Thin Places

That was our sermon title today.

My ears were pricked, thinking that this was going to address times when you are stretched a bit thin. I have been in a spiritual drought for some time, and needed some encouragement. Since I feel like the taffy pulled version of Mike Teavee, I figured this was all about me. I was wrong, and right.

Let me start by saying that we listened to Kim Hill's remix/medley of Nothing but the Blood of Jesus on the way to church, and Bert was singing. That is always a gift when my not-so-verbal son belts out a serious spiritual in the back seat, so my heart was primed.

It was GEMS Sunday, so I was with my girls in the front row. I was on the piano side, and our pianist is nothing short of prodigiously gifted. It's as if he's channeling the flow of music directly from the heavens to his fingers. He can make "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" sound like a concerto. My heart was moved, and my spine chilled as we opened the service in songs of praise. It's been so long....

As the sermon started, I found the pulpit supply pastor to be someone who appears to be smiling, even when dead serious. His face a light of joy, his voice harmonious and full of inflection. He pulled out a less than well-used chapter from Luke 9:28, and started reading about the transfiguration.

I cannot reiterate here what all he said, but he spoke to me about the thin places. Not places where we are stretched thin, but places where the gap between earth and heaven gets so thin that the Glory of the Lord briefly spills over into our earthly experience. As the early spring sun shone through our century old stained glass windows, the gap thinned, and our heavenly father allowed me a glimpse of his glory. It was so real, such a heart-thumping experience, that I was sure the whole congregation must have had the Theophany along with me.

As the service came to a close, and the GEMS proceeded out, down the stairs, the grumbling of some of the ladies about the negligence of not using our theme verse from GEMS for the sermon (1 John 3:1) I realized that I alone had experienced that thin place. That God's glory had broken through for my benefit alone. I was humbled to realize that my Lord and Savior had seen fit to answer my feeble prayers of "I believe, Lord help my unbelief," and push through my earthly experience to touch me momentarily.

I don't know where this will go, but I do know that I drank of living water today.

Underneath My Oven

I cleaned underneath my oven today, right after church. I knew it was icky for a long time, and it bothered me, just not enough to take care of it.

So today I got all busy and cleaned it out. Of course there was the dog hair, dust bunnies, remnants of food, and the few odd toys that had slipped underneath. There was a purple gumball (our gumball machine has not been in service for months). There was what once could have been a red peanut M&M. There was a sticky mess that was a spill that went nasty. I expected all that, in fact I expected worse.

What I didn't expect was that I found useful stuff. I found the lid to a container that I had saved, even though it was useless without the lid. One trip through the dishwasher and I will have a useful container again. I found the red sugar sprinkles that were MIA over Christmas. The container is still sealed, so I think I will wipe it all up and use them for Valentines cookies. So after all the work was done, I felt good and a bit more whole.

My spiritual life has been in the same ignored state as my oven. One of these days I'll have to get around to moving some heavy appliances and cleaning out my faith.

Inspired by Teddy

My thought for the day:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

- Teddy Roosevelt