A Life-Giving Shadow

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This morning, I was standing with my hands in dishwater, look out the kitchen window at the tractors driving by, the new greenness of the grass and the leaves and blooms coming on the apple and pear trees we planted last year. My mind was all over the place: how will this meeting to negotiate the sale of our house go tonight?...well, we're never going to get to enjoy the fruit from those trees...I love this time of  year, except missing my husband...just think, you'll have to wash all the dishes by hand in PNG...dang, I was going to start laundry first...
The view out my kitchen window
(see those baby trees back there behind the big one?)
Then, in the midst of this whirlwind in my brain, I felt the warmth of the sun shining in the window and saw its brightness and the beauty and life it brings to everything. I was overwhelmed with the thought that God's glory and warmth and life giving power make the sun look like a shadow. Is His glory the sun magnified 100 times? 1000 times? more? He created that sun for life and as a shadow-image of Himself. It is REALLY His glory, light and power that gives life to all things.

We are on the cusp of selling our house about 4 months sooner than we had planned. But, we can't just pack everything up like we're moving to a new house and life goes on as normal after we unpack. We have to decide on every possession: what are we getting rid of? what will we put into storage in the U.S.? what do we need to have to live for the next six months? what will we ship to PNG?

Then there's the phone calls and e mails: dealing with the county sanitarian's office; scheduling septic inspection/installation; setting up new bank accounts; oh! by the way...here's the paperwork you need to begin to get your work permits and visas started, because that takes six months. We are supposed to be spending at least 6 hours weekly together on an online training we have for Wycliffe, but that's a problem because Joel is working 12-15 hours daily. Get stuff ready for ABF this week. You didn't email about small group meeting this week (that's not going to happen).

Yeah. And I feel like I'm alone because my husband is working 12-15 hours daily. (Did I already mention that?) I wept after talking to one of my grown kids on the phone this week. WEPT. Could not stop.

And to top it all off, Eli says to me at bedtime, "Mom, last year's Christmas was the last one we'll have in this house." I answered, "Yep, buddy. It sure was. It was our last one and we didn't even know it."
All our kids at Christmas (2011)

Where will we spend next Christmas? In our "temporary" rental house in Marshalltown? Will we be staying with friends or family by then because we will have needed to get rid of all of our belongings?

I don't know.

But what I do know, is that the God who created the sun to be a shadow-image of Himself will be with me and will be give me light and warmth and LIFE no matter where we are and no matter our circumstances.

I need to keep SONbathing.

"The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory." Isaiah 60:19


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