Of bannisters and gloves...

Two events in life will always bring a sense of wonderment and awe to how fearfully and wonderfully we are made. The first was experienced several years ago when my brother, Monte, and I decided to rent the house we were raised in for a family reunion in South Dakota. It is now a Hunting Lodge. All of us cousins went throughout the house together, remembering the laughter, the sorrow (my uncle died there of aortic cancer, I found him as he cried for help bleeding to death), the games of hide and seek, and the bedrooms so cold we could see our breath at night as we huddled beneath our flannel covers. Then it happened. I touched the bannister of the stairs as I was about to descend them...and it felt like yesterday. The touch in my fingers and brain were not at all aware it had been 35 years since I had touched the smooth wood...they knew the banister. They had been inseparable over the years, forever etched in my nerves and memory. And I was filled with awe...and still am.

The second happened on our way to Lookout Mountain. It was a cool morning and I asked Jonathan to grab my driving gloves from out of my purse. I had pulled them off of the closet shelf a couple of weeks ago, just in case I would want them in the cooler weather of Oklahoma. Jonathan dug around and pulled them out and said, eyes bright and dancing, "Grammie,... they smell like Grammie!" Sure enough, he put them up to my nose and we both smiled and laughed. It has been 7 years since we said good-bye to Grammie as she went home to the Lord, and our sense of smell remembered her on this small article of clothing. At Covenant, we made Katie close her eyes, and putting the gloves under her nose (she was apprehensive :0)!) she immediately said, "Grammie!" Grammie's aroma brought joy to our hearts and smiles to our lips. How marvelously our smell and brain worked to remember and recall our love for her just with a whiff of her aroma...her perfume.

I can't help to first praise God for how wonderfully He has made us...senses, memories, and emotions. And as I sit here, Bible open, I pray that my life will be one that is lived in such a way that when He touches me, He remembers my strong, quick response to His touch...just as my fingers remembered the faithful strength of the bannister. I pray that as I live my life here, I will live it in such a way that the aroma causes His eyes to brighten, His heart to dance and rejoice at the memories of how I lived life with Him.

May I be an aroma to the only Great God.

"To God our Savior, Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power
Both now and forever.
Amen!"

Good morning....

I'm eating my breakfast in the bright sunshine of Lookout Mountain, GA while Jonathan is surrounded in a "fishbowl" of professors at Covenant College, grilling the students in the middle circle in an effort to see who they want to reward with top scholarship opportunities in the fall's Freshman class. I sit in the calm, wooded home of Jane and Henry who so graciously host me when I am here, and pray for my son's ability and character in an intimidating atmosphere... and can't help but ask... how many more times in life will I have the privilege to pray for him in such a manner? Even as I sit here, I feel some tension of nervousness... in sympathy. The funny thing is, he is probably not at all nervous!! Yesterday when I asked him if he was at all anxious he said, "No....I trust that God will be true to give the scholarship to those who need and deserve it." Just as we have always said our desire is, to not stand in the way of someone's education who without the scholarship money would not be able to attend Covenant, Jonathan states his heart is there as well. But just the process is such good experience for life. The understanding that others will and do challenge your abilities, whether by their natural giftedness, or their perseverance and hard work. And one day, he will be praying for someone, maybe a son or friend, who is in a fishbowl of life...and he will know how to pray.

His time is up! Wonder how it went! I thank God for the many diverse experiences, tough and fun, that we have the privilege to savor...and may we savor them, not just live them !

(Phone rings) Oh, it's him! And guess what. He wasn't nervous... said it was "very different". Now is that an answer to my prayer, or just an easy going kid... which is also an answer to prayer (Sometimes!!! You moms know what I mean!).

Well, guess it is conclusive... an answer to prayer...and a forshadowing of God's faithfulness in the next two interviews, the tough ones to come!