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Spring is thunderstorm season where I live.  Great big piles of dark clouds show up and bump into each other.  We get hail showers that always thrill my children.  For a little while the sky will be glowering and dark.

Last spring right after one of these storms, while the sky overhead still loomed gray and heavy, I drove down the hill to the next town over.  I ended up driving out from under the cloud mass into brilliant sunshine, quite a change from where I had just been.  In the sunlight everything showed up bright and new-looking.

As I finished my errand and turned my car toward home, I was astonished to see how black the clouds looked with the sun shining on them.  They hadn’t seemed that dark when I was still under them.  I had a whole new perspective from my vantage point in the light.

This is how it can be when we come into Jesus’ light.  We are going along, living our gray lives without even knowing how dark they really are, how heavy the sin in our hearts.  Then we respond to Jesus’ voice in the storm saying, “Come to Me.”  Suddenly we are in His brilliant light and we look back and see how black our lives had really been.  He washes us as white as the sunshine and gives us new life.

That is where I want to live, in the newness of life in a relationship with Jesus.  Do you want that too?  All we have to do is believe Him, turn from our sin and follow Him into the light.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  John 3:16 & 21

Every.  Single.  Time.

I have tried everything: locking the door, leaving the door open and slipping in when no one is looking, threats, bribes.  Nothing works.  I have finally come to the conclusion that my children have rigged up an alarm system.

By this time I am sure you are wondering what on earth I am talking about.  It is a most basic human need: going to the bathroom.  I am guessing most of you mothers can relate, as soon as I sit down, a child bursts through my door.  I really have no other explanation than an alarm system in my toilet seat.  You may ask why I don’t simply lock the door.  Two reasons.  One, my children work on doorknobs until they pop the locks.  Two, they would just stand on the other side of the door and yell to me.  As I mentioned, I also tried sneaking in and leaving the door open.  Nope, someone was there immediately.  Lately when someone runs in I don’t even bother saying “Out!”  I just make a noise like someone stepped on a sheep, “Blaaah!”  It usually sends them back out the door quickly.

The other day I thought I had won a couple minutes.  I sat down and, nothing.  Thirty seconds later my daughter came running into the room out of breath, late for the alarm.

I hadn’t realized my nieces and nephews had rigged my sister’s bathroom.  I was over there a couple days ago and sure enough, from the other side of the door, “Auntie?  Auntie?  Can you hear me?”

As much as I love my children and enjoy being with them, it would be nice to be able to use the restroom in peace, by myself.  I suppose that day will come eventually.  I have been told I will even miss irritations like these when my children are all gone.  Right now that day seems a long way off.  However, time does go by quickly.  That is probably why we are told in the Bible to make the most of each day, guiding and training our children moment by moment.

So for now I will join in Paul’s prayer in Colossians 4:3-6, “And pray for us, too, that God may open a door, (hopefully not the bathroom door) for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ…Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; (even those outside your bathroom door) make the most of every opportunity, (even the irritating ones.)  Let your conversation be always full of grace…so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

 

Do you remember your grandma’s hands? I remember my great-grandmother’s hands. Gnarled from arthritis, but still strong. Pouring love into the peach cobbler she was sure to have warm from the oven when we would arrive. I recall one time she was ruefully looking at her wrinkled hands. She thought they were past their prime, I thought they were beautiful.

From the time I was a little girl, I was spending time at nursing homes. My first piano recitals were held there, and a part of my heart was too. I learned to love the residents, especially when my mother started taking my brother, sister and I more often with our church group for us to play the piano.

My sister and I would make cards and pictures ahead of time to hand out after the service, carefully coloring and gluing pictures to pieces of construction paper. As we would make our rounds I would hand a little piece of my heart, glued to paper, to eager hands. What they really wanted to hold, though were my hands.

I always made sure to take a minute to hold a hand. Most still surprisingly strong underneath skin that was yielding to the onward march of time. There was almost an urgency, an insistence behind those clasps. As though I were giving them a quick reminder of life and youth, the same feeling you would have holding a fresh rose.

 

 

At the same time, those old hands were communicating to me. Life will be hard and life will be joyous. Enjoy every second, the ones you think are bad and the ones you think are good. Seconds are like snowflakes, each one is unique and they melt away just as fast. Life is worth fighting for and hanging on to.

