Devotion 299 - Light

So I lied to my son.

And the truth is I didn't know it until I thought long and hard.

You see the truth passed over the lie like a shadow, a long, dark shadow.   But a shadow is cast only when there is light somewhere.  

Isn't it like Jesus to point us there such that we look just passed and see the lie lying there all ugly?    

I had come home from collecting my baby daughter from school.  In a matter of seconds, I showed her in the house and my two middlers bound in just after me.  They were loud, they were laughing, they were insisting they go back to work with me.  The excuses were raining down like so much thunder, how I needed to help this one with math and that one with something I didn't actually listen to and then we were in the car.

The volume was deafening with the teasing, the laughing, and the retelling of tales.  As it turns out, I will never need to buy a pressure cooker, because I am one.

At some point the pressure and my tolerance built up and ugly seeped out all over the place.  I told my two beautiful children how I didn't appreciate their teasing and how their volume in my car would no longer be tolerated.  It was strange how when I turned this spigot on, I literally could not shut it off.  

We got to my office.  A proposal I owed to a client was weighing heavily on my mind.  My son opened his car door, gently let his sister out then said in the most hushed tone, “Mom, is it just us that’s bothering you, or is it something else?”  I evidently was not done with ugly, and I said, “no, just you children.” 

I recoiled just a bit.  That seemed too dark, even for angry me, but I let it sit there and moved forward hoping that comment would get lost in the shadow I had created.

I sat down at my desk and as quickly as I could I prepared the proposal that now didn't seem quite as important.

I emailed it off and then looked at my son feverishly working at my table, my daughter the same. I wanted a do over.  I wanted to not be angry.  I wanted to be my mom, who possessed a spirit as gentle as a dove.  But I was not, the words had been spilled out, the tone plastered, the shadow remained.

I got up very early the next morning.  That is what ugly does to you.  It chases away sweet dreams and wakes you early to pray.  I donned a jacket and left the house.  It was well before dawn.  I walked under street lights controlled by timers, one after another shut off as I approached them as if to say, “You don’t deserve our bright shining faces,”  I agreed.

Dark seemed to spread like a mist.  It was a good cloak to my feelings.  Dawn was still asleep.  I started to pray for my children.  I prayed they would remember beauty and not ugly and that good would chase away bad in their thoughts.

The truth was, I had lied to my son, it was way more than him, it was way more than his sister, it was the pressure I felt, not of work or home, but to be something I am not.  It is the pressure to be more than I am, to be…            Perfect.

I want to be able to handle everything.  Why do I clasp my hands to pray and beseech God for mercy if I am self – sufficient?  I close my hands to His, His guidance, His help and His power.

I look in the mirror and apply cream to slow the aging process, but is this process not orchestrated by Him?  Should I not look at the years behind me as lessons learned, and distance covered, distance shortened to my home in His heavenly neighborhood?

I look at my house and want it to be clean and orderly, yet the toys and the books and the socks tell a story of joy.    Why do I shove them in cupboards and closets?

My son climbed in the car long after my walk.  We had finished breakfast, packed backpacks and buttoned jackets. He quickly opened his notebook and said he needed to memorize a Bible verse for school.

I watched my tone, but asked, when do you recite it?  “Today,” he said.

I knew this was my moment to apologize, to scrape some of the ugly off of the day before and remove the rim of the shadow I had cast, but before I could muster my words, he launched into reading and repetition. 

“Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” 

My favorite verse, how sweet the Spirit is.

I have lived almost five decades; I have prayed tens of thousands of prayers.  I applaud the Father for His gifts and count among them magnificent when I see His grace, for everyone and every being.  Why then do I not see His grace pouring down on me; pouring down light when I surround myself with the shadow of self-sufficiency?

I apologized to my son and reminded him that sometimes mama just can’t handle it all, but our Jesus can and does.

I screw up and I hide in the shadow.  But He Beloved has called us to the light.  In a sea of darkness, one tiny flame of hope ignites.  He whispers, “Do you remember this verse, I am not done with you.  I am still transforming, uncovering, and walking you from dark to light.” 

In the light I can see clearly that I am not meant to be anymore than I am.  My wrinkles, my shortcomings, my doubts, my fears all leave a gaping void that He miraculously fills. 

He is the truth that dispels the lie.   He is the beauty that dispels the ugly.
He is the light that dispels the darkness.  

For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ

2 Corinthians 4:6