Garden Gloves

I have always been attracted to clearance tables.  The lure of finding a great bargain  pulls me in.   There are always fantastic deals on items that I might not need now, but that I can always use later.  Once while rummaging through the items on a clearance table I found a pair of gardening gloves marked down to fifty cents.  What a steal!  This is something I’ll use. 

A few weeks later I was digging in the garden when it struck me, I should get those gloves.   I knew they would come in handy.  I was quite pleased with myself as I walked toward the house,” Look at me” I thought, “I’m so prepared.”  Walking back to the garden with the gloves in my hand, I noticed something I hadn’t before.  My wonderful bargain was a pair of two left gloves.  I’m left handed, but not quite that left handed.  If only I had two left hands!   My fabulous deal was pretty useless, but it was a good fifty cent reminder.

The Bible compares the Church to a body. In the body of Christ each part has its purpose.  Although some purposes may seem more important or more prestigious each part is necessary and each job needs to be done.   1 Corinthians 12:18-20 tells us….. 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

 It is easy to look at our positions in the Church and think of them as unimportant.  There is the awful temptation to say “I wish I were more like they are.”  God has given each of us abilities and personalities that are suited to the purposes He has for us.  Each individual is unique and necessary.  Nobody needs two left gloves, and no body needs two left hands.  Christ’s body needs each of us to be complete.   Thank you Jesus, that you have a purpose and a place for me.   

A Lesson From Ladybugs

 The Fall my husband and I moved into our first house there seemed to be an abundance of ladybugs.   As the weather cooled, they settled on the house in nooks and crannies around windows and cedar shingles to hibernate.  The house was covered; I couldn’t get over how many ladybugs there were.

               It was a difficult time.   We had, only a few months before, lost our first baby who had been stillborn.  I was raw with grief, we both were.  Money was tight.  Daily life felt like quite a struggle.  In an effort to stretch funds we kept the heat pretty low, and used a wood stove to try to keep the house warm.

One day around mid-January the house seemed extra cold, so I decided to try to start a fire.  It was an old woodstove and could sometimes be a little tricky to light.  I couldn’t get the fire to light; all it would do is smoke.  In frustration I slammed the stove door.   A panel came out of the door, and now with a hole in it, the door could not contain the smoke.  As basement began to fill with smoke, I quickly ran up the stairs to open windows.   Ladybugs, long forgotten, fell into the house off the window.  What a nuisance, in the middle of this mess I had to clean up a bunch of dead bugs.

I went to get a broom and dustpan.  To my surprise, when I got back, the ladybugs had begun to crawl around.  They hadn’t been dead; they were just too cold to move.   The warmth from the house woke them up from their hibernation, and now they had ‘come to life’.

The truth of it slapped me in the face.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  (John 10:10 NIV)  Before experiencing Jesus’ transforming love we aren’t really living, we are like those frozen little ladybugs, alive, but not really living. When we accept Jesus, His love transforms our lives and then we start to experience the life that He really intends for us, life to the full.   In the middle of my grief I had become cold and miserable, forgetting the full life God had intended for me.  God used some little ladybugs to remind me that He loved me too much for me to stay like that.  Thank you, Jesus, that in you I can truly live.