Glow in the dark

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. – Exodus 34:29 (NIV)

I can remember when I first discovered how glow-in-the-dark figures really worked. Until then I’d never really given much thought to how something could radiate light without being a source of light itself. I noticed how the figures shone brightly at first, then slowly lost their glow.

Rather than give off light all by themselves, glow-in-the-dark figures radiate the light they’ve absorbed from a light source such as a light bulb or the sun. The brighter the light source and the closer and longer the exposure, the more light is absorbed and the brighter the glow.

I remember how I’d take a glow-in-the-dark figure and hold it close to a light bulb, then hurry to a darkened room so I could watch it glow. But the glow would eventually fade, and I’d have to return for more light.

Christians, too, are “glow-in-the-dark” figures. We are to radiate the light we absorb from God to a world darkened with selfishness and sin. The closer we get and the longer we stay in His presence, the brighter we will glow.

I wonder how well I am radiating God to those around me. Too often I jump right into the day without taking much time to absorb His light through praying and reading His Word. Then, when I go into the sin-darkened world, His radiance dims much too quickly.

Yes, I can go to church once or twice a week and catch some light, but it’s only when I’m up close to God on a daily basis and I spend adequate time with Him that I absorb – and then radiate – the most Light.

Remind me, O God, that my purpose in life is to radiate Your glory. For You alone are the true Source of Light. Amen.

Special-Tea: Matthew 5:14-16; Exodus 34:29-35

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Sharon's hands

She . . . willingly works with her hands . . . she extends her hands to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy . . . give her of the fruit of her hands. – Proverbs 31:13, 20, 31 (NKJV)


Recently my friend Sharon treated me to a girls’ day out. The day-long event was a “HeartSpa Getaway” held at a local Christian campground and included activities to nourish, refresh, and renew both body and spirit.

In addition to enjoying inspirational music provided by a women’s singing group and searching soul and Scripture, we also pampered our hands, faces and feet.

Our first pampering station was for our hands. First we rubbed them with an exfoliating scrub, then slathered on a soothing lotion. The next step I was a bit hesitant about—dipping my hands in a crock-pot containing liquid paraffin. I was afraid it would be too hot. But it wasn’t, and as soon as I brought my hands out, I was instructed to hold them together in a prayer position. My folded hands were then encased in a plastic bag and wrapped with a hand towel. While we waited for the paraffin, plastic, and towel to do their therapeutic work, we were to pray with and for our partners.

Sharon and I clasped our towel-clad hands and began praying. As I prayed for Sharon, whom I’ve known for over 30 years, I envisioned her hands—long and slender, with nails clipped short so they won’t interfere with the work she has to do.

I remembered when these hands brought me homemade chicken soup when I was in bed recovering from my second C-section. She hadn’t known it, but I’d asked God for some homemade chicken soup when I was still in the hospital.

These hands, I realized, have spent a lifetime doing for others—cooking, cleaning, mending, gardening, canning—the million and one things that need done for a family. These hands have written countless notes of encouragement, slipped uncounted dollar bills into scores of needy hands. They can be counted on to do what needs to be done. They’d held sick children, changed messy diapers, cleaned up puke, scrubbed bathrooms, cut hair, given perms, washed dogs, wrapped gifts, rubbed backs, blew kisses, prepared Bible lessons.

They’ve been bitten, blistered, burned, calloused, and cut, yet still wave a friendly greeting in a grocery store, on the street, in church. As busy as these hands are, they always take time to comfort. They’ve been clasped together in prayer for others, and they’ve grasped the hands of others as she prayed for them.

The hands are the instruments of the heart. Sharon’s hands are giving hands, for her heart overflows with kindness, compassion, and love.

My daughter’s dog, Tess, was rescued from an animal shelter. Tess is afraid of hands and slinks away in cowering fear when a hand, however loving, gets too close. Who knows what cruelties have been inflicted on her by hands that wanted only to dominate or harm?

Hands can hit, pinch, pound, punch, slam, and slap. A closed hand is tight and tense. Hands that grasp and cling when it’s time to let go cannot be open to receive.

Sharon’s hands are no longer supple, smooth, and nimble. They bear the scars of a lifetime of love. But they are not empty. They overflow with blessings poured out from her heavenly Father, blessings she passes on to others.

I have no choice over how pretty my hands are—whether they’re long and slender or wide and knuckley. But, as Sharon likes to say, pretty is as pretty does.

I choose what these hands do. They can lend a hand, pass on a hand-me-down, give a hand up. They can be the hands of God in a needy world.

Have you taken a good look at your hands lately?

Dear God, thank you for Sharon’s hands and the many hands that have met my needs over the years. Bless them, O Lord. Forgive me for the times my hands have hurt others, and help me to forgive and forget those hands that have hurt me. Show me how to use my hands for Your work. Amen.

Special-Tea: Proverbs 31:10-31

Who wears the pants?

. . . for a man is God’s glory, made in God’s own image, but woman is the glory of man. – 1 Corinthians 11:7 (NLT)

All I wanted was a deck.

With our income tax refund safety tucked in our savings account, this past spring my husband and I discussed replacing the redneck porch with a deck built of treated lumber and large enough to accommodate family cookouts. We discussed size and even staked out the dimensions. A friend, using computer software, drew up the blueprints.

Then we got into a discussion about the roof.

In order to fully enjoy the deck, Dean said, we’d have to have a roof over it, and the slope of the roof had to be steep enough to allow melting snow and rain to run off. Any slope less than—I think he said four/twelfths—would cause ice to back up under the eaves and damage the roof. And, for the size of the deck we were considering, the deck roof would have to extend to the peak of the house roof.

“I don’t think that’ll look right,” he said.

“What’s wrong with the slope of the porch roof we have on now?” I asked.

Let me give you a little background here. Our back porch is called the redneck porch because it’s built of castoff pallets my husband dragged home from work. It’s actually our second redneck porch because pallets aren’t made to endure these northern winters. The roof, what Dean calls a “shed roof,” is made of the corrugated green plastic sheets his mother used as a windbreak on her back porch, and is held up with pillars made from a couple of trees from our woods.

The roof discussion soon trumped the deck discussion.

“I’d like to put a roof on the house before we build the deck,” Dean said at the turning point (where the discussion turns into an argument), citing the age and condition of the brown rolled roofing that has covered our heads for the past 26 years.

Last fall, Dean smeared tarry black goo over the back roof, which for some reason shows more signs of roof fatigue than the front. So now the roof on the front of the house is brown and the roof on the back is black. But I digress.

Wanting to be a good wife and not argue, I pulled out the latest Consumer Reports magazine, which coincidentally (or fatally, depending on how you look at it) featured different types of roofing. We couldn’t decide on shingles (my vote) or metal roofing (his preference), so we estimated the cost of both—way more than the meager amount we had in savings.

“So let’s build the deck,” I said, closing the magazine.

“But I want a roof over the deck,” he said, “and if we’re going to put a roof over the deck, I want to replace the house roof at the same time.”

This is called an impasse.

“All I want is a deck!” I said, close to boiling point and a decibel under “yell.” “Can’t anything be simple? Why do you always have to complicate things? Oh, I know—you really don’t want to build the deck, so you sabotage the plan. You always do that.”

The atmosphere in the house was frosty for a week or so—until God nudged me. Dean was right. The deck was a want; a new roof was a need.

For me it was still another lesson in the husband-wife relationship—specifically, who wears the pants in the family.

I’ve been spoiled—Dean usually lets me have my way. But there are times he disagrees with me. He doesn’t lord it over me, doesn’t cite the well-worn scripture about the wife submitting to the husband, doesn’t demand his own way. He simply states his case and his reasons.

“Woman is not independent of man,” Paul wrote, “and man is not independent of woman” (1 Corinthians 11:11 NIV).

Who wears the pants? We both do—he wears one leg and I wear the other. And, like a three-legged foot race, we stumble and sometimes tumble until we get in sync with each other.

Turns out we got neither deck nor roof. Our daughter came home with her family for three weeks in June, and there went the money. But we do have enough for another can of roof coating, though.

Dear God, when Dean and I disagree, remind me that our relationship trumps over whatever it is we’re arguing about. Remind me that a home built with love is the home that endures the seasons of life. Amen.

Special-Tea: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16

What I work for

In My Father’s house are many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place for you. – John 14:2 (NKJ)
Don’t store up treasures here on earth . . . store them in heaven where they will never lose their value, and are safe from thieves. – Matthew 6:19–20 (LB)

In his short story, “The Mansion,” Henry Van Dyke tells the story of John Weightman, a highly successful, self-made businessman whose life was ruled by one motto: “Nothing that does not bring the reward.”

Weightman applied this motto to both his professional and personal life, from investing his money to building his richly furnished house to raising his children to giving to charity. A faithful churchgoer and professed Christian, Weightman believed that Scripture promised a reward for good deeds.

Weightman even had a carefully crafted career plan for his son, Harold, who, unbeknown to Weightman, chafed under his father’s iron hand. One Christmas Eve Harold asked his father to help an ill friend who’d saved the young man from going the wrong way in his early college years. Harold suggested they loan him three or four thousand dollars.

When Weightman was told the ill young man had only “a fighting chance,” he balked.

“A fighting chance may do for a speculation, but it is not a good investment,” he said. “Send him three or four hundred dollars.”

That night, feeling sad after the disagreement with Harold, Weightman fell asleep in his carved library chair. He dreamed he died and went to heaven, where people, all of less fortune and prosperity than himself, told him they were on their way to their mansions. Surely, Weightman thought, with all the good he’d done, his mansion would far outdo anyone else’s. And he felt a certain smug pleasure imagining their reactions to his place.

One by one, each of his fellow travelers was escorted to mansions so beautiful they were filled with joy and awe. Finally only Weightman and his friend Dr. McLean were left. The heavenly guide led them to one of the largest and fairest mansions with a spectacular flower garden. The guide turned to the doctor.

“This is for you,” he said. “All the good that you have done for others, all the help that you have given, all the comfort that you have brought, all the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the suffering, are here; for we have built them all into this mansion for you.”

Now it was Weightman’s turn. He could hardly wait. The guide led him to a single, ramshackle hut in an open, lonely field with no flowers and very little grass. It looked like it had been built with scraps and castoffs of other buildings. Surely this was a mistake!

The guide shook his head sadly. “This is all the material you sent us,” he explained.

“All my life long I have been doing things that must have supplied you with material,” Weightman said. “I have built a schoolhouse; the wing of a hospital; two—yes, three—small churches, and the greater part of a large one, the spire of St. Petro—”

“Yes,” answered the Keeper of the Gate, “it counts in the world—where you counted it. But it does not belong to you here. We have saved and used everything that you sent us. This is the mansion prepared for you.”

I wonder—what are my motives for the things I do? I listed all the possible reasons I could have for serving God. Love for Him was at the top of the list—the purest and hardest one of all. I would like to think I serve because I love Him. I would like to think that is my only reason.

But I also work for that heavenly reward—that mansion Scripture promises.

But I confess I’m a lot like Weightman. I long for earthly recognition, appreciation, approval, worldly goods, health, a good life, popularity, achieving my dreams. Would I still serve Him if I were to attain none of these?

I would like to think I would, but I know I still have a way to go to have the pure heart God wants me to have.


Dear God, help me to keep my eyes fixed on You, not on what I could get for being obedient. Help me to give and serve for pure reasons—to want to help someone else with no thought of myself. Amen.

Special-Tea: 1 Corinthians 3:10–15; Matthew 6:1–4, 19–21