In today's sermon about God's love as expressed by Paul in Romans 8:35-39, Pastor Derek said our response to the matchless love of God should be to "Let it undo you!"
So I am breaking 8 months of blogging silence to record some of the ways I am undone by His love today.
I've been convicted over the past year or two of my lack of intentionality in observing a Sabbath. Unfortunately, I haven't acted on that conviction in any regular way, but yesterday I felt compelled to get all the piles of stuffed animals off the living room floor and all the stacks of shoebox clothing stored so I could really rest on this Sunday. What a difference it made to wake up and see my freshly vacuumed living room floor sans those piles!
As I searched this Sabbath afternoon for ways to recount manifestations of God's love for me, I grabbed a journal from my bookshelf that I wrote in 2008-2009. A few hours of reading the lines I wrote in the early morning hours of the days that year gave me lots of revelations.
It was a year of transition as we left the church I attended for 56 years and looked for a new church home. I recorded how I continued going back to that church basement and packing shoeboxes and how God allowed me to finish 7,272 boxes that year with the help of our OCC team and friends. I had no idea what the future would hold; on 11/19/08 I wrote, "I don't know if we'll ever pack that many again, but I praise You, God, for all these gospel opportunities that You've provided."
Day after day and week after week I recorded all my angst--my besetting sins of overeating and procrastination and irritability, and my inability to use my time as wisely as I wanted to for the Lord. And I realized in many ways those journal entries of 14 years ago mirror my current journal writings. I still struggle with the same sins; I still have much of the same angst. But God hasn't changed, and for some unfathomable reason He is still in love with me. Tears fill my eyes this moment as I think about it.
Some things have changed, though. As I read my thoughts from 14 years ago I see I was concerned about spending too much money on shoeboxes, yet it was only a fraction of what God's provided for me to spend now. I wondered if we'd ever be able to pack as many boxes ever again as we packed in 2008...and now we regularly pack more than three times that many!
I've been thinking lately about how tired I feel, but I see from this journal that I constantly complained 14 years ago about being tired. I hope this means that in 2037, if the Lord tarries, I'll still be complaining about being tired but also still carrying on by God's grace and with all the help He gives to get His will done--whatever that is in 2037. I'm not sure I'll ever be as positive as cheery Caleb of the Old Testament who insisted he was as strong at age 80 as he was 40 years earlier, because positivity has never been my strength, but who knows? God may do that miracle, too.
I'm definitely taking this day off from making decisions, but in the next two days we'll be finalizing dates and preliminary details for our 2023 big shoebox packing party. In addition to perusing old journals today I've been looking over lists of all the items God's given us over these years since our first large packing party in 2009. I'll tell you, it's astounding.
On 7/08/09 I had a phone call with Joey White from OCC, and he asked if we'd consider doing a special large packing party. I had no experience, but the church I'd then recently started attending came around me to get that job done. God knew I needed that support! He worked out every detail and only 10 weeks later, on 9/26/09, we had 150 volunteers who got 5,577 boxes packed in under four hours. Only God!
Year by year He keeps extending His grace over every roadblock to make this happen. Lord willing, this will be our 15th packing party, and we've packed over 304,000 more boxes since I wrote that journal in 2008. I stand amazed at what He does every year.
Sometimes I just need to sit back. And breathe. And remember. And let it undo me.
