This morning, I had a wonderful time meeting with some of my favorite people, the Sojourner girls, Simchah, and Nora. We had asked Nora to come and give to us what she had shared at Samantha and Aubrey’s passages this year and she graciously agreed. She talked about what it means to be a woman and what the world needs women to look like.

So often, we are pressed by the society we live in to conform to their ideals and standards. In fact. pressed hard. We must hear from God in order to resist this pressing and to obtain the riches of His glory, not our own. God gave Nora such a picture that I wanted these young ladies to partake of it and be encouraged to live up to God’s standards and not give into the “pressing” around us.

The world doesn’t need more clones like itself, though it will tell you it does. The world is in ruins. Things have become very confusing in society. Fathers are scarce, mothers are trying to carry the heavy load of fathering, mothering, and providing. Children are left to themselves, most of the time. There is no picture of mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother. These things are becoming a thing of the past. The world needs hope. Hope that things don’t need to stay the way they are.  But what does that look like?

I was standing in line (I know that’s surprising) in a gas station restroom Saturday and had yet another experience with God. We had just been in traffic for over an hour trying to get home from Florida and finally arrived at an exit with a bathroom. Everyone was ready for that, including all the other cars’ passengers waiting in the traffic with us. The gas station seemed to be having trouble with its A/C unit as it was very warm inside the building and there was a long line of ladies waiting outside the bathroom door. As I stepped in line behind Hannah a woman and her children stepped in behind me and I heard her say gruffly to her children, “I need you to get in line and stay in line because people are just cutting in front of us.”  Okay….that meant me. I wasn’t aware that I cut in line and I don’t think I did. Hannah said I didn’t either. But, more importantly this woman thought I did. Okay, so, I said, “I am so sorry, I don’t think I cut in line. Were you here before me? I guess I didn’t see you.” And to that, she abruptly set her jaw and turned her head from me in the other direction and would not speak. I tried one more time, to no avail. She wouldn’t even look at me. I threw some thoughts around in my head as to what to do, like, you can get in front of me, but, I thought it would only make her feel awkward and dumb the whole time she would be standing in front of me while waiting to get to the bathroom because of the way she had acted. I didn’t want to do more damage. And, of course, I was a little frazzled myself at being treated this way for no apparent reason. 🙂 So, I tried to make the best of it and smile at her children, to assure them that everything was okay and I wasn’t upset and it was okay for their mom to be upset.

Well, as usual, I didn’t figure it out until later as to what I was supposed to do. I now know what that lady needed. What I needed to do was tell her to use the bathroom before me as soon as it was my turn. That way things wouldn’t have been awkward and I think that she would have cooled off by that time to accept that.  What she needed was a friend that loved her even though she was spitting mad, a friend that could help her when she needed help. She needed hope that friends do exist. She needed to know that there is a Friend who will lay his life down for you.

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus! Stay with us and then we will begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from you, none of it will be ours; it will be you shining on others through us. Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do. The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. Amen

Dear God, Please make us into your hope for this generation.