When Whatever "IT" is, is More than I can Do

It is what it is. A bowl of bells a bit shriveled and discolored, but, hey, you should'a seen the other guys! They make these look like champions. 

I take their picture-validate them-while thinking that it's nice to be validated especially when imperfections are obvious even after being photo-shopped. 

Yeah, I photo-shopped this motley bunch. I brought out their colors, their best features, as I said a little prayer of gratefulness to the One who does the same for me, "Thank You for planting me in You, for picking the fruit I bear, and making it beautiful." 

That's all; because isn't it nice to be given a position-a place to grow-and then to have the fruit you bear picked? Even when it's not perfect?

It is. And I'm grateful that the fruit in my life isn't under God's scrutiny as if He's going to toss it away because it's discolored, or small, or even a little saggy.

I'm grateful He remembers than inside is His seed. 

His seed is carried inside the fruit I bear as a branch grafted into Him and, His seed is what counts. 

I don't know, but maybe when the fruit I bear is rejected by others because it doesn't look like what it's "supposed" to look like-maybe that's when I'm most grateful that I don't carry the burden of giving myself grace but that I may bear forth the glory of receiving the grace God gives. 

Seems to me that nothing validates like His grace. 

Seems His grace, that part of God which says, "I will do it" because whatever it is, it's more than I can do, is what redeems the unsightly mess of fruit I bear. 

I bear patience, and often it's a little shriveled up. 

I bear joy and most of the time it looks like one of those misfired 4th of July fireworks that fizzle. 

Love? 

Peace? 

None of it measures up, but isn't that the point? Isn't that what grace is for? Doesn't God alone give grace, to be received by Him alone? 

I think so. 

I know I can't begin to give myself God's grace, so I receive it. 

He gives it and His grace validates that He is the vine, His is the seed, and if He picks my fruit and opens it and scoops the seeds right out from my inner-self and then plants them-

"Ah, my Lord and my God! Your validation is everything all alive and green and growing right within me!"

I take a picture of the basil growing beside the bell peppers. It's a good year for basil. I snip it, lay it over the bell peppers in the blue ceramic colander and move over to the chives. I bring a fragrant bouquet of what grace smells like to me right now and place it on cutting board.

"Thank You for Your grace." His fragrant grace validates the fruit I bear.

I open the bell peppers and the seeds promise more grace.  

Any other grace isn't enough. Only grace so green alive-full-that it's fragrance spills all over me when I brush against it. 

This is the grace offered, and the only reason I can think of is because my loving God knows I need it and that I can never give enough of it to myself. I know because I've tried to give myself grace but it's always a little weak, lacks fragrance, and if I'm honest I'd say that the best of it lasts about as long as basil snipped from the plant till what I'd liked to have claimed as a grace I gave to myself begins to wilt into more of a pardon. 

Grace doesn't wilt. 

Grace remains fragrant, and it's got the fragrance of freedom all over it.

I bend over the cutting board, scoop up a handful of basil and chives, and inhale the kind of spice that smells like freedom, blown in on Spirit wind for the likes of the born-again.

I read about that this morning. "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

Yeah, that's it. 

That's the spice I hunger for. 

The fragrance of freedom blows on Spirit wind. 

It's grace, the freedom to move with the Spirit. 

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

White Sauce and Other Things to Serve with Love

Bible, journal, and The New York Times Cook Book.

I haven't watched Sesame Street since I was a child, but wasn't there a game called something like "One of these things is not like the other?" Surely it would be the cook book. Yet, this morning it belongs. It really does. I know many women are on their knees asking questions like, "How do I pray for my husband? How do I pray for my children?" I'm on my knees asking, "What do I do with the chicken thawing on my kitchen counter?"

Thing is, I'm about as seasoned as a roast in a crock pot when it comes to praying for my husband and children. It's not hard. I used to think it was, and I would have gotten on the wagon and read all the Christian how-to books that my friends were reading except there was something that didn't make sense to me about that. Something didn't sit right in my spirit. Now I know what it was.

The Bible is to prayer what the New York Times Cookbook is to food.

