A Lenten Reflection

During lunch time, my kids began asking about my family makeup. They know that my parents are divorced, and they call my mom Nonny and my dad and step mom Grandpa and Grandma. They also know that even though my half brother and half sister have the same dad as I do, we have different moms. This is surely a bit confusing to them, but they basically get it, and accept it as normal for us. They understand divorce is a bad thing, and so sometimes, they wonder how all the great things about having Nonny and Grandma and Grandpa can be so. I am pretty sure I did not do the conversation justice and provide a perfect answer, but after fumbling around for a few minutes, I finally came to the part about God making our messes into something far better than if we had never made a mess in the first place. God is bigger than the most incredible sin we could imagine. His mercy and love cover all sins and all messes we humans could ever fathom. He uses all things for His glory because nothing...nothing is too big or too small for God to fix and make new again. In the case of my own family, God took something that was not in His plan, and used it in His plan to bring about things that are even better than if that bad thing had never happened. There are more connections and more relationships in my life now than there would have been, and one of the things I have seen manifested recently is the fact that my own kids have even more wonderful people to love and get to know. And by far, the greatest thing that came out of all of it were the lives of Matthew and Kate, my half siblings. I tried to use the analogy of how the first sin of Adam and Eve was not God's plan, but He used it and made it glorious...He sent His only Son to redeem us. "O Happy Fault"!

4and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."5And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." 

Revelation 21:4-5

 Every year during Lent, I set out a glass jar and whenever anyone makes a sacrifice, large or small, they place a dried bean inside the jar. Hopefully, by Easter, the jar will be full of beans, reminding us of our little sacrifices, the little ways we have given our hearts to Jesus, throughout the Lenten season. And when the kids wake up on Easter morning they find, not a jar full of dried beans anymore, but a jar filled to the brim with colorful, sweet jelly beans and chocolate egg candies. I explain that God makes all things new. When we offer God our hearts, He takes our sacrifices, weaknesses, sins, and turns them into something better; something truly perfect, and new!