Socks Be Darned! Souls Be Saved! And Laundry Room Miracles

I learned to sew on the old Singer sewing machine. The 1800's kind that looks like a piece of furniture and has a band wheel, a belt guide, a belt shifter and, uh-huh, a treadle.

My mother taught me; and over two decades ago she and I sewed my bridesmaids' dresses on that machine. I think she ended up doing most of the sewing. She was more skilled. Practiced. My mother sewed. Bell-bottom pants, costumes, curtains, and one year, the winter jackets my sister and I wore. They were hardy for Alaska, and girly for her girls.

She still sews. I have two sets of her quilted place mats, a watercolor stitch quilt I display from a decorative rod, and a large quilt she tagged "celebration quilt" that, when not folded at the foot of the bed, beckons from the rocking chair.

Sewing isn't really my thing. Patterns are too logical for the likes of me, and geometry wasn't my best subject. The maid-of-honor to her sister, the bride, knows such trivia about me, the mother of the bride. She hands me wedding decoration instructions scribbled in green pen ink on index card: "Burgundy Runner-10 Runners-8 ft. x 8 in. *needs to be hemmed, so cut a little extra for hemming room." A detailed visual with length, width, and hem allowance is drawn below the written instructions and I feel like I'm back in Geometry 101.

I gather measuring tape, sewing pins, and scissors. I drape the tape around my neck and hold the pins between my lips. I'm dressed for success. Now, I wonder, where is my sewing machine? I check the closet. I'ts not there. Is it upstairs? No. I check the laundry room and find it under a stack of folded clothes. Yeah, it's been awhile since I've noticed this machine. I practically live in the laundry room and I guess the machine's been there so long in plain view that I don't see it anymore.

It's dusty. I blow on it and the dust has been there so long it's nearly part of the machine.

I still think of this machine as new fangled. It's electric! It has levers and settings for zig-zag stitches, blind stitches, criss-cross stitches, and a button-hole setting. The last time I used this machine I left it out on the big table as if to say, "Look at my fancy sewing machine! I know how to use it!" My daughter-in-law saw it and, "Wow! Is this an antique? It's so solid!"

An antique? My sewing machine that my husband bought for me when I was a twenty-something young wife who was going to be the homemaker of homemakers and sew curtains, and mend shirts, and sew baby clothes, and extend my hand to the distaff, hold the spindle, reach out to the needy, and my household would be clothed in scarlet and I in fine linen and purple tapestry. I was going to be the Proverbs 31 homemaker with this modern machine. Well, daughter-in-law told me that today's machines would never last half the years that this old-timer has.

Treadle Sewing Machine

I drag a folding chair from the closet and sit down at sewing machine in the laundry room. The fabric is burgundy flutter and lightest-weight sparkle. I don't need to heft the electric antique to the table that seats twelve to have room enough to sew this fabric. Even eight feet of it.

The antique and I, older than the antique, hem yards of wedding table runners in this laundry room measuring about as wide as an ironing board is long, and as long as a washer and dryer are wide.

Washing machine sloshes and shakes. Sewing machine whines. Bobbin fills with thread. I snip it and attempt to thread the needle. Surely, I think all hopeful, the eye of the needle has gotten narrower; or maybe the thread is thicker and frayed at the end. I snip the thread, again, and dampen it between my lips. I successfully thread the needle. Another laundry room miracle. and I look up that bit about fitting through the eye of a needle.

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God'" (Matthew 19:23-24).

God speaks about miracles in my laundry room. And miracles happen in my laundry room.

Here is where dirt bedded in fabric is stirred awake and swished away without a trace.

Here is where clothing hangs damp because it's too feminine fragile for dryer tumble.

Here is where socks disappear and their mates wait in the single-sock box on the shelf till the wanderers return a little rumpled dusty. They are prodigal. I look for them every time I fold socks and sort through the single-sock box. Sometimes a prodigal returns to the laundry room, and sometimes folding socks gives me hope for a few prodigals I know.

They are sock-wearers.

Their socks have their feet in them; and if prodigal socks with no feet in them wander off and return, the surely socks with prodigal feet in them may return, too.

It's the hope I have for them.

I roll faith into sock balls.

Washing machine gasps and halts. Dryer is loaded and hums warmly. I hang delicates and hum, too, as I begin hemming. Sewing machine joins the hum and my foot taps out a rhythm at the sewing pedal all hem and hum, stop and re-pin, hem and hum, happy straight stitches, narrow hem, eight feet down, a short eight inch jaunt to the left, eight feet back, a jaunt to the right, and snip!

Maybe it's the snip, and the damp delicates hanging till dry, the straight stitches, and the narrow hem that stitch and hem long-running thoughts that hang delicate, too.

Folded Socks

How, I wonder aloud, to stitch up the edgy? The ragged fray? The unraveling? I'm thinking about a few prodigals. 

Can I just stitch them to the straight and narrow? I wish I could. I'd pin them down, lower the guiding foot, and show them the way stitch my stitch, eight feet by eight feet times ten 'cause better if their holed socks be darned than their worn souls.

Socks be darned; souls be saved! 

One mother asks, "Pray for my daughter." Another asks, "War for my daughter." I am. I know them. They are the wearers of the socks and of the clothes that tumble rough in the tossing hum; and of the clothes hanging silent on the line, too.

I pin and hem feet of runners so that they will not ravel or fray as they would; and I pray, "Make straight paths for them. Hem them in."

I pray as I lower the guide foot to the fabric, and press the pedal down, "Keep them from unraveling. Change them from the shape they're in, into the shape You created them to be." I stitch an eight foot prayer. "Transform them. Save them." Threaded needle sprints right off the bobbin. "Snip the fray from them, that they may slip through the eye of a needle;" I re-thread the bobbin and slip the freshly snipped thread through the needle eye.

The One who knows as much about cloth as He knows about clay, answers my prayers; "I hemmed the world with water and light before it wore anything."

I know what He means by that, because I read it this morning. "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2).

"The earth was water!" I exclaimed at bedside as the sun peered into the window. "It had to be!" I continued, "because water is without form!"

I'd never thought about this before. I guess it's obvious, but it was revelation to me as the sun stretched out and morning yawned across the bed I knelt at.

"Then God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters'" (Genesis 1:6); and what, exactly, is firmament? I looked it up and found the beautiful.

Firmament means, "the vault of the sky."

The vault of the sky. It's marvelous poetry. "Your Spirit hovered over the face of the waters before there was a vault of the sky;" I marvel again.

I'm in large awe on this folding chair in my little laundry room.

Something about cloth edges all thready frayed, and straight stitches, and narrow hems; the socks and the clothes, the drying and the prayers for prodigals beneath the vault of the sky which is hemmed by formless water above and below it. Something spiritual here.

"Spirit of God," the electric sewing machine pauses, "bring the prodigals home. Save them."

"Do you know how all these clothes dry?" His answers puzzle me sometimes.

I never really thought about how they dry. They just do. "Uhm," my brilliant beginning, "by heat and dripping and, uh, hanging?"