Scripture is full of how to pray and what to pray for my husband and children. It's as basic as Bechamel, the white sauce which The New York Times Cook Book says is the basis for countless dishes.

I didn't know about Bechamel Sauce back then, but I did know that the Bible must have the key ingredients for something as basic as how to pray for my household. The inside covers of my Bible look like well-used recipe cards titled Children and Husband.

Praying for my husband is easy.

Praying for my children is easy. 

God makes it easy.

It's no different than praying for friends and other things.

God tells me, word for word, how to pray and what to pray for them. If I prayed nothing other than what is written in His word for my husband and for my children, that would be enough.

The trickier part-the part which needs to be learned and taught-is more than flour, butter, and milk.

It's the part which might read something like, "Heat the butter, add the vegetables and cook five minutes. Add the water, wine and seasonings and simmer five minutes. Wrap the salmon in cheesecloth and place in the boiling liquid. Remove the salmon carefully, unwrap and serve with Bechamel Sauce."  It's called Poached Salmon Steak-for real. Page 246 in The New York Times Cook Book. 

To me, right now, God calls it, "Teach the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste,  homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed."

"What do I serve this with?" I can't help ask the Lord.

"Fruit." He takes me seriously; with a holy smirk.

When I stand in line at the grocery checkout, I read the covers of the magazines in the racks, and no wonder the average woman feels too busy and stressed to put dinner on the table. Nearly every headline tells us that we are! I get stressed just reading about how I should be stressed.

We must be stressed if nearly every magazine tells us how to handle stress.

We must be too busy to enjoy taking our time in the kitchen if nearly every recipe on the rack tells us how to make dinner in 20 minutes. I'm not ready to whip out the cheesecloth, but still.

Stress releases adrenaline, and isn't the release of adrenaline the body's response when it feels the need to run? To flee fast and fight hard?

It is, and God has a few things to say about this.

He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest."

He says, "'In quietness and confidence is your strength.' But," He continues, "you would not, and you said, 'No, for we will flee on horses...'" (Isaiah 30:15).

He also says, "Perfect love casts out all fear."

That's it.

Perfect love.

Here it is. The simplest counsel-basic. God's love.

And I'm thinking, "Here it is. The simplest counsel which is too hard-impossible-to follow except when following-worshiping-the One who gives it."

His word supplies my next thought, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

He visits like this.

I come to Him with a suitcase for a heart and He helps me unpack.

He rummages through the things I used to put on, and tosses them over His shoulder into oblivion, saying, "These don't fit you anymore!" Then He unfolds what I folded into my heart long ago, "Take off the old man, and put on the new."

His word, it still fits.

He brings into my thoughts what's packed in my heart. And this is how He changes-renews-my mind.

Fear doesn't fit me. Stress pinches here, tucks there and fits ill.

I've grown, increased, and these days fear is too small. So is stress. I still try to put them on. It's an old habit. But I find I'm more comfortable in His righteousness.

His love fits.

I'm reminded this morning that the question we should be asking isn't how do I pray for my husband and my children, but how do I love my husband and my children.

I've never before brought a cookbook into prayer time. I've planned meals and written grocery lists while praying, but that's different. That's just making notes for later so that I can stay focused on now.

But this-this cookbook? It's 713 pages, and half of them have fallen out. The spine is fragile. The binding glue is flaking. It belonged to my mother, was published in 1961 and not a single recipe has the words "quick," or "simple" or  "fix it and forget it" in the title.

I can't remember the last time I followed a dinner recipe, but after 27 years cooking for my husband and children I've run out of ideas.

Creative juices are bone dry in my kitchen, lately.

Chicken thaws on the counter.

I rummaged through a stack of old cookbooks, found this gem, and now it lays open in the Poultry section, next to Titus 2 because last night's meal was the leftover of pathetic and I'm middle aged.

What does this have to do with anything? One word. I looked it up the other day and was comforted to read that though my senses are in overdrive and my nose wrinkles, lately, at certain cooking smells which I used to call fragrances, I'm not losing my mind.

In the early years, I made my own pasta, stopped just short of grinding my own wheat, and didn't have but a few odd cans of food in my pantry because I cooked fresh.

