Daylight savings threw us off again like it does every year, and the mornings are bright again – snow melting off roofs and pouring down eaves, gravity gathering it into puddles at the lowest common denominator.

Inside, the surfaces are covered in books, videos, craft supplies, and science materials, the products of last-minute school orders to meet our school’s deadline at the end of March. Stacks of books cover the coffee table and overflow onto the floor by the couch, waiting for us to be done perusing long enough to commit each one to their own shelf space. And I’m a little nervous looking at them, because there’s another stack of books right there – the ones I’m already in the middle of – and they’re staring at me.

“Can you believe it? Look at her opening up those new recruits already. She only read five pages outta me last night.”

“She hasn’t looked at me in a week,” mutters another one.

“Please,” Les Mis sighs. “She’s been working on me for over two years and still has 251 pages to go.”

It’s true. If I were better at book hoarding ordering, I’d bust my tail to finish a few books while waiting for an impending order to come in so that when they get here I can look at them guilt-free.

But there’s been no time. Over the last few weeks, the bathroom floor was torn apart and put back together, the water was turned off and turned back on again, the heat was messed up during an inspection and then put right again, all the repairs were finished, and we closed on the house. During those same weeks, we wrote (and edited) 160 thousand words for three projects. Vince took the month off for that purpose, and it was a blissful hurricane. But still, there was almost no time for reading.

And on a perfectly normal day (feel free to insert hysterical laughter over the reckless use of “normal” in this sentence) when he went back to work, we (and by “we” I mean one of the kids, absolutely not me, I had nothing to do with it) broke a shelf in the refrigerator door, spilling its contents all over the floor, but it was no big deal, mostly just glass and raspberry jam over broken kitchen tile, piece of cake, no biggie, and I didn’t even realize how disturbing it looked until I texted Vin a picture of it and he immediately replied, PLEASE TELL ME THAT’S NOT BLOOD.

It wasn’t. Jam, I told you.

The kids kept Finnegan out of the kitchen while I cleaned the mess. By the time I was wiping up the last shards with a damp paper towel we were almost in the clear for the day, but he skidded around the corner, slipped and fell, and tore his – ready for this? – frenulum. Yeah, I didn’t know what that was, either, but it’s the little attach-y thing between your upper gums and top lip. I made frantic phone calls while he was bleeding to two medically-experienced friends, and also learned that it’s a super common injury and generally heals without stitches.

I sent Vince a photo of it, too. He texted back, Oh, that. I’ve torn that plenty. Once knew a guy who cut it with scissors on a dare. To which I immediately replied, PLEASE TELL ME IT WASN’T YOU.

It wasn’t. But this is why his life insurance is almost four times as expensive as mine – because men are ridiculous.

The cost of life insurance was fresh on my mind because I had an appointment scheduled with our insurance guy that day, but somewhere between the fridge and the frenulum he called to warn me about possibly needing to cancel our appointment. An injured moose was in his backyard, and he was on the way to meet the troopers to assess if it needed to be shot and subsequently butchered – because Alaska is also ridiculous.

Like I said, just a normal day. No time for reading those books.

These are our seasons: phases of ebb and flow, resting and rioting, constantly overlapping each other. Usually our routines follow a schedule like the tide, but sometimes we go through a shaking – one area brooks a tidal wave, and its gravity sucks our time and attention away from everything else.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

– Matthew 10:34, ESV

He was talking about the contrast between the Kingdom and the comfort zone. It’s like Jesus was saying, Spoiler Alert, it’s going to get messy. Get your Xtra Tuffs on.

But this is the same Jesus who said:

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

– John 14:27, ESV

Just for extra credit, I checked the Greek and He uses the same word for “peace” both times. But I checked the word for sword, too, and it’s the same one used when referring to the sword of the Spirit (aka the Word of God), here and here.

So we have peace, a sword, and the Word of God, and they merge together as events rock our world, sloshing us around like water in a stormy sea. He is always the anchorage in our unrest. He brings our peace through hearing Him, which leads to heart-wholeness, and this heart-wholeness, this calm we carry in the shaking, is the weapon we use. It wields wisdom, humility, maturity, truth.

He brought peace to men, not the earth, and the logbook of our days proves it. Today, for example – the only road from the Valley into Anchorage is shutdown from an 18-wheeler taking out an overpass, effectively turning Palmer and Wasilla into Hotel California – you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…

In lieu of taking the seven (yes, seven, seite, onetwothreefourfivesixseven) hour detour, Vince opted to stay home for the day, resting in the riot. I mean, from the riot. But really, who are we kidding.

We’re using it as found time to help a kid through some tough-love heart issues, and to get some house projects done, and yes, to finish some books – but nope, probably not those school books. We’re wrapping up edits on one project this week before sending it off to the next phase…because books, too, have seasons, and they are also ridiculous.

P.S. Finnegan also learned to use voice-to-text this week, but fortunately he sent it to Vince. It read: PPQQRO HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING ARE YOU VOICE TEXTING WHAT DOES IT SAY WOW

True story. And, here, bonus – a frenulum.

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