"I divide waters," He prompts.

He's making me curious. I've said it before, and it's still true; God meets me in my laundry room. He chose the meeting place when rolling my husband's socks was thrilling and when I learned how to starch a shirt.

 I google, "How do clothes dry?"

Clothes on Clothesline

Evaporation. "When a wet object dries," says google, "it is because the liquid water that is on the object evaporates to water vapor;" and again, "Drying consists of individual water molecules breaking free of their bonds to each other and to the object, and the flying out into the air" -sciencequestionswithsurprisinganswers.org.

I want that for my mostly water self-flesh. "Evaporate me! Break the bonds on my flesh that keep my spirit from  flying!" And why not pray so? Well, honestly,  I can think of a reason not to. I might as well ask God to toss me in the dryer, or hang me out to dry, because that's how water evaporates away from cloth.

I pray, "Evaporate me" because I want to fit through the eye of a needle and that's not going to happen if my flesh is full and bound to itself and to this world that offers wells for every thirst the flesh can have.

I used to be bound to myself, and to suitcases of sin, freight boxes of fear, cardboard boxes of cares, and packs of pride that I hauled with me from well to well because living like that is thirsty work. But one day Jesus met me at a well and He didn't draw water up for me. Instead, He began telling me about a new way to live. He told me to walk away from sin, fear, cares, and pride.

I did. And I am. And guess what? I don't get as thirsty for the waters this world offers when I'm not bound to it as water to waters.

Flesh enlarged by natural water from worldly wells will not fit through the eye of a needle, I think to myself over the humming laundry room. I snip another thread.

Thing is, the Day is coming when I'm going to want nothing more than to fit through the eye of a needle. I'm going to want to be evaporated, in a spiritually molecular way, and unbound. So I'll tumble dry, hang dry, and become unbound in the process.

Evaporate, and be transformed. Transfer my form, is how I hear transformed. 

I pray that, too; "Transfer my form to fit through the eye of a needle. Hem me as straight runner for the narrow way. Stitch me to the way."

Maybe when I stand at His door I'll be bone dry.

Maybe I'll be little threaded with holes in my socks.

Maybe I'll be needing some freshening up. Yeah, I will.

And Heaven's the best place I know for that.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

My Children's Book! Coming Soon...

So, I've been playing. Been writing a catchy, rhymey children's book. And illustrating it with my watercolor paintings so happily that I catch myself smiling while painting something like a mouse and a firefly nose-to-nose, or a caterpillar snoring in her cocoon.

I'm calling the book I Can See God's Love for Me!

Children's Book

 

 

 

I'll let y'all know when it becomes available!

 

Hoping to be published in a few weeks!

 

And THANK YOU, MY BEAUTIFUL READERS!  I don't know who most of you are, but I look

forward to meeting each of you in Heaven, if not sooner!

 

 

Look up and smile at the One who's smiling at you!

 

 

Lovingly,

 

Carolyn-Elizabeth

When You're Swallowed Whole and Life Gets Kinda Organic

Organic lemonade. Powdered greens in a canister boasting "25 Billion Probiotics." The list of ingredients is three columns long from brim to base in small print and I can nearly see the canister flex with health as I pump my arm back and forth because I can't read the label. I wonder if this powder will strengthen my eyes that just don't flex well anymore. Me thinks not.


I scoop 25 billion probiotics into a glass of anything flavorful enough to disguise the taste of green powder concentrate and, "Where are my reading glasses, anyway?" I'm too indifferent to search for them and, Really? How can I drink 25 billion probiotics and be near and far-sighted?

Oh, I also talk to myself. All the time. It helps me think when I listen to what I have to say.


"I can't figure out," I say, "if I should wear glasses or contact lenses for distance, because if I wear contact lenses then I really need reading glasses and enough vim to search for them every time I have something to read. And that's like, all the time."


Well. I'm trying to read this ingredient label written for people who must take 25 billion pro-eyeotics, and this seventeen year old sun-bleached, sun-tanned daughter who's registered with the Red Cross, has about five medical certifications, and guards lives at the outdoor pool saunters into the kitchen where I'm deliberating with myself and a canister of probiotics. "But if I wear glasses," I shift my attention to the one who makes life-saving decisions in split seconds, "then I can still see! Sort of."


She quirks her head at me.


"If the letters aren't too small." I finish in a small voice.


She laughs and knows better than to suggest bi-focals. Not happening. Not yet.

I grab my car keys. "I'll be back soon! I'm going to Walmart to, uh, pick up the pair of glasses I ordered. They're ready."


I hold my head up high and walk to the door with more dignity than someone who talks to a canister of probiotics.


Green bell peppers. They're organic. I planted them in a fire pit that finally rusted through and can't hold fire but can be lined with garden tarp to hold soil and greens. Thing is, a worm has stripped them. I thought I caught it, but there must be more of them because on my way to the driveway I noticed shreds and shreds of bell pepper stalks, leaves, and peppers littering the soil. Three bell peppers are half eaten, the leaves are chewed ragged, and the worms insult gravely by what they leave behind right smack on the leaves where they bowl. Tiny dark pies of everything organic. They know what they're doing.

Worm Stripped

I'm certain I've heard God, the Holy Author of the Book for holy living on this organic orb say things like, "E-hem, dear? You're walking in hope, again."


I hear Him now, and for the ump-teenth time I open my instruction Book for holy living to Hebrews 11:1 because I need to be reminded what faith is, and what hope is, and how they go together to order my steps.


"Now faith is," I read again, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

I'm getting it, slowly. Getting it down to my toes where the walking happens. "Since faith is substance and evidence, and hope isn't, then it's obvious that I must walk by faith."


"Obviously," He agrees.


"So why, Lord," I ask a tad confounded because I'm logistically challenged, "do I keep getting it backward?"


"Because," He's going to give it to me straight, "the reality of My hope, not yours, is the base for faith."


I read the footnote to His definition of faith and learn that it is living, making decisions, basing what I do on who He is.


"Ah!" I'm getting it. "You are my hope!"


He tells me to walk by faith. I try. It's hard remember the steps because I'm prone to elevate my way over His way, and my wishes over Him. It sounds ridiculous to say it. But there it is. It's the confusion that happens when I get faith and hope confused.


When I plant green peppers, I expect green peppers on my cutting board. Smug worms invisible to eyes the likes of mine are not part of my plan.


They fit nowhere in what I hope for.


Yet, they are there just gnawing at my hopes and, may I just say there are worms that gnaw life ragged sometimes.


They chew through savings accounts.


They crunch up cars till the wheels fall off.


They munch on houses till there are too many repairs.


And they gnaw at the reasons I have to believe for the things that I hope for till faith sort of gets a little ragged.


But I recall a worm, and a plant, and a prophet who was too angry to see straight. I get it. God asked him to do what he'd rather die than do.


He refused.


He invited sailors to throw him overboard into the churning sea and maybe he kind of hoped he'd escape doing what God was flat out going to have him do, by drowning instead. But no.