In the middle years, I bought Kraft Macaroni and Cheese-well, not for dinner-but I've cooked my share of the "slap it together and serve it up in 20 minutes " kind of meals.

Now? I'm on page 194 in the poultry chapter.

Thing is, I'm married to a meat eater. We're like Jack Sprat and his wife. I need divine inspiration because without it, poor Jack Sprat's plate is near to empty and I'm asking God how to love my husband in this season when he lovingly asks me nearly every evening if he can pick up dinner on the way home so that I don't have to cook and, I suspect, so that he can eat well.

"Lord?" I bend over the chicken recipe.

"I cooked fish on a beach."

"And the Father commissioned an angel to cook raisin cakes for Isaiah," I offer.

Then I remember another little cookbook in the pile I rummaged through earlier. "I cooked Abigail's Fig Cake back in the day when I sweetened only with honey."

"Ha! You did!" He exclaims, and then reminds me of when I concocted Healthy Brownies. I scribbled that recipe on page 246 of Deep In The Heart, recipes from "families...friends...and fellow Texans." I marked the page with a pink paperclip and I recall substituting 1 cup of honey for the 2 cups of sugar, and adding dried berries instead of chocolate chips and baking it just above raw, just below done. Gooey.

Then, "Ah, Lord." I pause tender.

"Hmm?" He waits.

"You served bread and wine-supper-the night You were betrayed."

Love serves.

I know what I'm going to do with the chicken.



written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

When It's About Time to Stir the Pot

So, it's been said that variety is the spice of life and that hunger is the best spice; and I'm thinking I've been hungry for variety. It's about time, really.

It's about time I use my cubed beef money for something like a small salmon filet, and flash cook it in the cast iron, flake it into a fresh white sauce thickening in the pot on the back burner, and turn the salmon white sauce over the tortellini I bought last week instead of I don't remember what.

It's about time I move the cooking utensils out of the stove-side drawer which started sticking when we had our counters replaced about eight years ago, and hang them up on hooks. Isn't that why wooden spoons and spatulas and whisks and basting brushes have a hole at the ends of their handles?

It's also about time I concede to the fact that the vegetable garden isn't growing vegetables this year. I don't know why. I stirred fertilizer into the soil, but I think it's just tired. The tomato vines stand gangley and as bored looking as teenagers on summer break with no job.

I conceded, partly, two weeks ago. I yanked the worst offender. It didn't argue, didn't resist and if I didn't know better I'd say the vine nearly helped me in it's removal saying, "It's about time!" The others are next.

Yellow Therapy Dog feels it, too. Maybe it's the green bean/dog food diet that's making her hungry for variety, or maybe she's just full of beans, but the crate she's slept in her whole life? She doesn't want to sleep in it anymore. She's done.

This is not entirely a fish-eating family. My big German pokes his head into the kitchen. He doesn't say it, but he doesn't have to. "Something fishy's going on in here," is written all over him. He sleuths the salmon as I stir it into the white sauce and, "Oh! Should I be stirring this into the sauce?"

What can he say? It's done. And something akin to "It's about time I stirred the pot like this" adds a nip of spice between us just here in the kitchen. I grin and win a kiss.

Salmon


It's about time to stir the pot.

It's about time to do some things differently.

And I am.

Here I go-because everything I blog comes from my journals and it's about time I stir the blog pot.

So, picking up from where I left off-

3 Green Tomatoes hang on a vine too weak to ripen on.  

Pretty, but not crisp.

It's good to be quiet with the Lord.

It's good to say to Him, "I'm here, Lord."

It's good to show Him what I've got my hands full of and to say, "I don't know what to do with this!"

It's good to wait to hear what He's going to say....


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

Stop and Listen and Let the World Be Big

King on conquest, He flexes the atmosphere into the shape of a warrior's bow, draws the arrow from the quiver, pulls taught some electrical current still vibrating the bass riff echoing over itself from the last arrow that flew and strummed the sky like a rock star on electric guitar. He packs a storm on His back and means to smash every line of power daring to hum incessant nonsense till the ears of His people ring too loudly to hear the line of praise He created and tuned for the sake of His name. 

