Out Of This World

Big Day Yesterday!  Millie turned 6, just two days after her first day in K-5.  She so anticipated the day that we wanted to make it special for her.  She got a cedar wood playhouse that was suppose to be easy to assemble.  It is...if it is put together by three carpenters who have had two days to study the instructions.  One homeboy that cannot nail a nail straight is in for it. I started at 4 PM Friday and told Dawn that I would 'whip this little job out' and go to an early supper.  At 5:30 I said 'Forget supper...I'll be here all night.' Christmas Eve has never been that bad...and I have pulled some long shifts for the fat man in red.  I'm sympathic of his cause.  After six hours of blood (not really, unless it was under the surface), sweat, tears, and washed out knees (190 lbs. man should not be on his knees in a playhouse for hours...can you imagine what it was like for me?).  I told someone that I lost my religion there and then got it back.  Give me plastic and pre-fab furniture anyday.  I have degree in cheap bookshelves and plastic kitchens, but a drill and some pre-drilled holes was awful.  I got up early Saturday morning to go to Walmart to get replacements for the dead watch batteries in the doorbell and to finish up the window boxes and attached bench.   I finished it, held my own little ceremony with my two man team (me and myself- also named Jekyel and Hyde), found me a real helper and put the house in place.  If there was any pride in me on Friday, it is gone now.  I have been humbled.  It was all worth it though...Millie had a great day!

John 14 is made up of some of my most quoted passages.  It is seldom that I do a funeral when John 14 is not mentioned in some format. They are comforting verses and verses that give ease concerning the questions of tomorrow.  John 14.27 is a key verse.  Christ speaks of the peace that He gives and the uselessness of our fear when He loves us so and walks with us daily. However in the middle of that verse is a phrase that we should not pass over.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.
The Lord does not give like the world, does not love like the world, does not comfort like the world.  Never try to judge the Lord's actions by your experiences in the world, by people of this world, by merely what you see in this world.  He does not work like this world does.  Trust Him today.  He is out of this world!