The Floor

     Tonight is just one of those moments where I have to write. Maybe it’s the over-saturation of the Holy Spirit, and it feels like my spirit is jumping out of my skin. Maybe it’s that I’m running on two and a half hours of sleep after a late-night rush to the ER and I’m feeling delusional. Maybe it’s the sweet sounds of my freshly wounded sister celebrating the first moments of her 16th year of life in just the other room, and it feels like fresh joy. Maybe it’s because my other sister and roommate isn't home yet, and things feel incomplete. Maybe it’s because there are discombobulated potential outfits scattered across my bedroom carpet and it feels messy. Maybe deep down, there’s something inside of me that relates to that bedroom carpet. The place where mismatched socks find new homes until rediscovered under the bed a month later. The place where beautiful instruments sit untouched until life allows time for music to be made. The place to which empty water bottles are tossed aside after the thirst has been quenched. The place where bare toes tread. The place that catches the collapse of an overwhelmed body. It’s messy. It’s where life happens. It’s hitting me tonight that the most essential places are often and consequentially the messiest. A floor is a necessity. As long as God’s great law of gravity continues demanding balance as we know it, a floor will be necessary. Gravity requires that there be something under my feet to hold me, to hold the weight of my body, to carry me from one step to the next. And when I drop my backpack, heavy from books and Bibles and journals and wallets and gum and the green stopper from my Starbucks drink yesterday and chap-stick and random receipts from who-knows-when, gravity requires that it fall until it finds a place strong enough for it to rest upon. A place strong enough to cause it to stop. To cease movement. To just be. To lay there doing absolutely nothing. I feel like there’s a new revelation of Grace coming to me asI put my fingers to this keyboard and hammer it out. This strange thought that a floor could be such a simple metaphor for the foundation of my treasure, my beloved salvation. It’s Jesus, isn’t it? He is the floor, isn’t He? He is the resting place, isn’t He? He is the “strong enough,” isn’t He?

     Growing up, I loved softball. I played on the same team for my entire softball career (and I obviously use the word “career” incredibly loosely). We were the Marlins. We sported that teal jersey with the swordfish on the front like it was nobody’s business; that is, until we upgraded to fancier blue and white jerseys when we went club. My dad was one of the assistant coaches. Along with a few of the other dad’s, they cheered us on with tough love and cold water bottles. The mom’s would sit on the sidelines, my mom playing the role of shepherd with my 5 other siblings, and cheer us on with less-tough love and Capri Suns whether we won or lost. In all of my years playing, we lost quite a few games. Some we deserved to lose, some we fought to win with all we had. But I can’t pull out even a single memory of leaving with a disappointed dad. Sure, there was correction if he saw a way I could improve. He would even call me out if I hadn’t given it my all. He always taught me to “leave it all on the field.” To fight so hard that I could look back, no matter the outcome, with no regrets. But in all the calling out and the correcting, it was never because he was disappointed in me. He was always proud of me. Not because I won or I lost. But because of who I am. Because I’m his daughter. I’m his. I’m Mark Munden’s daughter. Sure, my name is Bethany. But I am the love-product of Mark and Laurie Munden. And somehow, it has created a forever-bond and given me a spot of favor in my daddy’s heart. To him, it’s as real and strong as the law of gravity.

     It is Jesus. He is the floor. He is the resting place. He is the “strong enough.” He is the proud Daddy that says “Just come sit in my lap and suck your thumb, little one.” He is the carpet that softens the friction of rushed feet. He accepts the accidentally dropped, the purposefully thrown, the wearily collapsed, the deliberately standing, the desperately kneeling, the hopefully rising, the joyfully dancing. To Him, it’s never too messy to accept. It’s come-as-you-are. It’s overwhelming grace. To Him, it is as natural and as demandingly necessary as gravity. We fall, and He catches. He is the floor. It’s scandalous. Scandalous to preach a message of “come as you are” and “don’t wear a mask” and “all you have to do is rest in those Heavenly muscles.” What if it’s abused? What if we mess up? What if it doesn’t look pretty with a bow wrapped around it just right? What if it’s too chaotic to fit into a Sunday service? What if we don’t tip-toe on the glass shards of religious protocol? What if it gets messy? What if we let go of the railings of the law and we fall?

     After a long, and very scientific study, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how many times I drop something on the floor, the floor never leaves; and no matter what I drop, the floor accepts it. The floor has never once gotten up in a huff and said, “forget this!” It has never seen my heavy backpack coming and rejected it. It lays there. Silent. Accepting. Strangely inviting. It’s an open resting place, no matter what the object. Jesus lays there for us. He laid His life down on the cross for us. He laid for 3 days in silent death, separated from His Father so that He could be my bedroom-carpet-revelation. His grace lays there and accepts all that I have done. No matter how many times I drop or I fail or I fall or I stumble as if I have baby deer legs. It’s inviting, His grace. It beckons. There’s a pull to it that I simply cannot deny. It seems to say, “Come lay here with Me. Come rest. Come snuggle for a while. Just lay here. Just be.” It’s like gravity. It’s necessary. It gets messy sometimes. But it’s never going anywhere. After all, isn’t it silly for us to think that we could ever walk without the floor in the first place?

Bethany Munden
4/6/13