Sometimes He rides on the clouds; just kicks them up till mid-day sun is cloaked in black and maybe it's thunder I hear, or maybe the rolling wheels of the chariot He commands, but it shakes the glass in my window panes, knocks the power right off the grid; just slaps the hum silent. 

One lightening bolt. That's all. Just one powerful release and white noise-that little hum we call power-is instantly humbled. 

Something beeps from the garage and the lights flicker off, the air conditioner stops breathing and the computer fails, dumb and lame. Yeah, that's the best part. When the computer stops running. Stops the world-bent-wide searches in response to the commands given by my own bent fingertips at keyboard. When the computer looses power, I feel that somehow I've gained some power. 

When the power fails, I can't help think that the truth about the power which we human beings have to make the word small and accessible is maybe this-if making the world seem small is what the buzz is all about, then we are small indeed.

I feel empowered to stop and to listen and to let the world be big. 

A big God made a big world. 

"I am the Lord," He declares from the heights, "and there is no other; there is no God beside Me."

He continues, "I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isaiah 45:5-8).

One calamitous strike of lightening power from the heavens above, and the power which lulls my ears with its incessant hum, stops. Keep me going at all cost, it hums. I'm worth millions!

"Indeed," I nearly hear Him say. "My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together!" He does say it in Isaiah 48:13.

Indeed. And when He draws a lightening rod from His backpack and fires it, entire power transformers crash.

A mid-day storm and the sun is covered, the sky is darkened, the white peace-clouds are dispersed. What disperses them? Surely this "I make peace and create calamity" fearsome side of God who tells me that He forms the fluffy white peace-clouds and sets them sailing on a summer breeze like masted boats on a sky blue sea, just as He also creates calamity. 

One God-sized breath and seas and sky and white clouds and sails on boats churn.

It could be my imagination, but I think that I begin to hear more clearly and feel more bravely the mysterious power which surges from God's fingertips when the other power-the hummy buzz-fails.

I like a power outage. When the power's out, when the white noise stops humming like elevator music, I can hear better. Deeper. And if the power's out long enough, I can feel myself unwind inside where I didn't know I was wound tight as wire. 

When the power's out, I can hear myself think things such as, "I  don't want the world at my fingertips." This is a progressive thought. It begins, "I don't need the web," and deepens as I sense a greater power-the kind which calls up and down earth and heaven till they stand up together. "I don't need," stands up tall, "I don't want!" And, for as long as this outage lasts, I don't want. Oh, if it gets dire enough, I'll want again. I will. I'm no pioneer woman. But for now? I'm feeling it.

What I want, and need, is to stand up at God's call and to know this-His power-which will never demand payment from me, but has given me all that He asks from me. That's power.

"Lord, I have labored to give what you have already given!" The thought isn't brand new, but it surges with Spirit popping, "Aha!" right about now. 

I continue, "I've labored in vain to pay what You've already paid!" Then I simply read straight off the page of Scripture opened before me, "Lord, I have labored in vain" (Isaiah 49:4). Leave it to a prophet to get at the heart matter-the truth-in less than ten words.

I read these six words out loud, "Lord, I have labored in vain." I read them and realize that they don't sound like confession to be ashamed of. 

"Lord! I'm in good company! Your very own Isaiah said these words first!" Sure, I wish I've never labored in vain; wish the confession wasn't true, yet here it is and here is the next verse, "Yet surely my just reward," I pause here. 

My just reward, I think to myself, not my punishment! My spirit hums full of His power in this outage, "My just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my God."

He reminds me of what He said back a chapter, in Isaiah 48:11, "For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; for how should My name be profaned I will not give My glory to another."

"You redeem for Your own sake?!" My mouth hangs opens; but His mouth? He says that His mouth is like a sharp sword, aimed for His own sake. "May I say, Lord, that right now Your mouth is as an arrow of lightening aimed for Your sake? For the power of Your glory to be known, felt, above all other powers that glory?"

"Hmm," He hums.

Over four hours have passed since the power went out. Candle flame, fire power, cuts the darkening shadows in my living room. I eat a bowl of stove-top dinner. The stove-top works. It's gas.

Six hours. I start getting ready for bed.

Eight hours. It's about 90 degrees in the house.

