Apart from my seasonal allergies, this is my favorite time of year. April and May are glorious in middle Tennessee. I’m currently typing these words with the windows open as a light morning rain polka-dots the driveway. Robins, cardinals, and wrens are singing in harmony just outside, while an occasional mockingbird adds her chorus to the mix.   I recently planted a variety of annuals and perennials in pots and in flower beds, hoping and praying as I plunged my spade into the dirt that the flowers, herbs, and tomato plants would survive through August, and the rosebushes would be there for much longer.   As I added some bright red vincas to the planters on my front porch, I spied glistening trails all along the brick porch steps. They looked like snaking threads of silver. I traced one trail until I saw a tiny snail as big as my thumbnail. It was slowly and methodically making its way from one end of the step to the other. I looked away from the snail for a few minutes to focus on my task of getting those vincas in the potting soil. After I had watered everything and cleaned up my mess, I looked for the snail again. It had begun its arduous ascent up the knee wall. Even though they’re known for moving slowly it was chugging along at top snail speed.   My interactions with the snail and the flowers made me stop and think about how something can seem so gradual and unhurried—like watching a flower bloom or a snail reach its destination or a child grow up—and then it’s somehow suddenly over.   It’s like King David’s expression of grief and wonderment in Psalm 39 where he says, “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.”   That’s the other thing about the month of May. It’s about beautiful spring weather, but it’s also about the “vain rushing about” that David described. It’s also known as the month of graduations and the start of summer weddings. Major milestones are written in bold letters in the boxes of our May calendars.   A few months ago, our 14-year old son asked me, “What’s the point of having kids if they’re just going to grow up and move away?” That’s a valid question. In the last few years, he’s been a groomsman twice and attended several graduations. In his own way, he recognized how fleeting life is.   So as I praise God for these glorious spring days and witness those that I love grow and change, I will try to notice all of the journey—the snail and the trail, the start and the finish and the race in-between. I’ll listen to the words of another psalm, Psalm 143: “I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you.”

When I was growing up as the middle of three sisters, we spent a lot of our summers in the Great Outdoors. Getting kids to play outside was less of a battle back then than it is for parents today. We only had a few television channels to watch and no video games or smartphones to keep us inside, glued to screens. We might start the day watching a few games shows, but the options interested us less and less as the day went on and the lineup of soap operas began. So we’d head out to the backyard to play on the swing set or ride our bikes around the neighborhood.   One of our favorite summer pastimes involved a Radio Flyer wagon and a steep driveway. Living amongst the hills of Nashville, our driveway started at street level and plunged at an incline to the bottom before curving around to the area in front of the garage door. Where the driveway leveled off at the bottom, there was a long curb dividing the asphalt from a sloping little vegetable garden. We loved to take turns sitting at the top of the driveway in our red wagon, holding the handle against our chest with our eyes clearly focused on the goal: Ride the wagon down the steep incline at breakneck speed, then use the handle to steer to the right just in time to avoid flying headfirst over the curb and into the squash and cucumber plants in the garden. It’s a miracle that we never broke a bone or suffered anything more than a skinned knee with these Evel Knievel stunts.   Another favorite summer activity was to challenge each other to Hot Foot Races. As the name implies, we would race barefoot across the blazing hot blacktop. The heat of sisterly competition and the actual heat of the asphalt would spur us on to break Olympic speed records (at least, that’s how I remember it).   I’ve never been much of an athlete, so these outdoors sporting events were the closest I get to understanding the author of the book of Hebrews when he says in chapter 12, “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”   When reading these verses, it helps to read the chapter that precedes it: Hebrews 11, the Faith Hall of Fame. Here we see a list of Bible heroes and their claims to fame—Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph, to name a few. Then at the end of the list, we read, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”   Then Hebrews 12 begins with: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” The great cloud of witnesses are those heroes listed before, the ones who went before us and showed great faith and endurance even though they didn’t live long enough to see Jesus on earth as he made everything perfect and complete.   Unlike those races of my summers long ago, Hebrews 12 isn’t talking about those short sprints across the blacktop or down a driveway. We’re told to take part in a marathon requiring us to “run with perseverance.”  Fortunately for us, we have One who’s gone ahead and demonstrated the route we should take, a pioneer who has placed mile markers along the way and raised the banner for the finish line. We just need to fix our eyes on Him.