He was swallowed by a whale. A dubious rescue that surely did nothing to change his mind about preferring death. Maybe he sort of hoped he'd die by digestion. But no.


He became whale vomit. And I wonder if he didn't clean up after that because maybe no one in Nineveh would listen to a man who looked insane and smelled of whale vomit. But no.


They listened.


God had His way.


The Ninevites Jonah despised had the audacity to repent.


"Lorrrrd!" I can hear Jonah bellow his stress, "This is why I ran away to Tarshish!" I picture dramatic hand gestures. "I knew that You are a merciful God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love," he must have spit the words out.


It's a strange way to magnify God, but maybe it shouldn't seem as foreign as it does. It's actually kind of humorous, I think. I wonder if God wanted to laugh at the absurdity? Except, He doesn't laugh when His children are loosing it and can't hear what they're saying because all they can hear is what they're feeling.

Tomatoe Worm

How does this strange magnification of God work?


It works only after years of filling the belly of my soul with everything God reveals to me of Himself.


Forget organics, and billions of probiotics for digestive health, and garden greens. The really good stuff is the likes of what came out of Jonah's mouth after he was wrapped in the kind of seaweed that's conveniently dried and packaged in a canister of probiotics, was marinated three days in digestive juices, and a worm shredded the leaves off the only comfort he'd had in a long time.


What if, rather than venting, "Where are You, God? Do You see? Do You care? And did I miss something? Are You trying to teach me something here?" frustrations, because life is screaming and time is flying off the handle and really big things are swallowing me whole and worms are stripping off what I depend on for comfort and, honestly, what's the point in wondering if God is trying to teach me something? He's God. There's always something I can learn from Him. Maybe I should wonder, rather, that I'm not more teachable.


Well, what if the huffy vent was "Ach, Lord! You are so frustratingly calm. So irritatingly at peace! You are the beginning and the end while I'm stuck somewhere in the belly of something big and scary but You, dag-nabbit, You are bigger!" That's the really good stuff.


I'm a mom; and sometimes we mom's just listen to our little "Jonahs." Then we say something really frustrating like, "Is it right for you to behave like this?"


Well, I blame it on God. He asked the question of His precious little Jonah first. And Jonah stomped off to sit and watch what would happen. Yeah, he was mad; but also curious.


What mom hasn't seen this before? A child fills with self righteousness because the enemy, the pest in pajamas on the other side of the room, is shown mercy after super bad behavior. There's a stomping out, a huffing and puffing, but chances are there's a peeking through the door hing just to see what happens now.


Jonah sat just east of Nineveh to see what would happen.


God comforted him. He arranged for a fast growing plant with large leaves to shade him. And Jonah was grateful. Until God arranged for the worm.


The worm ate the stalk for breakfast. Just mowed the plant down by dawn and the sun burned hornet hot, the wind scorched like a blowtorch and, yeah, Jonah was blurry mad. Couldn't see straight. "Just kill me now, Lord!"


"Is it right," God said, "for you to be angry because the plant died?"


"Yes!" Jonah retorted. "Angry enough to die!"


I wonder if the worm was still there chomping happily? I wonder if Jonah swept up a fistful of organic green shreds and held them out at arms length, "Just look at this, Lord!" And then if the Lord held His hand out at arms length toward Nineveh and said, "Just look at that, Jonah."


Thing is, seems Jonah knew God so well that even in his anger he couldn't help confess who God is. Maybe that's because it's true, "For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Lk. 6:45).


May I know Him like that. If I'm going to be angry with God, or blame Him for whatever's happened or hasn't, may I know Him so well that I accuse Him correctly. May I accuse Him of nothing less than who He is?


I may, only if my heart is His, not mine. Only if my desires are blurry because my heart is a 20/20 focus trained on Him.


So Jonah didn't want what God wanted; and he was spitting mad when God fulfilled His hope for the Ninevites, even though he knew He would. He knew it, because he knew God. Seems to me that Jonah must have been filled with faith in God's character, because the truth of God's character just spewed out of Jonah's mouth and landed all over Him.


Jonah went kicking and screaming to Nineveh, and pouted and stomped about, but when all was said and done he had obtained a testimony by faith because he testified of what he knew was true about God.


I think about the champions of faith in Hebrews chapter eleven. They died in faith. I read this and think, to die faith full, less hopes, isn't hopeless. But to die hope full, less faith, is hopeless; because hope must rely on faith to keep going, and faith must be as faith is and must do as faith does.

I hear myself taking and I need God to help me figure out what I'm saying. "So, what about that?" I ask Him.


"Let's take yellow dog out back," He suggests.

Light on Web

We stand at patio edge and He sees me catch my breath the moment the sun explodes open on a single strand of spider silk.


"Did you see that?" He knows I did.


"Oh, yes." My answer is reverent. I remember a desperate morning years ago. "Show me what faith looks like, Lord!" I begged. He showed me. He revealed a single strand of silken faith by a stream of sun light.


I'm waiting for light to catch web again. "There!" Sun sprints the length. "Ha! Now look!" And when the likes of me delights to see a spider, it's a God thing. Yep.


She's not scary ugly, but amber gold because she's walking in the light. Sun light wraps her as a garment. She wears the light. She's transformed by the light. She ascends steady where light just ran ahead of her, as if to show her the way.


"This is what it looks like to base your actions on the reality of who I am," God whispers over my shoulder.


We watch this spider, clothed in the light which illuminates the web, and there's something just so simple and profound about this walk, this web, this light; and what it is to this spider. It's life to her. She's simply entrusting her life to a strand of web silk so fine that it's nearly invisible. But watch a spider walk on light and know that there's a strand of faith under her feet.


"That's how I want to walk." I mean that I want my life-walk to testify just as confidently to God's character as this spider testifies to the strength and presence of the web.


I want to be transformed by light all amber gold.


I want to act on what God has revealed about Himself rather than on what isn't yet seen.


I think about this, and how many times have I confused faith and hope?


How many times have I stepped out in hope rather than in faith?


How many times have I based all kinds of decisions on a mirage that may or may not be true, rather than on the always true evidence of what is?


Well, on this faithless but hopeful orb it's easy for me to get confused.


I find myself doing ridiculous things, like watering green bell pepper plants that are worm stripped, rather than gearing up to go worm hunting. What can I say? I'm an optimistic hopeful; confused wearer of contact lenses, reading glasses, and distance glasses who is learning to walk by faith and seeing, yeah, seeing something that would be invisible except for the light which runs and dances and plays all over it.


I'm adjusting my eyes to see the character of God dance as the light of sun on this narrow strand I'm sticking to.


Sometimes it's as messy as Jonah was. He did some ridiculous things, too. But for all the mess, may my worst complaint be that God is a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love! Jonah got some stuff backwards, but not this.


Seems to me, Jonah the prophet really got it. I think he got the point, once he settled down and let God have the last word.


I wonder, did he excuse himself after God put things in perspective? "Uh, I'll be back soon. I'm going to the corner Walmart here on the east side of Nineveh to pick up the glasses You ordered for my soul."

