Snakes, Church, and How to Be Beautiful

Photo credits

A song on Sunday sent me into snake ponderings. 

The worship song surged around me in the church pew and I lifted my writhing three year old onto my hip. Unaccustomed to being with us in the service, he was a whirl of energy and motion. Hanging off the chair with one hand and shoulder draped off the edge, he had peered at the floor. Spinning over he cuddled onto his sister’s lap, squeezing her arms for a hug. A grey sandaled shoe jabbed into my side, and I quickly readjusted my shirt.

It wasn’t his writhings that turned my mind to snakes, though. The worship song that we stood and sung back to God said wonderingly,

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.

…

You make me new, you are making me new.

You make me new, you are making me new.

My oldest son has an eighteen inch garter snake that he found and tamed. Now the snake often coils comfortably up my son’s arm as he walks the house, or hangs harmlessly around my seventeen year old’s neck as my son corrects his math problems.

“Did you know,” my dad said, “that a snake is nearly blind right before it sheds its skin? With eyes that are clouded, it is fearful and aggressive. Feeling vulnerable, it will often strike at the hand bringing it food too.”  

My son built a reptile habitat in a glass aquarium, with cedar wood chips and an overturned log.

In order to rid itself of the old skin that is constraining and hindering it, the snake has to be intentional. It can’t hole up in a safe corner with blinded eyes. Rather the snake has to purposely lean into the hard places between the log and the glass window, and push through the rough patches, intentionally poking into and through dark places. It’s the pressure and the pulling that tug off the dead to reveal beauty below.

We're standing in the pews and singing and I'm holding my three-year-old in my arms and he's writhing, and I picture my oldest’s newly-gleaming snake. Pearlescent emerald and gleaming amber striped down the snake’s back, leaving behind a faded, transparent wraith in the aquarium.  

I sang, You make things new, you are making me new...

You make beautiful things….

And I realize that it’s me that God has been pressing through the tight places, poking into the dark corners, and leaning me into the rough patches to tear off the old, revealing beauty below. 

How do we be beautiful? We lean into the rough places. We dare to walk with our Creator through the dark corners, through the tight spaces that'll pull off the old and make all things new.

You make beautiful things out of the dust

 you make beautiful things out of us 

Linking with Ann, Michelle, Shanda, and Emily.

Newly-Washed Joy in the Day to Day

The dryer whirrs, and teens’ voices meld in guitar and vocal practice. 

Sunshine and breeze pour through my open windows and deck doors. Last night’s rain splashed color and vivid hues on every leaf and lawn. The heat surprised me when I stepped out onto the deck just a few minutes ago. 

John, my oldest, biked back from his morning daycare job, exclaiming, “It’s so nice out there! Ahhh, I have spring fever!” After grabbing a snack, he headed to his room for school.  His sister Morgan is finishing up her math lesson. 

Daniel is on the deck, driving a yellow bus through puddles, and digging his toes in deep to the water surrounding a large pot. “Mom, can I take a bath?” he asks. I think he means in the basin there. 

After a busy weekend, life resumes its normal pace. 

In between the the flow of family meals, homework helps, and other swirling currents, we women sneak away for time in God’s word. That looks different for all of us on any day, I know. This morning, I brewed coffee, grabbed my favorite cup, and pulled a chair up to the kitchen table with my Bible and Bible study book.

Like my son, I want to dig my toes in deep to this Water.

"...And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters..." (Gen 1:2b).

What is your normal pace on a weekday morning? How do you enjoy setting up time to spend in God’s word? 

Thank you for your kind comments and for sharing prayer requests on the last post. I have been reading them and praying with you, even though I haven’t replied to you yet. It was a busy weekend with a senior high youth retreat, speaking at a workshop on missions, and a bout of mild food poisoning. 

Today, though, life is again back to normal, and I pour another cup of coffee, dictate an assignment, and pull my Bible close.

Rejoice with me, like the ancient Israeli King David who said, "Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence" (Psalm 21:6).

What is your normal pace on a weekday morning? How do you enjoy setting up time to spend in God’s word?

Seven Steps to Easier Home Stagings and Showings

The phone rang and our eyes leaped to read the caller Id. If it was our Real Estate company, our feelings were mixed. While we were excited to have showing requests, keeping an immaculate house through daily meals, laundry, and homeschooling was wearying, especially with a preschooler. 

After countless showings though, our family of five has discovered several steps that make showings smoother.

