He stoops low, pulling back the vine and picks careful the first clusters of blue-black grapes. We stop our weed-pulling and marvel. Those limp and weakened grape-vine cuttings planted several years ago now curling…climbing…every season growing a little stronger…until at last they yield their first delicate bunches of ripening fruit. Seth reaches out and heaps the grapes in my dusty palms…and that driving need to finish the gardening before the sun slips behind the horizon, stills. I am in awe over the content of my hands…and for a brief moment I see past those small rounds of huddled fruit, through the gauzy, blowing curtain of the present to a pantry shelf…clean and filled with jars of purple juice and slim, elegant, long-necked bottles of shaded, full-bodied wine.

I have begun my fourth year teaching. We are entering week four of our school year. Somehow it happened again. Sultry summer came and went…dancing so briefly…full of humidity and sunshine, childhood sweat, watermelon seeds, and fireflies…and then stole away, so stealthily. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. Now my days are spent hovering over five little heads bent over pads of fresh paper, yawning books, scary teacher’s manuals, heaps of crayons and pencils continually need of sharpening. I hear, “Mama, come help me please!” over and over until it begins to play like the chords of a song, drumming a beat in my head. Sometimes I am afraid. I’ve never been a fast or eager learner, never had that ability to snatch quick at information…dissecting, retaining, applying…ready for the next idea approaching in the hourly free-fall of knowledge that flows like a fountain through the day of a student. Yet, I am the teacher. I move jerky through the first few weeks of the new school year, like a wind-up toy propelled by grace. I lean hard on Him. And sometimes when the negative thoughts crowd me in, pounding me into a panicked child…I speak this Truth to them: “Such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our SUFFICIENCY is of God; who also hath made us ABLE MINISTERS of the new testament…”* Sufficiency: having complete ability to do something. Able: having all things needed to act or perform. Ministers: servants of the Most High.

One of our sons is struggling…bringing the pain of his past into the peace of his present. I am weary of his needs, of his sabotaging the joy he sees in others because his own soul is so full of unrest. Seth and I stagger through our parenting decisions, never quite confident if we are helping or making things worse. Sometimes I lay awake and night and wonder…what will be the outcome of his life? I could go down this road…and perish in my vision-less predictions. Yet in a faith-filled moment, I remember the encouragement of Isaiah…”All your children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children”.* I hold tight like a drowning woman to her raft on those little words “shall be”, and though we are still in the “not as yet”, I picture my son walking through his future with peace in his heart and calm in his eyes.

I am only a student picking grapes for a broken son. That is what I see when I view my life with earthly eyes. So little hope, so much to go wrong. Yet, will I believe what God has spoken? Will I be a daughter of Abraham whose faith was in the One “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not yet exist”?*

I sit down to write, taking a few minutes that “do not exist” in my day to document a bit of drama that I just caught a glimpse of through heaven-bent eyes…

A teacher drinking sweet wine with a man-child, grown, and full of the presence of God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*2 Cor. 3:4-6

*Isaiah 54:13

*Romans 4:17