I’ve always been a big fan of those TV makeover shows. My favorites are the episodes that tell the backstory of deserving families who have suffered great loss, and due to circumstances out of their control (sickness, death, housefire, etc.), their homes have fallen into disrepair. Then a team of carpenters and designers show up, and a week or so later, the house is better than ever. They’ve added outdoor living spaces and personalized bedrooms for the kids. In some cases, there are new wheelchair ramps and even elevators.   The best part of these shows are the before and after pictures. You see a shot of a crumbling ceiling, peeling paint, and stained carpet. Then cut to the update. They removed walls and replaced windows, opening up the floor plan for natural light. Everything is changed.   As much as I enjoy these stories, the absolute best version of this “Before” and “After” contrast comes near the end of all four of the Gospels. In the Apostle John’s account starting in chapter 19, we read about Jesus being flogged and brutally crowned with a twisted circle of thorns. He was made to carry the beam which would be his cross and watch his mother as she wept. Then after he died, his body was taken down and buried. Most of his friends were afraid and scattered.   Though the chapter breaks were added more than 1,000 years after the authors wrote their accounts, it’s obvious why the early church theologians set up these sections the way they did. Even if you know how the story ends, when you finish John 19, you feel the weight of what has just happened. There was literal darkness in the middle of the day (like we read in Matthew 27:45 – “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.”), and those dark and hopeless feelings remain. Then you turn the page…   John 20 begins this way: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb...” It was still dark because she was out before sunrise, but I would bet that Mary felt that darkness down to her toenails. She may have shivered and pulled her cloak a little tighter around her slumped shoulders as she entered the garden, approaching the tombs of the dead. But that was her “Before,” and she was about to get her “After.” The rest of that verse says: “(she) saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” Mary was sure what this meant. At first, she wouldn’t allow herself to believe it was the miracle of resurrection.   She ran to find Peter and John, then she told them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” The men came to inspect the empty tomb and ran back home. But Mary couldn’t run anymore. She stood by the empty tomb and cried until two angels spoke to her. Maybe her vision was blurred by her tears, but the reality of the presence of these angelic beings didn’t seem to faze her. When they asked why she was crying, Mary repeated the words she had said to the disciples: “They’ve taken his body and I don’t know where they put him.”   Then Mary turned to see a man who she thought was a gardener standing behind her. Again, Mary continued with what must’ve seemed the most logical conclusion— for her to assume someone took Jesus’ body. If she could just discover where they moved it, she could complete her task, to add burial spices to his wrapped corpse. Then this apparent gardener said one word that changed her morning…well, it changed her life. The man she thought was a stranger said her name. “Mary.” Then she knew Jesus had risen.   This isn’t a story just for Mary Magdalene or Peter and John. This is also a “Before” and “After” story for me and you. It’s time to turn around and see the One who’s so much more than we sometimes give Him credit for. He’s our Passover Lamb and our Risen Savior, and if you listen closely, you’ll hear him saying your name, too.

