Precious Jewels

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When my sister and I were little girls, Mom often sang to us at bedtime before kneeling to pray. One of her songs was:

When He cometh, when He cometh
To make up His jewels,
All His jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning,
His brightness adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty,
Bright gems for His crown.

BroachI loved the thought of precious jewels, having seen them (fake glass ones) on barrettes, broaches, and jewelry boxes. So one day I asked Mom what the song meant. What jewels?

“You!” she said. “The words are talking about Jesus gathering you and all the other children as precious jewels for his crown.”

It didn’t make much sense but sounded lovely. At a bare minimum it was a stepping stone of little-girl-faith. To be called “a jewel” or “a gem” meant I was precious to Jesus, high praise back then and still today.

To make the jewel idea visible, we think of jewelry given as gifts. Everybody appreciates that kind of thoughtfulness, even though most of us will never be given jeweled crowns. We have been given other things, though, bracelets, necklaces, rings.

Gift of EmeraldNate had been my gem supplier and took advantage of every opportunity to bless me with modest jeweled items. After his death, though, I didn’t expect anything more. Then came Emerald’s first birthday. After all her gifts had been opened, Birgitta handed me an emerald-colored gift bag and said, “Midge, this is for you.”

 

Birgitta's giftInside was a beautiful necklace with emerald-colored stones set on the branches of a silver tree.

Among other things, her accompanying note (written on green paper) said, “You love Emerald like she’s your own, and that means the world to me! I love you so much, and I’m so grateful for your love and support.” It was a gem-of-a-gift that caught me by surprise and made a big impact.

As I wear Birgitta’s beautiful necklace it challenges me to think about my own gift-giving. Though I can’t go out and buy jewels for everyone I know and love, God has given all of us a book full of gem-like gift ideas we can use. Here are 10 of them.

He suggests we give:

  • food to the hungry
  • good deeds to the needy
  • money to the church
  • grace for second chances
  • hours of servanthood
  • hope to those who have lost heart
  • clothes to the homeless
  • compassion to the wounded
  • encouragement to pastors
  • the gospel to those who haven’t heard

And if we work at giving these, just as Mom sang, we’ll all be gathered up as “bright gems for his crown.”

“You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” (2 Corinthians 9:7)

To Do or Feel?

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Birgitta loves to read and always has. Because of that, she’s hoping her little Emerald will turn into a reader, too. Although she’s only 12 months, she already has her own bookshelf in our “library,” thanks to Louisa’s “bring-a-book” baby shower. (A Word or Two)

Emerald loves to handle her books and turns their stiff pages with expertise. She knows how to feel the “furry” or “nobby” pages and how to scratch open the peek-a-boo panels on pages with hidden surprises. Today while she was “reading,” though, I noticed something interesting.

Making a choiceThough she had handled a dozen books and was sitting amongst them, the one she kept returning to was a grown-up book she’d pulled from a different shelf. It was a dusty old reference book I’d used in my writing (before PCs and the internet) titled “20,000 WORDS SPELLED AND DIVIDED FOR QUICK REFERENCE.”

Trying to figure out what she liked about this bland book, I experimented with her.

Four different times I coaxed her into one of her toddler books, but each time she’d eventually brush it aside to hunt for “20,000 WORDS,” the book with no pictures or touchy-feely pages. Then she’d carefully finger it with intense concentration.

ConcentrationMaybe today, looking wasn’t as important as feeling.

It reminded me of the way God sometimes works behind the scenes on us. We think he wants us to look at a certain situation with an eye to fixing it, when really what he wants is for us to feel it, not with our hands but in our hearts.

For example, we might read about a family in chaos where the children are being neglected, and we immediately want to do something to right the wrongs. But it’s possible God doesn’t want us to jump in like that. Maybe he wants our hearts to feel such a potent ache that it drives us to prayer for the family rather than trying to fix things. Maybe he wants us behind the scenes requesting that he work wonders amidst the chaos.

So often we think we need to do something, when in reality praying is doing. It’s doing the most powerful, most effective thing possible. The fact that prayer is mostly done in secret and that no one knows about it except God, sometimes makes it more difficult to do. But may we never think that pouring our hearts out to God on someone else’s behalf isn’t as good as accomplishing something visible for them.

Feelin' itAs for Emerald, a few years from now she’ll be able to understand those 20,000 words and probably read them, too. When she does, I hope she’ll use them to talk to God in prayer.

“When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

Not My Gift

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In recent days we battled a couple of field mice in the house, so I’d called the Orkin man. He pointed out various cracks and gaps tiny mice were squeezing through to get in. “Fill up those spaces,” he told me. “And do it soon, since colder weather makes mice hunt for warmer places to winter.”

I know lots of people who “winter” in warmer places, traveling from Michigan to Arizona or Florida, and I didn’t want any mice arriving to winter with us.

Insulating foam sealantSo I went to Home Depot and asked for advice. A man in an orange apron led me to a spray can of something called insulating foam sealant “for large gaps and cracks.” It sounded perfect.

Normally I’m not a label reader, but the salesman had told me goggles and gloves were a must, so I decided to read: “Warning/danger! Is combustible and may present a fire hazard. Protect eyes, skin, and surfaces.“ I pulled on rubber gloves, and vowed to squint hard.

“You won’t need much of this stuff,” the man had said. “It expands.”

And boy, was he right. After I applied a long line that resembled bathtub caulk, in an instant it had morphed into something like marshmallows gone berserk. And then it hardened like rock.

Foam fillAs I stood back and looked at four foam-filled areas, I knew I never should have tackled the project without counsel from someone who knew his way around a can of foam. Thankfully the gaps I filled were in the back of the house under a long-neglected soffit. I just hoped no other human would ever see what I’d done.

Not all of us have the skills to do everything well. Each of us has been given giftings or bents that make it easy to accomplish certain things and impossible to do others.

That’s true spiritually, too. The Bible details God’s gift-giving system, explaining that not everybody has all the gifts. He arranges it that way on purpose, wanting us to need each other. We’re to learn to give of ourselves but also to take what others give to us. It’s a good system, unless we’re bent on independence (like I was with the foam). Then it all breaks down.

Unskilled handsI was foolish not to acknowledge my lack of gap-filling skill and know now I shouldn’t have done it alone. As for no other human seeing the mess I’d made, the very next day Mr. Orkin returned and made a beeline to those four mouse-gaps. I cringed as he inspected my foam overload, but his response was gratifying:

“Well,” he said, “there’s not a mouse in this neighborhood that’s ever gonna get through that.”

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”  (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)