between the wishing and the coming true

"Buon compleanno! E tanti auguri per un giorno con molti...surprises," said my temporary-roomie Deborah yesterday morning, while I was still thinking about how to turn off the alarm without reaching out from under the blankets.

"Yes, that's just it!" I said. "How did you know?" (well, maybe that's not exactly what I said to her. But it's what I thought.)

I settled in to read my psalm for the morning, a little fretful in spirit over a plan of mine that wasn't working out exactly as I thought it should.

"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain," said God's word. "Oooh," said I.

I'd handed him my blueprint, complete with directions: "Okay, God, all you have to do is step A, then step B..." But of the two of us, he is the carpenter. I guess I should learn to hammer nails.

I had two messages on my phone. One was a birthday greeting, the other a verse: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises, as some demand..."

My morning off work I stayed in bed and read fairy tales. I like fairy tales. This one says about another, "What a good thing, for instance, it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her? And did she not come awake exactly at the right moment when the right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them. It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends." She didn't have much choice in the matter, I'll grant you.

Anyway, the princess in this story slept too. She was under a curse that never allowed her to be awake during the day. But at the right time, when the right prince came, she woke up-- and saw the sun. (I think if I had been a princess in a fairy tale, I would have a talk with the prince after we were married and tell him he would have to learn to curb his impulses to go around kissing princesses, no matter how dead and beautiful or old and ugly they looked).

That Psalm talked about sleep, too: "The Lord gives to His beloved, even in their sleep."

Aaah. I am His. His beloved. And while I am sleeping, He's protecting, and building, and preparing gifts, so that when I wake up there will be surprises waiting. Maybe daylight. And I can say, "Just what I've always wanted all my life!" and the readers will laugh.

I think it's bedtime now.