Choose a verse

We started twenty years ago by choosing a specific scripture verse for each of our children.  Over the years, I have seen these scriptures come to pass.

Along the way, I thought of choosing a scripture for our family.  How to choose?  Pray and keep the spiritual antennae up.  The right scripture could show up while reading the Bible, or through a friend's words, or through the readings at church, or some other way.

The verse for our family is Judges 5:31: "Those who love Him are like the sun when it shines in its strength."
I remember a pediatrician entering the waiting room in which I was sitting with three of our children.  His comment was, "It's like walking into a room of sunshine."

A couple of years back, I realized the reference of this verse was our wedding anniversary.  5/31.  How cool is that?

I'd like to choose a verse for our marriage.  Will you do the same for yours?   

26 years

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary - 26 years.  My favorite devotional, Streams in the Desert, had the perfect illustration for what results when we don't jump ship!

Character with Age
“Like a shock of corn fully ripe” (Job 5:26).
A gentleman, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fibre in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes.
Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, New York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite colouring and beautiful grain.
Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago. The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the colour, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase. It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honour in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family.
So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fibre of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.
Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fibre of character. –Louis Albert Banks

Perhaps by God's grace, we as a couple can attract general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain of our marriage.

Daily Movement

Relationships are fluid, not static, being affected by small choices made minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day.  As the grains of sand flow through an egg timer, so each choice will tip us towards or away from our spouse.  Small gestures: a hug, a smile, a hand on the arm, a compliment, a caring question, eventually add up to big results.  "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Sculpting something priceless

"Higher than every painter, higher than every sculptor, and than all artists, do I regard him who is skilled in the art of forming the soul-life of children."

St. John Chrysostom (4th c.)

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

All things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)  Accept what is happening now and move on.

Carmelite Nun

Today I went, for the first time, to a Carmelite monastery.  Six nuns live there in seclusion.  Their job, apparently, is to pray for the world.  I gave the sister some soup and tortillas through the wooden turnstyle.   She spoke kindly and answered questions through the black grating.  I could not see her. 

I asked her why Catholics talk so much about saints.  She said the saints are like members of our family.

I asked her about reading scripture.  She said that they read scripture seven times daily plus she reads on her own.  When I asked her what her favorite scripture was, she had to think and then mentioned the first part of St. John.  

What would it be like to be cloistered for life behind bars as a Carmelite nun, reading scripture seven times daily, praying for the world and getting food through a wooden turnstyle?  She was very excited about the food that I brought.

Trees

"I am like a green olive tree in the house of God." 

Those around me are trees, also, bearing fruit in season. 

I became accustomed to enjoying the sweet fruit of one close to me. The tree, now mature, is bearing fruit that only others can enjoy.  I feel angry and hurt that the fruit which I had come to love and depend upon is no longer there for me . 

Perhaps the fruit will be borne again for me one day, or perhaps the fruit is meant now for another.  Give me strength, Lord. Make me The Giving Tree....