May I become so filled with the reality of God's character,

that no matter what else,

even if a whale swallows me whole and spits me out,

and life gets pretty organic,

may I be heard saying something like,

"Dag-nabbit! You are just so good!"

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

Bobbing on a Trampoline, Mesmerized

So I look up from backyard, back soul prayer. Morning sun yawns after pulling an all nighter over on the other side of the world. Arms of light stretch upward, bend long and reach from one side to the other and I, too. I stand and stretch like that. Feel the warm burn along my arms and down my sides and across my back in the stretch.

Sun leans, light as air, across the old pecan farm on the other side of this backyard fence and fingers leaves that fidget as children just all green summer and serendiptiously create beauty.

I know how shadows are created, but not mystery. And it's mystery to me how light fingers and leaves fidget and create this shadow upon the rough and the rugged trunk of tree on the other side of the fence.

I watch the shadow grow and form and move as if the light gives it life. And this light creates the shape of a cross, with shadow.

I walk quiet on stiff grass to see it better. I stand on tippy toe to see over the fence. I pull and wriggle myself onto the trampoline and bob there, mesmerized.

"It's the shadow of the cross! Lord," I whisper, "see it?"

"Where's your iPhone?" He's mysterious, yeah, and a realist. Shadows aren't indelible like ink and Mr. Light of the World knows I might want to take a picture of this shadow.

I wobble to trampoline edge, grab the metal frame before I pitch over. I'm no gymnast and the trip to the iPhone over there on the terra-cotta stone I sit on most mornings is taking too long. The shadow is moving faster than I can get to my phone.

A sprint to the Apple phone. I can't help laugh at my mawkish humor. "Ha! Get it?" I feel the need to make sure He really gets just how hilarious. "Sprint? Apple? Phone?"

"I get it." He shakes His head at the likes of me. I know He does. And Mr. Light of the World nearly boosts me back onto the trampoline Himself.

Shadow of Cross

Jesus. Light of the world nailed to the cross. I think it as the shadow holds still for a breath. But light can't be nailed down.

He hears my thoughts. "It can cast a shadow," He says.

"Once there was a cross,
Staked in the ground,
At Golgatha;
And it pleased the crowd." I begin singing words as they come to me in the holy.

Light pierced the cross. I amaze.

Light pierced the very instrument of cruelest death devised by sinful man. And Light, my thoughts continue, threw sin and death down. They're just shadow in the shape of the cross.

Let the Light pierce me. I think the prayer, silent as light and intentional reach for love.

A friend of a friend said it most eloquently; "An intentional mouth speaks forth love."

The shadow is pictured on my camera roll. I scroll to it.

"See the roots trailing just there down the tree?" Mr. Light of the World leans over me.

There's sap in the root. Blood in the vein.

"After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me" (I Cor. 11:25).

Drink from the Eucharist cup, and drink life everlasting from the everlasting root of life. Life is in the blood.

"I see the roots, Lord." I edit the picture on my iPhone to most accentuate the shadow. The cross. The roots trailing down.

"I see the roots," I repeat. What I see is the saving blood of the Savior; the shadow seeping down the wood and for the life of me it looks like roots. It does!

"I'm rooted in Your life, Lord. Root me deep and deeper in You."

"I beseech you, therefore, by My mercies, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to Me, which is your reasonable service." He converses His word to me.

"And I shall not be conformed to this world, but shall be transformed by the renewing of my mind, that I may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of Yours." I answer with His word in this Romans 12 conversation.

Swallow the ways of the world, toast world with what fill its cup, and get toasted and swallowed by it.

Drink stolen water, and adulterate.

Sip on alcohol, and risk alcoholism.

Absorb drugs, and chance addiction.

Fill on sin, and become sin full.

Well, this mercy full morning I fill on mercy.

I fill on light.

I fill on shadow.

I fill on life and the root of life.

I fill on the cup of life and thanksgiving.

 I fill on Eucharististic Pisteuo.

Eucharistic Pisteuo. It's a mouthful meaning the grace of the Bread of Life, the thanksgiving for the Blood of Life, the faith and hope in the Life because of love. At least, this is the academically wonting definition I sort of piece together.

Love. The greatest of all is love.

And Eucharistic Pisteuo is my intentional mouthful that speaks forth love. I swallow it whole.

I let the Light who pierces darkest darkness, pierce me.

I take the cup.

I see in this morning light, the cross of sin and shame is just shadow.  That's all.

And Light has made it nothing but shadow. Light threw sin and death down and made nothing of it. Yet,  made all about it.

Shadows remain only when there is light. And that's a strange mercy.

"I see Your mercy. " I close my photo app, dismount the trampoline and the grass pricks my bare feet.

I would write a song later. I would call it "Simon of Cyrene."

I would paint a picture to go with it.

It's my salvation testimony this morning as it has been for countless mornings.

Simon of Cyrene

vs. 1
Once upon
the Son of God
a cross was laid,
but His strength was flogged.

vs. 2
Once a man
from a foreign land
was chosen to
carry the burden.

                                                    Cross-Bearer


chorus
Simon of Cyrene,
showed what it means
to carry burdens
we didn't ask for.

I'll carry my cross,
love's greatest cost;
I'll give my strength
to the One who saves.

vs. 3
Thorny crown
pressed upon His brow,
but very light of light
can't be nailed down.

vs.4
"Father, forgive,"
was on His lips,
strange words, but
cross-bearers understand Him.

chorus

 

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig
 

A Strange Goodness

Hot wind burned the panting ground, stabbed as pitchfork and plowed like the new-fangled John Deere tractors that rode over depleted topsoil till it had nothing left to give but to give itself up all "dusty ol' dust," as the 1930's saying went, till dust rose and roiled and rolled over itself with the momentum and power of a rogue wave at sea that mounts upward of several thousand feet and then sprays higher.

This dust didn't float; it lumbered. It didn't catch the sunlight; it grabbed the sun in a black fist and ripped light right out of the sky. It wasn't smudge, but indelible blot on the flesh fabric of those who woke in the mornings and saw the silhouette of their heads on the pillow case, the only thing not blanketed in dust that fell though the night.

Documentaries of the Dust Bowl record the dust appearing as a cloud ten-thousand feet high. "Nobody knew what to call it. It was thick like course animal hair; it was alive."


Dust. Just sand and dirt ground up like powder till it became strange black ranges of mountains that grew and moved in the wind because none of them were rock, but dust.


I catch dust and cat hair in the feathers of my duster and I sweep it from the keyboard.

Cat and Mouse

Some say it was the wrath of God. I wonder. What if there wasn't the greed and lust for more? What if we were content, thankful even, for what we have? What if we didn't eat through, chew up, strip down what we have until it's all used up and we move on westward because "There's gold in them thar hills," and there's a rush on land as virgin as what we just raped and left wallowing in dust? Maybe there wouldn't have been the Dust Bowl, the Great Crash, and the Great Depression.


