Devotion 390 - etchings

I dry some crystal bowls that my daughter has used as she entertained friends.  They had made a craft with cocoa and the tiniest specks of cocoa dust fill the smallest portions of etched glass.  I dip in water, I scrub with a delicate brush and then I wipe over and over again.

 

The cocoa finally moves the etching does not.  I wonder if my mother might have a glimpse of this moment.  Her granddaughter that bears her name using some of her fondest belongings.  

I had told mother about this Lily, the one that was coming from across the world.  But mother didn’t live to see her.  Instead, God chose to have mother live on through Lily.    Lily adores all things beautiful; she is creative, caring, quiet and hysterically funny.  She is just like mother.

Etchings, they are things that carve into your memory and will never leave.  I have many.

 

I remember the day I fell in love with France.  It was my first day there as a student.  I had been there before in my childhood but never to the south, never to the sea, never with time as my friend and determination as my guide.

I sat and ordered lunch looking across the promenade at the sea.  I ordered my salad in the language although I felt too stupid and far too young.

I remember tasting the Provencal dish and drinking my water out of a goblet.  I was sure I saw crystals in the sea across from me and I was sure heaven would be exactly like this.  It etched.

 

Thirty years later and my family and I returned.  I had kept these memories distant wondering if I could ever relive them and almost not wanting too.  Some memories are like that, meant to be held and treasured.  Some are meant to be buried in the most fertile soil to grow and blossom again.  This was one of those flowers.  My family embraced the memory, they too fell in love and we all felt as if we had tasted a bit of heaven.

Then in a moment, a moment we were all rushing to vacation Bible school, we hear the newsman tell us in that exact spot, someone had willfully destroyed hundreds of lives.

I was busy, charged with a handful of six-year olds that evening I could not correlate the two, my etching and my listening.

I came home, kissed the children good night and began to read until the wee hours of the morning.  The images were ghastly, the truth worse.

These days, these events, as if we have traveled back to the Old Testament where killing for misplaced passion seems almost normal.  I continue to read fueled with the thoughts of what I could do, what my family could do to make this better to make us whole, to correct this land before my children and their children take the reins of life.

I read we must talk to those who are different than us. 

I agree.

We must see life through their lens.  

I agree.

We must be the change we want to see.  

I agree.

We must pray. 

I agree, but what dear one are we to pray for?

I believe we have misplaced the command and misunderstood the direction to pray and to fast for our enemies. We have resisted calling this war, and thus we have been slow to name the enemy.  For us, the enemy has only one name.  Quite frankly, prayer is our best weapon.

We pray for the enemies that he or she will see truth, heavenly, divine, life saving, peace giving, fear squashing truth.

We will pray that evil in all its forms will be restrained.  And in the meantime, we will have conversations.  We will choose a lens we have not yet looked through.  And we will not allow the news or the notions of what a particular group of people did to etch into our minds or our souls.

George Bush profoundly said, “Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions.”  O, Beloved, I am guilty.

We have a great task ahead of us.  We have great days ahead of us.  The church is at a unique and historic position. We hold pencils and keyboards and words that can release freedom and destroy fear. We must first and foremost, today and tomorrow, pray for our enemies.

 

The Holy Spirit is a world traveler.  He places dreams where only nightmares exist.  Unleash Him through your prayers.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ said Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:43

 

We don’t give up being brave

We don’t give up trusting

We don’t give up hope-

We give up our fear.

Ann Voskamp