I love to study Scripture, and one of my favorite moments is when I stumble across a person whose story is barely known, but who still played a vital role in God’s Big Book of Humanity. For example, we can look at the life of Bezalel, a man from the Book of Exodus whose name means "in the shadow or protection of God."   To understand Bezalel, let’s set the scene for where we are in history. The Israelites have left Egypt. Moses has received the Ten Commandments (and all the other more detailed laws) from God. And now God is giving them specific instructions about how to build the tabernacle—God’s transportable dwelling place that will house sacred items like the Ark of the Covenant.   After hundreds of years as slaves in Egypt, with the most recent generations mostly just making bricks from rudimentary materials like clay and sand, God is now asking His people to make something truly grand…something unlike anything they’ve made before. But God doesn’t just lay a really impossible task in front of them and say, “Good luck!” He tells them what materials to use to make the structure and the furniture. He tells them the dimensions of everything and even how to transport the pieces. He also worked it out the details ahead of time. By telling Moses to demand that the Egyptians give the Israelites their jewelry as they left town, He made sure they would have the precious jewels and gold required for the project. God thought of everything!   Then in Exodus 31, we read that God tells Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel…and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” You would assume Bezalel would need this extra inspirational instruction because he may not have been used to working with gold, silver, bronze and precious stones.   Bezalel came from a legacy of faithful and godly men, so when he was given a task—to lead other artisans as they carried out God’s specific instructions—we see him do just that. It says, “Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood…” and then it goes on to describe just what he did, repeating the instructions from a few chapters earlier. I have to believe that Bezalel was a new man after he was given these new responsibilities. People change when expectations for them change. They either shirk from their obligations or they meet the challenge. I’m sure the fact that he was “filled with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills” made all the difference in how he carried out his duties.   It's important to remember that this wasn’t a one-off—the one and only time God inspired, authorized, and equipped someone for a special task. God does this all the time . He is in the business of making us unique and giving us unique gifts to be used for his glory. Paul talked about this very thing in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul said, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. …the body is not made up of one part but of many….God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” Just like Bezalel, we all have an important role to play in the kingdom!

A few weeks ago, I was presented with the opportunity to be in the car with just me and my youngest son, our 14-year old Question-Asker, for 6.5 hours. (I say “opportunity” instead of “inconvenience,” because if you have to drive to Atlanta and back in a day, you might as well make the best of it, and positive language is important in those moments when you have to do possibly unpleasant tasks.) Back to my day as a long-haul trucker…   If you’re lucky and your teen is in a confined space for long enough, you might get him talking about real things. Ezra started telling me about “getting heated” (one of his favorite phrases to describe when he nearly loses his temper) at school and on the soccer field. Then, out of the clear blue sky above I-75, I was given a parable to talk him through those heated moments.   I asked him if he’d ever seen one of those TV shows where there’s a bomb that has to be turned off before everyone blows up. Not growing up in the era of shows like MacGyver , he sort of knew what I was talking about. I went on to explain that there’s usually a briefcase holding some kind of an electronic device with various wires attached to it. There are also cylinders of explosives and a timer ticking down to zero. The dilemma comes from knowing which helpfully color-coded wire to cut so that the timer stops.   I told him that his temper is like that bomb, ready to go off and blow up anyone nearby. Whether the “heated” situation is his fault or someone else’s, his job is to defuse the bomb, to neutralize the explosive atmosphere and rescue the bystanders. Once it detonates, the debris and carnage can be really difficult to clean up and put right.   So how does he know which wire to cut? This is where finesse comes in, a concept of tact and sensitivity which can be fairly difficult for teenaged boys (or anyone, to be honest) to master, but what a skill to have! He has to learn to take deep breaths and choose words so he can survive temper flares with friends (maybe use comic relief?) or teachers (always exhibit absolute respect and remorse) or mom (for heaven’s sake, no back-talk!). Those different colored wires represent different approaches. It may seem complicated, but relationships are worth all that trouble.   The other thing to keep in mind is that there are times when we just don’t know how best to defuse the situation. We have to call in the experts. On those TV shows, a novice sometimes needs step-by-step instructions from the bomb squad, and you better believe he follows their guidance exactly . Relationships are complex, so ask for help when navigating a tricky situation.   I reminded Ezra that the best place to start in any potentially explosive encounter is to remember Proverbs 15:1. “A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.” A giant mile marker on the road to maturity is the humble use of gentle words.

