The list I can carry

"Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."* — Philippians 4:6-7

Saturday morning and the house is quiet and the porch is cold and I went out anyway because I have been going out on Saturday mornings since I was a young woman and the temperature has never been a factor.

The garden is bare. I can see it from the porch railing and it looks like a room someone moved out of — the shape is right but the furnishings are gone. The stakes are piled. The fence is still there. The dirt is there. It will be there in April when I am back in it with seeds and string and the same pair of gloves that have a hole in the left thumb that I will not fix and will not replace because they are my gloves.

Paul says do not worry about anything. Paul says this to people who had a great deal to worry about and I do not think he meant stop thinking about your problems. I think he meant stop carrying them in the hand that is supposed to be open.

My list this morning was short. Edna. Dan. Hannah. The boy. The garden, which does not need prayer but gets it anyway because I cannot look at a thing I love and not say its name out loud. Biscuit, who is asleep on the rug inside and does not know I am praying for him and would not care if he did.

That is the list. It is the same list. It is not a heavy list. It is a list I can hold in one hand, and Paul says hold it out, and I held it out, and the morning was cold and the coffee was hot and the prayer was done in about three minutes, and that was enough.

Thank you, Lord, for the porch that is cold and the coffee that is hot and the list that I can carry.