A Ping Pong Table

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

"Are you okay?" I asked my husband as I paused my night time reading routine. Usually my husband is enjoying one of the many pieces of literature he has on the go at the same time. This evening he was just lying there, with his arms folded across his chest.

"I guess I am having a 'Rain' moment," he chuckled.

"A 'Rain' moment," I smiled. "What are you thinking about?"

"Humans. All we ever want to do is think about ourselves and how we can make our lives easier," he mused. "Here I am wondering how it would be nice if I was told tomorrow that they made a mistake, there actually is an opening at my school next year, and my position isn't redundant. That would make it easier for me when September rolls around..."

"And me, if I stayed home and you worked," I interjected.

"So, here I am worry about things I can't control, while there are people in our world who really have cause to be anxious," he continued. "They have no food, no income, no home. They are living at the mercy of drug cartels or other such atrocities."

"I know what you mean," I replied. "Honestly, when other people look at our situation, they probably conclude we really don't have it that bad. One of us has a job in the fall. Our daughter will be under the care of a parent. It's not like we are frantically searching for a daycare spot or that we have no source of income. And maybe for some reason, you need to be home next year. Same goes for me - only God knows why I need to be back at work in the fall."

"It is hard to know the possible influences a teacher may have on a life," my husband remarked. "You interact with hundreds of people."

"True. But I keep on thinking about how crazy my life will be," I answered. "I will go to work, come home and try to interact with our daughter, help put her to bed, and then grade until who knows when."

"It would be easier if it didn't have to be that way," he sighed.

"But easier doesn't necessarily mean that it is better, right?" I mumbled. "Who knows what lessons we would miss if we took the easier path all the time."

Silence filled the room for a moment.

"Well, maybe one day we will move to Timbuktu, and you'll teach in a grass hut with a class size of three," I teased.

"But we'll have a ping pong table," my husband randomly contributed.

We burst into laughter.

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