“You always spiritualize, everything you say.”  Hyperbole although I still looked closely for sincerity.  There may have been a slight roll to her eyes.  I like to think discernment is a gift of mine but who knows the deepest thoughts and the reasoning of another?  Not me. I’ve pondered it and maybe it wasn’t a compliment.

Life is too short. Why waste it thinking about God?  What if He isn’t real?  What if He doesn’t care?  What if God is just anything we decide, anything we want him to be?

Well,

There are a lot of old songs that were written at the beginning of the other century.  The last one.  Before my mother’s time and that’ s way back.  We don’t sing them anymore, really.  Not often.  I sang them as a small one.

We learn a whole lot before we even know we’re learning.

My father in law said, when our three were small and watching, “They’re like little sponges” and they soaked in what they saw, steeped in it, stewed even and I fear it wasn’t always best.

Old songs and strong messages were part of my steeping experience.

There’s power in the Blood, Wonder Working Power in the Blood. (yuck, Why talk about blood? ) “Power in the Blood of The Lamb”

I serve a Risen Saviour, He’s in the World Today (Even though you might wonder where He is) “You ask Me how I know He lives.  He lives within My Heart”

Praise God From Whom ALL Blessings Flow (Really?)  “Praise Him All Creatures Here Below”

These days I don’t read nearly enough, often enough.  Oh I want to, but I just don’t get to it, what with talking,

to people and writing, here

and sewing, Aprons

and walking around all over the place and visiting my mom and it’s a bit hard to “Take every thought Captive”, get settled and sit.

Even back then, when I was the small one soaking up truth, I liked to read.

Huck Finn was exciting in my  simple World.  Adventure was at my fingertips and

through my eyes, windows,

there was good and humourous and adventure, from the lazy-boy chair in our little living room.

“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”  I love these words, put together by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I’ve been doing some looking, deep into my soul.  It’s pretty mucky in there.  I like being Sunshine.  I like to make it seem like good weather, when You are with Me.  Truth is,

it’s hard work and even Dark, to be Light and this looking I’ve been doing is shedding light in corners.

Being Sunshine is a noble thing but not always honest and if there’s one thing I know, honest is really good.

These days, honest doesn’t seem to matter much.  People, walking around, say stuff they think they need to say to get what they want, because getting what they want is most important

And the corners of our souls are getting darker and more grimy.

Truth, telling it,

is one of the rules God gave us.  I told you last time that it’s good to be reminded of things we already know

so here goes

God says

 1.  Don’t have any Gods but me. 2.  Don’t worship idols. (that’s, anything we make more important than Him)   3.  Don’t take God’s name in vain.  (Man alive, I would have a whole lot of nickels in my nickel jar if I collected for every time I hear this one broken, even by people who say they love God), 4.  Keep a day for resting, (hahaha) Even God rested after He created everything there is.  5.  Honour your Father and Mother (well, you know as well as me that this is rare) 6. Don’t murder people.  7.  Don’t have sex with someone you aren’t married to.  8.  Don’t take stuff that isn’t yours.  9.  Don’t lie.   10.  Don’t be wanting things that belong to someone else.  

I guess this is running through my mind today, like a ticker tape, because it’s sort of a special day in our family.  Well it would have been special anyway, if my dad, the preacher who lived his life very wholly holy

was still alive.  He would have been 99 today and boy would we have been partying.  He isn’t

alive

and hasn’t been, for more than 27 years.  But I can tell you

the things he spent his waking hours teaching us are still as fresh as they were when he was boldly telling them to us.  modeling for us.

It’s important to me that you know,  Proverbs 22:6 (and I like it best from the old old King James) was practiced morning, noon and night.

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Not one of the three of us can ever say we don’t know what you’re talking about if you say we should listen to what God thinks about how we live.

Oh, we know!  The strap was not spared in the teaching.  What’s that about putting the fear of God in someone?  The discipline in the House house would be unacceptable today but

we loved and were loved and there were boundaries to stay within and for the quick learners  the pain was minimal.  Unfortunately, some of us (me) were sort of slow learners and thought it a good thing to push the limits.  I’m still pushing limits and yet there is

healthy fear of my gracious, merciful, loving, gentle, righteous, Holy, kind,

Father God.

