It started it sleet and rain. I wasn’t going anywhere anyway so it didn’t matter. But as it has happened before: the snow didn’t happen. Whether it just stalled or the meteorologists got too excited about the possibility of a storm, the rest of the day didn’t pan out like they thought.
It’s not just the weather that doesn’t happen like we thought! Life has a way of happening and it’s NOT the way it had been forecast. But God said, but He promised, but it’s supposed to be, and it’s not. I listened to the rain hit the roof today and wanted snow. I looked it the window looking for snow and nothing. I look at the plans I thought and they aren’t happening. Of course we blame the weatherman when the weather doesn’t pan out. And of course I blame God when my heart plans don’t pan out. Yet, I have everything I could possibly need. Lord remind me that sometimes I think too much. Remind me to rest in who you are and not the fantasies I invent in my head.
It’s New Years Eve. We don’t have many traditions with holidays and definitely not with New Years Eve. It’s just another night and I don’t stay up late any night so won’t be watching the new year come in. Tonight, could be different.
There is something about watching something leave that you are frustrated with that gives one a feeling inside of satisfaction. When we bought our cabin there were lots of “stuff” left there. Did I want it? NO! So Tyler had a fun day of burning junk. It felt good to watch it burn. We had a couple old chairs that had been around since 1810. They were worthless. They got burned. Even a car or two that we sold, especially one that had bad memories for me, was nice to watch it go out the driveway. Repainting a wall that was an awful green color, giving away the old corduroy jeans I found in Jim’s closet when we first got married. (Well I did wait a year and when he hadn’t wore them, they left) There is something rewarding about watching the things that trouble you leave.
This year has been a trial. In many ways it’s been a year of challenge, mole hill turned mountain issues and that doesn’t even count Covid. It’s been a year of change, some good, some good turned sour, and trials that stress the heart. This is normal in life. The little rain that must fall quote, kind of turned into torrential downpours. And yet, if I hadn’t told you that, you may have never thought that life was a challenge. We were taught to make lemonade out of lemons. Figure out a way to deal with the stuff that gets in your way and most of all, find good you can do when you feel like crying. There will come the tears. We have buried several people this year that were special. It wasn’t Covid for most of them, it was life which eventually brings death. That’s not a surprise. Before 2020, people died. We all are. It’s how you handle the transition. Perhaps one of my favorite memories of the year involved a funeral and a burial high on a hill in Wisconsin. For you see amid tears, there are some beautiful things waiting to be seen if you don’t let the tears from looking up. I know it’s hard to cry and look up. Tears make everything look blurry. However, Psalm 126:5 reminds us that if we sow with tears we will reap with joy. In my limited way of seeing life, I know that when tears come the soil of my heart is moistened and I feel deeper, reach out to people and love more. Tears are like a fertilizer to grow toward each other.
So this year, I may stay up tonight and see the New Year in, or I may just fall into bed like we did last night, tired. We put a ceiling up in our newly vaulted room and we were tired. Today we finish the ceiling and start on the floor. The 21 packages of flooring are in the back of the truck sitting in the shop waiting! I may make a list of my top 20 things for 2020, and then maybe I won’t. Maybe I will make a list of the 20 things I have learned from 2020. I may find 20 pictures I took that make me go “ah” or I may just look at the calendar and say maybe next year. What I know I will do is to be thankful that I in the midst of a pandemic, have a faith and a future. Faith that walks me hand in hand with the creator of the universe, and a future that gives me hope that it’s not about what happens down here that defines me, but that God calls me his child.
Oh yes, and I have instead of cool dice hanging from my rear view window, I have masks! That pretty much defines the year with the variety I have dangling to remind me when I leave the car take one. It doesn’t work: more times than not I walk back to my car to get one when I get to the door of Kwik Trip, but I am not alone. The lady with her sweatshirt pulled up in an odd position reminds me we are all in this together and laughing at the everyday things we find in life somehow makes traditions, troubles, trials and tears a little bit easier!
I can hear the wind. I can feel the snow hit the windows and see the faint glow of the light up the road snow blustering all around it. It’s Christmas Eve, Eve. We make so much of a holiday that really doesn’t mean much. We make it mean a lot and I love every minute of it but really, does Jesus want us to wait in anticipation for the morning of his birthday on this earth to arrive? We make the best of it, this wonderful tribute to the birth of the Messiah but what would Jesus say? About my 9 foot tree, my fussing to wrap gifts and make special surprises for people? Does he even have an opinion and would I want to know what he thinks about the fuss we make here below. The theology in most of the Christmas carols is errant; beautiful melodies but probably far from the truth and yet, we celebrate. Why? Because even though Santa and frosty have their claim, people still see the baby in the manger and think about God. They sing the carols and think about God. They buy presents to show they love people and that very much reflects God. They share and find more kindness in their day- a wonderful way to honor God. So if something so out of the box can bring us back to thinking about, singing about and acting like God, do it. It’s quiet for a moment and the winds begin to blow again. It will be a quiet Christmas: our Covid Christmas. It will be a blessing because for another day people will turn towards God. Sometimes that’s all God needs to get their attention. Then the Holy Spirit starts to work in their heart all because of the tree, the carols and the crèche. Enjoy the beauty. I am in the quiet with just the wind to talk to me. It’s very soothing in an odd way.
I am reading through Jude one more time before I go on to another book to study. Jude: almost lost in the Johns. Jude: short and sweet and hard to beat. Jude: full of little phrases with great meaning . Clouds without water!
When we were kids we used to lie on the ground and watch the clouds. We saw animals, cars, trucks and the innocence of nothing to do but find cloud formations is an art long passed by. What I do remember was when we needed rain: badly. We would search those skies for something that would be the promise of rain: a cloud. Elijah saw a cloud as small as a mans fist and had the joy of a deluge. Clouds equate to many things and rain is one of them.
Obviously I am not the only enamored by the phrase. In 1909 Aleister Crowley wrote a book called Clouds without Water. It’s a collected or poetry. Jude 1:12 is where it’s found.
“These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted —twice dead.” Jude 1:12
I reread this morning and paused long enough to wonder if I was one of those people. This phrase is a contradiction. Empty promises, trees that promising bud but don’t fruit up. Bushes that have lots of green but nothing else. All talk and no action. People who do things to accomplish something for personal gain but it values no one else! Clouds without water! Water equates life. In the Bible water reflected the life of God. Water is important. Also important it to have a bucket without holes to carry the water to where it can be most useful. Watering the lawn and having holes in your hose , you may water the driveway more than you water the lawn! Been there done that. Having holes in the bucket might get some water but your effort is wasted as most of its running out the bottom of the bucket. I need to be a person who is full of water and can us easily get it where it’s needed. Sometimes we get side tracked by life and put our bucket of water down only to have the neighbor hood dogs drink out of our water bucket and ruin it. Be a cloud that brings refreshing rain on other and if you are a bucket, make sure you keep it in proper condition so it can be of a blessing to those who need water.
Hosea 6:3
Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. ” Hosea 6:3
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