I've done things like that before. Youth tends to. Young people, young nations and maybe it's because the lust of the eyes and the pride of life scream against this truth that's stood rock solid through all the ages and nations; "Foolishness is tangled up in the heart of a youth" (Proverbs 22:15). And maybe worse than the blind leading the blind are the foolish leading the foolish because a blind heart can learn from past stumbles and warn others, but foolishness is insanity.


Maybe we wouldn't have personal dust bowls, great crashes, and great depressions if we gave the kind of greatest praise and thanksgiving that's called "the sacrifice of praise," and "the sacrifice of thanksgiving," to God.


Seems we've categorized the consequences of foolishness. If the consequences are uncomfortable, we say we've gotten what we asked for; but if the consequences are completely out of our control, we say it's God's wrath.


What if we reasoned from the perspective the cross gives? Wasn't God's wrath satisfied there? And how much clearer could He have demonstrated the truth that His good plans for us have everything to do with Him, and that we merely benefit, because He is good.

He is good. Period. He can't help it, and we can't earn it.

 Many are just stripped by blast after gust. Some turn their backs on God while others manage a scratchy "thank You" in, not for, in it.


The raspy "thank you" comes from the tried and true saint; from the likes of Stephen who counted the praise that God will have, for He will, worth every stone hurled at him. And it came from Jesus, Savior of every saint, when He spoke the sacrificial "thank You" at Eucharist table.


"How?" I wonder. "How do people praise You when all that is as stone flies right at them? How do they thank You when dust is falling from their sky, or when the literal sky itself seems to be falling like a ceiling crumbling and there's pain and even death? Just how?"


Thing is, I do know how. It's by a desire that surpasses every desire to become Christ-like. To be thoroughly Christian, knowing that the word "Christian" means, "Christ-like." And I know, too, that just as Jesus was thoroughly the Christ, there is no such thing as a Christian who isn't thoroughly Christian.

Feather Dusting

I'm listening to myself; and to God whose saying, "Ok hon, 'nough with the 'we/they' language."

It's impossible to hide behind I.


So, will I thank Him when I don't understand what He's doing?

Will I praise Him though my sky looks to be falling and I'm crawling on my knees to Him for shelter?

Will I sacrifice the hard praise? The labored thanksgiving? The, "I trust what You're doing more than I trust what I want" and "I will accept even this as from Your sovereign goodness"?

Isn't this where humility begins? With just one breathed "Thank You" and an unapologetic, "Everything is primarily about the praise You will have"?

Sacrifice like this and there's no more, "Surely this isn't from God" excuse as if some things are beyond His good reign.

I'm thinking about these things. Seems to me the praise and thanksgiving offered when God's come through in ways that I understand, and answered my prayers the way I want Him to is a beautiful praise, but it costs me nothing. Seems to me this isn't half as beautiful as the sacrifice of praise.


"I choose to praise You whether the ground is firm beneath my feet or is oddly mounting in the sky and raining dust that I'll need more than a feather duster for." I say it like this to God.

"Bring Me your heart." He wants my heart. Maybe He wants it because I'm being refined, threshed, pressed, and isn't silver dross, wheat chaff, or dry mesocarp basically dust? And isn't dust itself evidence of the power of purification? Evidence of pure silver? Pure wheat? Redemption, dustless and eternal?


It's a strange goodness that nailed the sovereign Savior to the cross, yet gave Satan power as prince of darkness. Yet, God is King of heaven and earth and all that is in it. King. Not prince. And He is omnipotent over all. All. As in just flippin' and spinnin' all.


Well, He wants my heart. Maybe He wants it because it pumps life blood and strength into this bit of flesh and because soul life and soul strength and the purpose of heart, soul, and strength is for loving Him.


"Do You see the dust clogging up my heart, soul and strength? It's just falling off of me!" I ask Him knowing that He does, but unsure of what it's going to cost me to give Him my heart like this.

Pig-Pen Personified

"I made all things to praise Me." He's all about His praise, and some wise saint once said, "I'm most satisfied when God is most glorified." It's true. I don't know how it works, but it's true.


I remember God saying that the rocks themselves will praise Him. No wonder. Jesus is the Rock; and maybe the earth itself sometimes peels back and rises up as course black dust because when the people don't offer sacrifices of praise to the Rock, the rocks will sacrifice for it and the people will feel it. I

It was felt in the 1930'and is felt today. Perhaps it'll be felt for as long as earth keeps spinning because dust is the fallout of refinement but praise and thanksgiving are most beautiful when given from a dusty broken spirit and a contrite heart. God seems to prefer the prayer shed from a spirit that chooses to thank Him in life's pain and to praise Him in dust storms over a "Good job, God," pat on the back,

"Make my heart to praise You, Lord." It's courageous prayer for me. I know what I'm saying. I've said it before, but I guess I need to repeat it when I'm shedding dust like Pig-Pen in Charlie Brown.


I wave the feather duster, "Make my heart to praise You!"











written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

He Washes My Feet Till My Soul Smells Like Honeysuckle

Pink handled broom is loosing its bristley head. Its just not screwed on right anymore. I sweep the front walk and the head wobbles swivel because maybe its just stood in the pantry corner too long staring at the spice rack where dried basil, thyme, and oregano are crushed into glass spice jars, and cans of tomatoes and a jar of minced garlic from the supermarket line shelves and don't breathe.

Soil and mulch has hopped garden bed and walks up the walkway. The pink broom comes outside with me and her head swivels as if she can smell the garlic breathe alive. We sweep past garlic in purple bloom and the garlic nods a welcome.

I screw the bristled head back into place and sweep this curious pink broom but, "Oh," she swishes against the pavement and the head swivels a loose left because there the basil in terra-cotta pots breathes and its breath smells spicy in morning sun. I pinch off a leaf and chew it just because it's there. I screw the bristled head righty-tighty into place again and sweep the welcome mat.

A glass pitcher rests between the basil and the welcome mat. It's filled with water from the garden hose and the sun catches glass and water till light splashes with joyful abundance and I pour abundance over life all basil. It grows like this at the welcome mat and this summer I haven't once screwed off the lid on the jar of basil in the pantry. Instead, I've pinched, watered and washed basil leaves, carried the fragrance over the welcome mat and the scent just always breaks open full abundance when minced on the wood cutting board.

It's abundance on the wood, I think to God and myself. And it bleeds fragrance there. With the blade of the mincing knife, I  push the abundance into the pot of olive oil and minced garlic and is there anything richer than fresh basil and garlic minced into oil extracted from the olive which is the same oil that lights lamps in this lacking world?

I drizzle the pasta, starch of life, with this fragrant abundance of life I that washed carried over the welcome mat. And just like that, abundance oh so fragrant rich supplies the flavor plain pasta lacks.

Garlic

His abundance supplies our lack. My lack. He was rich, yet for my sake He became poor.

"For my sake?" I cannot begin to know the extent of what this means. I only know it as I see it; as I read it again and again on pages of Holy writ. I only know that I can't see the whole of His abundance, or of my lack, but that I can believe and hope it is as He says.

