Yesterday was a Chisel Day.

Absolutely a Chisel Day.

You’ve had them too. I am so sure of it. You just may not have known to call it that.

A Chisel Day? Oh, you’ll know it by the kind of Tired you are when you crawl into the last hours of the night.

Releasing & Gripping.

A lot of releasing. A lot of gripping tighter, knuckles turning white as the last names of princesses who take to little men and poison apples.

Releasing & Gripping.

One of the two, sometimes both, is bound to happen on a Chisel Day.

…

Chisel Days.

They begin on those mornings when you wake with the sun and spend the entire time that there is still coffee in your cup convincing yourself that your God has Shirley Temple hands. Small Hands. Delicate Hands. Hands Far Too Tiny to Clasp Big Problems. Illness. Drama. Hurt that doesn’t wash away with the blouse stains.

But you tell me, if we’ve got a God with Shirley Temple hands then how will we ever let Him carry us? Our issues? Our baggage? The Suitcases of Lord, Lord, I Just Cannot Let This Go and the Hat Boxes brimming with the Past & the Future. All the baggage that keeps us from the Here & Now & Right Now & Yes, Yes, Right Now.

“Imma walk out this door and hold it all in,” you’ll think on a Chisel Day. Meetings in one hand. Conversations in another. Tough Stuff balancing on the tips of your shoes. Things you really need to say today—no matter what—resting on your knee caps as you buckle your seatbelt.

And God? He’ll just smile from his wicker arm chair in the clouds and say, “Welcome to your Chisel Day… Little One, Welcome…”

…

I’m an unreliable source though. I’ve got no proof of His Shirley Temple hands. In fact, I hear stories about how we are just fractions of a fraction of his fingernail. And that he is a God with a good reputation. They call him a Creator, not for a macaroni necklace He made during snack time but for an eternity’s worth of being elbow deep in the glitters and gold of the craft bin. Daffodils. & Puddles. & Crooked Smiles. & Callouses on the Tips of Men’s Fingers. & Wrinkles in the Faces of Women with Epic Love Stories.

And all this scenery? Well, it’s for us. All this laugher? Yup, you bet. All this goodness? Don’t you doubt it.

But on a Chisel Day you won’t see none of that. You’ll just stay fixed on a running to-do list, a Mind that is balancing Anxiety on her hip and bouncing it like a baby.

On a Chisel Day, there is something there. Something Bigger than the dishes that need to be done and the conversations that need to be had. There is something standing there—big and frumpy and about as cute as Big Foot birthing the elephant in the room—and you won’t be able to stand it much longer.

Release it, He’ll whisper in a voice that sounds like silver. Let it go, He’ll coax in a voice that first breathed into the lullabies of the field mice.

…

Yesterday was a Chisel Day.

Absolutely a Chisel Day.

I crawled into bed at 7pm and answered Him.

I can’t. I can’t, God.

Because if I really can, and I do, and I let Him in… He’ll grow closer with chisel in hand. And chip, chip, chip away the things that I don’t need. The things He never wanted for me. The things I hide behind, like curtains in the bathroom when your sister is sniffing you out for a game of Hide & Seek.

I wept. Cried. Felt it falling on my chest. Curled. Curled fingers. Curled torso. Curled toes. Curled inward to listen to the slow heartbeat of the Inventor of Heartbeats.

Fine, I whisper back in a voice that aches to be silver. Do it, I surrender with a voice that cries out to be a lullaby to the broken of this world.

Surrender. Surrender. And let Him chisel my heart into fire. Let Him chisel my life into gold.

But use me? I ask through the tears. Please, will you use me?

Whoosh, like the wind. And the peace rolls in.

Chip, chip, chip…

Gone with this old way.

Done with that.

Chip, chip, chip…

Never again will you find your worth in this.

Together, we can stop that.

Chip, chip, chip…

And then that voice of silver.

“Little One, I love you. Bigger than your Little Mind can know. And that is why I can never leave you this way. Holding onto hurt and brokenness and the past. Little One, my Little One, all will be well. But you have to let me take it from here.”