Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: New Year (05/09/05)
-
TITLE: New Day | Previous Challenge Entry
By Teresa Oswald
05/16/05 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
She made her way into the kitchen, stepping over the duffel bag of dirty gym clothes. “Now, what’s for supper?” she said aloud and opened the fridge. Eeeeuw, the smell was definitely worse in here. Tentatively, she opened the crisper drawer. “Fresh” spinach, green beans and sprouts lay in a pool of green-brown slime next to a few hairy carrots and tomatoes. Karin whispered a groan. Three empty Chinese food boxes were on the shelf along with two containers of yogurt dated January 9th. Could you eat yogurt a week after the expiration date?
As Karin shut the refrigerator door, she noticed her list of New Year’s resolutions hanging next to pictures of her niece. She groaned again and looked around. Not even three weeks into the year and the list was more regret than resolution. A dark cloud settled in her heart.
The waistband of Karin’s slacks pinched as she sat on her bed. She scooted three days of mail off her Bible and held it in her lap.
“God, I’ve failed again. How can someone so organized and together at work be such a failure in the rest of her life? You said I could do all things through Christ and here I am again. ... This was going to be the year.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “So was last year and the year before and the year before ...”
Hanna would be here in the morning. Karin’s niece had cried about losing her pack of purple writing paper all the way home from kindergarten today. To cheer her, Karin had promised they would spend tomorrow together doing “girl stuff”. How was she ever going to get this place ready for the daughter of her "clean queen" sister by morning?
The phone rang. “Hello.”
At first there was silence, then a flood of words. “Aunt Karin, you have to see my new folder. Guess what I found on my desk! Mommy said I might find my other colored paper if I cleaned my room and I did! And my desk looks good and I found my pink paper. Mommy gave me a folder and I’ll only put a few pieces of pink paper in it every day so I don’t lose it all at school again. ‘Cause one day of paper is enough. And it has a pink sticker, too. Can I bring it tomorrow so we can color? And maybe we can paint our fingernails pink, too!”
Karin’s mind raced to sort through this jumble of information as she laughed into the phone. “Sure, Baby Doll. Bring your folder and your paper. I even have pink nail polish.”
“Good! Guess what Mommy! Aunt Karin has pink ...” Hanna’s voice faded and ended in an abrupt click.
Karin smiled and looked at the Bible in her hands. “Now how do I pray?” The disciples had asked this too. She opened to Luke 11:3 "Give us day by day our daily bread*."
Our daily bread. One day at a time. Not one year. One day. He wanted her to trust Him one day at a time. “Dear Lord, forgive me. I’ve been trying to swallow a whole year of change at once and expected You to help me do it.” She took a deep breath and strode to the kitchen again.
“We’ll start in the kitchen. Just the kitchen.” She ran a sink full of hot soapy water and called Nicky’s Pizza Palace. She dragged the trashcan to the refrigerator and threw away her list of resolutions. With new energy, Karin started emptying the fridge of its smelly mess. Soon the air in her apartment would be as fresh as the clean wind blowing through her soul.
One day at a time.
*Luke 11:3 NKJV
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.