"You say," I repeat what He says back to Him because I need to hear it out loud, "that Your abundance supplies my lack; that You were rich beyond what I can fathom and became poor with a poverty I cannot comprehend. And You did this for my sake?"

"And Mine," He adds.

"And Yours." This stirs  me because the abundance that is mine isn't supplied by the blood of sacrificial lambs offered annually, but by the blood of the Sacrificial Lamb offered once lest He would have had to suffer as often as sin has been committed since from the beginning of time.

And I gain remembrance of not my poverty, not my lack, but of my Savior. And isn't this remembrance a portion of the grace of the diligence of Christ?

The empty tomb profoundly lacks when sin's diligence is destroyed because Christ's diligence to do what He had in mind to do, and that to "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," is profoundly abundant. (Hebrews 9:26).

"You had it in mind to put away sin by the sacrifice of Yourself; and You did it," I worship at His feet, aware that mine are soiled but also remembering that He's washed the sole of my soul and here I take the eucharist to heart.

"This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me," He says the ancient words to me and they never come up lacking. Then, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you" (John 22:19-20). He spoke so to His disciples at table.

Then He washed their feet.

So was He born in a poor man's stable? That's how I picture it. And was there a donkey in the stable? I only wonder because a donkey low was a poor man's beast of burden and transport; and a donkey would transport Jesus.

The Lamb rode a donkey. The thought comes and takes my breath. Swivels my soul. The clean and spotless lamb rode the back of the unclean.

Some called, "Hosanna in the highest" and laid down palm branches, symbols of strength, for Him to be transported over. Others laid down their cloaks, symbols of what covers nakedness.

If I give palm and cloak, they are as dirty rags under the feet of unclean donkey. I'm putting some things together. What if, I remember my pastor's sermon, I return to Christ what I have received from Him? Returning is different than giving. What increased abundance do I have when I lay down the palm and cloak as rags and return to Him what is His? Abundant life, me thinks.

He knows my thoughts and, "If you return to Me what you have received from Me, all is redeemed."

Ah! The Lamb rode a donkey! The Lamb redeems, makes worthy, the humbled, burdened and unclean. My thoughts kind of plow like this.

Love is transported by humility to redeem the unclean. I put it together.

Humility increases as love washes the feet of humility and then finds its transport by those feet. Maybe it's something like that.

"Humility is as welcome mat for love to be transported over." This is how I hear it and I cheer softly,

"It's an abundance!"

The Lamb Rode a Donkey

The way I see it, the road to the holy city was littered with palm branches and clothing and, "This is what the narrow road to the pearly gates must look like. Littered with strength laid down and with cloaks of self to cover more self; masks, attitudes, props, till the "have's" and the "have not's" are equal."

Few lay down their strength; few lay down what cloaks the soul. Fewer still lay palm and cloak down for the Burden Bearer riding the burden bearer. The way is narrow.

What if I broke off timidity and peeled off the strength of my flesh and the cloak of my soul for love and love alone because the beautiful burden of Love is carried on the back of humility?

Wasn't Love stripped of His strength?

Wasn't a foreigner in the land by the name of Simon of Cyrene called on to carry the burden of the cross on his back? And isn't that what it means to be a stranger in a strange land, a foreigner of this world, called to carry the beautiful burden of love to the world?

Wasn't the thready robe that clothed Christ's sinewey flesh bartered for while He gave up the Ghost?

Wasn't Love bared naked except for a cloth covering the loins of Love because the Father of Love will keep sacred the seed of Love?

Seems humility shoulders love, and love's always got the back of humility. "It will hurt," Love promises rugged, "but I've got your back."

Humility responds, "I lay down all palm and cloak for You alone;" for love is transported humbly like that.

"Lord?" I've got a question. "How do I lay down my life for the sakes of others without enabling them to use me up?" I want to be humble transport for Love, but not a doormat.

"I washed their feet; and became a welcome mat." His answer spurs another question.

"What's the difference?" I ask, but the answer comes before I get the question all the way out. "Oh," I'm getting it, "a door mat isn't the same as a welcome mat."

"Couldn't this Man who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?" I read it in John 11:37 and recognize the speech. It's spoken, "I believe that God can, but will He?" I've heard it because I've said it. And now I wonder where the likes of me is looking when I speak so. Am I looking, really looking, at the One I'm talking to? Or am I talking to Him, but focusing on me? I know what that feels like. It feels like manipulation.

Well, it was said at Lazarus' grave site. I wonder, How many there noticed that Jesus was weeping? Groaning in Himself? How many were really looking at Him?

Was He weeping and groaning inwardly because He was attending a type of what the Father would command on His behalf, and ours? Wrenching, I'm sure, to witness a foreshadow of those who would mourn for Him; of the stone that would roll away from the mouth of His borrowed grave, of the coming resurrection. Maybe He wept and groaned because this was hitting real close to home.

People were wiping their feet on Him, and it scraped out "You should not go where Lazarus lays because, if You recall, the Jews there have been trying to stone You." The disciples pulled their feet back like that. And then Mary and Martha scuffed, "Lord, if You had been here, then our brother wouldn't have died.

What exactly did they, have I, tried to wipe off the bottoms of our sandal shod souls? Fear? Misjudgement? Flesh mire?

What if they, if I, entered the work of Jesus as He entered His work? Isn't humility the entrance of His work? Hasn't love always been carried, cradled, transported, and delivered by humility?  Isn't humility the only transport and support for God-ward love? What if they, if I, laid my frondy strength and the garments my soul would wear, down to welcome the Lord?

Some door mats say, "Welcome" on them. Others are stiff as bristle. Bristle at humility and bristle at Jesus. Bristle, "Don't go at this time," as the disciples did, or "Why didn't You come sooner," as Mary and Martha did and, yeah, the feet wipe back and forth as sandal-shod souls would scrape against Jesus and I can hear the rough swish-wipe.

I know what it sounds like. My own soul has wiped its feet like that, as if Jesus were door mat, and then this soul of mine declines His invitation, "Welcome," and somehow doesn't see the bowl of water and towel He's holding.

He Washed Their Feet

Well, Jesus is welcome mat who washed feet gently.

May I be that kind of mat! Not doormat. Not bristle stiff. But welcome mat and soft wash towel. May I welcome those who will let me wash their feet.

The disciples let Him wash their feet, once they understood. And they've passed that understanding on to me. It's written. Explained. Demonstrated. Mary and Martha, and many of the Jews who had come to their side in their mourning believed in Jesus. For He casts nothing but the glory of God to those who believed. "Father," He said almost apologetically, "I thank You that You have heard Me. I know that You always Hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by, I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me." I can hear Love speak past the lump in His throat and speak love through tear dampened lips to the One whose will He came to do.

Love piggy-backs humility.

There were those who would cast stones to kill Him, but He rolled stone away to bring forth life.

There were those who would have bound Him in grave clothes, but He commanded, "Loose Lazarus."

There were those who would have kept Him dead and bound up behind grave stone, but He commanded, "Roll the stone away! Loose Lazarus!" I'm sure Lazarus went straight into Jesus' arms.

