Michele Huey's Blog: God, Me, and a Cup of Tea, page 63

The family Bible

The Bible that was in Grandma Huey's house
      
“In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them.” – Joshua 4:6–7 (NIV)
      
      
Searching for pictures to use for Facebook’s “Throwback Thursday,” I’ve been rooting through the boxes of photos—all unorganized, of course—scattered throughout the house. I’ve found some great pictures—color family portraits, sepia-toned photographs of my husband’s forebears, black-and-white snapshots of our families. Few were labeled with who was in the photograph, where it was taken and when.
      
So I decided to make it a winter project to sort, label, and catalog the family pictures, including the ones that look like they date from the 1800s.
      
All this, of course, got me thinking about genealogy.
      
Back in Old Testament times, very little was written. But long lists of family lines are painstakingly included in the Bible (you know, the “begats” or “so-and-so was the son of so-and-so, who was the son of . . .”). Did you ever wonder how they remembered the names and places for thousands of years? Children were required to memorize their ancestral line.
      
Compare that to this: I know only as far back as my grandmother, who arrived in this country on May 4, 1910, from the town of Lenarts in what was then Hungary. I have her obituary, which provides the names of her husband, children, siblings, and parents.
      
But, shame on me, I don’t have the obituaries of my own parents!
      
Time to do some digging.
      
I called my brother, Pete—the only living relative from my past besides my cousins—this past week and asked him what he knew. I was especially interested in my father’s military service records. Two years ago, I wrote to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, requesting my father’s service records, only to learn they’d been destroyed in a fire. 
      
Pete had a copy of my father’s obituary, which he photographed and emailed to me (isn’t modern technology wonderful?), but not my mother’s. While we were talking, he found the Maddock family Bible stored in a closet. I’d forgotten all about it.
      
The thick volume used to sit on the first shelf of a built-in bookcase in the living room when I was growing up. I loved to read all the information Mom and Dad wrote in the front, where pages were provided to record births, marriages, deaths, special events—and military records!

      
Recorded in Dad’s careful printing was everything I’d wanted to know—duty stations, years of  service, injuries, awards—he’d been awarded a Bronze Star! Pete took a picture of the page and emailed it to me.
      
I opened a new file on my desktop and labeled it: “Family History Project.”
      
Looks like I’m going to be digging for my roots.
      
I wish I had done that over the years. But it’s not too late to start making a record of family history for my children and grandchildren.
      
Roots are, I’m learning, as important as wings.

      
Guide me and direct me, Father God, as I begin this journey into the past—a journey that will add meaning and purpose to the future and help me to understand myself better. Amen.

Showing God's kindness to others

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter “K”

      
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. – Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
      
And now God can always point to us as examples of how very, very rich his kindness is, as shown in all he has done for us through Jesus Christ. – Ephesians 2:7 (TLB)
      
      
“Lord, when I get home, I could go for a bowl of homemade chicken soup!”
      
I’d just delivered my second baby by Caesarean section and was feeling weak, tired, and depressed. How I envied those women who had their babies naturally! They were up and about with a day. Not me. I’d be bedridden for a week in the hospital, then another week after I got home. I just didn’t bounce back after childbirth like others did.
      
I longed for my mother’s homemade chicken soup, which had always made me feel better. But Mom, a victim of  Alzheimer’s disease, was two hundred miles away and most of the time didn’t even remember who I was.
      
How am I going to take care of a newborn baby and an active toddler? I wondered. My husband couldn’t take any more time off work. When my first child was born, Mom spent a month with us, cleaning, washing, cooking, and making me chicken soup.
      
“I’ll just have to do my best,” I sighed, settling deeper beneath the blanket.
      
A week later I was home in bed when my friend, Sharon, walked in carrying a tray.
      
“I brought you some homemade chicken soup,” she announced.
      
“How did you know I wanted homemade chicken soup? I never told anyone.”
      
