Peanut Butter Fingers

My children love, and I mean LOVE, peanut butter.  Their great grandma introduced them to “peanut butter suckers” (read “spoons of peanut butter made to sound fancy and like candy”) and they’ve been begging for them ever since.  And the sandwiches!  Peanut butter with banana (toasted, of course), peanut butter and honey, classic PB & J.  Having apple slices?  Spread some peanut butter on them! 

Anyway, they love their peanut butter.  And, being young children, they aren’t super careful about where the peanut butter gets.  I mean, it gets everywhere.  Their fingers and cheeks are kind of a given, but I find it in their hair (all the way on the back of their heads), smeared on their chairs, stuck in the grooves of our wooden table, smudged on their bedroom window.  Today I found some in my daughter’s bed.  Seriously.

Now, I’m not so good with sticky fingers or slime of any kind.  When I make a wrap, I feel the need to rinse my hands after handling pretty much every ingredient.  (Set out the tortilla, spread on the ranch *rinse* lay out the meat *rinse* lay out the cheese *rinse* place the tomatoes *rinse* -- you get the idea.) 

I like clean hands, preferably clean and dry hands. 

But, my kids are messy, and they love peanut butter. 

So, I’m helping lead a teen girl’s Bible group this summer and the lesson this past week was on beauty.  The woman teaching read the story of the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:21-43.   She’s unimportant and considered gross and “unclean” by the community.  She sneaks up to Jesus in a crowd and touches his robe believing that will heal her.  It does, and Jesus feels it happen, so he stops to talk to her.

Jesus.  JESUS!  Like one of the most important and well-known people around.  He talks to her – the person that nobody else even wants to get near.  He had enough love and compassion in him that it didn’t disturb him to be around her.  He wasn’t afraid of being contaminated by her.

She reminded me of my kids and their peanut butter fingers, and I realized how ridiculous and unloving I can be.  During dinner, I lean away from their outstretched hands in order to avoid the gross, slimy fingers. Inwardly, I cringe at the goop, avoiding it if at all possible.  Too many days pass when I’d rather protect my skin from goop than let their hands touch me.

But Jesus sets a different example for us.  And it’s on an even grander scale.

I mean, these are my own kids, and I’m afraid of their slime.  How can I ever really love other people?  Jesus went to be with people whose lives were deep in the muck.  He talked to them, went to their houses, let them touch him, and loved them. 

It’s a small step, but it’ll be good practice: it’s time to let the peanut butter fingers touch my arms, and love the kids they belong to.  

A Rainbow for the Bride

This Saturday, I was watering plants outside my grandma's house.  The sun was bright, the air hot and humid, and the bugs numerous.  It had been a long day already, with a quick breakfast, shopping lists and plans.  As soon as I was done here, we were going to a birthday party, and then I'd stay home with the kids while my husband went out with friends.  It's going to be a late night, I thought as I watched the water stream from the hose and soak into the dirt.

Then I saw it.  A wash of color.  I moved the hose back and forth across the plants, searching this time.  Yes, there it was again.  

A rainbow.  

Interrupting my thoughts in the most subtle and beautiful way.  I kept swishing the hose over the grass to see more of it.  Then, another rainbow.  A double rainbow.  Just for me.  

It was as if God was saying, "Why are you so focused on the comings and goings in your life?  Why are you always searching for the next thing?  Just trying to get through until you can rest?  Look, I have a gift for you right now."

I laughed like a child, giddy with glee as I pointed the hose up into the air above my head, searching to see more of the rainbow.  It misted all around me and I saw the rainbow encircle me, reflecting off the droplets.

I looked in awe, soaking in the glory while the water soaked my hair.  All this for me?  It wasn't a rainbow in the sky, visible to all.  It was just for me.  Like a kiss in the dark, a secret shared between two souls.  The memory of it lingered the next day, bringing a smile to my face every time I thought of it.  Such a wash of color, completely unexpected in the hubbub of my day.

The Bible says we're the bride of Christ, His church.  It always sounded so formal to my ears, like an arranged marriage.  He comes to lead and provide and we go through the motions of a marriage, but romance?  Certainly not.  How would that even work with God?  But when I saw this rainbow, it was as if God was courting me.  Showing up on my doorstep with flowers He handpicked, just because He knew I liked them.

Then I remembered Hosea.  God instructs him to marry a prostitute to illustrate the way Israel's people committed adultery with other gods.  In the second chapter, God talks about holding Israel accountable.  Then he says, "But then I will win her back once again.  I will lead her out into the desert and speak tenderly to her there ... In that coming day," says the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband' instead of 'my master.'" (Hosea 2:14,16)

How interesting.  God wants to win Israel back.  He wants to speak tenderly to her.  Like a jealous man fighting for the woman he loves after she's had an affair, romancing her.  Even now, thinking of it, I feel warmth spreading through my limbs, delight bubbling up like laughter.  It's amazing.  God, who made the heavens and the earth, God, to whom we must seem like grasshoppers, is romantic.  And he wants us, is willing to fight for us, to romance us, to sacrifice His Son for us.  Like the hero sacrificing all to save the damsel in distress.

And He showed up on my doorstep with a rainbow, just for me, on an ordinary, busy Saturday morning?  Incredible.