i know why the bible writes to serve silently. it is a letter to my own heart. serving is rough. i grumble easily. i get grossed out by that dirty face in the gutter feeling after cleaning and scrubbing dusty-dirty-icky gecky-things. i squirm when I stick my hand into the garbage disposal, yet again, feeling the soft 
chunkiness and search for a utensil which might have fallen down accidentally. i get wigged out by finding spider webs when i clean the corners of the floor. i never fail to vocally, "ewww..." as i empty the vacuum filth into the waste basket. my hands turn raw and rough from scrubbing with cleansers (even though they are the earth friendly kind). for me, serving is hard. i know i am serving because after i do it for a while, i know i am serving. my heart at first is eager, "oh yes lets get moving lets freshen up the place with good wholesome lovin," but after a while...like when my muscle twitches and i get sweaty and grossed out by some jigger or another, and i know i will only have to repeat this same process, i moan grudgingly because serving is an everyday task. i know i am conscious that i am doing a chore that is not my
favorite thing to do when i think of all the other ways i could be spending my time. i know i am serving when my mind wanders to cinderella as my mom would call me when i did a miniscule chore, or when i think of how some people daily clean hotels or serve people food or collect the garbage, or clean schools and i feel my selfishness inside of me. and i know i have no idea what it is really like to spend a life serving because i have only minor moments of it when i can acknowledge it is happening. pathetically, i know i spend most of my life being served. you start to realize how great it is to be served when you are married. my mom serves me so much i do not blink an eye at it because it is so common place. she has spoiled me by taking care of me since i was a babe and letting me be a grown up babe. ironically, whenever i try to consciously pamper her, she somehow ends up serving me! when you get married, there isn't a mama in the house to serve. there is only you and yr boy. one of you must choose. hopefully you both do.
my grandma used to complain that she felt like her whole life was being sucked away in the kitchen. my grandma is a smart lady. she has many interests, friends, and a giant social life with a lot more exciting things to do than dwell behind a stove all day. it was a sacrifice for her to be stuck in a kitchen three times a day-and more-cleaning, preparing, and serving meals for her kids and grandkids, but she did it. she canceled and said no to a lot more than i will know because i was too young at the time to realize how much energy went into raising and providing a home for me. now, i find myself thinking what she used to say, "sometimes the hardest part is thinking of something new to make for dinner." isn't that the truth!
when i got engaged and many of my girls did....the bridal showers began. (whooo-
hoo!) you need your sisters to support you in the transition to "wifey." i couldn't even say the word at first! they have helped me a lot. one classic bridal shower is a "kitchen theme" party. if one does not have a kitchen themed bridal shower, a classic gift for the bride is a cookbook. don't ask me why they give this to the bride. it made me feel like somehow just because i was getting married i had to sell my life away to the 1940's and hide at home because i was female. after i freaked out about marriage being yet another sic waspy invention i gave into
the easy solution. don't do it. i got married without the cookbook. i told my boy, just because we snap get married i am not going to suddenly become some dinner at five o' clock gal because that just wasn't me. i told him, we were both getting married so if he wanted to fetch a meal so be it, but i was not going to be "expected" to like it came along with the wife label. obviously, i'm not really good at serving. when i lived in a house with girls it didn't bother me to take a turn cooking, nor do i mind to randomly make something. i actually enjoy it when it is perfectly vegan and comes out exactly heart shaped and chocolate just like i like it. its just something in my turns and twists like it just isn't right if the female is "supposed to" or "expected to" do some
household chore either of us could easily do. not like i am running to crank up the lawn mower or anything. you won't see me running up to see if the garbage is full so i can take it out. i'll kind of leave it there for a little while, push in as much as the canister can handle hoping bobs will see it overflowing or try to bag it up and walk by him so he will see me and decide, "oh no, what is this...my wife carrying the garbage, no! no! we can't have this, don't worry, i got it." to which i will adoringly reply, "okay...thank yooooou!" serving...especially cleaning is icky stuff. my friend natalie-who somehow would always clean for me-taught me about the therapeutic nature of cleaning. this is truly appreciate as well as mary engelbright's inspiration, "to be happy: don't do whatever you life; like whatever you do." 
