Object Lessons

Object Lessons

Have you ever noticed times in your life when God teaches you something.  It starts with a Bible verse and upon meditating on it you have this nugget of wisdom that you can use and share.  I happen to be a slow learner at times, so God will often follow that up with an object lesson for me. 

I had one of those ah ha moments just this week. God impressed upon me that it is a good trade when we bring our frustrations to Him in exchange for His peace.  So I shared it with others.  And then came the object lesson.  I had been working very hard on a new batch of my mosaic clay crosses for an upcoming craft show.  They are a little labor and time intensive so I was only able to get about fifteen of them completed.  And I had favorites, a beautiful purple and lavender one and a gorgeous green.  The story behind these crosses is that when we bring God all of the pieces of our life, the pretty ones and the broken ones, He makes something beautiful out of them.  I stored them on the table in my home studio and late in the evening, just before bedtime, my cat became overly curious exploring the table and knocked five of them off the table, including my two favorites, and three of them were destroyed. As you probably have suspected, my two favorites were in those destroyed and boy was I ever frustrated.  “All that hard work, all that lost income, all that waste” were the thoughts that began to run through my head. The irony of broken crosses designed to show how God transforms brokenness into beauty stung me just a bit. 

And then God so graciously reminded me of that very thing He’d impressed upon me earlier that same day, “Bring me your frustrations, exchange them for my peace.” I don’t know about you, but sometimes the concepts are so much easier to grasp for me than the practical applications are.  So God gives me a chance to practice what He has taught me.  His peace can accomplish so much more in our lives than a temporary frustrations ever could.  By trading those in for His peace, we are trading sorrow and anger for joy and hope. I would much rather walk out my days in the latter.

My prayer for you this week is that you will see opportunities to exchange your frustrations for God’s peace, that you will hear the lessons He has for you to learn, and when given the opportunity to put those into practice, you will be able to do so easily.

Many Blessings,

Cherry Fargo

cherryscreations.etsy.com

One of THOSE Days!

So this morning was one of THOSE mornings for some reason. I did get up on time, got the kiddos up on time but they were dragging. Not one of the four of them was ready on time. No amount of politely asking them seemed to do the trick so I moved on to being firm and logical about the benefits of good choices and the consequences of bad choices. I am sure by the way they responded all they heard was blah blah blah blah blah.

Completely frustrated (me that is) we finally walk out the door ten minutes late only to discover my van had a nice coat of frost over all the windows and my oldest two children fighting over whether or not you could scrape ice with a squeegee, one with the handle in their hand and the other with the actual squeegee part in their hand. ***Deep sigh***.

Hubby, who is also running behind, emerges from the house ready for work and begins to help me scrape ice, so very thankful for him, my visual example of sanity and peace in the midst of chaos. Okay, all done, we're finally pulling out of the driveway only 20 minutes behind schedule.

The children are all complaining they are going to be late now and when I remind them that none of them were ready on time, someone decides to snidely point out that if I had only started the van earlier so it could have warmed up, and then all I heard was blah blah blah blah blah.

Once all of them are safely at school and no one is tardy and no speeding tickets were involved, I begin to pray while am driving. I am praying for peace and for forgiveness for being so short tempered and for wisdom on how to make these mornings go more smoothly. (We have assigned them check off lists and charts and graphs galore with incentives to help them stay on track, all to no avail. )

So I am taking these few minutes of quiet to try to regroup when I notice a car that has gone of the road and into the ditch with a pretty steep embankment. With the rain that we have had, I know that car is not coming out of that ditch without a wrecker. Then out comes a young man who runs up the slope around to the driver side and opens the door for the young lady who was driving, she is visibly shaken. I roll down the window and ask if they are okay, and they are, grandparents have been called and on the way, young man is going to walk to school. I offer him a ride because it's cold and because I know if he walks he will be late.

As I turn around and take him to school I learn the driver is his sister, a junior in high school who has only had her license for a few months. I asked him again if he was okay, questions like did you hit your head on anything, are you feeling light headed or dizzy, you know the over protective mama kind of questions, I hope another woman would do the same if it were my child. He seemed to be calm, cool and collected, I encouraged him to call his grandparents or go to the nurse if he started feeling badly as I dropped him at the door of the school.

On the way home again, thinking about how the morning has unfolded and all of the sudden I am deeply ashamed of how frustrated I had been about being so far behind schedule because I realize that God had me right where he needed me to be all along, on his schedule, to be able to offer a few comforting words to a couple of high school kids in a scary situation and to do my part, albeit little, to help out.

Lord, help me to rest in the knowledge that you hold my every moment in your hands, all have been ordained by you, and you have a plan for all of them.

Mother's Day

Well, Mother's Day is almost upon us. It is hard to believe how quickly time goes by. For the first time in 11 years, there are no more diapers or pull ups to change. My yougest is getting big so fast, she is not a baby anymore. And while I am happy to be celebrating my first Mother's Day in which I don't have to worry about diaper duty, it's a little sad too. So many "firsts" are behind us and although I know there are so many more to come, there's just something about the discoveries children make as babies and toddlers, the innocence and awe and wonder. I hope some how I will be able to preserve a part of that. I pray that each day I will find a way to approach life with the wonder and awe and innocence it deserves and by doing so inspire my children to do the same.

May your Mother's Day hold abundant blessings for you, your mother and your children!