Seven Steps to Easier Home Stagings and Showings with a Family

1. Turn on the bread machine. Drop in 3 cups flour, 1.5 tsp salt, 2 TB olive oil, 8-9 ounces of hot tap water, 2 tsp sugar and 2 tsp yeast. Select the rapid setting on any standard bread machine and in 1.5 hours, the aroma of hot bread will fill each room with an unconscious sentiment of home. 
2. Fling open the windows and the deck. No matter how cold it is outside, opening  windows will freshen up your home immensely, even if just for fifteen minutes. 
3. Delegate duties to each member of the family. When showing requests call in, everyone leaps into action. Each of my teens know which rooms and jobs they have, in addition to roles we all share.
4. Have familiar stash places for the papers, statements, and bills that haven’t been paid yet. Under pillows or in clothing drawers is helpful.
5. Buy window cleaning liquid in bulk. It is fabulous for mirrors, ovens, fridges, decks, windows, bathroom tiles, faucets, sinks, glass desks, microwaves windows and more. Nothing makes a clean bathroom wall sparkle faster. (Assuming you have already done the hard work of bleaching and scrubbing earlier, of course.)
6. Make decorating easy. Keep cut wild flowers or cattails and branches on hand in vases for ready displays in your bathroom and kitchen. Save the special rugs and hand towels that you will use for the showings folded and off to the side, ready for instant deploy. Free yourself from last minute searches for a clean, non-frayed, flawless towel by having it reserved on the side.
7. Scoop up and carry with you any random items that you haven’t had a chance to put away yet. One friend shared her great idea to bring unfolded or dirty baskets of laundry with you in the car when you leave.We have done that often.

Rejoice with us that our house seems to be sold! The final inspection, appraisal, and last minute papers are completed and signed, awaiting our June closing. Now, we look for our next home… You may join us in praying for that adventure too, if you'd like. Thanks. 

How are YOU this week? How can I pray for you today? Do you have any fabulous home staging/showing advice to pass on?

Speak the Hard Things

Speak the hard things. 

On a cold peeling blue wooden park bench, I shuddered and wrapped my navy sweatshirt around me tighter today. The spring wind was brisk, chilling me as I read. 

She shocks me, this author. In between poetic raw faith musings on family and cancer which grab my mind and echo in me, she breaks into political monologues that are jarring and unfamiliar to me, or irreverent rants. Flipping pages past to family and faith, I read and pick up the story line again.

Speak the hard things. I agree, yet hesitate. Where’s the fine line between sharing the hard and yet not speaking ill of others? But I do remember the liberating hope and encouragement that came in my early years of parenting from hearing other moms share stories of coming undone and unglued. 

On the park bench, I stopped reading to watch my three year old scale a webbed triangular jungle gym. My two teens hung upside down on red metal bars, laughing; their dark hair glinting and swooshing in the sunshine.

“Do you know I love you guys so much?” I yelled out to them. They laughed, exchanged glances and looked back patronizingly at me. “Yes, Mom,” they called back in a patient “Our Mom is such an idiot”-kind of way. 

This weekend was different, though. How can great teens be so rude? How can a happy marriage have such a horrible day? 

Speak the hard things. 

There will be days when your gracious, kind teens will mouth off, have bad attitudes and moan about homework. They will roll their eyes and disagree with your decisions. Conversations will ensue about proper eye and mouth behavior, but the inner hearts will still be angry and sad for a few hours. Dumb things may be said. 

There will be times when happy couples will be stressed and impatient. We will choose our own needs first, sadly, and fall into ruts of communicating for an hour or so, reverting to an unhappy, silent standoff. The night will fall dark and still, the bed will feel wide apart, and the red digital numbers will quietly click off time. “In the silence, a marriage dies…?” I wonder in my melodramatic way. 

“No, Jen,” he says softly in the hot steaming shower the next morning. “We just work harder. We hug, we gently talk; we criticize less. We firmly stop the kids in their own bad habits.” Water runs down, and we breathe deeply. “We’re not dying.” 

Hugs, quiet cuddling on the couch, concentrated efforts to put the other person first, and to affirm. Criticism is curbed, checked; cut off while still on the lips. I retrain my mind, my impulses, and think of Roses and Sit Ups. 

Gentle kisses, lingering hugs, and hope unfurls. 

