Mulling at midnight

Ok, Ok, so I know I'm writing at 2 am. My buddy Glen says to get used to it - it comes with old age. But since he is older than I am, I can still play the game that I'm not there yet (or he beat me too it). Whatever, I'm sitting hear writing in the middle of the night.

These times around the woodburner give me time to reflect on my life. (That isn't just figurative - we actually heat with wood all winter, so I have this ritual where I restoke the fireplace and contemplate my navel.) God seems to show up when it is just Him and me on the old leather couch we have in the 'library room'. The library room is all torn up right now - I'm putting in the slate flooring that has been sitting under 3 feet of snow all winter.

As I sit on the couch, my life comes to me in pieces that I carefully take out and mull over. I have no clue what it means to 'mull over', but I do it quite frequently. I pull out the pieces of what is happening in my life and look at them from a different perspective, seeing what they feel like and smell like and taste like. Just spending time with those pieces helps me find my way in life a little easier. And it helps me get to know Papa better.

Tonight we are mulling over some opportunities that have been thrown in front of me, with a normal section of our time questioning the direction of life and the speed with which it is passing.
Sometimes the conversations are just replays of previous conversations - meaning I mull over the same stuff for several 2 am slots in a row. He seems to always be there though. It is almost like He doesn't have anything better to do. And we are becoming fast friends in the process.

I know that someday I will be on my death bed, and as I look back at the 2 am times around the fire, I know I won't remember the fires I built or the things I mulled over. I won't even probably remember this blog entry. The things I spend the wee hours contemplating will have all passed away, and what will remain will be the time with Papa.

Who am I to question His motivations to want to hang out? I know there have been many times in my life when I have gotten up in the middle of the night just to see if the new thing in my life was still there. That used to happen a lot when my oldest two boys were born. I would sneak to their rooms when I should have been sleeping, just to see if they were still there, and everything was going okay. I just couldn't believe I got to be a father.

Can I blame God for that? He wants to just be with me. He misses me. So I am not the only one who wants to hang out with me. That is kinda cool.