Morning Lessons

I have a morning routine.  When I get up, I make a bathroom stop then begin brewing coffee. I have a terrific husband who has the coffee all set to go so I just need to press a button. I have attempted to make coffee several times, but when I’m still half asleep, it just doesn’t work. Next I turn on the computer, look at the home page for overnight national and international news, and check the local newspaper on line. Next is e-mail. I click on “send and receive” and wait to see who is keeping in touch with me today and which devotionals or notifications appear. My latest click of the “send and receive” button proved to be a lesson last week. As I watched the blinking words, I read “sending, receiving, executing, protesting and completing”.  Protesting? What in the world is protesting? Is it a scan where an unsafe or unknown sender was discovered? As I pressed the button again, I read a different word: processing. Ah! That was it. Processing.

We spend a lot of time processing, don’t we? We process what is happening in our lives, a decision we must make or a decision someone else made that affects us in some way. We process the speed at which our children have grown up and the speed at which our grandchildren do the same. We process our relationships. I’ve been processing where the years have taken me and the significance of people, places and events, as I sort through photographs for albums.  I process my new life season and my new place of residence and their accompanying changes.  Like you, I process. Like you (?) I also protest.

The Bible speaks of many protesters. When Lazarus was sick, word was sent to Jesus to “come” so that He could heal Lazarus. Jesus delayed and Lazarus died. When Jesus arrived, Martha ran out to meet him and her first words were protest:  “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Do we protest in the same way--- why a situation isn’t remedied; if you hadn’t done this, this wouldn’t have happened; why an answer to prayer is “no” or slow in coming; why our life script is what it is? Yet it also seems that Martha processed. She expressed what she knew deep down in her heart, that Jesus was Lord.  “But I know that even now God will give you (Jesus) whatever you ask.”  

When my daughter Katie was learning to talk, her sister Susan often interpreted for her. I recall one instance when Katie shook her head “no” to answer a question. Susan immediately interrupted with “No means yes.” Katie had the meanings reversed. That’s the way it often is with an answer to prayer, “no” can mean “yes” to something else. Reading the rest of the account of Lazarus, we see that Jesus raised him from the dead. The delay, the initial “no”, was necessary and meant “yes” to something greater—to see the glory of God and Jesus’ power at work, the power given Him by His father. As a result, scripture tells us controversy was stirred up but also many believed.

What are you protesting today? Are you processing? Are you praying?  In our “prayer process” we learn and grow in our faith.  Answers to prayer may be “no,” but that “no” may be a “yes” to something different than what you expected. Maybe something necessary, maybe even something better. Just wait and you’ll see.

Reflection: Read John 11 to get the full impact of the story of Lazarus. What insights did you glean? Can you change your protest to prayerful processing today?

Bread and Butter Pickles

As a little girl, I watched my mother and grandmother can fruits and tomatoes. It was a time consuming process from beginning to end: selecting the fruit or tomatoes, peeling, cutting and washing, preparing the jars and eventually processing them in the canner. The “process” yielded beautiful and tasty products that were enjoyed all fall and winter. Years later as a young bride, I was given this recipe by my husband’s aunt. Thought shortened a bit from other recipes, the process is necessary and the pickles are delicious.

6 quarts sliced cucumbers

2 sweet red or green peppers, sliced

3 cloves garlic

1/3 cup salt

Put layers of vegetables, garlic, and salt in a large roasting pan. Pour lots of ice cubes over top. Let stand for 3 hours. Drain well.

Heat the following ingredients with the peppers, garlic and cucumbers and bring to a boiling point.

3 cups distilled white vinegar

4 cups sugar

1 ½ tsp. turmeric

1 ½ tsp celery seed

2 Tbsp. mustard seed

Pack into hot sterile jars, cover and let them seal. Yield: 8-10 pints