She put the tray on the nightstand. “The ladies in our Bible study group signed up to bring one meal a day to your family while you’re still in bed this week. We figured supper would be the best time for you. Is that all right?”
      
I nodded, feeling awed that the God who runs the universe would actually answer a prayer for chicken soup.
      
That was 35 years ago. Many times since I’ve experienced His loving kindness through someone’s words of encouragement, acts of kindness and thoughtfulness.
      
And it makes me want to do the same for others.
      
When my debut novel was released in March, I wanted to do something tangible to help those who have served our country in the armed forces. I looked into donating a portion of the proceeds from book sales to a worthy organization that helps veterans. There were many, but it was “Tomorrow’s Hope” that captured my heart.
      
A dollar from the sale of each autographed copy of The Heart Remembers, which is dedicated “to all who served in Vietnam,” will be donated to the transitional housing and service center located in Coalport, Pa., that provides shelter and basic necessities to homeless veterans. (For more information about Tomorrows Hope, visit their website at http://tomorrowshopepa.org/)
      
William Penn once said, “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
      
      
O Lord, show me ways that I can pass along Your loving kindness to others today. Amen.
      

Daddy and the poppies

Image courtesy of dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
      
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13 (NIV)
      
      
One of the earliest memories I have is of my father “buying” me a poppy from a man in a military uniform outside our church on a Sunday morning. As I grew older, I came to understand that when Dad put money in the can, he was donating to a local veterans’ organization.
      
A World War II veteran of the US Army, my father didn’t talk about his service. He’d been defending the continental United States on the godforsaken island of Attu when he was wounded. Shrapnel in his spine left him recuperating in a VA hospital for a year.
      
How I wish I would have asked more questions! But I was young with my own life ahead of me, and had little, if any, interest in something that didn’t directly affect me.
      
Now I regret that selfish attitude. At 62, I realize my roots are as important as my wings. I have plenty of questions now. Where was he stationed? What was his Army job? I know he’d attained the rank of sergeant but little else. I may never know this side of eternity. My parents, and that generation of relatives who could have given me answers, are all gone now.
      
I wrote to the Veteran’s Administration for my dad’s service records, but unfortunately a fire had destroyed them. I researched “Attu” online and learned that had the Japanese won that historic battle on the westernmost Aleutian island, we may well have fought World War II on continental American soil. I sent for the DVD of the PBS documentary, Red, White, Black, and Blue, “a wrenching look at a forgotten battle.”
      
But I’d rather have the story from my father’s point of view. It would mean so much more to me.
      
So every year, in memory of my father, I “buy” a poppy and entwine it on my purse. If I have a grandchild with me, I get one for them, too.
      
“My daddy—your great-grandfather—always got me a poppy,” I say. “Do you know where the idea for poppies came from?” 
      
Then I tell them about the poem written by Lt. Col. John McCrae in 1915, during World War I: “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row.”
      
I tell them about Moina Michael, who, in response to McCrae’s poem, went out and bought a bouquet of poppies and distributed them, asking that they be worn in tribute to the fallen. Donations were given to servicemen in need.
      
If I still have their attention—and I make sure I do—I recite the verse she penned: “We cherish, too, the poppy red That grows on fields where valor led, It seems to signal to the skies That blood of heroes never dies, But lends a luster to the red Of the flower that blooms above the dead in Flanders Field.”
      
“And today,” I say, concluding the brief history lesson, “red poppies are made by disabled veterans in hospitals, with the donations going to support a variety of veterans’ organizations.”
      
And then I give them a poppy.
       
      
Let not loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. - Proverbs 3:3
      
      
Father, let the poppy also remind us of the sacrifice Your Son made for our eternal freedom. Amen.
      

God is just, even when people aren't

The ABC's of knowing God better: the letter "J"
      


He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He. – Deuteronomy 32:4 (NIV)
            
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done. – Matthew 16:27 (NIV)
      
      

During my college years, one of my summer session classes was a three-hour-long literature course, taught by a professor who stood behind the podium and read from his notes. Very little interaction with students. Fortunately we had a short break midway through the morning to give us some respite from the monotony.
      
