I have a confession to make:

I’m a fraud.

I suspected it the other night watching the news. My words filling the room, “Aw, shut up you arrogant blowhole!” made me want to suck them right back in.

Words like that can’t come from someone demonstrating grace, mercy and respect for all of God’s creatures. Unless we’re talking about making a three-course meal solely with pantry items, that blurt actually smacked of egotism. Sigh.

“Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.”*

Then this afternoon, Kendra stopped by the cottage. Stoking the fire in the stove as we chatted, I noticed smoke trailing over the door. “It’s not a lot,” I thought – and then watched it rise toward the vaulted ceiling. “Oh dear, we might have a problem here,” I said.

Kendra blinked her beautiful eyes without remarking, and then went on with her previous dialogue.

This concerned me – all night. Why didn’t she say something? She once lived here and knows how things go. This must be a big problem and doesn’t want to upset me…

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” **

And then came morning. I don’t know about most people, but for me everything seems to make more sense in the morning and not much actually concerns me. Alarms typically come later. But the stove problem I had predicted resolved itself.

Lesson: burning green wood in my scant-year-old stove and chimney can leave residue and can eventually cause problems. However, alternating it with well-seasoned or kiln dried wood also burns those resins away. What’s more, I actually noticed that a good, hot fire in the morning not only warms the cottage more efficiently for the day, but it burns most of the deposits off the window in minutes. Daily scrubbing is not required!

So much for cooler fires to conserve wood, eh?

In his own unique way Cole told me this. He tells me the basics and then leaves me to my own devices. He doesn’t lose nights of rest worrying about me clogging the chimney or what I might screw up. He tells me how to do things – once. When stuff breaks, wears out or otherwise goes sideways, he fixes it. Done.

And yet all that night I wondered how I’m going to fix the stove without bothering Brother.

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.” ***

I can imagine Kendra wonders how I have energy to accomplish anything with all my worrying. Can we keep these little tidbits our secret? And I’ll keep working on that fraud thing.

Sincerely,
Roo

From the Bible:
*James 3:11-13 (NLT)
**Matthew 6:34 (NLT)
***Isaiah 26:3-4 (NLT)

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