China and eggs and hearts too...

The first Sunday of the year... I am in John's robe and writing a post...don't ask why I am in John's robe. Perhaps I don't own my own...or maybe I do and am just in the mood to feel close to him...gonna' let that participle dangle right there. See I do read grammar books, I just don't understand them.

Maggie asked me on New Years Eve why doesn't someone make eggs less breakable? Great question, to which I have no answer.

It goes up there with great 2010 Maggie~isms like calling the nativity scene on Mrs. Neighbors lawn her "God set."

But back to the eggs. Yes, they are breakable aren't they. Hmmm. Yes. Why does God let us have breakables? Breakable eggs, china and hearts too. He could have made them all unbreakable. But He didn't.

Mine feels like a piece of fine Parian china right now. That is a good thing. That means it is translucent. It has to be if I am going to write anything or say anything of any matter.
I have to admit, there are some hairline cracks in it at the moment. You may not see them right away, you have to hold them up to the light to see them. I suppose holding my heart up to the Light is the only way to live though, isn't it? Do note mine is Belleek. Irish girl. What else would you expect? Noritake? Not in my cabinet or heart thank you very much. Hmph.

A ll of that said, I guess my struggle is with how the cracks are affecting the rest of me. Truth is, I don't use that Parian china in the course of the day all that much. Don't get me wrong. In my quiet time with the Lord, I have that transparent platter of a heart right before Him. But in the day to day, as we (He and I) go about the business of my ministry to my family, I tend more to be like a regular, old dinner plate. It can still shatter and break if dropped. I have quite a few chips around the edges. But I am not so fragile that I am unusable by Him or unfunctioning for my family. I think that is what I am suppose to be in the day to day life well done.
But in the days when a crack in my platter is feeling particularly deep, I want to spend the day just with Him. Heal it, make the spider cracks go away. Figure it all out at once. And when the practical of my life interrupts...I want to be this:
I can still perform all the tasks around me but there ain't an ounce of light getting through. Hard, cold or hot depending on the moment. The kids stay out of the kitchen and John battens down the hatches. Nice way to be heart of the home isn't it? You know those moments when you are in the kitchen and ignore (cold) everyone until you snap (hot) at them...yeah, call that a cast iron moment. And if you are PMS on top of it, that pan could be a deadly weapon. Or so I have heard.
In the middle of my life right now, I have avoided the cast iron, like I should. But I do believe the kids have noticed the chips in my plate. John has helped me smooth out the spider cracks in my platter too. And I have rested in Him.

This devotion by Cardinal Newman, has been on my refrigerator, in one kitchen or another since 1990. It has served me well as a jump start in prayer and trust.

"God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about. "

I pray it blesses you today or tomorrow or maybe at some other point in 2011. Have a blessed first week of 2011.