My husband and I watched Julie and Julia a few nights ago. I really enjoyed watching it because I love stuff about cooking and baking. There was one thing that has caught my attention. When Julia Childs was naming her cook book the subtitle was “for servant-less cooks.”

Most of us now days know what it means to be servant-less. I don’t know anyone personally who has a 24/7 house maid. I work around the house and expect the same of my children. Cleaning and cooking, laundry – all of those things that are expected of me : I do them.

As I’ve been pondering the word servant – I’m pulled towards the life of Christ. I’m on a journey to be more like him, but I know that I am not the servant that He was.

In John 13 Jesus made himself a servant, washing the disciples feet. I have to tell you this is probably the grossest thing that Jesus could have done. Seriously. They went barefoot, or wore sandals – walking everywhere. This was not just a simple little manicure – this was washing filth and sweat and who knows what else from their calloused, cracked, tough feet.

Why? This is what I ask myself. Why would he do this for these men – some would even betray him – and still he did this for them. It had to have been for love. He became a servant and did one of the most unpleasant jobs to care for their needs. And this to me is the definition of servant.

Servant: (the Melody Day definition) someone who fulfills the needs of another out of love without expectations for return gratification.

He knew they would not be able to respond to Him in kind. Yet He knew their needs and moved toward them out of loving kindness.

I’m embarrassed, but compelled to share that I do not act this way. So often I am not a servant. No – I wait to be served. Or, I may do something to meet a need in our house, but I hold strings that are attached to my actions. If I were following Christ as He desires – there would be love, followed by action without any strings.

During the account of the feet washing, Jesus says to the disciples, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.” And then He declares to them that they are to do the same for each other.

In my heart – I know I must be a servant to my family and those around me, showing them the loving kindness that Jesus has shown me. Because of His love, I am cleansed from the dirt and filth of sin – and I belong to Him. Now I am constrained to servanthood because of His love. Maybe others will come to know His love because of my service.

It’s my prayer that we won’t be a servant-less house any longer.

originally written on February 3, 2010…  

A long time ago I learned a poem from my great grandmother, GG.  She was one who taught us a verse of this and a song about that.  And I love her for it.  I wish I could be more like her because she truly was an extraordinary woman.

Each year, right around now, when autumn settles in and the leaves turn their bright hues of golden and crimson, this particular poem she taught me seems just right. And I’m going to share it with you now.  Not for the sake of the poem.  Oh, it is worthy to be repeated for sure in its own right.  But I’m sharing it because it has heightened my senses.  Piqued my interest…

What does that mean?  Well, as I looked out my window yesterday, I realized He created me with all of my physical senses so that I could sense Him, and so that others would come to know Him. But even more so that I could worship Him.  His beauty is everywhere; His creation is unfathomable.  I can savor the goodness of His harvest on my lips.  My ears revel in the symphony this world plays, each creature singing its own part.  I watch as His faithfulness is painted across the horizon from season to season…

As I come to know this God, the creator of these majestic mountains and glorious valleys, my life joins in unison, singing back His praises.  In word and deed  I’m able to touch those around me with His love and mercy.  If I live in the light of His goodness, my life becomes a sacrifice- a sweet-smelling aroma to Him.    Oh how I pray that He moves my heart to this sanctuary of gratefulness that induces action – maybe even right here, in my own back yard.

Heavenly Father, help me come to my senses!

And now the poem…

All Things Bright and Beautiful

~Cecil Frances Alexander

 

All things bright and beautiful,


All creatures great and small,


All things wise and wonderful,


The Lord God made them all.

 

Each little flower that opens,


Each little bird that sings,


He made their glowing colors,


He made their tiny wings.

 

The purple-headed mountain,


The river running by,


The sunset, and the morning,


That brightens up the sky;

 

The cold wind in the winter,


The pleasant summer sun,


The ripe fruits in the garden,


He made them every one.

 

He gave us eyes to see them,


And lips that we might tell,


How great is God Almighty,


Who has made all things well.