when i would meet with my girls for prayer group one of my biggest marriage complaints and blessings would be...the boy mess. i would complain about how messy our
digs were and yet offer a praise that if that was our biggest issue i would take it! when you get married you realize whom is serving whom because if your not being served by your boy and your doing the serving...you start to catch on quick. bobs and i go on a serving each other cleaning tug of war. he likes things to be perfect and yet has never deep cleaned anything ever. i am messy but believe in deep cleaning. however, i am again not a chef, not a maid, but a wife. i don't want to feel like because i am married i turn into his mom. now bobs talks about living in a egalitarian relationship. i can't help but smile with glee. every time he says the word "egalitarian." its just too stinkin cute. i immediately smile. he does too. what makes me sicker than sick is that every life giving day my Jesus serves me. every hour of everyday, my loving Mother of Christ listens to me, provides for me, cleans up my inner griddle. Jesus has the privilege of doing every joyous activity in infinity of space and time and yet chooses to take care of selfish, sin repeating, forgetful, take advantage of my grace, me. the Holiest of Holies. break my heart! why does the God of the universe serve me?
i want to say, "no God! No!" don't serve me! i am unworthy.
like the disciple said to Jesus:
"No," Peter protested, "you will never wash my feet!" Jesus replied, "But if I don't wash you, you won't belong to me." john 13: 8
my Holy Spirit is active round the clock and overtime.
because
she loves me.
when my niece has a bomb explosion in her pants-and beyond-for some reason no matter how repulsive to the nostrils it is i don't really mind cleaning her up. i want her to be clean. now her bedding i definitely get annoyed at because it is breakingingly impossible to redress and doesn't smile back up at me when i scrub it. but for hailey-kat, i somehow get it all cleaned up because i want her to be clean and delicious and sleeping so she is not a grouchasauras whinnying at me.
while my love is so human and gets frustrated and annoyed and impatient, my God's love for me doesn't. i seriously don't know how. she could do anything else in the world, but she desires to take care of lowly sickly disturbingly self warped me. God serves me because she made me and she loves me completely. i can't even know all of the multitude of ways my Mother God is looking out for me and cleaning up yet another mess i made, or off to stop another danger zone occurringuring and re-occurring. no matter how repetitive my poor behavior,monotonousneous my mistakes can be, she sticks through it and continually serves me. without a holiday! "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." John 13:34-35
love.
real, true, pure love. love like I have never experienced it on earth. love perfected, created, embodied, and smothered over...me. its hard to imagine being truly loved for all that i am. its hard to imagine that could be real. its hard to imagine that love comes from a God who could love anything else more worthy than i. its hard to imagine because i never fully can take it in...how deeply I am loved. love is the most beautiful mystery in life. i am so glad that love is so much bigger than me and war and this world. i'm so glad that god is love.
i love mythology. as a child the gods and goddesses were like some
older popular kid i admired but was equally sort of scared of. in 
greek mythology i liked the goddesses athena and aphrodite. in hawaii, we had pele the fire goddess who would cover an area with her lava flow but leave one house in the middle spared because of their favor with her. i took a hawaiian ghost tour the summer of fifth grade which pretty much scared me for life. i was taking marine biology summer classes and staying with a friend. i
would wait until i was dying before i had to go to the bathroom and rush in as fast as i could because i feared being alone after all the talk of "ghosts" around us. i am such a scarediecat that i pray to Jesus that i will never have the power to see ghosts around me. i feel my guardian angels around me and appreciate that, but maybe not all those other guys. other people are good with the gift, not me please. ghosts kinda scare me like the gods and goddesses because i never know what they are gonna do, if they like me or not. i am way to sensitive for this behavior.
i much prefer my welcoming Mother and Father of Christ who i know always love me. my God evokes more than a "i think that person is kinda cool feeling." God mesmorizes me. when all the other religions in the world require me workin my way to reach them, my God comes to me...out of love. Jesus makes me crumble over in the utter humanity of
myself. i love the Jewish belief that God is so bright we can't even look at him or we will die! that there is so much goodness and light and love that everything in me that is not of light runs away in shame. what i can't wrap my mind around is how this beauty of light and love calls me, us, humanity, makes us apart of her image, and loves us, and says she will tranform us to light like she is so we can love like Jesus does. "every thought's a possibility
and voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery...
...maybe that's all that we need
is to meet in the middle of impossibility
standing at opposite poles
equal partners in a mystery"
-indigo girls "mystery"
one of my heart of heart passages in the bible that my girl rb's read at my wedding which is so completely beautiful it never fails to blow me away by its words and meaning is in ephesians:
"when i think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, i fall to my knees and pray to the Father and Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of everything in heaven and on earth. i pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he give youveyou mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.
and i pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. may your roots go down deep into the soul of God's marvelous love. and may you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. may you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you neverevber funderstandrtand it. then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. now glory be to God! by his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. may he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen" ephesians 3: 14-21 (nlt)
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