Laughing with the Lord #4

Welcome to #4 of Laughing with the Lord!

Wondering what makes God smile has long been a burning question for me. I know He smiles and laughs because He gave us the same abilities and imbued each of us with a sense of humor. Why wouldn't He join us?

When I raised my children I was too busy and tired to even wonder about it. But now that I'm older, wiser, and the grandmother of one lovely granddaughter and five handsome grandsons, I've witnessed time and again many things that surely make our Lord smile. Here are a few:

1.)   I'm convinced God smiles when His children appreciate the beauty of the world He created for us.

2.)   When Dustin, my oldest grandchild, was just a little guy--maybe a year old or so--we were at a restaurant and my daughter put a lemon slice up to his lips. He obliged her and chomped down. You can imagine the look on his face as he, for the first time in his young life, experienced what is probably the sourest taste on earth. We, of course, being the loving people we are, laughed until our sides ached. Hunter, her second child came along a short while later. Dennae did it again, and while Hunter shuddered at the first taste, he loved it! From then on, we made sure to ask for a slice of lemon with our water so Hunter could munch to his heart's content. Surely God smiled at the reactions of both boys. The Lord knows lemons are sour, and sooner or later everyone has to take that first taste. Nobody was hurt, nobody cried, and we were able to witness those precious first experiences.


3.)  ... when He watches little boys (or girls) pick dandelions-gone-to-seed and then blow their seeds all over the place ensuring their existence the following spring (and keeping Round-Up in business).

4.)  He loves it every time a child brings Mom that inevitable bouquet of the bright yellow flowers, and sees that both mom and child are as pleased as if it were a bunch of the most expensive orchids.                          

5.)  I believe He smiles each time children find such pleasure playing in the same material He used to create Man.

6.)  I believe our Father grins each time he sees a child experience snow for the first time, watches the wonder on his or her face as they feel how cold it is and how it covers everything, making their yard and neighborhood a magical world of white. If they're lucky, it's good packing snow, and they can make snowmen, igloos, snow forts and snowballs. Surely God is pleased.

And if He sees you standing on a glacier, thrilled to have made the hike and to have conquered the vast pile of snow and ice, He chuckles.

Until the next time ...

Purging the litter box of sin...

She's beautiful, isn't she? Her name is Maple and she's my little Mississippi kitty. She was just a kitten when we found her in a PetSmart in Tupelo and brought her home that same day. She came with us, of course, when we moved to Anchorage.

As gorgeous as she is, she has her ugly side--namely, her litter box. While Maple is soft and loving, beautiful to behold, and fun to cuddle, her litter box isn't. And if I don't dig carefully enough to purge that box of her hidden "treasures," it will eventually begin to smell and offend and become a major household problem.

So it is with sin. We can hide it, cover it up, disguise it, smooth it over, rearrange it, or flat-out ignore it, but nevertheless, it's still there. There are times we can manipulate things so our sin isn't as obvious, but it hasn't gone anywhere. It's festering, stinking, adding up.

A few months ago, I was teaching my grandsons the proper way to clean their kitty's litter box. When I asked why they scooped only the top layer, Hunter, who was 7, explained to his silly grandma that if you dug down too deeply, "you get all that yucky stuff." His idea of cleaning the box was to skim off the visible clumps and leave the rest safely buried where (in his opinion) it wasn't hurting anybody. I explained that while that was true in the short run, eventually the yucky stuff would overtake the entire box. The only way to keep the box fresh and clean was to dig deep and do the dirty work of cleaning it right the first time.

I, too, have to dig deep to purge the sin I've covered up, passed off as a bad habit, or just plain ignored. Skimming works only when you're trying to fool someone--and our Heavenly Father isn't One to be fooled. No, it's not fun, but neither would it be fun to find myself with a lifetime of yucky stuff clogging up my relationship with God.

Until the next time....