Come noon, and I am feeling it, like someone turned the heat to searing high.
The Farmer walks in the back door looking for a heaping plate of steaming hot food, the littlest has dissolved into a puddle of tears, one child needs to know what 9 books would cost if 3 books cost $76 and two boys scuffle over a disputed eraser.
Anyone know the escape route to the big flashing exit sign?
But I have to feed them all first.
I toss the potatoes into the pressure cooker, grandma’s pressure cooker from the 50′s, the one with the decades old, hand-smoothed wooden handles. I lock on the lid. Drop on the weight.
Levi, waiting for me to announce his next spelling word, looks up from his stool perch at the island. “What does a pressure cooker do, anyways?”
Gathering up a crying little Shalom, I mumble out an explanation. The weight’s abobbing, whistling, dipping and dancing over deep heat.
“Oh, a pressure cooker’s just a pot with a lid that doesn’t let the steam escape. And if the steam doesn’t escape, whatever’s in the pot cooks faster.”
And if the steam doesn’t escape….
“Is that why you’re always cooking with pressure cookers? The three of them? To cook everything faster?” Levi dangles off his stool, waving his pencil about.
I look around at counters with books and papers, sideboards of teetering stacks of laundry.
Over the whistle of the pressure cooker, Caleb’s asking me something about how to figure out the plural accustive case of the first declension in his Latin exercise.
Escapism always tempts: read a few pages of the book in the washroom, check email, see if there’s anything sweet on the pantry shelves, anything. Quick, let off some steam.
Sometimes it is direly necessary. Good and right. All pressure cookers have safety valves.
And yet too, the paradox, always the paradox:
When life heats up, escape can negate the efficacy of the Refiner’s Fire.
Letting pressure’s steam escape, may mean God’s dream for me escapes. Habitual escapism can escape His holy ends.
“Yes, Levi… ” I stroke Shalom’s hair back from her wet cheeks. “Lots of pressure cookers. Less cooking time. Let the pressure do its work.”
Lock the lid on. Let life get hot.
Stay present. Breathe deep.
Let the pressure do its good, quick work.
The thing-a-mo-bobber on the pot’s glinting lid, it spins, singing high, a silver song, a song refined.
I stay here, present in the pressure, and turn to the sink, this, my slow dance in heat.
I have refined you, but not as silver is refined.
Rather, I have refined you in the furnace… . Isaiah 48:10
About Ann Voskamp
thanks for this, sweet Ann. All of us mamas are in the pressure cooker. Great words of life today.
Thanks for the reminder to stay present!
……..
This is something I wrestle with daily…and I’m afraid I come out on the losing side far too often. Thanks for the encouragement.
Encouraging words! Thank you, Ann…
In a time of life when I have NEVER been under so much pressure as now… this speaks to me. I’ve never been so tempted to “escape” as now, and yet it’s even more vital that I let the pressure cooker do its work. Thank you!
Ann, thank you for your words of encouragement. I can so very much relate. I never got the hang of the smaller pressure cookers, so maybe that’s why I let off too much steam when my kids were smaller. Now that I’m older, I think I understand the steam issue better. Thank you for a great analogy.
Pressure. Oh My Word, pressure. I am feeling it ever so keenly today. In fact, I just put two little girls into a room, because I feel as if I will crack from the pressure. Mom, I don’t have what she has. Mom, I was first. Mom, I NEVER get to … and so on. They are 6 and 4. I don’t know what to do, I just want them to get along. To love each other. How do I teach them to love each other?
Add to that a 2 year old with limited special needs, and a 1 year old with slight developmental delays, and well, it’s a lot of pressure.
Thank you for writing this, dear sweet sister in Christ. Just, thank you.
I so needed this word today, a hot pressure-cooker type of day. Thanks so much, Ann, for reminding us that escapism shouldn’t become a habit from our daily refining fire.
Escapism always tempts:
&
Habitual escapism can escape His holy ends.
Praying today for strength to remain in the pressure cooker.
Boy, I needed to hear those words today. What you said is so true. Thanks for those words of wisdom. God is refining me. Yeah!