 

 

I sat at the computer and reviewed the album this morning.  I’m not sure why.  I just needed to hear it, I guess.  It wasn’t long ago that Michael and I recorded it.  Well, it doesn’t seem long ago – but it was several years ago when the leaves were changing colors that we played a few of our favorite worship songs in front of a microphone in our living room.  I guess it was seven years ago…

Yes. It was seven years ago that I desperately wanted to belong somewhere.  But no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find a good fit.  We were searching for a church home, I was working at an insurance company (which felt so strange for this young musician) and I had just been through a miscarriage.  I felt like such a misfit in so many ways.

And it hurt.

The album we recorded turned out quite nicely and we gave it as Christmas gifts to close friends and family. One of the simple tunes we recorded still resonates with me all of this time later.  And particularly this morning…

My heart belongs to You.  My heart belongs to You.

I’ll never give myself to another.  My heart belongs to You.

It is simple, really.  I want to belong.  Doesn’t everyone?  I want to feel like I fit in somewhere, that what I have to offer is special, important.  and it is.  I know it is because my Heavenly Father says so.  But, when I heard the lyrics to this song this morning, they meant something so different.

I do belong to Him.  I know I do.  But there are moments I find myself trying fit in better other places by giving my heart away to other things.    Its on days, kind of like today, that I forget and I run into trouble.  When I give a small piece of my heart to perfection, or to envy, to self-promotion, to pride, bit by bit I’m removing myself from the place I need to be the most.

I want to be clear:  I don’t lose my place in the palm of His hand; He doesn’t change.  He isn’t elusive or on the run.   Its my heart that is unfaithful.  But He graciously whispers reminders, like this one:

from Psalm 73:

²³ Yet I still belong to you;
      you hold my right hand.
 ²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
      leading me to a glorious destiny.
 ²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
      I desire you more than anything on earth.
 ²⁶ My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
      but God remains the strength of my heart;
      he is mine forever.

And it is confirmed.  He promises.  Not earthly circumstances. Not my poor choices. No matter what, I will always fit right in the palm of His hand.

He is mine forever and I belong to Him.

My niece arrived today.  nine pounds twelve ounces.  She is beautiful.  Snuggling this little bundle brings a deluge of memories.I delivered Emily, my firstborn 10 years ago this month.  I can’t help but review every minute detail of her birth…the way she fit in my arms, the way she smelled, how her thick, soft and fluffy, dark hair felt brushing against my cheek… There is something so unforgettable, yet completely intangible that you sense when holding one so fresh from Heaven.

Life is a gift from the Heavenly Father, a marvelous gift I don’t truly comprehend. This morning I am so aware, and still so amazed by these words from Psalm 139:

¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;^[a]
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.

Thank you Father for this precious new little life.  Thank you that you create each of us by the work of Your hands.  I am so overwhelmed by Your love and care for each of us.  May I live with the knowledge of this grace at the center of my heart and mind. amen.

                                  One of my favorite photos from this summer:  my sweet boy Isaac with my dad.

(This one’s for you, Dad!)

Picture it.  1982, or so.  I’m perched next to my sister on the brown and orange plaid backseat bench of my dad’s late 70’s brown Chevette. We’re driving around London, Ontario on some sort of errand, I have no idea what, and listening.  No, we’re straining to hear Ernie Harwell announce the Tiger’s game on a Detroit radio station…

Static crashes and tears away at his words.   “And it’s a hit to center field…”  but that’s all we hear.  My dad fiddles with the AM knob.  This was back in the day when the listener was completely responsible to tune in the station – no automatic harness of sound at the push of a button.  You had to really want it.  And we did.

It wasn’t easy to gather up enough waves from the atmosphere to hear a game being played in Detroit all the way in London, three hours away. Dad’s the one who taught me to keep at it.  A born and bred baseball fan, he taught us girls to love the game too, mostly by his dedication to listening through the static.

Listening can be complicated sometimes.  It was true about baseball back then and it is true about life now, I suppose.  It wasn’t long before the summer of 1982 that my dad demonstrated he was listening.  By God’s call, He moved our family  from Danville Illinois to a new life in London, Ontario.  Through all of the earthly strains, He listened and obeyed.  And we were forever changed. There had to have been plenty of static at the point of decision. I’m still amazed by my dad and how he listened then.