I wasn’t one to skip classes. The class notes were as important as out-of-class reading assignments when it came time to take his challenging essay exams, which we endured every Friday. I’d made the dean’s list each semester so far and had my eye on graduating at least cum laude.
      
During break time the professor also stepped out of the classroom, leaving his notes on the podium and his briefcase open on the desk. One Thursday when he left, a group of students huddled around the desk, one student rifling through the briefcase while another stood guard at the door.
      
“Here it is!”
      
While the rest of the class copied the essay questions for Friday’s test, I sat glued to my seat, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach. The professor graded on a curve. What chance did I have of getting a good grade?
      
I studied hard anyway. Test day came. I knew when I handed in my paper my best wouldn’t be enough. I went straight to the dorm and phoned home – collect. Between sobs, I spilled out the story to my parents. Later that afternoon Dad showed up, having driven two hours to take me home for the weekend.
      
The following week we got our tests back. I received a “C.” The other students – the cheaters – had gotten “A’s.”
      
“It isn’t fair,” I thought, blinking back tears.
      
After class, I waited until the classroom emptied then approached the professor.
      
“I don’t think this is a fair grade,” I began, swallowing the lump in my throat. How could I tell him why? I wasn’t a tattle-tale.
      
He shrugged, not even looking at me. “You just didn’t do as well as the others.”
      
“Thanks to you, you stupid jerk,” I wanted to say. But I didn’t. No sense in antagonizing the one who determined my final course grade. And sometimes professors could be, well, arbitrary.
      
I received (note I didn’t use the word earned) a “C” in the course, only the second throughout all of my college career. (The other was in philosophy, and I was happy just to pass that class.)
      
Sometimes we just have to take our lumps. Sometimes it seems as though unfairness rules the day. That those who do wrong prevail and those who do right suffer.
      
But I know my God is just and fair and in control. Someday we’ll all receive recompense – reward for good, punishment for bad.
      
In the meantime, know that when we call to Him, crying, our heavenly Father will drop whatever He’s doing to comfort, console, and counsel us.
      
And that’s better than an “A” any day!
      
      
Thank you, Father, that whether it be morning, evening, or noon, when I cry out in distress, You hear my voice. (Psalm 55:17). Amen.

Special-Tea: Read Psalm 37       

Lessons from Mom

Dad, Mom, and me at  Macbeth's Log Cabins, Cook Forest, Pa., 1959
      
Mary quietly treasured these things in her heart and often thought about them. – Luke 2:19 (TLB)
      
One summer day when I was quite young, my mother was hosing off the sidewalk beside the house and accidently sprayed a bird. Now, birds are a dime a dozen, right? What’s one less bird in the scheme of things? But she was so distraught, she cradled the little thing in her cupped hands, praying it would survive. I don’t remember whether or not it did, but I do remember her distress. Her compassion that day taught me that all creatures matter. 
      
Then there was the time she caught me behind the sofa pretending to smoke one of her cigarettes.
      
“If I catch you again,” she warned, “I’m going to light it.”
      
“You go right ahead,” I said.
      
When I finally caught my breath after gagging over the kitchen sink for an eternity, I determined I would never smoke. And I never have. But what would have been the outcome if she hadn’t made good on her warning? She taught me to follow through, to do what you say you’re going to do, even when it’s difficult.
      
Then there was the time I invited the entire class to my house one Saturday for my birthday party – and didn’t tell her. I knew she’d say no, and I really, really, really wanted a party like all the other kids had.
       
I bowled on Saturday mornings, and that day I plodded home, worried that I’d become the laughing stock of the class when they showed up to my nonparty. But the house was decorated and a large cake adorned the table. Mom had discovered my chicanery – and I didn’t get grounded for life, either. That day I learned what mercy was.
      
