Ladies, Ladies…All the Ladies!!

The boys are in swimming lessons this week.  God provided me an AMAZING teacher (I had been praying for one for a year-isn’t God good?!!). They go everyday for a week and already on the second day I watched Will (my NEVER GET YOU HEAD UNDER WATER BOY) sloppily (is that a word?) swim to Miss Em.  I almost cried.  Then it was Josh’s turn.  “I don’t want to do that again.”  “Yes, we are Josh.. one, two, three.. go.”  ……  And he did.  She just knows what she’s doing.  Amazing.  Birmingham women.. PLEASE let me hook you up.  She’s great!

My heart is heavy today as last night I watched the painful interview from Kate and Jon announcing their separation and divorce. Oh, I grieve divorce.  I just feel like Satan is laughing hysterically when marriages fall, especially believing marriages.  It’s one more on the scoreboard in the Devil’s game.  However, I think I’ve been most moved by an advertisement aired during the episode.  I don’t know what it was advertising.  I just know that it was filming a modern Hansel and Gretel leaving a breadcrumb trail through the streets of a New York City type area.  The birds were eating their crumbs, people were stepping on them and knocking them out of line, cars crushed them in the streets and they found themselves…. LOST.

“…Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…”  Hebrews 12:2

Jesus, is our author.  He wrote the book of our faith.  How often when my faith is rocked do I turn to everything else but him?  He ALONE is the perfecter.  As I watched Miss Em perfect my boys’ swimming abilities I realized that it matters who is doing the teaching.  Jesus perfects our faith.  He grows it.  He strengthens it.  He stretches it.  He alone gives us confidence in our faith.  What a wonderful instructor He is.  Even when we say “We can’t.”  Even when we say “I don’t want to do this again.”  He says we can and says “GO!”

We must be fixed on Him; our hearts, our minds, our ears, our eyes- all HIM.  He provides the direction we need.  Otherwise we end up lost.  Pride and bitterness devour our trail.  Selfish ambition and the winds of worldly lies blow our crumbs to who knows where.  Jesus is our True North that never moves.  We need to be moving in THAT direction.  Facing His North we need no breadcrumbs, for where we have come from, we need not return.  He is our life.

I’m not judging their hearts, but from the outside looking in, it does seem like Jon and Kate are our modern Hansel and Gretel.  They started out from their blessed home, didn’t really know where they were going  and ended up…..well, lost.