298/365

Certainly hundreds of different buttons make up the pile I went to work sorting today. How do you even start? Buttons on cards and buttons in bags. Buttons shiny and plastic and wooden and shell. Buttons with thread yet attached and buttons never before used.

Four holes and two holes and shanked.
Light and dark and colored and shiny metal.
Big and little.

And every once in a while I'd fine two, maybe four, one time six, that match. But mostly, single buttons, lost from their pairs.

The entire time I keep one ear on the conversation in the room, trying to keep track should I need to jump in to make clear a word, express a concept with different terms. And with the other side of my brain, I'm thinking about happenings in other places, wondering what conversations might take place, praying for outcomes yet to be determined. 

I break the rule, to be all there, because admittedly, I'm not, exactly. And yet, how does that work in our God's economy, to live in a posture obedient to the command to pray without ceasing? Each move of a button, one place to another, another silent uttering, a praise and a thanksgiving and a petition to Him who is worthy. Tim Keller writes, "Prayer is both conversation and encounter with God. . . . We must know the awe of praising his glory, the intimacy of finding his grace, and the struggle of asking his help, all of which can lead us to know the spiritual reality of his presence."

... on this day, all while sitting still before a collection of buttons.