I recently learned a fascinating fact about the North American elk, a giant species of deer which can weigh over 700 pounds. Because these massive creatures roam around the famously windy forests of the Rocky Mountains, the male elk make a surprisingly high-pitched shrieking sound to attract the attention of the females. They have developed this method so they can be heard above the cacophony of those howling winds. Scientists point out that in most situations, the larger the animal the lower their trademark mating calls, making the elk’s “bugling” an interesting exception to that “Big Animal = Deep Call” rule. (Check out this video to learn more!)   We’ve had some really blustery weather in the last few weeks, so I can understand the confusing effects of a windy day. Clothes and hair whipping around my face as the wind blows grass and gravel and dirt into the air. It’s distracting and disorienting. Even though the wind is just the movement of invisible air, that movement can bend tree branches and whistle around buildings like an incoming freight train. There are times when it’s all you can do just to stand in the middle of it.   That’s what life can feel like, gale-force winds coming at us from all directions. God is reaching out to us with His Word, His Spirit, His Love, but all we notice is the swirling gale. So in His merciful kindness, the Lord found a way to cut through all the noise. He found the exact right pitch to meet us where we are. He sent His Son as a human, a weak and vulnerable baby. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 4, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” He could’ve come in a crashing thunderstorm but He chose a baby’s cry.   And the call He makes to our hearts through Jesus, His Son, isn’t just for our connection to Him. It also changes how we live with one another. As we read in Philippians 2, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” The bugling call we use to reach out to others is supposed to be rooted in humility and selflessness.   There are times when the story of the Bible doesn’t seem to make sense. Why those people? Why that place? Why that time? But I’m confident God knew just what He was doing. The wickedness and disasters which often trip us up didn’t throw Him off His game. Just as He knew those Rocky Mountain winds would be loud before the trees had grown an inch, God knew that we needed Jesus—fully man and fully God, our king sacrificing Himself for us.

You had your last time to drive a car or read a book or solve a crossword puzzle. You've already knitted your last sock and sewn your last button and made your last pie crust. And today was your last day to go to the Symphony.   For the past fifty years, you’ve been worshipping at churches without musical instruments, but that wasn't always your regular Sunday routine. During the more than twenty years at the beginning of your life, you went to a little Nazarene church where you would hear the piano accompanying the hymns and eventually you would play in the song service. And because of that, I always thought you somehow heard the phantom echoes of a tinkling piano each time we sang a hymn. Standing up during a song, I would see your fingers play an imaginary keyboard on the back of the pew in front of us, your slender fingers designed for a pianist tapping along with the notes you sang in your bright soprano.   But today, when you went downtown to the grand auditorium to hear Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, your humming and rocking distracted the people around you. After the hubbub of intermission, things only got worse. The man in front of you told you to be quiet, so you left and you won’t go back. It’s just one more thing this disease has taken from you.   Sometimes we see the “last times” coming around the corner on the eve of big events, like the night before getting married or moving to a new place or graduating. If you’re in the right frame of mind, you pause as you realize that it’s the last time to lock the front door or walk down that particular hallway. But there are other times when you might not know you’re living through your last time.   So, for whatever time we have left with you, I want to stop and mark the end of something, even if it’s painful. I want to celebrate the things that made who you were, maybe deep down who you still are. You can still love music, but your fingers don’t remember how to play the notes on the piano which is gathering dust in your den, the one your piano teacher gave you a lifetime ago. It’s also the piano you used to play for us so that we could dance around the living room, picturing ourselves as graceful ballerinas even though we were mostly just three clumsy, little girls with active imaginations.   As we try to navigate this new world with you so altered, we feel like those same clumsy, little girls but without the imagined gracefulness. We’re unsure of our roles and how best to help. For now, we rejoice that you’re happy to see us and that you say over and over how much you love us. So turn up the volume on Tchaikovsky or Bach or Karen Carpenter, for that matter, and hum into the sunshine, because we don't know how many sunny days we have left.

