Devotion 337 - Umbrellas

It happens the same way every time, this sneaky little dream of mine.

I dream we find a house.  It is a great house, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller.  Sometimes it is located out in the country, sometimes it has fabulous decorating. 

Sometimes it has a great entry hall or a huge living room.

So I get all excited and we move in.

And then, after some time, we all hate it and I wonder why I grew discontent.

 I wonder why I ever decided to move in the first place.  And then I wake.  I am out of breath and in the stillness of the night I remember that I dislike change, intensely. 

We had the sweetest little swing set.  Daddy bought it for us the summer after we had moved into our house.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  My boys, then 2 and 8 were wild with excitement.  I have taken a hundred photos of my children on that swing set and I have stored away thousands of memories.

My neighbor walked over in the late spring of this year and said something I will never forget.  Our beloved swing set that had swung all my children to the stars was “unsafe.”  I grumbled across the yard a few more times than I care to mention at his statement.

 Although it might have been true, disparaging the old girl caused grief in my heart.  We agreed fixing a swing set with limited knowledge of structural engineering was probably unwise and perhaps even more unsafe.

We chartered to tear the old friend down.  I saw her on the curb.  A little bit of my childlike heart went with her.

My husband, knowing change is not my strong suit and knowing even more the naked patch in my yard grieved me, suggested a gazebo.  It would be nothing fancy: a little gazebo, some flowers, maybe a curtain and a couple little chairs where my littlest children might have lemonade.  The youngest of our tribe hoped we could squeeze a slide in there as well but we promised her she would LOVE it.

We went shopping…

Within a week we had found a prize and it was well under budget.  My husband asked where it would go in the yard.  Shocked, I replied, “Exactly where the swing set had been, where else?”

The question was completely lost on me.  Why would we change anything?  A gazebo for a swing set was almost a perfect trade, why change locales?

Isn’t that life?

I lose something and I want it back, desperately.

If a beautiful day changes to rain, I mourn the sun.

If my child grieves, I endeavor to make him happy once again.

If my husband is ill, I scour heaven for his health to be restored.

I want same.

My husband rang, the gazebo had been delivered.  I ran home to see.  He had parked it on the other side of the yard.  I looked from the window.  On this side of the yard, I could see its stunning beauty from my family room.  I could drink my morning coffee and imagine the afternoon tea parties.  This was glorious in every way, and it was different.

Something had changed, something little; but it was not a bad dream, it was a holy lesson.

There is but one thing changeless.  The Father.

Everything else in life, including life itself changes.

And it is meant to be so.

We are given seasons to witness with every sense the wonder of His hand.  We witness life, we witness death.  

We savor joy and taste sorrow.  

We hold our babies and  wave goodbye to our adult children.

We love and we lose.

We like and we hate. 

And somewhere in there, some glorious place in our soul, we see there is just one constant. 

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—  in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

1 Cor. 15:51, 52

And we live and breathe, and hope and fear, and trust, and treasure, preparing us with swing sets and unsettling dreams for that day we will be changed forever.

How desperate I am to keep my children small and protected.  Yet He does not keep us small.  He takes and fashions us with the covering of a mother so we can seek a Father.  Then He grows us with a series of unending changes.  We whirl and turn looking for constant and then we get a glimpse of the one and only thing that is always there, intangible yet all powerful.

And we cling.  We feel glory and we seek to draw close and we find the more things change, the more life sets us upside down, the one thing we fight the fiercest, makes us strong.

It is the upside down economy of God. 

He builds in us the desire for same and then surrounds us with age, children, emotions, weather, taste buds and flavors such that we find ourselves breathless in the gale of life.  But then the mighty umbrella of grace stretches out over us.  The same color, the same strength, the same feeling again and again that whispers to the heart.

 “You are loved, I am here, hang on dear one.”

And the most miraculous change of all takes place when we become more like Him.  Refusing to say, “What will I do?”  But rather, “What will He do in me?”

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.   Romans  12:1-2