laundry hangs checkered on line, i’m washing dishes bubble-white and he’s sitting in blue bumbo making bubbles of his own and i feel this: Happy. Utter. Laugh-Lipped. Happy.
scoop baby close, cheek cashmere-soft against mine and he coos and i remember running this morning, hard against forest trail, light slicing like butter on toast through tree-tops fringed green with spring, and then too: Happy.
yet it followed me like a dog tugging tail-end of shirt, this guilt… why, on day of clean-laundry-line and hard-soiled-run? guilt from her message, yesterday in church… message of missionary standing loving upfront with hands moving this way and that, mouth saying this: “our faith is too cheap. it doesn’t cost us anything.”
at first i think, yes. i think of her, handing bibles out in communist china and living single, ever-serving far from family and friends, and i think yes: my life is comfort. i live in tidy home with love and homemade bread and wine and home-grown garden and baby climbing tall in too-many clothes and yes, this is comfort.
but is this wrong? is being happy as a Christian, wrong? when did guilt become a pre-requisite for grace?
i try hard, making cookies for next-door neighbor, writing articles for non-profit newspapers and books for christian publishers and selling paintings cheap so they might lighten bright this blackened soot world, but, is this enough?
then, the song… “when fears are stilled, when strivings cease… fullness of God in helpless babe… no guilt in life, no fear in death”… we’re singing this standing in church-communion after missionary message and i’m daring to believe in these humble lyrics, this truth of helpless babe, this knowing that by being happy, by running slapping feet against forest floor praising light from heaven’s roof, singing spring into the everlasting moment of today, i am being His.
grace is all about what He’s doing–not about anything i have or haven’t done. salvation is me, accepting this grace, every hour.
and that is the cost of my very rich faith. that is the worship i can offer, today.
happy for:
-forest floors and swollen sunshine
-baby’s milk breath
-stroller-walks to post office
-husband kisses
-homemade bread
-daffodils yellow in wind
for more of the grateful, visit 
