Day 3. And Abraham.

" So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift. "

Romans 4:1-5 in The Message. Thanks, Mom.

I sat in the park on the way home tonight,
and wrote, to God, before coming home and reading these verses from my mother,
something strangely parallel. :
That though I have trouble seeing anymore how I could one day be useful or apt in any way, in any thing, in any place...
it couldn't matter less. Because this is not about me. This whole
Life thing.
My job is to have eyes on Him, and to stay close to Him, and to follow after Him and worship Him. Not to look at myself.
I will not focus on my inabilities OR on my abilities, if there be any,
no, because I will not focus on me.
(Forgive me, Lord. For I have focused on me. )

This job is too big for me, by far. This job is so different from where my mind naturally and usually wants to go.
We will not be the Academically Best Kindergarten Class ever (unless that's the miracle You want to work). I will not be the Most Organized and Naturally-Gifted-at-Devising-Perfect-Smooth-Systems Teacher Lady ever. But I will love Jesus. And I will try hard. And then I will stop, and surrender. And I will trust Him to work miracles through and despite and within me.
Amen.

"It's better to have cold," (food, that is) said husky-voiced, matter-of-fact, bundle-of-energy, mini-Julio-Iglesias kindergartener Michael, "because when it's hot, everybody can win you." He means that if you have hot food, as I do at lunch time, you will always lose the food-eating race (which I engage him in to try to get him to finish his sandwich) to those who have cold food. "That's true," I said. "Good point." It's fun to see them draw conclusions and make logical pronouncements based on the ridiculous things you do each day.
You never know
what's going to stick.