Cursing and praying

I have been lying on my side for the past several days, devising plans to make our household less chaotic. Because we have been doing so much work on our house, relying almost entirely on Ian's labor, our upstairs hallway is full of stacked hardwood flooring, and only two of our four bedrooms are usable because the other two are torn up. This week, when we randomly told our midwife that our upstairs bathroom smells like bat poop, she grew quite concerned because it apparently causes some dreaded disease for pregnant women. Ian uncovered a rich source of the nasty stuff last summer when he repaired some windows to stop rain from pouring inside. He stopped the rain, but did not have time for the unplanned project and sealed the whole thing up with plastic until he could return to the job.

In our main bathroom, we have no toilet paper holder and only one towel rack, which is supposed to hold bath towels, hand towels and wash cloths for a family of four. Most of the time we give up on the rack entirely and it sits empty, with a hand towel crumpled forlornly on the floor beneath it. This morning, I was talking with Ian about making space to hang wash cloths. It should be noted that Ian has been teaching, raising the chickens, running the household, and caring for me while getting less than six hours of sleep every night. This morning while we talked about wash cloths, he was trying to make breakfast for both of us, clean himself up, and get out the door in time for work. His responses to me were unwaveringly friendly, if a little distracted, but he did not share all of my opinions. Our talk became a conversation about the nature of washcloths, and their role in our lives both now and historically. I felt my impatience rising, but I wanted so much to keep my conversation with Ian on the cheerful side.

"Jesus H Christ!" I exclaimed in my head sounding like an echo of my late father, but unlike my father, I feel very uneasy saying those kinds of things, even silently, so I pretended I wasn't done with my sentence. "Thank you for the caring presence of my beloved husband. Thank you so much for giving me such an easy life that I have time and energy to spend worrying about where we will hang our washcloths." My prayer seemed to help a little bit, and we finished our discussion about washcloths without incident.

I still felt impatient, though. All morning, I cursed up a storm in my head. Each time, I pretended unconvincingly that I was just starting a quick prayer, and I prayed earnestly and briefly. The morning taught me again that God can be found tangled in frustration and in weird conversations about washcloths and in the infuriating gap between who we are and who we hope to be. Sometimes God’s presence does not even feel particularly gratifying, but it is there, whether we curse or pray or do both at the same time.