4-19-19 MERCY (Psalm 23 part IV)

I didn’t mean to do it. It was never my intention. It just happened.

Spring came with its warm rain and churned up the earth. Color, and breeze, and blossoms and dirt. My winter-worn lump of a body could not resist stepping out into it, breathing into the withered part of my lower lungs new air scented with new earth. But the going out got my feet dirty, so when I came back in, so did the dirt.

I knew when I entered that I was in trouble. Evidence followed me everywhere, smears of earth all over Father’s freshly mopped floor. I tried to retrace my steps with a damp cloth, but the dirt smeared in circles, making matters worse. Down there on my knees, trying to clean up my mess, I silently yelled at myself; “You should have known better! What were you thinking? You should never have left the house! Now look what you’ve brought in!”

But earth was so inviting. And it was Spring.

Soon my father and mother would return and would see their house changed and… I knew the shimmer of that place could not be diminished…and I knew what that meant for me and the mess I had made. I knelt on the floor, my knees sore and back aching, unable to remove the dirt. Bleach, and cloth, and tears could not remove it. I sunk into a heap of sorrow there on the floor. 

And then I heard it. 

I heard the familiar creak of the back door. I knew that sound. As a small child it comforted me, because I knew when I heard it that my big brother was home. 

He must have heard me weeping.

I felt his hand on my back, easing himself down to my level. Without a sound he knelt before me, lifting my chin, wiping my tears with a soft blue apron he had tied around his waist. And then, while I wept, he took that apron, damp with my own tears, and he swept it across Father’s floor. I shifted my weight and slid back against the wall, watching him. In the swift, arching motion of his mercy he cleaned up my mess. Sparkling clean. And then he left. 

I crouched there, staring at the clean floor, and then at my muddy feet, knowing the second I moved the floor would be dirty again. The hopelessness overwhelmed me and I sobbed, burying my head in my knees. 

And then he touched me again. 

He lifted one of my feet, and then the other, freeing my leg from the grip of my hands around my knees.  His head bowed before me, his strong shoulders bent downward, his hands moved swiftly but gently. A wide brimmed basin he had placed on the floor between us. One after the other, he washed my filthy feet. Drying them with the same apron he pulled from his waist, he whispered reassurances to me in a language I once knew, but had long forgotten. His voice was like a lullaby.

When he was finished, he smiled. He smiled, and nodded, asking me to stand. I stood, as he had asked, but emotion overcame me and I fell against his chest, my arms around his neck, my lips tucked into his cheek. I kissed him. Over and over I kissed him until he began to laugh. He eased me away from him. There we stood, side by side, in our father’s beautiful clean house. And then, with his hand held out, he pointed the way. I walked toward the kitchen, mother’s warm and blessed kitchen where all my childhood we had feasted. I did not need to look back. I knew he followed.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.