In those quick moments, I almost feel as if they were handing me a baton. They were imparting their strength to encourage me to run the race well. There was an expectation as well, that when it comes my time that I will also hand over that baton and cheer on the next runners of this marathon called life.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”  Hebrews 12:1

 

My little three year old had quite a day today.  She started off by playing with the phone and accidentally dialing 911.  When the emergency operator called back, her older brother assured them that everything was fine.  A few minutes later, of course, the sheriff knocked at the door to double check.  My five year old beat everyone to the door and opened it wide.  My three year old proudly joined her brother at the door, wearing nothing but her birthday suit.  I am not sure what the officers thought at this point, but they were quickly assured that we were indeed fine, that baby was just playing with the phone and is potty-training.

Shortly after this, her brother decided to dump a cup of water over her head.  Then he decided to flush her favorite sticker, “Little Johnny,” down the toilet.  By this time she figured maybe she should just go outside for awhile, only to discover a frog in her shoe!  It is a good thing that toddlers are resilient, (and mothers too!)  She took all this in stride, and even enjoyed telling us the ‘fwog in my shoe’ story over and over.

I have had a few days lately that have felt like that, just one thing after another.  I have to admit that I haven’t rolled with things quite as well as my daughter, but also not as poorly as I may have in the past.  It is a continual process to make my plans, give them to God and leave them in His hands.  God is always polishing the rough edges off of me, a lot of times using things that don’t feel so good to do it.  But I know that God has a plan for my life and that His plans are always better than mine.  So on the days when I feel like someone has poured a cup of water over my head and flushed my plans down the drain, I will still try to take it all in stride and live to tell the story.

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.  These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”  Isaiah 42:16

 

Okay, so the title might be something of a misnomer because I do try to avoid the “dawn” time of day.  However, it was definitely early.

I had been so excited to really deep-clean my house the day before, getting to all those nooks and crannies and quick-clean misses.  Then, there it was in the morning light, I could still see some dust as well as some cobwebs that magically appeared with the first break of day.  So frustrating.

It made me think about our lives and how we try to do the same thing.  We clean up our act or clean up our mouths.  We try to be good people.  However we get the same results I got with my house cleaning.  When the light comes in it shows that our efforts, no matter how sincere, are simply not good enough.  We are just not able to clean ourselves.

Thank goodness for Jesus!  He came to do the job for us.  He is the ultimate “house keeper.”  When we finally decide to give up and tell Him we have had enough of trying to do it on our own, He shows up to wash us whiter than snow, cleanse us from our sin, and purify us from unrighteousness.  After that there is no more worry about what the light of day might reveal about our hearts.

Another great thing about Jesus is He is not like the house keepers at the hotels, the ones who make up the room while you are gone and you never really get to know.  Once He is in your life He is closer to you than anyone else and just a prayer away.  In fact He promises to never leave you stranded, to be with you always.  So while I may never have a perfectly clean house here on Earth, I can look forward to eternity spent with Jesus in a heavenly mansion that will never need a house keeper.

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  I John 1:7&9

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.”  John 14:2

 

Faith.  It seems like such a big word, doesn’t it?  When I think of people who have faith, I think they must be spiritual giants.  Or be able to face down giants like David did.  I think of the “Hall of Faith,” in the book of Hebrews in the Bible.  There are people like Noah, who listened to God rather than everyone around him; Abraham, who just up and followed God when he didn’t even know where God was taking him; and Jacob whose descendants became Israel!  To say I get a little intimidated would be an understatement.

If I am in a situation requiring faith, and I start comparing my wavering little bit of faith to people like these, my tiny amount of faith can disappear.  However, there is some good news for me, and for you if you feel this same way.  The section in Hebrews does not end after touting all these Biblical heroes’ deeds of faith.  It goes on to talk to us!  Hebrews 11:40 says, “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”  And then Hebrews 12:1-2a goes on to say, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything, (such as fear) that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

How great is that?  Jesus Himself is the author of our faith, we don’t have to try to create faith on our own.  We can cry out to Jesus honestly, and tell Him we need some faith.  We do not need to be intimidated by people of faith, because they are the ones cheering us on.  We don’t even need a large amount of faith to do amazing things either.  Jesus said if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, some phenomenal things can happen.  For David to take down a giant, it only took faith the size of a pebble!

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.”  Matthew 17:20-21