Fast forward about a dozen years. Mom and I were flying to Alabama to spend Christmas with my brother. For the trip I dressed in a red velour miniskirt and matching short-waist top, stockings and dress shoes. Since my brother was deprived of the Slovak dishes he grew up on, Mom took a casserole full of frozen homemade pierogies. Somehow I became the guardian of the goodies. Perhaps the image of my bird-like, aging mother lugging a lump of frost from Pittsburgh to Montgomery overcame my need to appear chic.
      
In Atlanta we had to rush to get to the next gate in time. Somewhere between Eastern and Delta I realized my carefully donned image was gone with the wind. I learned more than one lesson that day: to dress for the occasion, wear comfortable clothes when traveling, and that a mother’s love transcends everything – even practicality.
      
More images flood my mind: Mom, dish towel thrown over her shoulder, singing next to the piano, her foot tapping the hardwood floor while my sister played a tune she loved. She taught me music is a balm to the soul, a buffer in the storms of life.
      
I remember her lighting a vigil light daily and praying after she’d hung the laundry on the outside line, “God, don’t You let it rain.” She taught me that faith makes a difference even in the little, day-to-day things.
      
I could go on, but one column isn’t enough to even begin to describe all she taught me by just being herself.
      
How blessed I am!

      
Thank You, God, for my mother and the lessons she taught me, even if she did embarrass me at times. Amen.
      
Special-Tea: Read Deuteronomy 6:6–7
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Immutable God

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter “I”       
For I am the LORD, I do not change. –Malachi 3:6 (NKJV)
      
. . . like clothing they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will never end. – Hebrews 1:12 (NRSV)
      
      
Every Thursday on Facebook, it’s “Throwback Thursday,” when pictures of folks in years gone by are posted online. It’s amazing to see the changes – in clothing and hairstyles, how much the kids have grown, how thin I was. TBT pictures never fail to get comments: “Look at those 80s glasses!” or “That dress is definitely 70s.” “WOW! Time does move along very fast.” Or (my personal favorite) “Wasn’t that just yesterday?”
      
When I was young, I craved change. I didn’t want to get old and set in my ways. I didn’t want to be like my mother, who, I’d jokingly said, was like concrete – all mixed up and permanently set. I didn’t want to be ready for bed Saturday evenings at 9. I wanted to be on my way to a night of dancing with my friends.
      
Well, guess what? I’m showered and in my jammies by 8 and in bed by 10. Forty years brought a heap of changes. Some I like and some I don’t.
      
Nothing in this world is permanent – not even concrete, which over time wears down and develops cracks. Our bodies grow old and wear out, no matter what we do to try to prevent or reverse the process. Time moves on, bringing changes to people, places, and things.
      
I think back to our years at “the Ridge,” which we called the small country church we attended a few miles from our home in Smithport. I miss the people and the fun we had. I miss Paul and Sue, Steve and Jan, Sam and Deb, Pastor Bob and Edna, Carl and Louise, Mark and Chippie, just to name a few of the many wonderful folks who were our church family. We raised our kids together. We studied the Bible together. We picnicked and camped out together, planned VBS and holiday programs together. We shared many a carry-in supper.
      
But I couldn’t go back and expect things to be the same. For one, Carl and Louise are in heaven. Sam and Deb have moved from the area, as have Paul and Sue, who now pastor a church in West Virginia. What I wouldn’t give for one more picnic on the hill!
      
Yes, change is inevitable in this world.
      
But not in the next. Glory hallelujah! Because my next stop is heaven, God’s home. Heaven will not change, except for new souls arriving, because God does not change.
      
That’s why Jesus told us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19–21 NKJV).”
      
We’ll deal with change for the rest of our lives. But, thank God, we can count on His unchanging grace – now and in eternity.
      
      
“Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O Lord who changes not, abide with me.”* Amen.
 
Special-Tea: Read Hebrews 1:10–12; Numbers 23:19

From “Abide with Me” by Henry F. Lyte. Public domain.