The rainy cold day passes. My sister arrives for a coffee date. Over thick fudgy chocolate cake, and then again over cardboard coffee cups, we talk. I venture out raw but vague. Later under a dripping raindrop windshield she prays for me, squeezing my knee. Yellow daffodils bob in the gentle rain outside. 

A weekend of gentle kindness and grace unfurls beauty and strength and joy in a marriage-- and in the family. A teen apologizes. A couple cuddles and talks. 

 

All’s well with the world again.

Thank you, Abba.

There's a Happy Gamer Somewhere

“Mom, can I stay up a little bit later to read my Bible?” 

What a rascally thing to ask! What mother can say no to that? 

It was past her bedtime, but she was emotional and distraught from a mini-fiasco in her computer game, losing all her rare items in one accidental trade. Frantic phone flurries and digital requests for the items back were to no avail. Red-cheeked and adrenaline-surging, she relayed the story to me, and I commiserated with her. We hugged and I prayed with her for bed. 

“Can I read your Bible, Mom? Mine is in the bedroom with Daniel and I don’t want to wake him up.” 

Morgan grabbed my burgundy-covered Bible and disappeared into my room. Ten minutes later she bounced back into the living room. 

“Mom! I have so much joy! Isn’t it cool how the Bible does that?” She went on to talk about some verses in Psalm that grabbed her attention and her heart. Dancing from one foot to the next, she gushed, “Thanks, Mom,” as we hugged.

“Weren’t our hearts just burning within us while he talked?” the pedestrians on the road to Emmaus asked each other in the ancient Roman Empire. My husband is practicing his sermon for this Sunday’s Graduation Youth Sunday, so we have been reading and re-reading this text. I have often wished to have been part of that seven mile jaunt out of Jerusalem that day, wanting to hear that fabulous conversation where the newly-resurrected Jesus talked for hours, revealing panoramic truths about himself from throughout the Old Testament. Wow, to have the Godhead walk with me and make his scripture come alive! “Weren’t our hearts just burning within us while he talked?” they exclaimed. 

My husband and I were reminded this week that we DO have the Godhead walking beside us and making his scripture come alive in us through the Holy Spirit. That’s part of the Holy Spirit's job description.

Sorry for the quiet couple of days here at Jottings from Jennifer. We have been busy with the dance of offer and counter-offers on our house, and all the accompanying paperwork. While I am definitely excited, I am also feeling fear, worry, and emotionally weary.

So, pardon me as I pick up my Bible and take a walk with the Godhead.

What about you? What have you been experiencing or thinking about this week? What do you do when you feel emotionally weary?

A Recovered Diamond

Upswept blonde hair twirled into a loose French bun revealed classic pearl earrings and the back view of her face. A grandson bounced on her lap as she sang “Holy is the Lord God Almighty,” pausing to wipe tears from her cheeks in the chorus. 

Minutes earlier, after the first rousing song and when the whole church congregation stood to shake hands and talk, she leaned back, taking my hand and drawing me close to talk. 

“Toby* said he accepted Christ this Friday!” came her soft voice. More details came, confirming those words, and tears came to my eyes for this new teen male that I had been praying for and just getting to know this year. 

His baleful eyes had grabbed my attention as soon as we met their family. He reminded me of so many in my life that I care for and pray hard for. My husband and I talked with him whenever we could, hoping to coax smiles and comfortableness in him.  Toby was polite but hated being there. We prayed hard, and sincerely enjoyed talking with him whenever we could. He thrilled and shocked us when he started coming to youth group on Wednesday nights. 

Now this morning, his mom leaned close, silver blonde hair swept up, and my tears swept out.  “Wow, thank you, God!” I didn’t know why I was crying, since I had only known Toby for a short time, but we had been praying earnestly for him. 

In the Bible, there is the familiar story of the young woman who lost one of her ten silver coins. I was reminded recently that those coins were part of her headdress, announcing that she was married. The coins were costly and significant, similar to our wedding rings and diamonds. 

When the woman discovered it missing, she ransacked her house, trying to recover her missing wedding coin. The coin was irreplaceable and invaluable, so she didn’t give up until it was safe and found.

 It took time. It weighed on her heart and mind. She never gave up.

This weekend, a diamond has been recovered, and its value is huge! 

Do you have someone you are praying for? I would be honored to pray with you for them. Feel free to simply mention them by one letter. (For example, J or S.) I have many loved ones and dear friends that I pray for too, in a humble, respectful way. May I pray with you for them or for something this week?

*Toby is not his real name. Photo credits to Microsoft clip art too.