Well, my life has had a lot of static this week.  Crazy noise, drowning out my ability to hear anything. And I squint and grit my teeth and hold my breath. I imagine I probably look a lot like my dad while doing it…  But its just loudness.  deafening sound.   I fool with the knobs to adjust the station… Is HE even saying anything?  at all?  And I know He is, I just can’t hear it; His voice is muffled by my own inability to listen.

Static.  Squeals and feed back and ruffles of sound in the form of : a crisis with a friend.  Emotions run amuck when I find yet another situation completely out of my control.  Thoughts that cast fear and doubt over the future.  Envy of someone else’s something or other.  Gossip and rumors over unimportant nonsense. All of it creating distance and diversion from the one voice I long to hear.  If I could just find that station.  If I could just tune in…

And I find it.  It is my gratefulness that subdues all of the other noise.  “Tune my heart to sing thy praise.”  And I realize it is just that.  There is plenty of chaos swirling in waves around me.  But, when I focus on Him, His goodness…when I can see the redemptive pieces of my life’s puzzle falling into place, by His hand of mercy… Then.  Only then I hear His voice.

He is always speaking.  I just have to tune in to His station.

Thank you, Dad for teaching me how to tune in and listen.

beautiful words from Psalm 40:5-11

⁵ Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

⁶ Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart.”

⁹ I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You Yourself know.
¹⁰ I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly.

¹¹ Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.

I made ugly cookies this weekend.  You know the kind.  The kind that make you turn your head and frown with disappointment.  I had been hoping they’d be picturesque, but instead they are just …. well, they’re just plain ugly.  Yep.  That’s how my cookies turned out.  I promise you they smelled divine while they were baking.  And they taste even better – but they do not look good at all.

So, because of their appearance, I didn’t want to post pictures, mostly because I have a reputation to keep up you know.  I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I create a complete flop every once in a while in my baking.  I only want you to see my perfect products.  Only the beautiful creations...

Turns out this is kind of how I live my life.  There are things about me that are ugly.  I work, no, I labor over them to be sure no one sees.  Even as God is working in my heart, making something beautiful out of my life, I hide in shame.  I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I might have junk to work through.  Only the beautiful, please…

Warm from the oven, my children gobbled down cookie after cookie.  They did not notice my concern over the esthetic qualities that were lacking.  Nope.  They did not care one iota.   I guess thats a good thing, I mean they are who I made the cookies for anyway.   Ultimately, I don’t bake for the camera.  I make cookies and cakes and pies for my precious little family, friends and loved ones.  Their opinions are the ones that count.

This very thought brings a good question to my mind, “Who am I living for, anyway?”  If I’m concerned about what people think, I’ve completely missed the mark.  The one who matters, The One who counts in this lifetime is my Heavenly Father.  and what does He say about me?

All is now beautiful…

True and glorious words from Romans 3:

²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, ²⁶ to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In my mind I may have a hard time letting go; I can’t believe that I have been justified.  But it is true:  all has been made right.  According to God’s word, there is only the truth of His beauty and the reality of His forgiveness, given to me as His daughter… I just have to believe it is true.

That is His truth! How beautiful!

amen.

“What do you mean you don’t practice violin when you get home from school?”

It was the question I held in, rather than blurting it out at my friend.  We had been discussing our every day activities, and she was telling me what she did after school.  I sat there in complete shock. It was a defining moment of my year in Mrs. Dawson’s 5th grade class room at North Ridge Elementary School.

Didn’t everyone practice violin and piano before they were allowed to play outside? 

But, it was true.  Not everyone had the same life experiences as I did.  When I looked around at my 5th grade classmates I came to the realization that we were all very different.  Somehow this was my first reality check on the subject.  I was very naive.

As the year passed by I came to understand a very important fact.  Music practice wasn’t the only thing I didn’t have in common with some others.  There were some who had not experienced something else that was very important to me.  Many had not met Jesus.

Oh, maybe they knew who He was, but they hadn’t really chosen to be His follower.  At ten years of age this was very hard to understand.  I had been immersed in church and other religious activities, like Sunday School and AWANA.  But even at that young age, I had made my choice to follow.  I was a practicing believer in Jesus.

Doesn’t everyone believe in Him?

