Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Abiding in His Love 8/27-9/3/26 (08/27/26)
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TITLE: Getting Weather | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
09/02/26 -
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Monday I had highlighted John 15 in three colors and written ABIDE on a sticky note, then stuck the sticky note to the bathroom mirror, where it immediately fell into the sink and drowned. I fished it out, smoothed it on a towel, and decided this was not failure. This was metaphor.
TuesdayI cleared the kitchen table. Candle. Journal. Mug that said Be Still. I sat. I folded my hands the way people do in paintings. I waited to feel rooted, like a well-watered vine, which is harder than it sounds when the dishwasher is clicking, and the neighbour’s leaf blower is conducting a personal war with autumn.
I lasted four minutes.
Then the dog brought me a sock like an offering. Then the toaster popped, even though I had not asked it to. Then my phone lit up with a calendar reminder I had set myself: Abide. Do not check email. I checked email.
By noon I had abided in the laundry room, the driveway, and the cereal aisle, none of which are mentioned in the commentaries. I tried again after lunch, this time on the back step, face tipped toward a thin strip of sun. A squirrel ran across my foot. I said, out loud, “I am remaining,” which made the squirrel leave and made me feel like a person who talks to wildlife on purpose.
My husband came home and found me still on the step, journal open to a page that said only remain remain remain like I had broken.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I am abiding,” I said.
He nodded the way you nod at a smoke alarm that will not stop, then stepped over me to get to the grill.
That night I told God, in the dark, that I was bad at staying. I listed the evidence. Sticky note. Email. Sock. Squirrel. I said I wanted to be the kind of person who could sit in love without twitching. I fell asleep in the middle of the apology, which felt on-brand.
Wednesday Pastor Doug asked if anyone had been “sitting with the passage.” I raised my hand before I could stop myself.
“And what did you find?”
I had prepared something about branches and fruit. What came out was, “I found out I can’t sit still, the dog thinks socks are sacramental, and if love is a place you have to qualify for by being quiet, I am going to live in the driveway.”
There was a small, horrified silence, the kind churches keep in a jar for emergencies.
Then Mrs. Alvarez in the second row said, “Same.”
After the service, Pastor Doug caught me by the coffee. I expected a pamphlet.
“You know the vine doesn’t clench, right?” he asked.
I did not know that. I had been clenching since Tuesday.
“It just stays put and gets weather,” he said. “Sun. Wind. That one loud bird. You were in it the whole time. You just kept announcing your arrival.”
I went home and stuck a new note to the mirror. It stayed up for almost an hour, which I counted as growth.
The dog brought the other sock.
I did not sit on the step. I made grilled cheese, stood at the counter, and let the afternoon happen to me, which is not how I thought holiness would look. It looked like crumbs and a neighbour waving and my husband asking if we had mustard.
I said yes.
I remained.
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