These Last Few Days...

It is Monday morning again.  I am tarrying a bit because I found out that if I leave 20 minutes later than usual, I will arrive only 13-15 minutes later than usual...and still about 15 minutes before everyone else starts flowing in.  Why waste five more minutes on the train?

This weekend was full of activity.  Good things, blessings.  Good Friday service, time with friends, time in the kitchen, baptism for Mr. Squire's college friend, two Easter services, Easter dinner with our church family.  I am deeply grateful for the work-free holiday weekend and for the opportunities it afforded to meet with people, truly stop and listen, and absorb life.

Among the things I hear God pointing out or saying to me are:

• You spend too much time worrying about what may or may not come.  In doing so, you forget that I hold the entire world, including your past, present, and future.  Look at your past, and the many other times you worried about where you might or might not be today.  Look at your present:  do you not marvel at how I made things fall into place for you, and indeed, blessed you more than you previously could have imagined?  Now look toward your future:  do I not hold that future, just as I held your past and I hold your present?  Trust in Me.  I walk before you and will be with you.

• You are flawed, sinful, and stained - but I love you because you are mine, and nothing can change that.

On a totally separate note, as I've been attempting to reflect more on the cross these last couple weeks, one thing that has helped me a lot is sheep imagery.  The Bible often speaks of people as sheep, and what an insult! Sheep are wayward, wandering here and there, getting themselves into trouble, not particularly strong or self-sufficient, constantly in need of a guardian, helpless to save or direct themselves.  (In contrast, camels are strong, entirely self-sufficient, and never get lost. Go camels!)  I suppose sheep are a fitting description of mankind.  

During Good Friday service, we sang "Amazing Grace," and I was trying to really focus on the words because so many hymns are so familiar that I just sing along without reflecting on their meaning.  When we sang "I once was lost but now am found," I had this imagine in my mind of me as a sheep, frantically wandering around a mountain field, utterly alone and trying to find the rest of the herd.  In that moment, the world felt so huge, and I felt so alone--and so panicked.  Then I pictured Jesus the Shepherd, finding me, and felt a wave of utter relief and comfort.  That, times a million, is what happens when our souls are saved... let me not forget as we move on from Easter... and may I continue to reflect on what that rescue cost Jesus.  I still can hardly understand it.