Twelve hours. The ceiling fan begins to hum. Something beeps in the garage. The air conditioner gasps like it's been holding it's breath too long. 

My husband, the giant German who sweats in the snow, checked himself into a hotel long ago, so I get up and turn off stray lights. 

My soul is still quiet, though the power is back on. I know I'll be wound up and wired in tomorrow, so I retreat to my knees now. 

"You are King of power, packing a storm on Your back. You bend the heavens to bow. You pull taut the currents in the atmosphere. You reach Your hand over Your head to draw forth arrow from quiver. You aim Your word to silence every line but the lines sung by the heavens and the earth and the mountains, praising, 'Sing, O heavens! Be joyful earth! And break out in singing, O mountains!'"

I sing a praise that just rises in me from Psalm 148.

Praise Him from the heav'ns;

Praise Him from the heights;

Praise Him all the angels;

Sun and moon, stars of light!

Praise Him from the earth;

Praise Him from the depths;

Praise Him, fill His word;

Every age, every breath!

Praise Him every hour;

Lift the exalted Horn;

Praise the God of pow'r;

Praise Him evermore!

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

somehow when the computer

Sanguine In The Spirit-and other gifts

She'll never be green! She'll never be a string bean!  I open a can of green beans and dish out half the amount of dog food as usual. Yeah, yellow dog is on a green bean diet! She's sanguine. Her life is a bowl of cherries. Green beans in her dish are not the pits, and sometimes I wish  my family was this easy to feed. 

"Whats for dinner?" They'd ask.

"Green beans!" I'd reply.

And they'd just grin.

Well, maybe sometimes I wish that I was that easy to feed, too.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, lived a missionary couple. I don't remember the name of the land they lived in, and I don't remember their names, and I don't even remember the details of their story except that they ate beets.They didn't chose to eat beets, but they had no food and, after they asked God for food, a local farmer of someone like that -I don't remember-felt he wanted to donate his extra beets to the couple. 

Gratefully they ate them. 

When the beets were eaten, someone else in the village felt they wanted to bring food to the couple, and they brought beets. When the beets were gone? More beets. I imagine they could have written a cookbook, 100 Ways to Cook Beets, sold copies to the local beet farmers, and used the proceeds to buy, I don't know, maybe green beans? 

My husband, a big German who is to me, my giant German; he and I read the Janet and Geoff Benge missionary biographies to our four youngsters, including the one about the beet couple, and now I wonder if they whispered with concern, "I hope mom doesn't make us eat beets like that," to one another from their beds. They needn't have feared. My giant German isn't a beet guy. Neither were these missionaries, but  they were rather sanguine in the Spirit about it.

Sanguine in the Spirit. That's got a nice sound to it. 

"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4)

My daughter crafted this in her earliest years and gave it to me as a birthday gift. It leans here, against the kitchen window on the sill above the sink, and has cheered me through many kitchen messes this side of the pane, and through many seasons that side of the pane. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! It's engraved in the sculpting clay-and in sculpted clay. 

I'm sculpted clay. Rejoice! is a holy word engraved in my heart by the Holy Potter who formed me. 

I'm barefoot clay, standing on plainest kitchen tile, choosing to be sanguine in the Spirit. I don't always remember that I have this choice, but this gift of clay gracing the sill with Rejoice! carved by toothpick in child-script reminds me. 

I'm clay who must be cheered-Rejoice! Rejoice!-while I sculpt salads nearly every evening, and carve through casseroles, and whole chickens, and loaves of un-sliced bread, and through days. 

I'm clay, slicing green bell peppers and summer's tomatoes, mincing chives, and fresh basil still warm from the sun with my favorite chef's knife.  

I'm clay at the wooding cutting board that my eldest once burned a cross into and gave to me as a gift. He also used his wood burning kit to create a plaque with, Try to see beyond that which is of this world written on it. It hangs over the mirror by the front door, but maybe I'll move it to sill beside Rejoice.

Maybe those sanguine in the Spirit practice looking beyond what they can see-beyond the beets. 

Gently, I take the sculpted clay-the Rejoice-in my hand and wipe it down with a paper towel.