GUEST BLOGGER: KATHLEEN BOLDUC ON PRAYER

  In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. James 1:21 (The Message)
     
     
This morning I bring my Bible, journal, and cup of tea into the garden. A light mist hangs over the fields across the road, and I am surprised to see tender green shoots of corn forming rows where yesterday there was nothing but dirt. All around me, Dame’s Rocket thrusts purple and white spires toward the skies like holy hands reaching toward heaven. Boxwood shimmers greenly in the breeze, and a yellow weed at the fence line bursts into flame as a sunbeam peeks through the clouds.
           
The words of Psalm 63, my reading this morning, reverberate through my mind. “O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”
     
In the sanctuary of this garden the desert landscape of my heart—that dry and dusty place where worry and anxiety about my son, Joel, who has autism, sometimes threaten to overwhelm me—turns to an oasis of green, flowing with streams of living water. Prayer rises up within me as praise.
     
No wonder poets and songwriters often refer to the garden as a metaphor for prayer.
   
And yet, gardens are not always lush and beautiful. Think of the garden in the midst of drought. Parched plants wilt. Green leaves turn to brown. What was abounding in exuberance just weeks before suddenly sags under the weight of cloudless skies with no promise of rain in sight. Nothing will revive the drought-stricken garden like a soft, gentle, soaking rain.
   
It is no different for the gardens of our hearts. Sometimes, in the words of my son Joel at the end of a major melt-down, “We need Jesus!”   
   
As the mother of a son with autism, I was first drawn more deeply into prayer because of an intense thirst for God’s presence. I was desert-thirsty, parched for the living waters Jesus promises in John 4:14: “. . . but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
     
The more I spend time with God the more the garden of my heart blooms with an unquenchable love for the things of the Spirit. I need God’s presence just as my garden needs the rain.
  
Take some time to be quiet and meet with God. Listen to what rises up from within. Have a conversation with God. You may have questions to ask him. Ask, expecting to receive an answer. Tell Him what’s on your heart. Be honest with Him. Bare your vulnerable places. And then, once you’ve emptied your heart, simply listen. He has much to say to you.

Lord, I thank you and praise you for your living waters. Open me up, Lord. Open me up to your thirst-quenching presence. Water me, Lord. Water me.


* Where do you most often meet God? Nature? Bible study? Service? Worship? Journaling?

* How might you establish a pattern of going there to pray on a consistent basis?

* In what way do you most often pray? Do you feel “pot-bound”? Might God be calling you to a new prayer avenue?

* What kind of prayer will help you more often to be aware of Jesus’ presence with you?

Excerpted from The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities (Judson Press, 2014)
Used with permission.


The mother of a 29-year-old son with autism, Kathleen Bolduc is a spiritual director in Oxford, Ohio, and the author of several books on faith and disability, including The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities and Autism & Alleluias.  Kathy blogs at www.specialneedsparenting.net. 

To visit Kathleen Bolduc's Amazon page, click on her picture. 

Avoiding the dentist

Image courtesy of patrisyu/FreeDigitalPhotos.netIf we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9
      
      
Sitting in a dentist’s chair is not my idea of fun. But there I was, eyes closed, mouth open, trying to ignore the scraping sound as the dental hygienist cleaned my teeth. And hoping I put enough money in the parking meter. I didn’t think a checkup and cleaning would take this long.
      
“I’m not going to wait five years again,” I told her during a pause in the procedure.
      
But that wasn’t all I needed. X-rays revealed fillings that needed to be replaced, so another appointment was scheduled.
      
One week later I was reclined in the dentist’s chair again. The hygienist numbed my gums before the shots (note: “shots” is plural), so I was good to go. Blessed Novocain! I didn’t feel a thing, except a little pushing and shoving. The only thing I was worried about was whether I plunked enough coins in the parking meter. I’d thought an hour and a half would be plenty.
      
