Devotion 327 - center

The moment took me by surprise.

Sometimes memories do that.

It came on a Saturday.  Saturday is normally a day of quiet for us.  We plan stuff as a family.  We go, we do, but we remain steadfastly together.

It centers me.

This Saturday was not like that. 

We went and we did but we were not we.  My husband, still recovering from surgery was home so I was the designated runner and doer.  It is unfamiliar ground for me.

Somewhere in the middle of the running and doing some yelling crept in and I realized I needed to center myself.

Somehow in the flurry of activity I had gone well south of center.  It wasn't pretty.  I brewed a cup of tea.  Not the slow steep kind, the fast "Come out of the machine and pretend you took awhile" kind.

I prepared it in a pretty cup and realized I had at least a quarter of an hour until the next “thing”.  I sat down at my dining room table, hoping I would find center.  Because my tea sat in a cup with a saucer, it looked lonely. The saucer, I decided, needed a cookie or something to offset the steaming tea.  I went to the refrigerator.  

One week ago I had stored some lemon bars there.  I was hoping my children had not discovered them.  In fact, I had hidden them under asparagus and I was fairly sure no one in my house would select something green.  I slipped one bar out of the baggie and placed it on the rose saucer.

I sat quietly for a few moments and savored it.  The lemon and sugar melted for a glorious moment in my mouth.  Then it happened, as the steam rose from my cup my mind blossomed with fragrant memories. 

My mom.  She was a tea drinker and a lemon maker.  Rarely did we sit down for tea that she didn't have a jar of lemon curd and a biscuit or cookie on which to spread the delicacy.

By the world’s standard, my mom would have not been considered a great success.  She held no commercial job, she did not write a glorious novel and rarely did she read them.  Her focus was laser and it was on her family and her Lord.  Everywhere in the house lay devotions and everywhere in her heart lay the wisdom of her reading.

It was just months ago as I sat writing a lesson for our ladies group that I began to see my mom with new eyes.  I have thought for many years she could have been more, until I realized as my eldest child left for college, by being more perhaps I would have been less.

My mother wrote with her lips the wisdom of scripture.  She spoke with her eyes, the love of the Master and she held with her gentle hands the work of faith in my heart and many others.  She gave of her time with no thought of sacrifice.

She centered me.

You see when I attempt to be a super mom; I realize how poorly the cape fits because there is no super in this life without the complete and utter surrender to the Supernatural.  I am nothing but what God made me and the encouragement my mother, my father and now my husband have given me.

Someone once penned, “A mother is someone who dreams great dreams for you, but then she lets you chase the dreams you have for yourself and loves you just the same.”

When my son left for college last fall, he packed all my dreams in boxes.  I imagined him choosing the most significant of majors and being the brightest and best at his school.  But then as I sat weeks ago praying for him, he called.  We didn't talk majors, or jobs or friends, he said, “I need you to pray for me.”

Somewhere in those dreams I realized where the center lies.  It lies with the Savior, the passing down from our parents to my husband and me to our children, the one and only thing we can give.

Center.

It begins with grace, and then mercy follows and ends with the greatest gift of all eternity with the Center, the Son, the Alpha, the Omega, the center of our hearts, our souls, and our lives. 

I tell my son, “not by your strength but by His Spirit.”  And he hangs up saying, “I know Mom.”

Join me Beloved...

By spending more time centering.  

Spending more time listening to the Father.  

Spending more time savoring the life He has graciously afforded us so we can pour out more when He asks.  Not out of our strength as it fails us so often, but by His Spirit.

We will taste the sour and bitterness of life.  Only He can bring the sweetness of forgiveness so we can savor the joy of His presence.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zeph 3:17