As I wrote yesterday, only a few days into my Lenten project and already I'm struggling with discouragement and self-doubt. The amazing thing is, right on cue...God shows up and starts His encouragement campaign.
The first thing He did is shown in this the above photo that I took from my kitchen window...look closely...do you see it? A cross, glowing in the sunset at the end of the day as if to say "I did this for you, you can do this for me."
Last night, wanting to make some headway in one of my projects, I went to a shelf where I've been storing boxes of memorabilia and chose one at random to look through. These boxes contain things my mother saved from my childhood as well as things I saved for each one of my children of their childhood. Awards, poems, artwork, cards, etc., all collecting dust and musty smells from the basement. It's time to sort, and find a better storage system until I can get the scrapbooks made. As I looked through the box in hopes of discarding some things, I came across two very special surprise items.
My mother used to paint a lot of paint by number pictures. I know, there are all kinds of jokes out there about how cheesy paint by number are, but my mother had creative inclinations and no money or opportunity for training of any kind so she made art in the only way she could. She became very good at it. I remember being fascinated watching her paint so carefully and skillfully into those teeny tiny spaces and keep her lines so straight. I did it too a time or two and enjoyed it very much. I know she also did it to fill her lonely evenings and to keep her hands busy and her mind occupied. When we moved into this house I remember packing a picture she had painted of a girl in a large straw hat. It was always one of my favorites and I wanted to be sure it was saved. Since we moved in I have searched and searched for that picture and haven't been able to find it. I thought it was the only one of her paintings left until I found two in the box! They are both of Christ....one as the 'Good Shepherd' the other with the 'crown of thorns'. They are damaged slightly, but look fine from a distance. I'm so happy to have them and am amazed I found both of them this week of all times.
My mother was also famous for writing everything down. She used to take scraps of paper, staple them together and put them in her purse for grocery lists or for copying down things she found while we were out and about. She wrote down everything from Scripture verses, to poems, to hymn texts. She would often scavenge scraps of paper that had something on one side but blank on the other for her supply. One such paper had the text to a hymn she had written down on one side and the remnant of a note from Gordon on the other! It said "Well I guess I've gone on long enough. I hope I've been able to encourage you to press on. Have a wonderful Christmas season. In Him and His love, Gordon K. Page."
The tears came. All those memories flooding back again...the amazing way he always made me feel. I wish I had the rest of this letter...I don't remember it and I have no idea how it came to be in my mother's scrap paper file...GRRRR , but I'm glad I have at least this much. Once again, I'm tired, discouraged and beaten down and as if he reached down from Heaven and handed the note to me for the first time, it refreshed my spirit. Just when I needed someone to tell me to "press on", just when I needed some encouragement, it comes...from a most unlikely source...a dear friend, now in Heaven. What a special gift to me!
I want to share one more picture with you before I close just because it makes me smile and I hope it will do the same for you.
Have a good night all!