I know that "Be anxious for nothing," is what follows "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" I know that the verse continues, "but in everything...let your requests be made known to God." There isn't a period at the end of this verse, but I need one there. I do! Everything? 

God hears my unspoken; my amazement. "Everything," He confirms.

If my spirit had a waist, I'd tie laughter around it and wear joy as an apron and count everything, even every stain, as joy.

"Laugh." That's what's scripted in twine, glued to fabric, and framed in driftwood. It hangs on the wall just there, above the wooden cut-outs of coyotes and cacti which guard the three aprons gathered on pegs. 

The apron my mother sewed drapes beside the apron given by my daughter-in-law who called me "Mom" before she married my son. MOM is embroidered across the bib of that one. The quilted apron sent from Alaska tucks too warm for Texas in the summer. I'll tie it about my waist when tile is cold on my feet and ice ticks against the window pane.

I choose the apron my mother sewed; and I choose to be sanguine in the Spirit no matter what splatters saucy. Or not. 

Sometimes what splatters is just laughter. Sometimes what's saucy is just this giant German of mine who grins a quick dance out of me till I splatter laughter and tears at the same time because sometimes love is messy like that.

Sometimes love, the kind that begins as a bushel of red beets worth rejoicing over, continues through a few more bushels that are laughed about because, "Hey! God must have a sense of humor to keep giving us the same ol' red beets! till it's not funny anymore and, "Alright already! Enough! Give me something different," is the kind of love which is sculpted by most everything that's routine, expected, not always wanted, but rejoiced over anyway. 

This lil' bit of clay? And that clumpy giant German? Yeah, we've eaten the likes of a lot of bushels of beets together till canned green beans sound like a delicacy just because they're not beets! 

I wonder when yellow therapy dog will refuse the green beans in her dish.

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

  

I'm Gonna' Walk on Clean Feet to the Tune of Revival

So, yeah, I don't want soggy. Not in my kitchen sink; not in my life.

I want to dine with the Lord, at His table; and I'd like the kind of after dinner clean-up that He offers. The kind that doesn't involve  a sink full of soaking plates and a drain that slurps, but does involve a basin to soak my feet in, an apron, and a towel.

I loaded the dishwasher last night, finished scrubbing the stainless steel sink, rinsed the dirty with the clean down the drain, flipped the garbage disposal on and off, pulled my dish gloves off one rubber finger at a time, and removed my apron.

Finished, I went to bed satisfied because sometimes in this imperfect world it just doesn't matter that it's imperfect. What matters is that Jesus is in my kitchen, at my sink where green rubber gloves and hand knit dish clothes are; and where sparkling suds turn the color of whatever is soaking in them till they dissolve too heavy with soil to stay afloat.

What matters is that Jesus is the perfecter of all things imperfect.

What matters is that He doesn't just dispose the garbage, but cleans the disposal, too.

It matters that He doesn't just rinse the dirty down the drain, but cleans the pipes to the elbow where things lodge till the sink is clogged and the drain can't swallow.

What really matters is that He does this in whoever opens the door to let Him in.

It really matters that He does this before He sets table.

It really matters to me that when I heard His voice at the door, and opened the door to let Him in, He made sure my soul could taste the goodness of the bread He would offer, and could swallow the wine He would pour, before we began dining together.

Aprons

This morning my kitchen is as clean as I left it last night and that's satisfying to the likes of me. I switch the red coffee maker to "on," the dishwasher to "on," let yellow dog out, and fetch my Bible while the coffee brews.

I went to bed last night in anticipation of my morning routine with my Lord. I pour coffee and call out to yellow dog, "Let's go pray!" She fetches her stuffed bunny, grins around it, and leads the way to the back room.

I pray for loved ones who can't hear His voice at the door because their souls are backed up and burping too loudly.

I pray for those whose lives are too full of treasure that's getting as soggy in their souls as last night's dinner scraps in the sink.

And I pray for those who either can't find the door knob; or can, but can't turn it because soggy is slippery.

Praying

"Remember that time when You dined with Your disciples and You tied a towel around Your waist for after dinner clean-up?" This is what I'm thinking about this morning.

