The Red Coat

I have a red jacket that is an "all-weather" coat of sorts.  When I bought it, I thought it would make a good rain coat as well.  I found out about a month ago that I was wrong.

Jags (Photo credit: alwright1)

As usual on Saturdays in the fall, we attended the University of South Alabama football game, on this particular day against Troy State University.  The forecast was for rain and no umbrellas are allowed in the stadium, so I wore my red coat. Since red is the predominant color of South's red-white-blue color theme, it fit in perfectly.

Then the rain started.  As the first the drops beaded up and rolled off my coat I felt snug and comfortable in my coat.  Then the material began to be saturated with water and the rain began to soak through my coat instead of run off it.  The rain continued throughout the whole game and as loyal fans, we stayed until the end.  Halfway through the game the rain had soaked all the the way through my coat, through my shirt to my skin.  To make matters worse, we lost 31-10.

I was thinking about that slow soaking the other day and I realized that is sometimes how it is when we read the Bible.  At first the truths and the realities of the Bible seem to just roll off us.  But the more we continue to read, perhaps day after day after day, eventually they sink into our hearts and minds and spirits until finally we become saturated with them.  The Scriptures then come to our minds readily because we have have put them into our mind so recurrently.  We have the promises of Scripture at hand in moments of pain, sorrow and trial because we have hidden them in our hearts before we needed them.

So let us remember to give our hearts that slow, steady soaking of the Scriptures, to daily "water" our hearts with the Word of God.  We can depend upon the fact we will receive blessings untold by doing so.

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee."

Psalm 119:11

Garlic and Caramel

In cooking heat is a good thing and a bad thing.  The perfect amount of heat is, well, perfect.  But too much heat can turn good things bitter.  Garlic is a great example.  Let garlic cook just a few seconds too long and that sweet flavor the heat extracts turns to a nasty bitterness.  Even sugar can become bitter when scorched, as when making caramel.

The week before my husband and I were married, we had to take a holiday dish to a Sunday School social.  I decided to take a dish that required me to make a caramel sauce.  I was fairly new to cooking then, but I surely should have know better than to do what I did.

The sugar had been bubbling in the cast iron skillet for a few minutes and had turned a lovely golden brown.  I had removed it from the heat and added the butter and vanilla as the recipe required.  Curious as to how it tasted, I dipped my right index finger into the surface of the caramel.  I don't know scientifically, but experientially I'd say the temperature of that hot caramel was about 4000°!

Of course, I incurred a nasty burn on the end of my finger.  I think of this burn each time I look at my wedding pictures.  You see, as my new husband and I stopped to light our unity candle, the hot wax ran down my candle and onto that very fresh burn on the end of my finger.  I knew the eyes of everyone in the room were on us and I also knew that any reflection on my face of the pain on my finger would be misinterpreted.  It was one of my greatest moments of self-control.   So yes, I know heat can be a good thing, and a bad thing.

There is all sorts of heat in our lives.  Sometimes the heat comes from evil sources.  There is sin in this world and there is an enemy who seeks to "devour" and "destroy" us.  Then there are those who live evil lives and the consequences of their choices sometimes affect us as well.  This is a form of heat in our lives.

The natural course of sin in the world causes decay and aging.  This causes heat to us as our days go by.

Sometimes the heat is allowed by a kind and loving God who knows that if it were not for the moments of heat, our sweetest flavors would not be revealed -- like the garlic or the sugar.  He allows that heat to deepen us, to enrich us, to cause us to turn more toward Him than we ever would at room temperature.

Often we would like to remove ourselves from the pan as soon as the heat is turned on.  I suppose the garlic would like to do the same.  I love to watch it dance around in the pan, skating on the surface of olive oil.  I fancy in my brain that it is trying to find a cool spot upon which to rest.  I'm sure the sugar too would love to jump back into the container instead of melting into a brown goey liquid that becomes caramel.

But if that happened, our shrimp and grits wouldn't have that wonderful, sweet garlic  flavor.  And there would be no addictive chocolate caramel cookies that my daughter Emmie makes.  The heat is necessary, for our food and for us.

We much accept the role of the Cook and His heat in our lives. We must trust the Cook that He knows when to either turn off the heat or to scoop us out of the pan.  We must trust that He knows just how much heat we need to sweeten us, but not so much as to allow us to become bitter.  We are His ingredients and He has no intention of ruining His dish.  To the contrary, it is His intention to perfect us.