There’s a song which I really love that we sing at our church a lot. The chorus comes straight from Psalm 86. It goes like this: “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” After singing it on a recent Sunday morning and getting it stuck in my head the rest of the day, I started really thinking about the words for the first time. Upon reflection, I came up with this crucial question: How in the world am I supposed to have an “undivided heart”?   King David wrote this psalm, so if by “heart” he means my mind and understanding and my whole inner self, then I can already tell this is going to be a tough one for me. I live my life doing and thinking about several things at the same time. In fact, like a lot of women, I pride myself on my high-level multi-tasking abilities. When we go on long car trips, I’m amazed at my (very intelligent) husband’s ability to just drive and drive while maybe listening to music. After a few miles tick by, sometimes I’ll ask him, “What are you thinking about?” He’ll almost always say, “Nothing.” This is ludicrous to me. I’m simultaneously thinking about what we need from Kroger, birthday present ideas for our kids, a plot twist in the sci-fi thriller series we’ve been watching, and so forth. So if “undivided heart” means “undivided mind,” then I’m in trouble.   So I did a little digging into Psalm 86. David wrote this very personal prayer asking God—David’s sovereign Lord—for help. As theologian Matthew Henry explains this prayerful psalm, “It is true, prayer accidentally may preach, but it is most fit that (as it is in this prayer) every passage should be directed to God, for such is the nature of prayer.” So I tried to digest each verse of this psalm as a prayer sent from a world-weary, down-trodden man to his Lord to see if this would give me a clue as to how I could develop an undivided heart.   Concentrating on verses 11-12, I read: “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.” Whether or not David meant for these to be sequential steps, I’m approaching them that way as I aim for a single-minded commitment to seeking God’s will. 1) Ask God to teach me His way.s 2) Then I’m more likely to rely on Him. 3) Ask God to give me a pure heart. 4) Then I’ll revere and submit to the wonder of God. 5) And the end result will be demonstrated by a life of praise and adoration.   As I studied these verses, I realized that my original uncertainty about my own “undivided heart” was for good reason. It is actually impossible for me to make this happen…without God. That’s why this is a prayer and not a tutorial. David knew how he was feeling—scared, destitute, surrounded by his enemies—so he took his worries to Adonai. Not because this was one potential solution among many, but because a God-trusting, name-fearing undivided heart beats for one reason—to glorify Him.   I heard one of our ministers say once that it’s not about making God your #1 priority. It’s about making Him THE priority. Full stop. And if this sounds too difficult or you think your heart has been sliced up into too many pieces for too long, take comfort from the words of Ezekiel 11. In this chapter, God is talking about His chosen people who have worshipped idols and done every other despicable thing they could think of, but He is ready to give them spiritual heart surgery. He said, “They will return to (the land of Israel) and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” Lord, give me an undivided heart!

Thirty or so years ago, I spent a few summer months in eastern Europe. I went with a group of college students who offered free English lessons, and we used Luke’s gospel as our textbook. Our weekdays were filled with teaching teenaged and adult students of varying levels of English competency, but on Saturdays we were allowed to do a little shopping.   I remember walking through a department store with a friend, looking for gifts for family back home. As we tried to compute the exchange rate of the price tags versus US dollars, we saw a row of brightly-colored t-shirts with the brand name “Lee” printed in the center. Only it was really Lee. The “e” letters were flipped upside and backwards so that it looked a bit like “LGG.” After we noticed this, we started seeing lots of American brands that were just a little inaccurate, and we realized they were knock-offs, counterfeit merchandise.   With the widespread use of AI bots and ChatGPT, more than ever I’m looking for something real, something face to face, something personal. Jesus had words of warning about those with a counterfeit message about the coming of the Son of Man. In Matthew 24, He said, “If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, ‘Here’s the Messiah!’ or points, ‘There he is!’ don’t fall for it. Fake Messiahs and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive credentials and bewitching performances will pull the wool over the eyes of even those who ought to know better.” ( The Message ) We didn’t invent deceit and phony propaganda in this century. We just keep creating new ways to trick people.   Fake Messiahs reminds me of the seventh book in C.S. Lewis’ masterful series, The Chronicles of Narnia . In the final book, which is aptly titled The Last Battle, the reader is introduced to Puzzle the Donkey and Shift the Ape. It’s the final days of Narnia and these animals have discovered a lion skin that made its way down a waterfall and into the pool where they hauled it out. Shift tricks Puzzle into wearing the lion skin which the ape sews up into a costume. The plan is for Puzzle to pretend to be Aslan, the Great Lion of Narnia, and Shift will speak for this counterfeit king. As the story moves forward, you see that Shift is using Aslan’s name to get the power he craves. Confusion and chaos reigns as good people follow a fake leader down a dangerous path. Shift even convinces some that Aslan is the same as Tash, the false god worshipped by the Calormenes.   Before the real identity of Puzzle is eventually revealed (please read this series if you haven’t, or do it again if you have), the human king of Narnia is a prisoner along with his trusty steed, Jewel the Unicorn. The king is considering his looming death and says, “Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death? That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun.”   Not to give everything away (did I mention that you should read this??), but Aslan does return triumphantly and the ending of the book is the most beautiful glimpse into heaven and eternal life. They experience a realness that’s unlike anything they’ve known before. The colors are inexplicably brilliant. It’s as if the world they knew before—even on its best days—was just a distorted reflection in a mirror. This is what I’m holding out for, a life so real and so rewarding that all else pales in comparison. No knock-offs and cheap imitations. I want what I can only get from living under the rule of the true King.

When I was a little girl I had a very high standard for beauty. (Not my own personal prettiness, of course. I was just your average, brown-eyed middle child with a haircut that looked like a brown mixing bowl with bangs.) My requirements for my “what makes you beautiful” list included blue eyes fringed with dark lashes and blond, curly hair. There should also be diamonds and pearls and satin and feather boas and high heels. I think you know where I’m going here…In my mind, if you looked up beautiful in the dictionary—especially in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was a child—there would be a picture of the incomparable Miss Piggy. Sure, she was a Muppet, and I’ll admit she was a heartless diva, and don’t get me started on her on-again-off-again romance with Kermit. But she was still my ideal, the unattainable goal.   Now that I lived a little life and seen a few things, I’ve shifted what I know about beauty. Proverbs 31, often known as the chapter with the section about “The Wife of Noble Character,” is a big help as I try to understand what it really means to add beauty to the world. The woman described in verses 10-31 is resourceful, hard-working, generous, strong, wise, and dignified. She’s the total package. Her husband admires her and her children praise her (and not just because they want her to let them invite friends over for a sleepover). This list may seem impossible, but it’s not based on one particular person. It’s a catalog of goals for us to wake up each morning and try again (with God’s help) to aim for.   The list ends with “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” The Apostle Peter echoes these same sentiments in his first letter when he advises: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves.” So that pretty much eliminates Miss Piggy from winning a Bible Inner Beauty Pageant.   These scriptures are great reminders for me about the thing our moms always told us: It’s what’s on the inside that counts. Now we just have to act like this is true with how we spend our time improving ourselves and the way we value each other. If we love the God-created person next to us by building him/her up without focusing on the exterior, we become better friends, better parents, better spouses.   The lyrics from one of my favorite songs by the band NEEDTOBREATHE has these lines in the chorus: I wanna hold you close, but never hold you back/Just like the banks to the river And if you ever feel like you are not enough/I'm gonna break all your mirrors I wanna be there when the darkness closes in/To make the truth a little clearer I wanna hold you close, but never hold you back/Just like the banks to the river.

