making Rainbows...

The past couple of days, my youngest has been sick... I mean SICK.  She has been running a fever that has stayed between 101 and 104.  No other symptoms.  Just fever.  If it doesn't break by tomorrow morning, we will go to the doctor.  I have waited only because there are no other symptoms and usually that means "virus" and just has to run its course.  Anyway, I don't intend to blog all night about her fever... though did I mention it breaks my heart when she is sick?... Okay, okay, back to my point.

While she has been sick, I have been trapped.  Those of you that know me, know that me being trapped inside too long can be a dangerous thing.  This time was no different!  I started cleaning out and gutting and .... (GASP)... much to Todd's dismay... PLANNING my remodeling projects for the summer.  We have been in this house since last August and I have redone the kids rooms a bit, but with work, I haven't attacked the house the way I want.  So while my baby rested in her fever, I got busy.  There is a mess a mile high in the living room from the art cabinets I have sorted and I have about a million plans of what I want to do first with the fireplace and a built in area.  I have found the plans to redo the staircase, made a list of paint colors I want, and sat for a while looking online at items I want for decor.  Now I just have to find that darn money tree to fund it all.  I am telling you, were I rich, I could do some damage on remodel projects!

But alas, the money tree was not found, but some other treasures were.... including my very memorable old plastic box, with my name painted in dot-letters from a white paint pen, and bear and heart stickers adorning it.  As if the box alone didn't bring back memories, inside I had tucked away all of my most treasured friendship pins from all the way back in the day.  The immediate site of them took me back to that place in time and I can assure you, every single pin in that box is representative of those I held most dear and that held me dear as well, as they traded pin for pin with me.  Time marched on and it was no longer the "thing" to wear them on my shoes, but the idea behind the pins forbid me the ability to part ways with them, so I tucked them in my treasured plastic, paint-pen-written, container and held on to them all these years.

Amazing isn't it, how something as simple as a plastic box and some safety pins with beads on them, can bring back such a rush of emotions.  How instantly, the mind... and heart... travels back to that time that has been tucked away for so long, but is suddenly as vivid as the days in which it was actually occurring.  I have that experience often... from a picture, a song, a moment with my own kids that is so similar to some moment back when I was the kid... over and over it floods.  Treasured memories held captive in the depth of my heart, just waiting to resurface and bless me all over again.

And that got me to thinking.... I know... SHOCKER... ( Do you ever notice a theme to my writing? :)!)

How quickly I store such special little memories for the reminders of things I hope to never forget... and yet how often do I mark the moments with Christ in a way that I will never forget?  Some of them mark themselves... How every time I see a church pew... every single time, I can't help but remember the day, when I was nine-years-old, and I knew that moment that Christ was calling me to Him.  I don't have that church pew, but I do have a pew and it is my permanent reminder of the most important day of my life! Every single time I see it, I think of Jesus.  Another is the picture of the African and Asian boys I fell in love with one summer a few years back when I knew, that someday, somehow, I would travel beyond Mexico where I have currently done mission work, and fulfill a dream to serve in Africa... maybe, even maybe live there.  Every single time I see that picture... on a bed stand in my room, I am flooded with the impacting time with those boys and Jesus.  Or even the night of Eathan's departure to home... that expression on his face is photographed vividly in my mind as a permanent reminder of an astounding moment for him... and for me with what awaits us after death... if we know Him.

And though those things are absolute treasures, the thing is, why am I not bombarded with those moments all the time... ALL the time?  I have crosses in every room in this house.  How is it that I can walk past a cross and not find myself in tears, both of sadness and joy?  The crosses represent the most horrendous act of violence against a beautiful God in flesh, paying innocent blood for MY sin (and yours) and the victory that came because of it.   I can hardly get through the movie, The Passion of the Christ. So how it is, I can look at a cross and not be overwhelmed?

Here is what I think.... if I had left those friendship pins out and looked at them every day, I would have not forgotten them and what they represent... I would have just stopped appreciating them the way I did tonight.  I would be "comfortable" or even worse "complacent" with the idea of them.  They would still be special and a remembrance, but I wouldn't think of them as such a BIG thing because I would grow used to the memory of what they were  in my life.  I think the same is true of the cross.  We have made it such an ornamental part of our lives, that we forget the power behind the symbol. 

I don't forget Christ.  He is alive and moving in my life every day through the Holy Spirit.  But sometimes, I just forget to remember and appreciate... truly, truly appreciate in a way that makes me tender... what those beautiful crosses memorialize for each of us that know Him... and even the ones that don't... still yet the crosses memorialize the most sacrificial gift we could ever imagine. 

Don't get me wrong...I don't think we should walk around crying over the cross.  As the saying goes, "Sunday's a comin!".  The cross isn't the ending and certainly the joy is found after the cross... death could NOT hold Him in the grave!  But there should be a tenderness to our soul every single time we see one, knowing the cross isn't where the story ends, but it is the turning point for the happy ending to be available for the taking.  It just matters. 

As you know... this blog is a nugget for the day from the things I learned from the most amazing three-year- old ever to live on this earth.... and he was WAY to young to "get" the meaning of the cross.  So to take the point I am trying to make, beyond what I have already written, let me finalize my thoughts with this... Eathan didn't know to "memorialize" anything.  He was too young and too innocent to live outside of the very moments he was in.  His memorial for Jesus was the live in THIS moment way of life he lived. 

He found the good in all hard things... naturally and without hesitation... no matter the storm absolutely thrashing his little body to death.  Eathan lived in a Tsunami every single day.. from the inside out.  That disease was vicious and showed NO mercy.  But he didn't mark the storm... he marked the rainbows... by making them!

Tonight I found friendship pins.  They are a rainbow from my past.  The cross above this very computer is a rainbow into my future.  And I want to get up tomorrow and no matter what, go make rainbows in the moment to memorialize a life worth living because of Jesus... just like Eathan!

Want to paint the day in color with me? Let's go...............!

Robin