Just like that—all on the same day.

Try. Do. Wipe your hands.

Tomorrow, I’ll go up the ladder again. And very possibly, the next day, I’ll go up the ladder again.

And, in that realization, I see before me the analogy of my existence these days.

Each morning finds me in the same valley, looking up at the job I know must be done. The mountain must be climbed, tasks will be attempted, but it seems certain the goal won’t be reached.

Weary and frustrated, I’ll slide down the mountainside one more time, only to tackle it again tomorrow. The words Mr. Shakespeare put into the mouth of Macbeth centuries ago make their way even now into my own: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Hmmm. One might get the idea I’m discouraged. Perhaps, even angry.

I have been. Both of them.

As I did today when I descended the ladder for the last time, I have looked up and have seen, not the progress which has been made, but the great amount of the task yet to be accomplished.

Standing on the ground, looking up this afternoon, even after hearing my contractor friend praise my attempts, it was easy to wonder why I even considered reviving that old window.

What an astonishing waste of time! How do I justify the effort and expense?

And yet…

As I put away the tools and my ladder, a thought hit me. They do that, you know.

I wonder what it looks like from inside the room?

Wearily, but with just a hint of anticipation, I clomped up the rough staircase inside.

I won’t say I was awestruck. I wasn’t. Still, as I stepped off the top step into the room, the difference was surprising. Light, from the sunny Spring sky, filled the room. All the dingy impediment of the old panes was a thing of memory.

Now, we’re getting somewhere!

Sometimes, all it takes is to look at the thing from a different perspective. We’ve been looking at it from the same side for so long, we can’t see how close we are to reaching the goal.

Tomorrow will be another day. The journey still beckons, in all of its unromantic tedium.

I’ll climb the ladder again. And again.

It’s how the light gets inside.

Climb the ladder again tomorrow. It's how the light gets in. Share on X

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.
(from The Village Blacksmith ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~ American poet ~ 1807-1882)

Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.
“For in just a little while,
the Coming One will come and not delay.
And my righteous ones will live by faith…”
(Hebrews 10: 36-38 ~ NLT)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Finishing the Job

The Ladder