Bits for Sunday, March 22, 2009

As “good old 14A” says, “Welcome sweet springtime, we greet thee in song.” That means nothing to you if you are not a fan of the Andy Griffith Show. If you are a fan, then please know Barney and I sound much alike on that particular song, so I’ll just allow you to read the words on the screen and not have an audio rendition.

I’ve loved these sunny days…and in honor of the first day of spring, I have completely shut off the heat in my house and have pulled out the cute summer skirts. Never mind that I’m wearing a jacket and a fleece blanket over them right now as I write to you. I’ll happily do that just to have spring present and accounted for.

Yesterday I worked hard on spring cleaning…getting through about half the house and half the closet switch. I’ll just have to work extra hard this week to finish those projects.

The cats love sitting in the open window – although during my Sunday afternoon nap, I remembered the down side of open windows. Sirens become much louder! But the fresh air is welcome in the stuffy rooms, so I’ll deal with the sirens.

I told you last week about my retreat and my adventures entering and exiting the top bunk of my bed. I’m happy to report that this week I’ve had a chance to journal…at long last…and it has been wonderful to get thoughts out of my head and onto the paper. Of course that freed up brain space for other things to take up residence and leave me in multiple states of confusion, but at least it provides variety.

So many people have asked me what I learned while I was gone and some things were so big that it’s hard to condense them into words. I’m still contemplating them and trying to soak up every last bit of what God intended them to be for me.

But one lesson was more of a “kicker” – and that is what I want to share with you today. My friend Kari and I are studying the book of James. We’re crawling through it one section at a time, and right before I left, we discussed the first part of chapter two, which is about favoritism. (If you’ve not read it in a while, check out verses 1-13.)

We talked about how easy it is for us to categorize people around us – those we really want to associate with (if they would lower themselves to spending time with us), and those who might want to associate with us (obviously!) but we’re not so eager to rush their direction. James specifically talks about those who show up dressed well and those who might be What Not to Wear candidates. He wasn’t just talking about the dreadfully out of fashion. He was also talking about those who might wear filthy clothing. Dirty, smelly people.

I don’t think Kari and I are the only ones in the world to not push people out of the way to be able to sit next to a “shabbily clothed” person. It’s just our nature to want to spend time with those who fit in well with us. Or if we’re extra fortunate – people who are even better than we are, and we might become better just by association.

Fresh out of this study…after however many pages of notes on how to NOT show favoritism in the body of believers…I landed in a room full of women and found familiar thoughts running through my head. Who had the nicest clothes? Who had great hair? Who seemed to have a fun personality? Can I sit by those people?

Did I learn NOTHING?

God made sure I learned something. Without going into too many details, just let me say that the people I might have not rushed toward, had I been given a chance to choose my path, ended up being the people who taught me the most. The people who had great hearts for the Lord. The people who showed genuine faith and care. The people who took risks beyond what I was willing to take. The people who reached out in friendship – though they could have been having thoughts similar to mine – about me!

Humbled would be a good word to describe how I felt as I rode back home at the end of the weekend. I saw faces flash through my mind and I was sorry I was so quick to judge on appearance. I was sorry I hadn’t taken the time to get to know them first – to see their beautiful hearts. I was sorry I lost even a moment of enjoying them because I was so busy judging.

That lesson has not been far from my mind all week – and hopefully I’ll learn it quickly and not have to spend too much time in favoritism boot camp.