Mangoes and Identity: The Highlights of my Summer Challenge So Far
Mangoes are my happy fruit this week. Simplicity at its best. With nearly all of my dessert options off limits, I really have to make do or do without. So I'm learning to love what I've got: a mango tree. This year is the first that it has fruited, and I'm looking forward to many more juicy, sticky, sweet snacks.
We shared mangoes with many friends this week. It's great fun to pick mangoes with friends, climbing trees, catching dropped mangoes, peeling away the skin with your teeth, juice running down my arm, laughter, kindness, friendship.
These moments are so often overlooked. I miss so many of them because I'm too busy studying, watching TV, or online somewhere. It has only been one week, but I am so excited for this summer. I'm excited to invest in where I am, when I'm there. It's so easy to scoff and declare that that goal is much too simple to be a real goal, and that nearly everybody does that on a regular basis. But I think not. Examine the next few days. What do you see? Where are you really?
And again, in Leviticus 20:8 "I am the Lord, who makes you holy."
Who is God? He is the one who heals you and makes you holy.
It is such a simple reminder, but we are simple people. We like to make things complicated, but I think maybe it's in verses like these that God gently reminds us of our smallness and gives us bite-sized facts to cherish. He teaches us only what we can handle. We can handle a God who heals and a God who makes us holy. Those are fairly simple concepts. Later on, with his help, maybe he'll teach me something complicated, but only when I'm ready.
-Kae-
What a wonderful thing L I F E is in its simplest form!
These moments are so often overlooked. I miss so many of them because I'm too busy studying, watching TV, or online somewhere. It has only been one week, but I am so excited for this summer. I'm excited to invest in where I am, when I'm there. It's so easy to scoff and declare that that goal is much too simple to be a real goal, and that nearly everybody does that on a regular basis. But I think not. Examine the next few days. What do you see? Where are you really?
And: I D E N T I T Y
The identity that I've always focused on finding in the Bible was my own. I've been in Sunday School since I could talk (which was before I had teeth, as my mother would say), and so I have known all about God's love, faithfulness, and never-endingness. I could easily describe to you all that I know about this God, but somehow God poked me with my own words. "I am the God who heals you," Exodus 15:26. I knew that. I've always known that. Let's just pause a moment and let that message sink in.And again, in Leviticus 20:8 "I am the Lord, who makes you holy."
Who is God? He is the one who heals you and makes you holy.
It is such a simple reminder, but we are simple people. We like to make things complicated, but I think maybe it's in verses like these that God gently reminds us of our smallness and gives us bite-sized facts to cherish. He teaches us only what we can handle. We can handle a God who heals and a God who makes us holy. Those are fairly simple concepts. Later on, with his help, maybe he'll teach me something complicated, but only when I'm ready.
-Kae-
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