I guess a welcome mat must wait to receive those who want to be welcomed. And an impatient welcome mat whose heart aches so much for those it longs to welcome with a bowl of cool soapy water and soft wash towel may bargain, but will be rubbed the wrong way in the bargain till the water to wash the feet is spilt on the mat and the towel dirtied; and the bargainer bristles kind of pink and stiff in the spine because it's not possible to sweep up offering that's spilt because it's not wanted.

I want to be a patient welcome. "Help me wait till the one I long to welcome, whose feet I long to gently wash, wants to be welcomed and washed," I pray. It's hard, even feels negligent sometimes, to wait like that.

I have bowls in my kitchen. One aluminum, four glass, one purple ceramic. I also have soft wash towels in the linen closet. "It's silly, Lord." I do feel a tad silly, but  I'm fixin' to fill my large aluminum mixing bowl with water from the garden hose.

I find the wash towel, the white one, while hose water groans through the pipes. It's cantankerous and we've fought at the spigot. I sicked a wrench on it some time back, so now it turns on and off without spitting, but we still have water fights. I turn the spigot off. It sprays me and gets the last word, but my bowl is full.

I carry it sloshy to front door and place it beside the "Welcome" stamped across the cheerful red and yellow flower on the mat there. A wind chime sings from the shepherd's hook at the entrance, and I drape wash towel there.

I admire my soul work at the welcome mat and, "Oh! I need a bar of soap!"

I place honeysuckle essential oil soap, gift from son and daughter-in-law who know how to welcome the rough worn, on wooden green painted step ladder too rickety old to be more than decoration. It stands on all fours, legs "v'd" and the second step supports a bar of honeysuckle soap.

I'm a wanna-be,getting-there welcome mat. But I still bristle stiff when I'd rather smell like honeysuckle. "How do I do this this, Lord?"

"Spend time with Me." He's all welcome mat.

I sit with Him in the morning sun, and my leather bound Bible sticks hot to my bare legs. I dangle my own mired feet in cool pool water.

He washes my feet till my soul smells like honeysuckle.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

No More Logs in the Eye, Please and Thank You

She's slow to wake up full. Slow to open eye round bulging. Slow to lift lid shadowed by night sky. But she does. The moon slits the lid open after one full night a month of shut eye, and crescent light shines a little sleepy.


I stand where backyard grass peels back and tilts away down into night shade, and I do the same. Peel back my head till nose tilts straight up at the night sky. And the moon is wide-eyed glory.

Wide-eyed glory. It's what I want.


"Fill my sight with Your glory tonight," I pray it silent, open, and maybe right now I can feel a little of what Moses felt because, like him, I'm tucked into a cleft on this rock called earth and asking to see God's glory.


From cleft I gaze out and a glory full and white in indigo night fills my eyes because somehow the sun strolls long across the sky and kisses me goodnight before it steps down from the horizon; and God strolls by, too.


I can't look straight at the sun, and I can't look straight at God's glory; but I look at the moon and as surely as moon follows sun, and moonlight glows with sunlight after the sun's gone down, I know that I, too, must follow God if I want to glow with the light of His glory. And I do want. And more. I want to be full of His glory, and to glow round and full like the moon at full term.


My open eyes fill with wide moon and I wonder to God, Why did You blot the moon with shadows? I wonder what the moon would look like without them.


He hears my wondering. "The moon looks like the way you see," He explains.


"Blotchy." That's how I see.


"Yeah," He chuckles kind of amused, "blotchy."


The moon just glows a little blotchy, and so do I. "But God," a pinch of its-not-fair nips me, "the moon doesn't cry."


He knows I know that tears don't wash away blotchy vision. Only the blood of the raw Truth does that. But still, tears are cleansing. They are. And sometimes my sight is improved after tears have rinsed where my heart's been scrubbed clean as repentance.


Yeah, I've been scrubbed like that recently. Seems that where I've been rubbed the wrong way by others is where I've required a good right scrubbing by God. Seems, too, that what things I've complained against are those things I must confess and repent from; and that the blotchy spots in my vision are craters larger than those on the moon and are certainly larger than splinters.


I'm told there's a log in my eye. God says so. And the log in my eye recognizes the offending splinter in another's eye because the splinter's of the same wood as the log. An unrepentant gossip is more offended by a gossip than a repentant gossip; and an unrepentant busy-body is more offended by a busy-body than a repentant busy-body. An unrepentant sinner is more offended by the sins of others than a repentant sinner because the unrepentant sinner orbits toward the wane, but the repentant sinner presses open to wide-eyed wax and begs, "I see!" and "Lord have mercy" in the next breath.

Moon with Craters

"The Beginning of Knowledge." That's the subtitle heading Proverbs, chapter one, in my Bible. The verses are pen-marked and I remember marking them decades ago. The ink is faded now, and I seem to have skipped underlining the phrase, "receive the instruction." I mark it now. "Receive the instruction of justice, judgement, and equity" (Proverbs 1:3).


I want to know what the words "justice, judgement, and equity" mean because I'm told to receive the instruction of them and, as the verses progress to include what I really need, the fear of the Lord, don't I need some instruction before I know much of anything about that? Oh, I do.


I go to Merriam-Webster on my iPhone. Justice-the process or result of using laws to fairly judge crimes and criminals.


I read it slowly, several times, because the understanding I'm wanting is an understanding that just opens wide in slow phases.


"You're saying, 'Receive the instruction of the process and result of Your laws?'" That's how I read it, and it's different than receiving the instruction of His law.


He lets me think. And I'm thinking that when I complain against this and that in another, may I have the presence of mind to say, "Oh! My vision is blotchy! I must have a log in my eye." And the rest is easy. I don't have to wonder what the log is called because it's usually called by the name of the splinter in the other's eye that offends me till I repent.


"How," I ask God, "can I co-operate with the process and result of removing the log?"


"Go back to the tree." He knows that this morning I tugged a chewed up leaf off the pecan twig above me because it reminded me of what I would look like if Jesus hadn't hung, just chewed up, on the tree as if the crime was His and the law was mine.


I finger the leaf. "How is it fair that You were chewed up by the jaws of sin, the worm of man, and hung on the tree?" I hold up the leaf to make sure He really sees this. "How is it fair, when You committed no crime?"


It sounds a little accusatory, and I don't mean to accuse God. "I don't mean it the way it sounds, God," I confess. "I'm beyond grateful, but," I venture carefully, "how is it fair?"


Lyrics spring into my head that song writers would roll their eyes at. It's not a song I've sung before, but the words sum up the message of a hundred worship songs that I have sung.


It should have been me crucified on that tree,
But He died in my place and I'm saved by His grace.


I would sing them now, except that I'm thinking justice is saying something diffferent. I'm not hearing, "It should have been me." I'm hearing, "Accept as fair use of My law what I say is fair use of My law."


Silence, again. Then, "How?" I have no idea where to begin. I feel like a child learning how to ride a bike and not knowing how to turn it around without skinning my knees on the pavement.


