You Can't Solve Today
Lydia Mulkey
July 19, 2023
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
~Psalm 139:13-16
Today I was reading a book that Alicia has often quoted called The Lives We Actually Have by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, and a line jumped out at me. “Blessed are we who see the impossibility of solving today. It can’t be done. God, there are lists on lists and errands on errands and a taste, like tin in my mouth, of the unfinishedness of my life.”
It can’t be done. This day cannot be “solved.” I say the line jumped out, but it’s more like it hit me like a ton of bricks. How many days have I woken up hoping to “solve” the day? To make this the day that I am on time for every meeting, know all the right words to say, check off every item on my to do list, and do it all without a drop of sweat on my brow, all while wearing an outfit that is definitely not wrinkled and is absolutely not covered in cat hair? Most of my days don’t get solved. There are items on the to do list that get left undone. There are distractions that lead me to be late. There are stresses and frustrations. And there are always, always, always wrinkles and cat hair. Life is messy. Life is sometimes hard. Life is what it is.
And yet, we are blessed. Even those of us wearing more cat hair than make up. God is in the midst of this. God is there in the bliss of morning coffee, the reminder to take a breath when it gets stressful, and in the laughter when I can get enough distance to laugh at what a mess I am sometimes. God loves that mess. What a gift!
