Monday, November 10, 2008

Mercies of the mundane

Last week, I lost my USB stick. The stick in which rested the semester's work for the Journalism website class. The stick that represented every Monday for 10 weeks from 3:30-5:30. Losing it meant re-creating my entire website. 

So, I searched for it. I searched my desk. I searched it with a flashlight in my hand. I haunted the Campus Safety office and begged like a little orphan child at the library lost and found. And yet the entire time I had a strange resignation, the sort of feeling that doesn't even get really upset, just decides that it's gone and I'll  have to do all the work again.

And that's what I deserve. I deserve for it to be lying trampled and forever lost somewhere on the Samford sidewalks. I deserve to have spent this entire afternoon trying to do work I've already done. 

I do not deserve to have friends like Anna Page who urge me to go look one more time when I am about to troop off to the JMC lab. I do not deserve to reach into the bag I already searched three times and close my fingers around that elusive little thumb drive. 

My skeptic voice reasons against the idea of sovereignty in me being stupid and losing something and finding it again. But I choose to see the grace of God in a found thumb drive, in an afternoon spent with friends instead of work, because that's what all of life is - grace. More than I deserve. 

More mercies:
-getting the RUF Christmas party theme changed from "Tacky Holiday Sweater" (so last year) to "Redneck Christmas" (so . . . the Alabama RUF's party last year. Yes, I'm a shameless copycat). Right now Joanna and I are trying to decide between old-grandma-in-flannel-nightgown and overalls-pregnant-and-barefoot. Mmm, decisions. 

-my new coconut-lime lotion. I love it. So. Much. It is amazing and the coconut is Coconut coconut, not Sunscreen coconut. Why can't the whole world smell like coconut-lime? Or leaves burning? Or Stumptown coffee?

-I just went downstairs and found free for al cho-co-late in the kitchen. Hmm. Maybe this shouldn't count as a mercy. I've been eating insatiably in a vain effort to curb the stress (the voice of addiction: "Eat the Twix bar . . . it will make things hurt less." Insert evil laughter). 

-The sermon tonight. What gives us strength to count the cost and die? Jesus died for me. 

-Babysitting adorable Red Mountain babies on Sunday afternoon in their hip little outfits. And I get to see them next week too because I'm filling in for Erin again . . . I just might steal this job. 

-Derek Webb songs. 

Beloved, listen to me
don't believe all that you see
and don't you ever let anyone tell you
that there's anything that you need
but Me


4 comments:

Erin said...

girl, you had a chance to steal it at the beginning of the year, and you declined!! i'm not giving it up now! but you can still be my go to replacer :P

Kim said...

Definitely pregnant in overalls.

So glad you found that stick. I would've been hysterical. Absolutely.

Rachel said...

i think a large part of grace is recognizing beauty in very small things. such as time "wasted" but spent on friends. or money "wasted" but spent on friends. or your USB drive found. or my glasses found. it's all about perspective.

"beloved" is absolutely one of my favorites.

of course kim would suggest the pregnant one.

Shannon said...

coconut lime verbena?? thats my favorite(ish)!
I have the body spray.

(no, thats not all I took from your lovely blog)