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery 

among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; 

that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:"

Colossians 1:27,28

The Wonder of Gifts

A week ago today was our son's thirtieth birthday.  As is the tradition in our household, we gave him thirty birthday presents.  Most of these presents were small, practical presents, but still, it is fun to open thirty presents of any sort and his wit and humor made it fun for us to watch him open them.

 (Photo credit: Will Clayton)

 Today is my husband's birthday and his turn to open presents.  Tonight our whole family will gather together to celebrate the birthdays of these two men who mean so much to us.


While we usually think of things when we hear the word gift, people are so much so a gift to us than are things.  Especially since people -- those who know the Lord Jesus Christ -- are eternal. 

My husband and my son are two of the most precious gifts I have ever been given and I could never thank the Lord enough for them.

If I wrote on this blog every moment of every day for the rest of my life I could not begin to express how these two men have blessed my heart in the thirty-six years I have known them.  If I had to choose only one word to describe them both I would choose the same word: faithful.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My son is a United States Marine.  Semper Fidelis. . . Always Faithful. 

He is a Force Recon Marine.  When he told us he wanted to become a Marine he told us he wanted to become "the best of the best" and he did.  He has been faithful to protect and defend the United States Constitution through two deployments and I've never heard him complain or grumble about doing so.  For him, it was "his job".

He is also a Police Officer.  He spends his time away from the Marine Corps defending the streets of our city.  He puts his life on the line to protect the lives of others and he is faithful to do so.

My husband is the epitome of the word faithful.  Webster's defines faithful in this way:

• • full of faith 
  • steadfast in affection or allegiance : loyal
  • firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty : conscientious
  • given with strong assurance : binding ; a faithful promise
  • true to the facts, to a standard, or to an original; a faithful copy

I can't think of any part of this definition that doesn't relate to my husband. He is absolutely full of faith.  He is steadfast in his allegiance first of all to his Lord, to his family and to his friends. 

His faithfulness to his sense of duty is what strikes me so much about him.  He is going to do those things which the Lord has given him to do, he is going to be there. Period.  He has a strong assurance, a faithful promise and it is true to the facts, to the standard, the original --the Word of God.

It is such a blessing to me to have the gifts of these men in my life.  My daughters, my grandchildren of course, are equal gifts to me, but the week between my husband and my son's birthday is always a time for me to reflect upon the gift the Lord has given me in these two men.

We all  have those around us who are gifts -- let us "open" those packages and enjoy what the Lord has placed in our lives for our enjoyment, for our encouragement, for our instruction, for strengthening in our walk with Him.  Most of all, let us acknowledge that it is the Lord who has graciously given these wonderful "gifts" to us and never cease to thank the Lord for them.

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 

Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,  

For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;" 

Philippians 1:3-5

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 

and cometh down from the Father of lights, 

with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 

James 1:17

We have a new Nurse Manager in our unit. 

Our other Nurse Manager had been there for 25 years, pretty much as long as any of us remember.  In fact, she hired most of us.  Only one of us knew our new manager, Lorie, before she came to be our Nurse Manager.

The day shift nurses started to know Lorie better than those of us who work night shift.  We only saw her for a few minutes before we carried our sleepy bodies home to bed. 

Then she came and worked a week with us.  We were able to work side by side with her, to chat with her and to just get to know her.  It made a world of difference in our thoughts and attitudes because she went from someone we knew about to being someone we knew.

Imagine what it was like for the disciples to be with the Lord Jesus for those three years! 

They lived with Him, heard all His words,  watched His actions. . .how glorious that must have been.  But before we become jealous of what the disciples had then, let's remember during that time they did not have, nor could they even conceive of, the Holy Spirit living in them.  That didn't happen until Pentecost.  They knew the Lord, but they didn't really know Him until the Lord came to indwell them, until He came to be in them.

God was closer to the disciples after the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven than when He walked the earth with them because He was in them.  This is true of us as believers today.  The Lord is closer to us today than He was with the disciples while He was on this earth because He is IN us.  Nothing can change that, nothing can remove Him from our hearts.  The Scriptures say He is bound to our spirits in such a way that we are "one spirit" (1Co 6:17).

Let us marvel at the time the disciples spent here on the earth with our Lord, but let us rejoice that we have Him in us now and we will have a glorious eternity filled with exploring the wonders of a God greater than we can ever imagine.  No matter how dreary the day here seems, "we have great days ahead."