Precious Hands

 

In the days before Covid-19 restrictions, when toddler grandchildren could visit us at home, I always smiled when they had left, as I wiped away the tiny handprints they left behind, smudged on glazed doors. There is something precious and unique about our hands.

I have two hand-made Christmas cards sitting on my table at the moment, made by three precious grandchildren. Callan fashioned his handprint into a cheeky robin with a googly eye. Ella and Joel put their handprints together into a beautiful butterfly design. Special.

There is something amazing about hands. With them we can build, we can be creative, inventive, loving, protective, kind.

In Isaiah, God assures us that he holds our hand: ‘Fear not, I am the one who helps you.’ Whatever we face today, he holds our hand and is with us, helping us. He declares that he has engraved us on his hands: the creative, kind, healing hands of our Saviour Jesus pierced and torn for us. Such desecration. Such love.

I thank God today that I have two hands which still function. Two hands with which to cook and clean and garden and sew, type and brush hair and caress loved faces. I thank God for the hands of those three precious little ones, preserved in a moment in time. What wonderful things will they do with their hands in their lifetimes, I wonder?

May we all put our hands to good use today, offering help, doing mundane tasks, creating beauty, having fun. So thankful for the promise of Jesus, that ‘no-one will snatch’ us out of his hand. No one.

Daring

 

The huge parachute which cushioned the drop to Mars of NASA’s scientific rover was red and white. It carried a binary message, a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. Dare Mighty Things. And co-ordinates to the launch site in Pasadena, CA.

I could have stared at the pretty red and white parachute and never realised that a message was embedded there. It is a message which requires knowledge in order to decipher it.

The letter to the Romans says that God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. They are understood from what has been made. The heavens declare the glory of God. His attention to beauty and diversity is everywhere. And his is not a message conveyed in an esoteric code which only a few can read. There was a thought in the early church that one needed secret knowledge in order to be saved. No. Jesus said he is the Saviour, the truth, the light, the way. We only need to know him.

During this pandemic, I’ve read again and again that nature is healing. That spending time walking in a wood or by a stream or appreciating flowers or bees brings blessing and calm to the worried spirit.

May you meet with our loving Creator God today, wherever you immerse yourself. No prior knowledge required. Just an open heart ready to receive his love.

Dare Mighty Things.

Vision

 

This morning, the sun streams through the window, dazzling me. Welcome! So welcome!

Yesterday, I had an hour to wait for the car’s windscreen wiper to be fixed. No sign of the sun then! I had crept slowly down to the garage, peering through the rain-spattered windscreen, finding it easier, weirdly, to see through the drips while wearing my sunglasses, than without them.

Leaving the car, I headed to the river for a walk. Should have worn those waterproof trousers. Rain was sheeting at me, horizontally, and before long, the waterproof jacket was successfully wheaking the water off it, providing a steady stream to soak my jeans.

I walked stoically on. Wearing a face mask, with a woollen hat pulled low and my hood encasing all, I was unrecognisable. If I’d met anyone.

The Dee was in spate, rollicking and spuming over rocks, carrying sticks and other debris in its cold waves. Meltwater and recent rains combined to swell it above some of the banks.

Speak to me, Lord, I prayed. I am listening. There’s a lot going on in my life, and yet there is a sense of suspended animation, too. A routine. A repetitiveness. A sense of being cloistered. I am listening, I said, again and again. And then I did listen.

I found myself thinking of Martha and Mary. There’s a lot to do, Jesus said, but you have a choice. Mary made the better choice. To sit and listen at My feet.

What will you do today? What will I do?

Chinese Rowan

 

Chinese rowan tree. The tree whose name I forgot yesterday. Beautiful creamy pink translucent berries in the autumn.

The tree whose name I forgot. God never forgets our names. I just reread the story of Joseph and the injustice he suffered at the hands of Potiphar’s wife. He was thrown into a dark hole of a prison but God didn’t forget his name. God didn’t forget him.

During Lent, along with IJM I’m praying for those suffering terrible injustices in the world. Those who are enslaved; those who are persecuted and unjustly imprisoned. Those who feel forgotten. I don’t know the names of those thousands, those millions, who suffer unspeakable horrors at the hands of merciless people in power.

