I let the fire go out this morning.

Again.

I’ve been doing it this whole past month.

Even as I tell my shivering husband that I have yet to be warm all the time from being pregnant this time.

He laughs.

As he will laugh again when he comes home and I tell him.

No matter that the door was wide open with the upholstery cleaner here, freshening up the new-to-us couch, an unexpected but delightful gift from a friend and from Him.

No matter that it’s snowing thick white stuff out that open door.

I still let the fire go out.

Because I was washing dishes and the water was warm and I was warm.

For the moment.

Two hours later, I finally realized I was cold.

I hit “play” on the CD player and thought of all the analogies that lent itself to the occasion of me letting the fire go out.  Again.

“Don’t let your love grow cold…light the fire again.”  The words of the praise song sung at my parents’ church came back to me unbidden.

How many fires do I let go untended too long?

I started a crackling, burning fire in the woodstove.

The speakers blare forth Keith and Kristyn Getty’s “Still, my soul, be still.”

I put water on to boil for some Huckleberry Chai from a Yellowstone gift shop, the gift of a sweet Southern sister-in-law.

Is my problem that I don’t sit still long enough to realize I’m getting cold?

A comfortable, once-baggy John Deere sweatshirt warms my shoulders and growing tummy.

The farm girl shirt makes me think of the Country song about home fires—the important fires.

Typing gets a bit of blood flowing back to my now-numb fingers.

The water for my Chai is boiling.

I think I’ll go be still for a bit.

I’ll talk to Him about all the fires I have burning.

And I’ll pray for grace and strength to not let the important ones go out.

Again.