Our father taught us to honour our parents.  It wasn’t an easy job and it’s a good thing he had a strong will of his own.

I lied a few times when I was really little and a bit dumb.  Like the time I was told not to walk on the street because it had been freshly paved and I would get tar stuck to my flipflops.  Later, my mama and papa asked if I had obeyed and I said I surely had and then they pointed to my tar covered flipflops and I tried to explain my way out of that one and it didn’t end well for me.  And how ’bout the time I  took change out of my mama’s purse and said I didn’t and there it was in my pocket.    Now, I think they take kids away from parents who discipline their kids the way my parents disciplined me but

I can tell you, I love them dearly and haven’t told a lie in

well, in a very very long time.

I’m sitting here thinking about my dad and considering the raising up of me that he did.  I can barely remember the spankings but I can remember vividly the

afterwards.

A few minutes to steep in my transgression and the consequences

then he was there

in the doorway of my room.  I didn’t cower or shrink.  I looked at his loving face and he looked at mine and he came quietly in and sat and wrapped his arms around me and explained

the Why.

Of course I didn’t believe the part about it hurting him more than it hurt me.  I was the one with the sore backside.  He explained God’s view of what I had done and how sin

of any size or amount needs to be repented and forgiven.  Oh yes, sin was a big deal because you see, it’s a big deal to God, no matter how old I am.  No matter how BIG or small it is.

The depth of God’s love for me was the pivot

and then

repentance on my part, forgiveness on his part, prayer asking for God’s forgiveness

then hugs and

that.  was.  the.  end.  Never to be mentioned again.

Forgiveness

He, that preacher father of mine, made a ton of mistakes.  But boy did he do a good job of being an example of God’s faithful love, forgiveness, redemption.

I am free to worship and praise and sing about the Blood Jesus shed, the blessings He gives because He really truly does live within me.

So we won’t be having cake today or singing “Happy Birthday to You”.  We won’t be wishing him back or saying how much we miss him.  We won’t mourn his early home going at the age of 71.  We won’t shake our fists bitterly in the face of a loving God.

I can’t speak for the others in that preachers family but I can speak for me.

I will remember

good times and not so good.  Conflict and pain.  I will remember difficult times in small churches full of sinful people.  I will reflect on an assortment of those who impacted my dad’s life, the character building (not just in him but also in me, in us) that happened because he was willing to listen and learn and forgive and forget.  He sifted through the happenings and steeped in the learning.  You see, steeping, soaking in learning is good for us.  Even if it is hard

and I will think about how his response to those experiences touched my life and taught me

about loving and sharing Jesus, even though…

I will think about the fun and the laughter and

most of all I will sit for a few minutes and talk to my Heavenly Father about the family he placed me in and I will thank Him for the hard and difficult and ask for

courage, strength, wisdom to live the minutes in front of me.

I am an heir to God’s Heaven

I am an heir to abundant life here while I live

I am an heir of my earthly father’s teaching.  It was valuable.

I have always loved water.  Not just the drinking kind.  We have lots of it and take it for granted and I am thankful but

it’s the flowing kind, the lake and ocean kind that I love

to look at and swim in and listen to and smell and I don’t know where it came from

this love I have, but it is music and solace to my innermost

and I know full well that we don’t worship the created.  We worship the creator

and I have a bubbling creek running through the low ground at my place by the lake and it meanders and makes its way to the lake.  There are boulders and trees and moss in its way and it keeps moving forward until it gets to where it’s going

And here’s that tendency of mine to spiritualize things.

I stood beside it the other day and thought about how

to me

it represents adventure and moving forward and keeping going and it gets its life from the source which is

somewhere over there where I can’t get to.

In John 7:38 Jesus says

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

My dad believed and lived what he believed.  But you see, it wasn’t just about believing.  It was the reality of Who he believed and it was Jesus

and the  flowing out of him was not just his own sweet self because there was lots about him that wasn’t sweet at all.  He would tell you that he was a sinner saved by grace.  The flowing out was actually the spirit of the living God

in him.

So if I could talk to my dad right now, which I can’t and that’s okay because I’m going to see him again one day,

I would say

“Thanks dad, for living, in your imperfect way, commited to our perfect God.  He used you big time to show me the difference He makes when in our brokenness we let Him captain our voyage.”