I don’t know their names, but God does. May he bless and encourage everyone who is imprisoned in a dark place today, whether it be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Jesus came to set the captive free.

It's a new dawn

 

It’s a new dawn; it’s a new day. It’s a quiet house.

School is open.

Yesterday, I stared glaikit at the bird feeders hanging on the curvaceous branches of one of the trees whose name I just don’t remember! I was thinking a type of far eastern tree, which gets translucent berries in autumn. Rather than watching the frenetic feeding of the birds, my eye was drawn to the grace and beauty of the bare branches of the tree.

I do love spring, with its new growth, and summer in its fulsomeness, and the autumn colours, but the stark beauty of this tree was awesome. Seasonal beauties. Everything is beautiful in its time.

For the first time, a simple thought penetrated my mind. Although the tree there is dormant and stripped down, dead to the naked eye, the next season for it is not death. The next season is new life.

I know it’s obvious, but I’ve had death on my mind a bit as a friend of many years is being cremated today. And I thought, though his last months were stripped down and bare, today he is not dead, but born again to new life, just out of our view.

Easter is real. Jesus rose again. Spring is coming. I can feel it in the air. New life. New dawn. New day.

Meticulous Navigation

 

“The joiner is meticulous,” Don said. “If the plaster board on the ceiling is a tiny fraction out, we unscrew it and make it right.”

Of course. A small discrepancy can lead to a gaping hole by the end of the room.

I thought again about the BBC program I watched the other night. It documented the relationship between evangelical American Christians, Israel and Trump. It led me to question what I should call myself. A name should reveal principles and beliefs that I espouse, and if by calling myself a Christian, I am associated – in the minds of unbelievers – with the same beliefs as those evangelicals, I don’t want to call myself that. I may adopt one of two other names I’ve heard – ‘red letter Christians’, who stick to the words of Jesus as highlighted in red in many Bibles – or Jesus-follower. In my Bible study group yesterday, we read in Acts that it was in Antioch that believers were first called Christians. What a beautiful name, and what a privilege to be associated as a disciple of a healer, a man of peace, a man of justice and mercy and love who embraced all peoples no matter their creed or colour or gender. It is such a privilege to bear the name of Jesus Christ – and it fills me with sorrow to think how tarnished that name now is.

If a ship’s navigator is slightly out in his calculations, a ship may never reach its destination. The navigator has to be meticulous, constantly checking the ship’s position. Everyone who calls themselves by the name of Jesus Christ has to be meticulous, checking their viewpoints by the words and actions of Jesus as recorded in Scripture. Otherwise, what starts out as a small misunderstanding or misinterpretation can grow into a huge and horrible gap, where a believer is embracing a twisted theology and living out of a self-centred misunderstanding. Instead of being a witness to the love of Jesus, one can become a witness to human motivations and calculated manipulations.

I am reminded, yet again, of the absolute importance of prayerful Bible reading, and the helpfulness of studying Scripture with other believers. It’s as we gather, even on Zoom, that we find our understanding illuminated.

The Jab

 

Welcome rays of warm sunshine beam through my window pane (still dirty I’m afraid…). It’s a new day, a glorious day, a gift from God. What am I going to do with this precious gift of Today?

Amongst other things, I am getting The Jab today. I am grateful that God has given scientists brains to conceive of ways to fight this pernicious virus. I am grateful that the NHS is working so hard to roll it out in a planned strategy, not dependent on any individual’s ability to pay. I am grateful for all the nurses and doctors working so hard to make people safe. I am so grateful.

The vaccine isn’t 100% effective I am told. There are some people who may still be vulnerable to the original virus. There are variants which might still cause disease.

Jesus is 100% effective against sin. In this world we will have trouble, he said, but he has overcome the world. My part is to give him my heart every day, give him my mind and my life, and trust him. He will never leave me nor forsake me, however many variants of temptation may come my way.

I give him myself today and trust him to keep me focused on and abiding in Him. I am so grateful.