So tonight I went to a place that usually brings a bit of comfort. I started baking. I have been baking all summer for the teachers. I'm finding that providing some baked goods helps them make it through the long, hot, and full working summer days of arriving before 7 and leaving after 3. But tonight this baking was different, it wasn't to fill a specific need, I was absolutely "stress baking" and I could tell. Thankfully, there was a crowd of little boys around who are always eager to help, and usually bring a big smile to my face just by being here.
They were so excited at the thought of baking bread together. Their little flour-covered hands clumsily shaped the dough into loaves. Then they sat for a long while this evening just watching the bread rise. They would keep coming back to me saying, "That one will get big!" Of course, I don't think there was really much of a visible difference in the bread, but it was just the idea of the bread rising that brought delight to their eyes.
I'm thinking tonight about my eyes and about how my heart seems mixed up recently. I listened again to a sermon from my home church this morning while I was getting ready for the day. (Just a side note, I'm so thankful for technology that allows us to keep connected with our families and churches even when we're far away!) The sermon was entitled "Anxiety and the Keeper of Israel" and it was taken from Psalm 121. What a much-needed reminder about worry and stress and anxiety. The problem is one of vision. My eyes are so prone to be fixed on difficulties and problems right in front of me. Of course, there are real difficulties and problems in this life. But there is a higher truth, a more profound reality that my eyes need to rise to. This ultimate truth that Christ is my help, that God is here in the most broken of moments, and that He is speaking hope even now into the uncertainty and worry and struggle. This is where my eyes need to be lifted to.
Unfortunately, when the bread was finally ready to bake, the oven had it's own upside down, backward kind of moment and is still refusing to light... So, the risen and ready to be baked loaves of bread are yet to be enjoyed by hungry little boys. But this baking misadventure, along with the mixed up moments of the past few days, have reminded me once again to look beyond these bumps in the road to a higher truth...
Psalm 121
1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
With much love in Christ, Jessie
You are definitely not alone, dear friend, in this struggle. Thank you for transparently sharing with us all the struggle and the truth and hope that the Lord is revealing to your heart. I too have this tendency to have my eyes focused on my own limitations as well as the seemingly hopeless at times circumstances of this life. The Lord has been patient and gracious with me to remind me that I feel hopeless because I have taken Him out of the equation, that is quite hopeless and bleak indeed! Thinking and praying for you as you finish your time in Haiti.
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