Mary Poppins hasn’t knocked on the door yet. She hasn’t even bothered to call. I checked the phone book, but she has an unlisted number. I don’t know why. So, I climbed up the stairs, hoping that there was enough hot water left after a few loads of whites. But it didn’t matter since my Calgon was gone, the last bit used up on the Saturday-night-make-the-kids-look-like-they’re-always-this-clean-for-church baths. Note to self: there is nobody to take me away.

But at least the kids are squeaky and presentable to the public.

Who will deliver me from this body of death? I’m not the first woman to experience all morning, all afternoon, all evening sickness, but the women of old didn’t have blogs to advertise this fact. They didn’t even have microwave fettuccine alfredo. I’m not sure how they did it.

Perhaps without the benefit of modern medicine, women of old resorted to other means such as a “this too shall pass” attitude and community? I don’t know. What other choice is there but to get through it? But as I’ve been groomed by my culture to focus on what’s in everything for me—which is the antithesis of an eternal perspective and real community—I find myself wanting to swim upstream but flailing and floundering.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ~Romans 7:22-25a

And so it goes. I look forward to That Day, and in the meantime, I keep watch for a lady with an umbrella and a spoonful of sugar.