I woke this morning to my dogs calling
me from their crates. Correction:
I woke to Maisie, our two-year-old
golden, calling to me from her crate.
The occasional cross between a yip
and a whine told me that I had fallen
back to sleep and had been dozing too
long for her taste. I’d been awakened
several times in the night by an anxiety
that threatened me. This past night,
though, I had recognized it for the
temptation it was: to take up a mantle
of dark fear that was not mine to wear.
I was too tired to wrestle with the
spiritual assault. (That is what it was,
friends. Even laden with some truth
as to the circumstances of my life, it
was a spiritual attack to entice me into
the land of worry.) Too sleepy to corral
my thoughts to the deeper truth of the
faithfulness of God, I did not want to
wake fully. I did not feel called to do
so. This night, unlike too many other
nights, I simply said no and then tucked
my heart into God and continued to
rest. I redirected my thoughts first to
sweet memories, then to memories I
wanted to make, and suddenly Maisie
was calling to me. Surely it was well
after 6:00 a.m. Sweet and poor girl. I
looked at the clock, and it was eight! I
quickly got up to let both of our dogs
out to run and take care of business. recognized a scent that I hadn’t smelled
for years. Though the winter here is full
of crisp, cold mornings, something in
the wind, or perhaps something in the
night, awakened a stirring in my soul. I
remembered that evocative smell, that
feeling of an invitation to play.
When I opened the door to release
them, a cold blast hit my face. It was
a crisp cold. A winter cold. A cold that
spoke of past snow and past stories. I My soul was filled with expectancy all
those mornings so long ago. I did not
know what the days held, but I reached
out to them boldly with both mittened
Suddenly I was eight years old and
wearing my favorite blue-and-white
jacket with fur around the hood. I was
a little girl again, getting ready to go
outside and discover the joy awaiting
me. I hadn’t remembered that feeling
or that jacket since I don’t know when.
Sense memory is something else,
isn’t it, showing up at the oddest of
moments whenever the whim hits
it. The sense of smell accesses and
evokes memories more than any other.
This morning my grown-up self was
still in my jammies when I opened the
front door and was hit by the longing
to be eight years old again. The door
opened before me to a world filled with
wonder and unending discovery. In my
child- hood I’d had different choices.
Maybe I’d go sledding. Maybe I’d build
a snowman. Maybe I would simply
enjoy walking solitarily through the
snow, relishing the sharp sound of
crunching whiteness beneath my feet.
Solutions • 39