I open my Bible to John 13 and read how, after dinner, Jesus tied a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin, and began to wash His disciples' feet. They didn't know why He was washing their feet, so Simon Peter asked, "Lord, are You washing my feet?"

It's not hard to picture the grime that would've been at the bottom of the basin.

Jesus answered, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this."

"What will he understand?" I ask Him because if I can know what Peter will understand after Jesus washes his feet, then I'll understand, too.

I read how Peter was appalled that Jesus would be the One washing his feet. "You shall never wash my feet!"

Did Jesus then lower the towel and let it rest while He explained, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me"?

I can appreciate Peter's all or nothing response, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

All or nothing. That's not a lukewarm response to Jesus.

 Come In

I'm a slow half-a-cup coffee drinker, and the bit in my mug is tepid.

Yellow dog and I, we cross the scuffed wooden floor to the kitchen microwave. She follows me to the table, settles with a groan on the tile floor as I settle in my chair, hopefully without a groan. The dishwasher hums in the kitchen with the microwave where my coffee is warming; and my apron, the one I wore last night, hangs on a hook just behind me.

Here I listen to Jesus who's so near and real right now that I almost expect to see an apron missing from one of the hooks and a basin of water at my feet.

I imagine Jesus might hum when He washes my feet.

"He who is bathed," I read what Jesus said to Peter-is saying to me-and before I finish reading His thought I quietly interrupt.

"I know I'm bathed." I whisper it just under the hum. "You washed me by the cleansing power of Your blood."

He listens, and then I start reading again, "He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean." His thought doesn't stop there, but I'm sipping slowly this morning.

"Hm-m," He hums and I get the feeling He's warming up His voice because I'm starting to hear His words in rich spiritual tones the likes of which are sung by those who know they're washed clean, and know they need Jesus to wash their feet at the end of every day because this world isn't clean.

Mmm-hmm; He who is ba-a-a-athed. It's just rich sound, true as victory.

Hm-m-m, Hm-m-m, Oh-h, he who i-i-i-i-i-is ba-athed needs o-o-only-YES! O-o-only to wa-ash his feet. The notes roll up and down the scale.

But he is completely! I said, completely! Cle-ean!  It's old time revival. That's just how I hear it.

"Do you know what I have done to you?" I read His question in John 13:12, and before the disciples can guess an answer or ask what, He tells them. And me.

He tells me how to walk on clean feet.

He tells me to wash others' feet; and to let others was mine.

He tells me that I'm clean, but that I still need to submit my feet, my walk, to a basin of water everyday, and to let the hands of Jesus wash my feet.

To me, this is how to walk in a repentance assured that I am clean.

"You made me clean, and make me clean everyday." This is perfection in an imperfect world.

"If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." He assures me from John 13:17.

Rain Barrel 

Washer pauses, puffs hot steam,

Kitchen sink is scrubbed and clean,

Apron's hung, it's strings untied,

Rubber gloves at faucet side.

"Keep the apron, keep the gloves,

"Fill the basin with hot suds,

"Wear your towel, open your door,

"Unstrap the weary, sandaled soul.

"Gently wipe," I hear Him say,

"Comfort those whom I have bathed."

"What if a soul asks for my towel?"

He answers, "Give it. Then sit down.

"Let your fellow servant wash

"Your feet, too, as I have taught."

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

In a Perfect World I'd Build Castles in the Air and They Wouldn't Melt Like Suds

I left the dinner dishes to soak in the in the sink overnight. "They're not going anywhere," I say it more to myself than anyone else, but honestly, I wouldn't mind if they did.

In a perfect world my dishes would load themselves into the dishwasher.

In a perfect world, they would wash themselves on those evenings when I give up and go to bed.

While I'm dreaming up a perfect world, in a perfect world dinner would make itself when I don't feel like cooking and have used up the eating-out budget.

Green Rubber Gloves

I snap the rubber dish gloves on, clap my rubberized  fingers together in let's-get-her-done energy, and fish around for the drain plug at the bottom of the sink. The water is on the cool side of lukewarm.

"In a perfect world," I explain to myself and, okay I admit, to the sink-full of dish-soap scum floating on the surface of tepid water, "the sudsy hot water I filled the sink with last night would still be sudsy and hot."

In a perfect world, I'd build castles in the air and they wouldn't melt like suds.


I've been praying for loved ones who are far from the Lord. I have a picture in my mind of how close Jesus is to them. How is it, I wonder as the drain slurps scum, that He can be so close to them and they can be so far from Him?

He's just on the other side of the door knocking.

The drain knocks down the last shot of I don't know what kind of brew, burps loud, and drowns out my sink-side philosophizing. I wipe the mouth of the drain with one of the kitchen cloths my mom knitted for me; and I continue to scrape up my perfect world.

"In a perfect world, I would open the door for them!"

I rinse the cloth in hot suds, squeeze it out, hang it over the faucet to dry and I know I can't open the door for them. That's between them and Jesus.

I've opened the Bible for them, opened my mouth for them, opened my arms, opened my life, opened my heart and all the love I have in it that they might see Jesus there; but it's like opening the pantry doors for a hungry soul, and hearing,"There's nothing to eat," though I know I just stocked it with Costco-sized groceries.

I know that only they can let Jesus into their lives. And finding a doorknob in a heap of sin-yeah, sinners hoard sin-is like finding that gold ring I once accidentally dropped down the kitchen sink. I couldn't open the drain pipes under the sink to find it. Not by myself. I called this big German I married decades ago. He closed the space between his cave and my kitchen in about two strides, would've turned opened the pipes with his bare hands except that a wrench got in the way, and found my ring with the same ease that I'd like to have to turn open a few knobs of a few hearts clogged with last night's dinner scraps gone soggy.

Door Knobs at Home

Jesus talks about knocking at the door. I find it in my Bible, where He says, "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with Me."

He's not interested in last night's dinner scraps, melted suds, tepid water any more than I am at this moment. "Dine with Me," He says. "Open the door and dine with Me."

Isn't it perfect that Jesus knocks at the door?

In a perfect world, His voice is heard, the doorknob is found, turned open, and Jesus is invited in to dine.

Well, it's been so long since I've read these words. I've heard them far more often then I've read them. I'm surprised to find them not in the Gospels, but in Revelation. I'm surprised that these words are not spoken to those who have never heard the name of Jesus, but to those who have heard Jesus' name, have been church-goers, but are lukewarm toward Him. 

I picture two faucets running hot and cold water. I imagine the waters mixing in the basin. What does this look like in a lukewarm people? In those who have known the name of Jesus, may have been on fire for Him at one point, but who now say, "I am rich, I've become wealthy, and have need of nothing"?

I ask the Lord about these things. I  picture those who have not heard the name of Jesus, and I see in my mind just piles of worldly treasure stocked high in their lives.

I picture the lukewarm, those who say they have become rich and need nothing. I see in my mind every treasure-holy and unholy, clean and unclean, the name of Jesus just buried in a pile of many other names. "Lord! They couldn't find a door the size of a two car garage let alone a knob!"

The lukewarm,those who may have been saved, may have opened the door to Jesus, and then drove Him out-that's messy.

"So,"the Lord says ,"do not store up for yourselves worldly treasures. Where your heart is, so will your treasure be."

I've been lukewarm before. I've wanted one gloved hand in church and one not, and never mind the gloves. They're green rubber. They work in any temperature-hot, cold, lukewarm.

I've stored up treasures before, but seems the next day they're soggy and close to rusted, moth-eaten, maybe thieved. Green rubber gloves don't care much what they grab.

Hot Suds 

Well, I'm praying for loved ones. Their lives are clogged. They can't find the knob to turn; the table in their heart isn't set for Jesus, and yesterday's feast is soggy.

I imagine Him reclining at the table of my heart.

I imagine the most amazing fragrances wafting from the banqueting table and maybe in His kitchen the dishes do clean themselves.

I imagine He doesn't serve left-overs; and I'm certain His kitchen sink, the one filled with water from the river of life which runs crystal clean, has never burped.

I'm praying for loved ones, and I feel it. Conviction. Hot, cold, lukewarm-I've been all three.

I yank open the dishwasher door and start loading it.

I don't want soggy.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig