My second season set of Touched By An Angel DVD's arrived this week. Oh my... Can you say, "Debra is clearly overdosing on a tv show"?
Heh... No, but really, it's a good thing. Honest.
Early, early this morning, all bleary eyed with my steaming cup of pretend coffee, I watched another episode and it, once again, reminded me of my own mistakes. It was one of the episodes where Monica tried to forcefully share Truth with someone who wasn't yet ready to hear it. Monica had 'jumped the gun'... run with her impatient feelings... she'd been all hurry-hurry-I-think-this-should-be-done-now-ish.
And it bombed. Her frenzied attempts to help a situation failed because she wasn't cooperating with God's timing. He had not yet prepared the person's heart to hear what Monica had to say and so her words--even though they were right ones--were rejected and the person's heart hardened even more. And basically, Monica had to start all over and the whole thing took more time before the person's heart was softened, pliable and ready to accept Truth.
Can you identify with any of that? I certainly can.
I have had to learn (and relearn) to go only when God tells me to go...
...to say only what He tells me to say and only when He tells me to say it...
... to back-off when He says back-off--and then relax and leave the inner workings of a person's heart to God...
... to trust that mine is not to reason why, but to simply obey and then trust God to do what I could never do in twenty or more years anyway.
And when I do things His way, wow... There is peace instead of struggle, hope instead of worry and results instead of failure. And God gets all the credit because the whole thing was His idea, His plan, His wisdom, His love--so obviously, that everyone involved knows it simply could never have been anything--or anyone--else.
"And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." Matthew 13:58
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I see a lot of miracles.
Oh, most people probably would call them something else. Coincidences. 'Just one of those things' or a lucky find, just a sunny day, a surprise phone call or money you'd forgotten was coming.
Some people say miracles never happen today, but to me? Miracles happen all the time--they just come in varying sizes and you have to adjust your vision to see them.
Along the way, I'm learning what keeps miracles away and what encourages them to come. I want Jesus to do many miracles here, and so my lack of faith must go.
My faith is lacking when worry makes my body stiff and sick. When I'm doubting that God can handle my big problems or those of my family, when stress is making my poor old head throb.
My faith is lacking when I'm praying, yet at the same time believing things will never change. When God tries to soothe me yet I toss His hand away and exclaim, "But this problem is big!"
Real faith is a sign of growth, of having passed a few Faith Tests with courage and a calm trust with a strong belief that God will come through just in time.
I don't want my lack of faith to hurt Jesus' feelings.
I'd rather die than step up to Him, all doubtful, and accuse Him of not loving me, of not being able to take care of me. That would be like saying the same thing to my husband and I know that would blow him away. Yes, Jesus is big enough to handle what we throw at Him, yet He also can be hurt, grieved, by our doubt-filled, oh-ye-of-little-faith accusations aimed at His very character.
May I never again have a lack of faith which hurts Jesus' feelings. I don't want my lack of faith to keep Him from performing one single miracle in my life and I'll take all the miracles I can get.
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"Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you." ... Matthew 9:29
"He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm." ... Matthew 8:26
While Tom was away, I found an old (1960) book in a little makes-your-fingers-dusty shop.
The book is called Especially For Mother and is a compilation of stories and poems. Here is one of the stories--I read it during my quiet time this morning and couldn't wait to share it with you on this May Day.
The Day We Flew The Kites
"String!" shouted Brother, bursting into the kitchen. "We need lots more string."
It was Saturday. As always, it was a busy one, for "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work" was taken seriously then. Outside, Father and Mr. Patrick next door were doing chores.
Inside the two houses, Mother and Mrs. Patrick were engaged in spring cleaning. Such a windy March day was ideal for "turning out" clothes closets. Already woolens flapped on backyard clotheslines.
Somehow the boys had slipped away to the back lot with their kites. Now, even at the risk of having Brother impounded to beat carpets, they had sent him for more string. Apparently there was no limit to the heights to which kites would soar today.
My mother looked out the window. The sky was piercingly blue:the breeze fresh and exciting. Up in all that blueness sailed puffy billows of clouds. It had been a long, hard winter, but today was Spring.
Mother looked at the sitting room, its furniture disordered for a Spartan sweeping. Again her eyes wavered toward the window. "Come on, girls! Let's take string to the boys and watch them fly the kites a minute." On the way we met Mrs. Patrick, laughing guiltily, escorted by her girls.
There never was such a day for flying kites! God doesn't make two such days in a century. We played all our fresh twine into the boys' kites and still they soared. We could hardly distinguish the tiny, orange-colored specks. Now and then we slowly reeled it on in, finally bringing it dipping and tugging to earth, for the sheer joy of sending it up again. What a thrill to run with them, to the right, to the left, and see our poor, earth-bound movements reflected minutes later in the majestic sky-dance of the kites! We wrote wishes on slips of paper and slipped them over the string. Slowly, irresistibly, they climbed up until they reached the kites. Surely all such wishes would be granted!
Even our fathers dropped hoe and hammer and joined us. Our mothers took their turn, laughing like school girls. Their hair blew out of their pompadours and curled loose about their cheeks; their gingham aprons whipped about their legs. Mingled with our fun was something akin to awe. The grown-ups were really playing with us! Once I looked at Mother and thought she looked actually pretty. And her over forty!
We never knew where the hours went on that hilltop day. There were no hours, just a golden breezy Now. I think we were all a little beyond ourselves. Parents forgot their duty and their dignity; children forgot their combativeness and small spites. "Perhaps it's like this in the Kingdom of Heaven," I thought confusedly.
It was growing dark before, drunk with sun and air, we all stumbled sleepily back to the houses. I suppose we had some sort of supper. I suppose there must have been a surface tidying-up, for the house on Sunday looked decorous enough.
The strange thing was, we didn't mention that day afterward. I felt a little embarrassed, Surely none of the others had thrilled to it as deeply as I. I locked the memory up in that deepest part of me where we keep "the things that cannot be and yet are."
The years went on, then one day I was scurrying about my own kitchen in a city apartment, trying to get some work out of the way while my three-year-old insistently cried her desire to "go park and see ducks."
"I can't go!," I said. "I have this and this to do and when I'm through I'll be too tired to walk that far."
My mother, who was visiting us, looked up from the peas she was shelling. "It's a wonderful day," she offered; "really warm, yet there's a fine, fresh breeze. It reminds me of that day we flew the kites."
I stopped in my dash between stove and sink. The locked door flew open, and with it a gush of memories. I pulled off my apron. "Come on," I told my little girl. "You're right, it's too good a day to miss."
Another decade passed. We were in the aftermath of a great war. All evening we had been asking our returned soldier, the youngest Patrick boy, about his experiences as a prisoner of war. He had talked freely, but now for a long time he had been silent. What was he thinking of--what dark and dreadful things?
"Say!" A smile twitched his lips. "Do you remember... no, of course you wouldn't. It probably didn't make the impression on you it did on me."
I hardly dared speak. "Remember what?"
"I used to think of that day a lot in PW camp, when things weren't too good. Do you remember the day we flew the kites?"
Winter came, and the sad duty of a call of condolence on Mrs. Patrick, recently widowed. I dreaded the call. I couldn't imagine how Mrs. Patrick would face life alone.
We talked a little of my family and her grandchildren and the changes in the town. Then she was silent, looking down at her lap. I cleared my throat. Now I must say something about her loss, and she would begin to cry.
When she looked up, Mrs. Patrick was smiling. "I was just sitting here thinking," she said. "Henry had such fun that day. Frances, do you remember the day we flew the kites?"
by Frances Fowler
Copyright 1949 by the Reader's Digest Association, Inc.
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