Earthly and Heavenly Meet

So far, today has been quite the mix of earthly and heavenly meeting. Let me explain. (Fighting the urge here to launch into Inigo Montoya's, "let me 'splain...no, there is no time...)

The headache which has plagued me for 4 days remained with me this morning. Since I stopped eating wheat, headaches are rare. Even as a teenager, I suffered from regular headaches and by the time I was in my mid-20's, I had full-blown migraines with dizziness, loss of vision, debilitating pain, dizziness, and nausea. I stopped wheat. Over a period of a few months, they pretty much disappeared. I have been on the edge of a migraine for the fourth day in a row. My last full-fledged migraine was when I accidentally ate soup into which someone had mixed crumbled crackers. I went down hard that time. Friday night, at a basketball team party, Elijah drank some of my water. In typical Elijah fashion, some of his dinner ended up in my water. I did not know this, which explains me taking an absent-minded drink of it. I tasted his dinner. Fighting back the queasiness of having just ingested someone's backwash, I decided I was no longer thirsty. Apparently, he had wheat-contaminated backwash. Let the migraine begin. Thankfully, it's only mild. Yes, I am that allergic to wheat.

So there's some earthly stuff. There's more.

This morning's through-the-Bible section included my perennial favorite--levitical law regarding skin diseases. Swallowing my breakfast while reading was challenging. I get queasy every time I read that chapter.

After forcing down my breakfast and willing it to stay there, I turned my gaze to the basket on my table with cloth napkins. My cloth napkin experiment has been great. Less trash. I no longer have to buy napkins. They look kind of homey there on the table. I don't notice any difference in laundry or folding. They are easy. Yay!

It was on to Revelation 4 after that. Heavenly in every way. I've been listening to the song called "Revelation" in the last few days and it leaves me in tears every time. It's from Revelation 4. So, I've been writing parts of Revelation 4 in my prayer journal and just soaking in it. When it played today, I told Elijah that whenever we hear that song, we know that the angels are singing it with us because the Bible tells us so. He listened to it very seriously and was deeply impressed that as he sang with it, he was joining the song around the throne of God. I think he almost expected to hear them. I was tearing up over a sinkful of dishes and my hands actually started shaking. I get pretty freaked out excited thinking about being in the presence of God. A couple of weeks ago, Joseph came in the kitchen, totally unsuspecting, and I made him sit down and listen to passages from Genesis, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation about how amazing it will be to be in God's presence. Thirty minutes later....he finally got breakfast.

In all the earthly, my heart keeps pulling back toward the heavenly.

This is probably why I'm about to reveal a deep, dark secret of mine. If I teach your child in Sunday School, don't panic. I won't infect them with my end-times doctrine, but here it is. Shhhh. I don't really care if the rapture is pre, mid, or post. Gasp. It's true. I just know Jesus is coming for me, whether he is waiting for me at my death or I get to be one of those who joins him in the clouds. It's all OK with me. Pre is nice. Really nice. Far less painful. So if I get to vote, I'd go for pre. But really....however I get to see him, I'm in. All the way. Can't wait. I'm just not smart enough to understand the subtleties of eschatology. (Yes, my super-educated pastor husband knows about this.)

And into this earthly/heavenly mix comes homeschool. Joseph doesn't like math. At all. Ever. While he's working on math problems, he frequently sings loud tuneless nonsense, uses his desk like a drum, inserts clicking noises, holds burping contests with himself, and in general makes a racket. I often have to ask him to quiet down. Today, I asked him to quiet down and he earnestly replied, "I don't know what else to do to distract myself....ummm, I mean focus myself on math." I didn't say it. Honest. It was all him. He laughed. Sheepishly.

Then at lunch, we were discussing names like Patti and Patrick, the female and male version of the same name. We talked about Joseph and Josephina, and a few others. Then Brian said, "Maybe if I had been a girl, my mom and dad would have named me Brianna." Mishearing, Joseph yelped in shock, "Grandma and Grandpa would have named you banana?!?"

It is now time for my afternoon snack--the time-release garlic supplement I took this morning. I really should consider taking it in the middle of the night. That way it would blend nicely with my olive oil/sea salt exfoliant in the morning. Hmmmm. If I just had a slice of wheat-free focaccia bread by the shower, it would be quite the idyllic morning in little Italy.

See? Earthly. Heavenly. There's no separating it. The angels sing. God reigns. Homeschool goes on. People take garlic. Migraines come. And the angels sing. And God reigns.