On the paths of life

Breaking the Bowls

February 25, 2010 at 9:38 pm (Uncategorized)

A few weeks ago I wrote this blog, but am just now posting it. I’ve been asking myself lately for God to reveal Himself new to me each time we meet. I have grown accustomed to the same-old and am in need of new, God has been blowing my socks off!

I was laying in bed in that part of sleep where you know you’re asleep, but are obviously awake enough to realize your sleeping. This point in my sleep cycle is when I know God talks to me. It’s probably because its the first time I am still enough to really listen or catch his point. The strangest thing is that the other night, He gave me a parable in my dream, but I knew it was Him. I can honestly say I’ve never experienced anything like this, and may not believe you if you said it happened to you, but here I am sharing it publicly because I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt it was from Him.

Let me give the precursor to my dream and share a little about what had happened earlier that day. My son Oren, now 2 1/2 yrs old, was on the war path or “destruction mode” as I call it. Before I could clean up one mess, he was jumping to the next one. He is finally starting to “figure” things out and how things work, so things that used to not be a problem are suddenly an issue. Unfortunately, we have no idea what things he’s going to figure out before he does so we just have to wait and see sometimes. He started off the morning, waking up before mom. This rarely happens, and if he does wake up, he hates to be alone, so he always comes to my bed to get me up for some “cerol” aka cereal. Well, this particular morning, he must’ve been up for awhile and very quietly had been into the cabinet, and had pulled food out, “cerol” was all over the floor. He had also gotten into the cookies, thus the part where I come into the story, and had brought me cookies for breakfast. I woke up to his little  hands and voice tapping me saying, “Momma, my bring you these. Good morning”. I thought, “ahhh, how sweet”. Then a moment of clarity hit and I realized, “wait, if he’s bringing me cookies how many did he eat?” and “What is that smell?” Oh yes, Oren had also been able to reach the vapo rub in the top cabinet and had about 3-5 inches of it in his hair. Throughout the day, I feel like we moved from cleaning up mess to mess. By 11 am, I was tired of this, I was frazzled, and if I cleaned up one more small piece of tissue paper that he had ripped up to shreds and placed EVERYWHERE  in his pre-mommy morning, I was going to scream! Then he began to push his matchbox cars into a small hole we have behind the door where the doorknob has pushed through the wall. I had been wondering where all his cars I bought at a garage sale were. 200 had dwindled down to about 15. VOILA! They were in the wall. This was it–the last straw! Time for a nap-if not for his tiredness it was for my sanity!

Bedtime with Oren has always been a struggle, we have developed a routine to make the transition easier. Well, today, out of my frustration and my anger, I wasn’t going to go through the routine! I took him to his bed, laid him there. Now, any of you who have met Oren, know that the kid is above average in height and size. He is 2 1/2, but most people guess 4. Well, with a body the size of a 4 yr old comes extreme superman like strength, and he began out of his frustration to fight me on bed. It began with the usual sitting up in bed, I would physically have to hold him there. By 10 min, my strength was gone, I spanked him (which only makes it worse), and yelled, “lay down right now!” My husband, works nights and sleeps during the day, had to be woken up to finally take care of the full blown fit and situation it had become. Of course, Cole offered some parenting advice, which was not well received and further exasperated my frustration, I just yelled, “you deal with it!”.

This was my day prior to my parable dream….and truthfully, by the time my head hit the pillow, I had completely forgotten about it and I nodded off….

In my conscientiousness God said, “Ashley! PAY ATTENTION” and the rest was as if a movie was playing out in my dream.

A man of lower middle class stature was approached in a diner, by an obviously wealthy man, they began to chat and the poorer man eventually learned that the wealthy man was an art dealer/curator and ran a store front to help sell the pieces he collected for sales. The two struck up an unusual friendship, and the art dealer expressed a need for someone to get his most priceless piece ready for a sale, but wasn’t sure he had time to do it.

The poor man excited about being able to see what an expensive gift it was going to be said in rush, “I’ll do it.” The wealthy man thought about the proposition for a moment and gave the poor man directions and time to enter the shop. He told him, “Tonight around 7pm, I need you to enter the front of the shop and carefully make your way to the back. The piece, is a 2,000 year old ornament vase, I need it dusted and wrapped very carefully. I’ll have to check the wrapping before it’s crated, so please be careful. The vase is worth more than you and I will ever make in a lifetime combined”.

The poor man was excited; he had never been given so much responsibility and he truly felt achieved. He began to call and tell all his friends and invite them to a party he was having at 5 to celebrate his accomplishments.

As 5 pm rolled up, people began bringing him gifts and wine and other drinks. The poor man began to enjoy his celebration and when 7pm rolled around he realized that he had had too many drinks to drive the distance to the shop and so he called a cab. The cab pulled up to the shop building precisely at 7pm. The man entered the security code to the building and quietly entered the front door. He was amazed at the beauty of all the pieces in the gallery. Works of splender, glass blown bowls, and the other ornate objects. The man very unintentionally began staggering through the gallery, knocking over these objects. He, at one point, had to catch his balance on a shelving unit and brought the whole thing down with a crash breaking at least 25 glass bowls with it. But, dead set on taking care of the vase of high value he made his way to the back where he began dusting and pouring his heart and soul into caring for it.

The art dealer, being notified, by a nearby neighbor of the commotion at the gallery, had decided to check on the poor man. He entered through the back and was very excited to see the man doing exactly what was asked of him. He then looked through the open area and noticed the damage. He ran over to it and broke down yelling, “What did you do?”

The poor man said, “I’m very sorry for the damage. I’m not sure how it happened, I think I may have had a little too much to drink and had to catch my balance on the shelf. I really didn’t mean to. I will repay you for whatever I have broken.”

Exhausted and overwhelmed, the art dealer said, “You don’t understand. The vase IS the most expensive item in the entire store and you did take very good care of it. But, these broken pieces combined were worth far more than the value of the vase. There is nothing you can do, the damage has been done. My own of a kind pieces are damaged and irreplaceable….” Then like a broken record the art dealer kept saying, “whatever you have done to the least of these you have done to me….”

I was really unsure of what the parable meant and asked for clarification. God began to show me that I am the drunken poor man. He is the art dealer. He has placed upon me the responsibility of taking care of and minding to the upkeep of his most valuable vase or relationship with Jesus. I have been excited, and invited people to celebrate. I have somewhat kept my word. But, along the say, I have been unintentionally getting drunk off of anger and damaging and hurting and breaking his other equally important pieces, his other children. I’ve been damaging his one of a kind creations. People that He loves just as much as Jesus.I hadn’t meant to and I really had tried to live by my relationship with Christ and treat others nicely and justly, but occasionally I would use them to catch my fall and would bring them down with me.

At this point, I woke up fully. I was startled. I was aware that this was definetly the Holy Spirit convicting me and prodding me to change and repent of the anger I had gotten drunk off of earlier in the day and for the words that had caused my son and husband damage. I am resolved not to get drunk off it.

I am going to begin to take Matthew 25:45 literally and start treating people differently. I don’t want to live life unintentionally catching myself on people. By my sin, I’m tripping others up. And whats worse, is I just keep going, leaving the damage for someone else to clean up. I’m thankful that God opened my eyes to it. My goal from now on is to be more intentional with my words and my actions and to express peace, patience, kindness, and most importantly self-control.

Galatians 5:19-25 says, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, FITS OF RAGE, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; DRUNKENNESS, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, PEACE, PATIENCE, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, GENTLENESS, and SELF CONTROL. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep step with the Spirit.