Growing up in Nashville, I remember summer nights, going to an ice cream place with my parents and sisters called Dee’s Delights. Since we wouldn’t get out of the car, these impromptu outings were a chance to ride in the car barefoot. We’d eat our cones and shakes in the station wagon and it was, as the restaurant’s name would suggest, dee-lightful.   Delight is one of those words that I love, especially when it shows up in Scripture like in Psalm 18. This psalm, written by King David to praise God for rescuing him when he was in distress, starts off with this description: “For the director of music. Of David the servant of the Lord. He sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.”   Later we read, “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.” Then comes one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible: “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”   The idea of God looking at me and feeling delighted touches a deep place inside me. We all want to be accepted and loved and cared for, and to know that my Creator “reached down from on high and took hold of me” is humbling and comforting. He wants us to do more than just survive. He wants us to have the ease to roam freely in a spacious place, away from fear. And (bonus!) the assurance of His love for me, in spite of my flaws, makes it easier for me to love other flawed people.   I read a quote from author Max Lucado about this psalm that said, “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart. And the Christmas gift he sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you. When you feel overwhelmed and frightened by the “enemies” in your life, remember David’s song. God is your rock and your protector. He is able and willing to save you because he delights in you.”   On a good day, we might be tempted to think that God saved us because of how great we are…until we mess up. Then we realize that God must have different reasons for loving us that extend way past our ability to act right. (Thank goodness!) God saving us displays His mercy and His unique brand of justice. It gives us another reason to glorify Him, because we could never save ourselves. But in the same way that you look at the face of a newborn who you love so completely even before that baby has done anything for you, God delights in you.

Zonderkids I’ve started over reading the Bible chronologically again this year, so I find myself in the same place where I was last January—in the book of Genesis. Genesis means origin , so it’s the perfect name for the stories in the Bible that include creation—both of the natural world and the invention of human sin. We see the first man, the first woman, the first family.   In the Genesis story, we watch as God created His good world. By the end, He made animals and man (Adam), and Adam’s job was to care for God’s creation and name all the animals. God had called His creation “good” and “very good” (when it came to humans), but then God said something wasn’t good. God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” It wasn’t just during those six days of creation that God was in the “making” business. He’s a constant Creator. He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, then he removed one of Adam’s ribs. He used that bit of bone to make a woman, Eve.   So Adam and Eve lived happily in this perfect paradise for some unnamed amount of time. God had given them one rule, that they shouldn’t eat from one particular tree. That was it! Just that one thing to avoid. Then the serpent showed up, and its main objective was to get them to break that rule. He didn’t use force or violence or threats. The serpent used doubt. It said to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” And Eve answered that yes, they weren’t supposed to eat from that particular tree. She said that if they did, they would die.   Then the serpent said, “You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The Enemy used a grain of truth mixed with lies to sow doubt into Eve’s mind, because, as we see in the next few verses, their eyes were opened, and they did become aware of good and evil. Part of what the Serpent said was right, but his motivation for convincing Eve to disobey was never for her good.   So Eve ate the fruit and gave some to Adam. Then, they became aware of right and wrong and they also realized that they were naked, so they made clothes from fig leaves. They hid from God, and God called to them, “Where are you?” Then Adam said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”   And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Of course, God knew exactly what had happened. He wanted them to say it aloud, to practice confession, the first step in repairing their relationship. Adam blamed their sin on Eve, and Eve blamed it on the serpent. Then God started handing out judgments. He cursed the serpent to crawl on its belly. He declared that Eve and the women who followed her would have pain in childbirth, and there would always be conflict between women and men. And Adam would be cursed to have to work the hard ground to eke out a living, then he would die.   At first glance, this feels like a pretty depressing story, but reading through it again recently, I came across something I hadn’t noticed before. When Adam and Eve first discovered that they’re naked they made ridiculous clothes for themselves. How does anyone even sew fig leaves together? But after God speaks to them, chastising them for their disobedience, He makes better clothes for them. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21)   Before God kicked them out of His perfect garden, He made them more appropriate clothes, clothes that would protect them from the harsh elements they would encounter outside of the garden. They felt shame over their nakedness and hid, but God—in his great mercy and grace—covered them with love and care. God’s kindness to us is more than we could ever deserve!