Month: September 2013

I’ll never forget the navy-and-white polka dot blouse I bought in 1976 to wear with my crisp white polyester slack pants. I really don’t know how I looked in that outfit, but I felt like a million bucks. Of course, that was back in my much-younger days, when I was in better shape than now.

When I first started working for the phone company we had to wear dresses to work as telephone operators, but by the mid-70s we were allowed to wear dress pants, but not jeans. Those were the days when we wore our polyester pantsuits for work.

During the time I was divorced, before I remarried, I remember telling one boyfriend, “If you’re looking for a blue-jeans, tee shirt girl, you’ve got the wrong one.” However by the end of my career with the phone company in 2003, my “uniform” was blue jeans and tee shirts.

Sometimes I wish I still had some of those favorite pieces of clothing, but they wouldn’t fit me and I’m sure they would have worn out in those 37 years since then.

Remember the scripture about the children of Israel who came out of Egyptian bondage and walked 40 years in the wilderness? The Lord reminded them, in Deuteronomy 8:4 NIV, “Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.” God made sure that out in the desert where there was no place to buy more clothes, the Israelites always had good clothes to wear. I’m sure they got tired of wearing the same old clothes every day, day after day, for 40 years.

God has great things for us today, even better than what He provided for the Israelites.

 “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness,” Isaiah 61:10.

Those garments I’ll never grow tired of, or outgrow, or wear out.

Years after graduating high school, I have had dreams of showing up on the first day of junior high school, not knowing where my classrooms were, and wandering the maze of halls of the old three-story Vinita High School trying to find my classroom.

In my dream, I opened door after door to find class in progress, students and teachers staring blankly at me as my face flushed a bright red in embarrassment. By the time, I found my class and slipped into the last chair, the bell would ring to indicate the end of class.

We pre-enrolled in the spring, then went to the school a few days before school started to pick up our schedule. I lingered over it, memorizing every class, down to the last detail—time, room number, teacher. I spent hours with my friends, comparing schedules and wishing we could change it so we could all have the same classes together. We wanted to all be the same, same hair, same clothes, same classes, same friends. Junior high is all about fitting in.

 Things changed when Vinita High School Graduation Day came. One day we were all alike, but the day after graduation, we were each one of a kind. I was on my own, off to college, and then too soon, I dropped out and got married. When things were rough, a sick baby, bills to be paid and not enough money to pay them all, my dream recurred. 

Sometimes I dream of heaven. I walked through my Victorian mansion, with dark woods, a massive fireplace surrounded by walls and walls of books. I walked up the broad wooden staircase, into an open room with windows all around, looking out over a lovely park, where children run and play, and a window seat where I could sit and read for hours.

We can’t return to childhood, even if we want to, but we can go to a place where we are accepted and love and valued.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there you may be also.” John14:2-3. NKJV

Heaven is not a dream, it is real.

 

What do you do the day after a great holiday? You get up and go back to work, so that’s what Peter did.

They’d had a glorious Easter Sunday evening church service.

Jesus had died on the cross, and was dead and buried for three days, but on a glorious Sunday morning, He rose from the dead.

That evening, all the disciples except Thomas were gathered together when Jesus appeared to them.

“Jesus breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 21:22, and at that moment, the disciples were born again, but Jesus didn’t stay with them this time like He always had in the past. Too soon, He was gone.

Monday came, and Peter told his fellow fishermen, “I’m going fishing.” Peter went right back to his old job, because without Jesus with him every day, Peter didn’t think he knew how to do anything else.

They fished all night.  Dawn broke and there stood Jesus on the beach. He called out, “Boys, did you catch any fish? Do you have anything to eat with your bread?” They said, “No!”

Jesus said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat,” and they caught so many they couldn’t haul them all in.

Peter jumped off and swam to shore. When he got there, Jesus had a fire, and fish and bread ready to eat.

While they sat around the campfire after breakfast, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” Jesus was asking Peter if he loved Him more than the fish and fishing.

And then Jesus spoke the same two words that he had spoken to Peter when he called him to be his disciple three and a half years before. “Follow Me.” John 21:19.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19

 Nothing had changed. The call was still the same.

 You might have to go back to the same job on Easter Monday, but you don’t have to go back to the same old lifestyle. Let Easter Sunday change you, any Sunday of the year.

Let Jesus breath the Holy Spirit on you too. Hear Jesus calling you today, “Follow me.”