Author: Emily Wierenga

I walk the long lonely gravel roads of our small Alberta hamlet, past farm fields giving way to spring, under a night sky studded with the same stars Father Abraham once knew. I’m worshiping in this darkest hour but my worship turns to weeping as I remember the German Minister of Finance Thomas Schaefer, his body found by train-tracks, presumably suicide, at the end of March.

I’m pressing a cool cloth to his forehead and next I’ll be removing the bedsheets because this is a bad flu. My husband of 17 years peers at me over the top of the duvet, his hazel eyes sorry, and I nod and swallow and quietly shut the door. The house smells of woodsmoke and chicken noodle soup. Next it’s the kids’ turn and I know I’ll be sick last because that’s how it goes. Somehow grace keeps you serving one after the other until the body knows it can finally rest. And that’s when it collapses.

We’re gathered in my living room, a whiskey oak candle flickering on the counter, muffins and cookies and a platter of fruit lined up obediently and a gust of wind blowing wood smoke like an old man’s beard against the window panes. The air inside smells like burning pine and melting wax and brewed coffee. We’re gathered in chairs and on couches, talking about the recent election and our children and our prayers for the future. Bible commentaries and different translations of Scripture sit askew on the coffee table in the middle of the living room and I pick up the guitar and we sing together “Speak Oh Lord” by Keith Getty.

We’re making cards from construction paper, gluing sparkly balls and pipe cleaner-bows, my hand cupping theirs as we trace out Merry Christmas. “Peace on Earth” plays over the speakers. My sons are too little to know of protests in Hong Kong, of wildfires, of the nuclear arms race. Their world consists of this oval kitchen table. It consists of Mommy’s hands on theirs and strawberry milk in sippy cups and Christmas music and dancing in the living room.

I’m biking past canola, a bright yellow blanket of flowers, like fields of God’s glory. The sky is stretched grey and yawning overhead, and I hear the swish of a bird’s wing and the ribbiting of frogs. And as I quiet my spirit, I hear the purest sound of all, a voice so quiet and so true: