Winter List

  The winter is winding down and yesterday I reached the end of my winter to-do list when I put the last stitch in this afghan.

   Since October I have

• embroidered a quilt top
• put a 2000-piece puzzle together and two smaller ones
• crocheted a baby blanket
• quilted a crib quilt
• made a baby comforter
• scrapbooked my 2022 pictures
• wrote eight devotionals and five short stories
• crocheted an afghan

   Of course, I had all the usual housework and other activities to do as well. How did I get all that done in five months? Simple. I wasn't writing a book.

The Junk Drawer

   We have lived in the same house for fifty-five years. One top drawer in the kitchen cupboards has always been the junk drawer. When my daughter got married, she said she is not going to have a junk drawer. But the first time we went to visit them, she had a junk drawer. She said a person just needs to have a place to put things like that. Maybe you have a junk drawer too but gave it a more dignified name. 

   What is in my junk drawer? Mostly things that are needed ranging from every day to never. The scissors is used almost every day. A pen, pencil, ruler, scrap paper for writing grocery lists, scotch tape, and matches are used frequently. The junk drawer is also a bank for new batteries, recipes I clipped to try someday, a pill bottle repurposed to store thumb tacks, a jar of little screws and bits of hardware that might be useful sometime, a bag of keys that has outlived their usefulness because nobody remembers what they were for, a small paint brush that is there because that's where it always was.

    Sometimes I empty the junk drawer and reorganize it. But my German thriftiness balks at throwing things away that might be useful someday. So the recipes I never got around to trying, the bag of unknown keys, jar of little screws, and paint brush go back in the drawer. 

    My junk drawer has been there for fifty-five years, but my memory drawer reaches back much further. My earliest vague memories were just before and after I turned three years old. They became clear by the age of five and continued to this day. One drawer isn't big enough to hold that many years of memories so it became a file cabinet. Everything is still in there but I can't always find the right folder in the right drawer of the file cabinet. I give up and then all of a sudden it pops up when I'm not thinking about it.

     Like the contents of my junk drawer, I use some memories every day. For example, remembering how to read and type. Other things I use frequently, such as telling a story or singing by memory. There are other memories that (like the bag of keys) serve no good purpose and should be discarded and forgotten. Good intentions that were never acted upon are (like the unused recipes) not worth the space they take up. There are ideas (like the jar of screws) for things I want to do sometime but never get around to it. And things which I think must be done a certain way because that's the way we've always done it, are like the paint brush which has no good reason for being where it is.

    Memories can be useful or like useless clutter in a junk drawer. Discarding the clutter frees up space for the useful.

    

Three Trees

    Did someone ever share a need with you so you "know how to pray"?   We won't pray for a need if we don't know about it, but what does "knowing how to pray" mean? 

   I'm afraid too often we ask God to do what we think will solve the problem. God doesn't need our solutions or even our suggestions. He already knows about the problem and the solution. That does not mean we take a "whatever" attitude. He wants us to bring our concerns and desires to Him. James said, "You have not because you ask not." Bringing our cares and desires to God is an expression of trust in Him. We need only to ask for the basic need, not the way to make it happen.

   I have done that more times than I care to admit. I have been praying about a need in another person's life. I asked God to do a certain thing so something would happen. Nothing happened, but now I see God is moving in another direction and things are beginning to happen to answer the basic desire.

 

 Tale of Three Trees

   Once upon a mountain top, three little trees stood and dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up.

   The first little tree looked up at the stars and said: “I want to hold treasure. I want to be covered with gold and filled with precious stones. I’ll be the most beautiful treasure chest in the world!”

   The second little tree looked out at the small stream trickling by on its way to the ocean. “I want to be traveling mighty waters and carrying powerful kings. I’ll be the strongest ship in the world!”

   The third little tree looked down into the valley below where men and women worked in a busy town. “I don’t want to leave the mountain top at all. I want to grow so tall that when people stop to look at me, they’ll raise their eyes to heaven and think of God. I will be the tallest tree in the world.”

   Years passed. The rain came, the sun shone, and the little trees grew tall. One day three woodcutters climbed the mountain.

   The first woodcutter looked at the first tree and said, “This tree is beautiful. It is perfect for me.” With a swoop of his shining axe, the first tree fell.

   “Now I shall be made into a beautiful chest. I shall hold wonderful treasure!” the first tree said.

   The second woodcutter looked at the second tree and said, “This tree is strong. It is perfect for me.” With a swoop of his shining axe, the second tree fell.

   “Now I shall sail mighty waters!” thought the second tree. “I shall be a strong ship for mighty kings!”

   The third tree felt her heart sink when the last woodcutter looked her way. She stood straight and tall and pointed bravely to heaven.

   But the woodcutter never even looked up. “Any kind of tree will do for me,” he muttered. With a swoop of his shining axe, the third tree fell.

   The first tree rejoiced when the woodcutter brought her to a carpenter’s shop. But the carpenter fashioned the tree into a feedbox for animals.

   The once beautiful tree was not covered with gold, nor with treasure. She was coated with sawdust and filled with hay for hungry farm animals.

   The second tree smiled when the woodcutter took her to a shipyard, but no mighty sailing ship was made that day. Instead, the once strong tree was hammered and sawed into a simple fishing boat. She was too small and too weak to sail on an ocean, or even a river; instead, she was taken to a little lake.

   The third tree was confused when the woodcutter cut her into strong beams and left her in a lumberyard.

   “What happened?” the once tall tree wondered. “All I ever wanted was to stay on the mountain top and point to God...”

   Many, many days and night passed. The three trees nearly forgot their dreams.

   But one night, golden starlight poured over the first tree as a young woman placed her newborn baby in the feedbox.

   “I wish I could make a cradle for him,” her husband whispered.

   The mother squeezed his hand and smiled as the starlight shone on the smooth and the sturdy wood. “This manger is beautiful,” she said.

   And suddenly the first tree knew he was holding the greatest treasure in the world.

   One evening a tired traveler and his friends crowded into the old fishing boat. The traveler fell asleep as the second tree quietly sailed out into the lake.

   Soon a thundering and thrashing storm arose. The little tree shuddered. She knew she did not have the strength to carry so many passengers safely through with the wind and the rain.

   The tired man awakened. He stood up, stretched out his hand, and said, “Peace.” The storm stopped as quickly as it had begun.

   And suddenly the second tree knew he was carrying the king of heaven and earth.

   One Friday morning, the third tree was startled when her beams were yanked from the forgotten woodpile. She flinched as she was carried through an angry jeering crowd. She shuddered when soldiers nailed a man’s hands to her.

   She felt ugly and harsh and cruel.

    But on Sunday morning, when the sun rose and the earth trembled with joy beneath her, the third tree knew that God’s love had changed everything.

   It had made the third tree strong. And every time people thought of the third tree, they would think of God. That was better than being the tallest tree in the world.

    The next time you feel down because you didn’t get what you wanted, sit tight because God has something better to give you.

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