Devotion 368 - marmalade

My house takes on a new tempo when all my children are home.  I served up his tea and watched quiet as our college student laid silent on the couch.  He seems to live in a perpetual state of exhaustion.  He got about twenty seconds of solace when his baby sister spotted him.  She does not wait for any formality.  

She came running, and laid face down into his chest.  She loves that boy;  we all do.  I poured a cup of tea wanting to drink this in.  In moments we would be off for a family dinner, but this moment nourished my soul. I watched how the little girl laid still filling every pour of her brother.  

She is like marmalade spread across toast; that is her at these moments.  

I remember it well.  With Lily, her older sister, we breathed her in in two-hour vignettes as we vigilantly visited in her home country.  Four weeks and then finally she was ours to hold and love.  

Ava, there was no introduction, no moments for hello.  Three years of paper work and prayer, then suddenly I held her.  I remember her fragrance, her warmth and I can tell you almost how many seconds it took her to relax and fill every empty spot in my heart.  Marmalade.

I will never ever forget the power of that moment nor the power of that image.  Words are important.  Whoever said they cannot be weapons to hurt and to heal was categorically wrong.

As we strolled through the art museum, we had made one promise to our littlest girl.  She would get to go to the Kid’s section where there would be some art she could create.

Every visit it is something different; there sat a basket of words and across the room shelves of materials. The project:  pick up a word, grab a tray and create your word.

I was last in line;  I was not sure any of the words were really speaking to me.  Then I saw it …my word,  BRAVE.

I grabbed it up and went to look for something that would make brave.  It was not lost on me that the children and my husband already had their trays full and spilling over.  

I picked up a piece of wood, but wood burns.  I wanted my brave to last.  I picked up fabric.  Only one small swatch of gold seemed to say brave.  

Gold, valuable, purchased for a high price.  

Then I went from plastic, to metal,  finally settling on some tiles and shells.

 

Tiles seemed beautiful, what I believe bravery should look like.   And shells, although fragile, they are fashioned by God’s hand in their unique shape and color.

I laid out my little fabric; it seemed lost in the tray, then I laid down the word.  Finally I started lining the tiles.  Perhaps a wall I thought.  Bravery feels like a wall or perhaps it would if I had some.

I remember how my language teachers through the years taught me to understand a word; you must learn its opposite.  Brave, easy, its ugly opposite is fear.

I could fill ten trays of fear.  In these last weeks I have seemed to become an expert in the fragile feeling of fear.  It has been my word.

Like Satan, fear does not ring the doorbell; it slips in.  It does not introduce itself, rather it surprises in small instances of stupidity or pauses of panic.  It is self recriminating and rarely reveals itself of its true form.

I lined tiles big and small; I would create a wall.  A wall would feel like brave, keeping fear out.  I made one small wall and then the corner, finally sliding one tile over the other wondering if my wall should be tall. 

Then it was clear;   instead of a wall, I had a letter.  A letter “G” stood back at me.  I took a lovely round shell and made an “O” and then manufactured a “D”.

If brave is the victor of fear, it is only God that can do the vanquishing.

I remembered words I had read just that week,

“Nothing has come more naturally to me than fear.”  Beth Moore

It comes so naturally, with such subtlety, I am convinced I often do not  even know its name.  I pain in the mirror as the image there screams “you are not smart enough, strong enough, you did not prepare or pray enough.”  Rarely do I see the director of this choir who has come as a thief to steal my joy.

The battle for brave is not won with human weapons; it is won on the battlefield of the soul.  It is won with a white flag and an open hand.  It is not fought but surrendered to the one more powerful than ourselves.  And it does not begin nor end, but continues in the daily forfeiture of human pride for heavenly power.

I think the day to day is too daunting because I have not given Him the moment to moment.  The cracks in my courage are filled to overflowing by a Spirit of abundance.

It was not my fight all along.

It is His.

Blessed is the one who perseveres and does the hard things.  Tough times never last but those who hang on tight to God always do.  ann voskamp