Even now that’s what I find myself asking from the viewpoint of my “totally – immersed -in- church life”.  It becomes so easy to forget that there are many who still don’t know about Him, or who don’t believe in Him.  Me, safely living in my Spirit- saturated existence while they drown in their unbelief, unfamiliar with the loving Savior that I know, struggling for survival.

Every once in a while He brings me back to reality by shining the light of His Son, melting away the fog that clouds my heart.  And I need it because I tend to be content, truthfully sometimes I’m indifferent.  However, as I move through life, I find Him opening my eyes to all of the people – a mom with her young children at the park, the person in front of me in the check out line,  or maybe the other family taking piano lessons after us… all are people I could have the opportunity to meet and get acquainted with.    I hear him whisper to my heart,”Do you suppose they know Me?”  and I wonder at the thought:   Could He use me for His purposes?

He not only can, it is part of His master plan for reaching those who don’t know Him.  In Matthew 28 He commissions all believers:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

As different as we all are, as much as we are all individuals made uniquely by Him, there is one way that we are all the same.  Each one of us needs the loving gracious rescue of a Savior.  There is a way for those who don’t know Him yet to meet Him :  I must diligently follow Him, being His hands and feet to those in need, bringing the gospel to those who haven’t heard.  And when the time is right, His Holy Spirit will do the work.

Heavenly Father, Let your light shine through me.  Remind me again and again that there are those around me that don’t know You!  Help me to be brave and intentional about loving them the way You would have me to.   amen.

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14

I did not attend Sunday Morning worship at my church downtown today.  My husband took Emily and Isaac, while I stayed home with Mackenzie.  She’s been sick this week, and still had a touch of a fever yesterday, so we didn’t want to put her in the nursery.  Normally I really enjoy going and I’m disappointed when I have to miss.  But, today I decided to be thankful in my situation.

I also decided to worship in my kitchen, while making a homemade apple pie.

Now, in case you think otherwise, I assure you that the two go well together.   My pie baking experience up until now has been very limited.  Today was the first day that I made a pie crust from scratch.  This morning, once I decided that today would be the day, I stepped over the threshold into my kitchen with many thoughts of being incapable.  This new territory made me completely uneasy.

What if my final product was terrible?  After all, I had no idea what I was doing.  I mean, I’ve read books, searched online and seen tons of step-by step photos demonstrating a recipe.  In my head, I had notions of what to do, but my hands had never done any of it.   I mixed up the dough and then put it in the fridge to chill.  Next, I peeled and cored apples for the filling.  It wasn’t easy – a bit labor intensive actually.  But, as I sang to the Lord from my heart, I rolled out the dough and laid it in the pie plate.  There was worship going on in my kitchen as I put the pie together and popped it into the oven.

The pie was baking when I had the realization that making an apple pie is similar to what my own worship should be…  My heavenly Father does not expect perfection in my worship.  In fact, when it comes to motives or performance, He already knows I am not capable of doing it flawlessly.

He alone is capable of peeling back the layer, coring out the seeds of sin. Only His hands can make perfection of my messy attempts…Its the fire of His Holy Spirit that takes my life and refines it to something glorious and beautiful…

But, it is the sacrifice He desires.  He is looking for me to live with a joyful heart, uninhibited, being His imitator the best that I can.  It doesn’t matter if I don’t know how – perfection and confidence are not required. It only matters that I follow. The outcome may only be understood in His eyes. He may be the only one who finds my efforts delicious on His lips. But in the end, shouldn’t that be the only concern anyway?

Paul admonishes this way in Ephesians 5:

¹ Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ² And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

How wonderful would it be if my life had the sweet aroma of sacrifice?  An apple pie doesn’t smell half as sweet…

Well, back to the pie.  It turned out quite well, actually.  In my books it was a success because the crust was a bit flaky and the apples were very tender.  My sweet husband has confirmed it should go on the “make it again” list.  Personally, I enjoyed it because it was a unique labor of love.   This morning I was reminded that worship is possible in the kitchen, not just the church Sanctuary.  But, even more importantly, I am relieved knowing that I don’t have to produce the best product.  Rather it is sacrificial living, with a heart fully dedicated to Him that matters.

Its true Sunday morning and every morning.

amen.