I left the office with new fillings on the top and bottom back left teeth—and an appointment to do the other side. Six days later, I put enough money in the meter for two hours, thinking this time should be a breeze. I mean, whoever invented Novocain should be canonized.
      
But it wasn’t a breeze. It wasn’t bad, understand, but I’m a wimp when it comes to pain. “I can do this,” I told myself as I winced every time a little jolt shot through my mouth.
      
“I have to show you something,” the dentist said when the ordeal was over. “See that?” He pointed to a photo on the computer screen. “There was some infection under that tooth. I’m afraid now that it’s filled, the infection will be sealed up, with no place to drain. If that tooth gets abscessed, I’ll have to do a root canal.”
      
Great. The last root canal I had, I took Valium an hour before the procedure.
      
“What will be, will be,” I thought as I left, glad that I escaped without another appointment card.
      
That was 10 days ago. At the time I was beginning a five-day course of antibiotics for lingering head congestion, so the drugs probably kept any infection under my tooth at bay. But now . . . maybe it’s just my fear making me think my gums are itchy and my jaw is starting to hurt, and my head . . . okay, so I’m a bit of a hypochondriac.
      
Unfortunately, I tend to be the same way when it comes to spiritual matters. I don’t think I sin. But I do. I tend to be judgmental and I struggle with pride. I don’t like to admit I’m not the perfect Christian I want to be, that I want everybody else to think I am.
      
I shouldn’t avoid spiritual checkups. As with the decay in my teeth, unconfessed sin can cause a lot of problems that could have been avoided if dealt with as soon as it shows up.
      
All it takes is a little confession. God will do the cleaning. And you won’t feel a thing. Except relief.

Image courtesy of cooldesign/FreeDigitalPhotos.net     
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! Amen. (Psalm 139:23-24)


Special-Tea: Read 1 John 1:5–10

God is Holy

The ABC’s of knowing God better:  The letter “H”
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD almighty. – Isaiah 6:3 (NIV)
“I am the Lordyour God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” – Leviticus 11:44 (NIV)
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written, “Be holy, because I am holy.”  – 1 Peter 1:15–16 (NIV)
Of all God’s attributes, I struggle with His holiness the most. He is perfect, totally and completely pure. He cannot sin. It’s not His nature. His Word says He cannot even look upon sin: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; You cannot tolerate wrong” or “look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13).
While I don’t consider myself evil or wicked, neither am I perfect. I feel much like Isaiah in today’s reading: “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
Or the apostle Peter, when, courtesy of a Jesus miracle, returned with the catch of a lifetime: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8).
That’s what understanding – truly understanding – God’s holiness does to us. Instead of strutting around, complaining, defiantly declaring that God has some explaining to do when we get to heaven, we fall on our faces before Him, utterly undone because we finally understand His holiness and our unholiness.
But we are not undone.
“Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for’” (Isaiah 6:7).
And what did Jesus say to Peter? “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men” (Luke 5:10).
God is holy, yes. We, by nature, are unholy. But we don’t have to clean up our act. God Himself washes us:
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).
Sin carries with it the death sentence, but God has inked a pardon in his Son’s blood: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “The blood of His Son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)
In our stead, Jesus went to the death chamber – and came out alive three days later, releasing us from the power and punishment of sin. (Read Hebrews 9 and 10)
I don’t need to struggle with or be intimidated by holiness. Because, while God requires His children to be holy, He provides a way – the only way (see John 14:6) – for us to become holy and enter into His presence – now and forever.     
Father, I feel so unworthy of the sacrifice your Son made for me. As the song says, “I should have been crucified. I should have suffered and died. I should have hung on that cross in disgrace, but Jesus, God’s Son took my place.”* Thank you. Help me to live my life in such a way that Your implanted divine nature in me matures and produces a harvest for You. Amen.
Special-Tea: Read Isaiah 6:1–9
*“I Should Have Been Crucified,” by Gordon Jensen, © 1973

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Michele