"Do you receive the instruction of justice?" He's asking me if I'll get on the bike.


"But how do I turn it?"


"Sweet girl," my Father's hand steadies the bike, "just turn around every time I say, 'Turn here.'"


"I hope You've got a large box of band aides, 'cause I'm gonna spend a lot of time on skinned knees," I laugh; sort of.


And the lyrics turn here.


Strange to say, "It was fair that Jesus hung on the tree;
That justice was served in an unheard of way and
The sinless One died in the criminal's place."


Strange to say, "It was fair that the blood on the cross wasn't mine;"
If I'd said, "I'll pay," sin would've had it's way,
But the sinless One died in the criminal's place.


"Do you receive the instruction of justice?" He wants an answer.


"Yes! Yes, I do!" I raise my hands in exuberance.


"Whoa there!" He steadies the bike. "Keep your hands on the handles and turn here!"

Bike Riding

I type the word "judgement" in the search box at Merriam-Webster. Judgment: "a divine sentence or decision."


"Ah! Just Ah-ha!" I hear His word different than ever before. Is it because I'm receiving His instruction of justice? Me thinks so.


Receive the instruction of the process and result of His law, and receive as fair the divine sentence His law requires.


It's not instruction for good behavior with warning for bad behavior. It's way more than that. It's His divine sentence carried out, hammered in, nailed down by nails that resemble exclamation points. They do, when they're upside down. And isn't it fitting that the hammer pounded the head of the long sharp exclamation point into the hands and feet of the One who carried out God's justice, and Who would be risen, that I might be upright exclamation pointing to His divine justice?


"Do you receive the instruction of judgement?" He asks.


I know what the instruction is. It's to be an upright exclamation pointing to His justice, not mine.

"Your decisions are better that mine," an understatement if there was one. "You know what should be done, and have done it." I recall all that Jesus did. "Yes," I say it with the daring courage only the humbled possess. "Yes. I receive the instruction of judgement."


Equity.


I type the word,"equity." It means, "the value of a piece of property (such as a house) after any debts that remain to be paid for it have been subtracted."


My breath catches because I am His piece of property. His house. Decades ago I underlined the truth of equity in the light blue Bible with my name inscribed in gold script in the lower right corner. I snap it open, gift from life-long friend of mine who led me on my thirteenth birthday to this God I love so dearly. The ink is faded beneath the words, "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price..." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).


My value has everything to do with holy subtraction. The subtraction of the debt that remained to be paid, but is now paid in full by the One who owns me and lives in me. After the debt for my sin was paid, subtracted off the books, I owned not myself. What a relief! I became nothing to become the holy temple in which God's Holy Spirit dwells. I became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus when He subtracted my sin. Yeah, I'm still clay on the Potter's wheel, but this lump belongs to Him now and His hands are pressing me just wide-open glory from the inside outward, into the mold of His holiness.


This is the instruction of equity.


"I want to be soft to Your touch, Lord. I want to yield easily." I say it true as can be and I say it with some fear, too, because I know that if I'm soft to any touch but His, I'll be like a moon out of orbit that should be full wide-eyed open, but is sleeping at the wrong time. If I yield to any touch but His, I'll be like a woman with child who aborts because she's afraid of a pain more complicated than labor.


"I want to yield to Your touch, Lord," I say it again because He will fill me with His life till I glow round as full moon and then press outward what He's formed inward-His image. Holy DNA.


I don't want to be asleep when I should be awake. I don't want to be empty as a moonless night when I should be full of glory.


"Lord," I say it delicate, "mold me into a vessel fit to carry Your life. I open the womb of my soul to You. May I carry Your life to full term." It's prayer, shocking prayer, but I mean it because I want wide-eyed glory.


I look at the moon in fullest phase tonight. I have just enough fear of Him to know that He wants me full of Him, too, and that this lump of clay can be a re-do. Does that sound harsh? I think it probably does, but it doesn't have to be. After all, didn't He already follow His own instructions for justice, judgement, and equity? And isn't He the One getting my mud on His hands? All I have to do is let Him. Co-operate. And hold the shape He gives me because that's the shape that will house His life and I don't want to be a re-do.


"I receive the instruction of equity." I say it before He has the chance to ask the question. I'm after wide-eyed glory. No more logs in the eye, please and thank you."

Pregnant Woman

Silence. Selah; true and so still that it seems the whole world's stopped spinning. My soul's waxed full and, "Can I stay like this? Can I stay wide-eyed glory?"


He shakes His head, "No," then smiles, and it would be a mixed message except that I know instructions are meant to be followed to the last page. And I've botched enough do-it-yourself projects by now to know that I need step-by-step instructions and even then I'll mess up and I'll have to go back where the mess up began.


"Follow the instruction of justice, judgement, and equity," He repeats His word. I try it on and it fits like a maternity dress over a belly that's not yet round enough.


"I want Your word to fit, Lord." And I cry. I do. Because I want to feel full of His life, not mine. And I know that there are logs in my eyes just as surely as there are craters on the moon. I cry because the knowing hurts. The knowing comes when something reveals the log, and usually that something is an offensive splinter in the eye of an offender that I recognize because the splinter's of the same wood as the log. And I cry because I know that my vision is obscured and I know that there's a wide-eyed glory brighter than a full moon on a clear night, but I don't see that way yet.


I'm bent low. Forehead presses into the yellow life-preserver I store beneath bed and kneel on each morning.


I cry. I confess. I repent.


My knees are skinned. My make-up's tear smear. My head's spinning from too much thinking, and I choose to embarrass myself sheer humble making amends, and then hope that they will be graciously accepted with no further discussion yet, "Even that," I confess to God, "even if I'm shorn with questions and humbled further," I venture where I've not gone before and sometimes it feels like the back side of the moon to go the belly of the soul, "You say the entrance into Your kingdom is like going through the eye of a needle and there ain't no way I'm getting through with an expecting soul and enough wool for two sheep."


"Ha!" Yeah, He appreciates my humor. I just know He does.


And then? Well, this of river tears dislodges the log and it floats away. Just floats out of sight and it seems ridiculous to me that I didn't see that log before.


And then? The tears stop. And I begin pouring thanksgiving all over Him. "I see Your mercy!"


He's poured His mercy all over this.


I see mercy in the quoted prayer a sister-in-Christ emailed me this morning.


I see mercy when this joyous life-guard daughter of mine who works ten hour shifts under the blazing, bleaching, browning sun parallel parks the family van with perfection and passes her driver's test with a 97% score.


I see mercy in the cheerful woman at the DMV counter who twinkles out, "What happened? Did the instructor fall asleep? Because no one passes with a 97!" Twinkley eyes line with laughter at her own joke and, "Congratulations!"


I see mercy in the celebratory donut the lady at the corner coffee shop gave the newly liscenced driver. "Here's the iced mocha you ordered, and here," she presents a white paper bakery bag, "is a celebratory donut!"


"Thank you!" We laugh because this is just so fun!


And I say it and mean it for God. "Thank You for the donut."






















written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig