All my heart

As soon as it gets dark on New Year’s Eve, the McAfees head out to the pool in the backyard. Anyone is welcome to join. This year, we had almost twenty family members, friends, and neighbors.

All of us had written down the things we wanted to leave behind in 2019, then folded the pages carefully for privacy, and placed them into the miniature Viking boat that I had built days earlier.

The atmosphere was somewhat funereal. Some of us were burying betrayal by a loved one. Others were burying destructive habits. Many of mine were painful losses.

We gathered outside in the dark. The guests lined the edge of the pool, armed with Nerf guns and darts tipped with flammable cotton balls. I spoke a few words and they fired their flaming “arrows” across the water, igniting the boat that had been saturated with lighter fluid.

As the flames consumed the tiny craft, my thoughts drifted to my handwritten list that was quickly burning. In the last part of the year, I lost my mom and my grandmother. Neither of their passings was peaceful. My mom fell victim to dementia and my grandmother had a lung condition that claimed her life. The images of my sweet grandmother struggling to breathe are painful. I want those to stay in 2019.

I silently prayed that God would set me free from the pain of her death and allow me to live in the blessings from her life. Images of her smile filled my mind as the flames slowly died down. One at a time, we returned inside to begin our celebration of the new year.

When I stepped back into the kitchen to help get food ready for our guests, my eyes landed on a plate full of chocolate chip cookies. They looked exactly like the ones my grandmother had made for me countless times as a child. It was her way of showing she loved me (if you don’t know that story, please follow this link to “Granny’s Cookies“).

I tried one and it was perfect. When I asked who had brought them, someone told me that Pat had. I thanked her for bringing them and told her they were great.

She laughed and said “Oh, thanks. I got the recipe off the back of a bag of chocolate chips.”

Most of the people in the room laughed when she said it. They all knew the story about how my grandmother had made that same recipe for me. Pat had unknowingly delivered one of the blessings I had prayed for moments earlier.

It was a perfect gift from the Father, reminding me that He loves me dearly.

I’m not a very good gift-picker, but I think I’m a pretty good gift-giver. I can seldom think of just the right thing to get. I am the king of duplicate gifts, wrong sizes, misinterpreted ideas, and poor choices. However, when I get someone in my family a gift, I am usually more excited than they are. I accidentally spill the beans before they open the present, or blabber on about why I thought they would like it, or just smile from ear to ear while they try it on. I want them to be happy.

Hopefully, they focus on the spirit of the gift more than its suitability. I think God does.

In Matthew 22, a group of Pharisees gathered together to test Jesus. One of them was a lawyer, and he presented Jesus with a question intended to trick him.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus must have smiled, knowing that in their attempts to entrap him, they had asked the simplest of questions.

He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Deut 6:5)

If the Pharisee hadn’t been a lawyer, but maybe was a shopper in the midst of Christmas season, he could have asked, “What is the greatest gift I could give God this year?”

Jesus would have smiled and given the same answer.

For all of my focus on the obedience of a faithful servant and for all my time pondering exactly what He has spoken to me, Jesus reminds me that those things are good, but they aren’t greatest. At the top of God’s list every year is for us to love him with everything inside us. His favorite gift is the one presented from the very best we have to give, with no other goal than to make Him happy.

I am working on a gift for Him. Like most of my surprises, I’ve already spilled the beans to Him, so you don’t have to keep it secret either.

When I started this blog, my dream was that people would read my stories and share their own. I envisioned them posting comments at first, and then sharing entire stories. In my vision, the flame spread throughout our community as people opened up about the realities of pursuing God in their own lives.

One obstacle has been the Blogger platform I was using. It is free, but not very powerful. People consistently complained that they tried to “join in” and leave comments, but had technical problems. Another constraint has been that some people don’t like using their phones to read on the go. They prefer a hard copy and a soft chair.

Here is my gift for God. I want all of his children to feel welcome to join a conversation about him. I want everyone to hear the stories about what he is doing, in whatever way they prefer to receive it.

I contracted Valley Creek Church’s own Jason Rutel of Creative Nomads to build this web site and convert all of my posts over here. He did a wonderful job and I am very excited. The “Comments” boxes work perfectly and a door is now opened for others to respond. (If you are considering web work, he’s your guy. Call him.)

I am also publishing the first two years of posts in a book titled Getting My Feet Wet. It will be available on Amazon by the first of February.

I think God is gonna love it, and I’m so exciting to give these gifts to him. I don’t care about the cost or how much time it has involved. As soon as these ideas came into my mind, I wanted him to have them. They are the best of what I have had to offer the past two years, and I think he will be as excited as me.

I love him with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength. May God accept my passion, even if my gifts are imperfect.