The missed fingerprints

The week is a busy blur at times. Going through the day to day of raising children

and trying to 'count it all joy' when things don't go as I think they should. Learning to

laugh more and more because it really is funny..

The sun so bright that the smears of finger prints are heavy on my panes.

Places that didn't get the cleaning. Places that stand out in the sun.

Places like my heart when I don't love. The secret places that I haven't confessed,

unseen until the Father shines His perfect love on those places. Then I go

running to Him and fall before Him and confess.   

Forgiven..

On Sunday morning one of the men in our church said a prayer that

gave me chill bumps but the Lord used him to talk directly to my heart.

He said,

"Father thank you for being so kind to us that you've placed us in a world

so full of magic that we can only begin to scratch the surface of it in our time here.

Open our eyes to see this magic all around us- to see how a few pieces of wood

are transformed into something extraordinary- into a dining room table, where we gather daily

with our families and share our lives until that wood groans from the weight of the stories

it contains. To see how a simple bed transforms into a refuge of love and intimacy, where entirely new generations are created from all but nothing."

Does your table groan from the conversations that take place there?

Does your bedroom speak of the love you and your beloved share?

Does your home, the wood that is nailed together, reflect a deep love for each

other and others? 

Do you see a boy that will one day be a man and treat him as if he's already that man?

Do you challenge him to be the man that God requires and made Him to be?

Do you see the beauty in the growing up process and how gentle

the Lord is?  How gentle the Lord has seen fit to be with me. 

 Thankful...

Your family, keep seeing them through the eyes of the one who crafted each and every

one of them. Think of the beauty He must have saw as He made each of our children different.

As He spoke life into them and said, "This, Channie-Mae, is how you're going to be."

Cooper, you will be kind and loving.

Cullen, you will be soft spoken and loyal.

and so He speaks into our children the special blend that makes them unique.

Find that in each of them and you will see the finger prints of God on the souls of your children.    

  

He wants you and me to find that secret beauty that He gave each one of them and delight in it. He wants us to see half of the story and know He knows the generations to come....
He knows my grandchildren and my great-grand children.

He knows the place I hold in this short time I have growing the next generation is so very important

 and He wants me to enjoy it, but be diligently doing His work.

Spend more time at your table.

Make your bedroom a place of refuge for you and your beloved.

" Grant us the ability to see all of this magic so that

we may better appreciate the fierce beauty we've

become so blind to, that we may better laugh at ourselves and the

smallness of our complaints and ingratitude, that we may better understand our

place in your plans, and that we may better engage ourselves in service as a tool meant

to be used up."

Thank you, Christopher.