Just a Thumb

This morning as I sipped my coffee a great change of plans kerplunked right down into my lap. I looked at it with dismay, picking it up, looking at it this way and that, and finally concluded there was no way out of it. So I gathered my underwear around my shoulders and got dressed to attend to this change of plans like the daughter of Sarah that I am.

I have a strict rule about shoes on the main floor. Only guest’s shoes and my one pair of boots are to be left beside the door. But this morning, because it was Monday an all, my faithful boots were not at their post. I felt quite irritated. A child was caterwauling behind me, and my brain was slowly exploding from all the needs and the wants and the attitudes around me that I didn’t have time to deal with, or thought I didn’t.

I was feeling quite sorry for myself as I strode briskly to the steps between the kitchen and living room. whoosh down the steps I fell in a great clatter of bones.

I sat on the kitchen floor blinking owlishly as my daughters, their many preteen problems are momentarily forgotten as they struggled not to laugh. “Are you ok,” Sumyr managed to ask around her biting her lips in mirth. “I am fine except I think I broke my thumb,” I replied. Everyone looked a little disappointed. Only a thumb?

Ok, nobody was disappointed, but what are the odds that an adult falls in a great clatter of bones and only her thumb is displaced?

Why her thumb? It’s not very dramatic which I was quite relieved for.

Well, you just wouldn’t even think how essential a thumb is until it no longer works. The pickle jar won’t open, the bread is difficult to knead. And a broken thumb must be held out of the way hundreds of times a day. Still, it could be worse and I was just grateful I didn’t need to go to a doctor.

Do I know for sure it was broken? No, not for sure, because I refused to get it checked out. There were no protruding bones, and I could very carefully wiggle it, so I imagined it would heal just fine on its own.

But it got me thinking……… as everything that happens usually does.

Father God tells us that we are all essential parts of the body of Christ. All of us, worthy, needed.

The parts of the body that seem to contribute the most are looked up to the most. Still, no one notices the thumb who is faithfully a thumb.

So tell me this. If indeed this is true, and we all have different tasks, why do we do so earnestly look down on our own bodies who are not a thumb? Why do you judge the knee for bending and pivoting? Why do you look with such derision to the eyes that see? Why do you hamstring yourself by trying to fit your thumb life into the knee life?

If you do not agree with said knee, is there such a thing as trusting God with the knee and peacefully continuing to be a thumb?

Is it possible to recognize that someone has a different task than we do, and it’s ok to perhaps leave that to God?

“For it is God who works in you to will and to do.” Before that, he talks about working out our salvation with fear and trembling, and really, we ought to do that, oughtened we? He follows it with do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.

“Yea Lord, this generation is for sure warped and crooked,” judgment oozed out of my every pore.

“Keep going,” he replied.

…… “Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky, as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.”

“Keep going.” he again replied.

…..”But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.”

I sit back, pinned against the couch with my humanity. My very spirit groans inside me but followed with a glad cry. This is life. This is light and truth splashed all over the grotty sandstone of life.

And suddenly I am back in my ocean where it is peaceful and deep. I float and free fall. I am not enough nor will I ever be. This is why I hold no merit in my enoughness. It’s just not enough, ever. But he is enough. He in me is everything and all. He in me makes me shine like a star, all of us together with a bright light, a beacon to a lost and fallen world.

My children as always are my greatest example. I found myself sitting on the steps yesterday, fatigue and failure so heavy it felt like a stifling cloak pressing me into the old wooden boards. My son who had just slipped past me to his room to get ready for his volleyball game stopped, came back, and sat down behind me, his big warm hands on my shoulders. “Mom, are you ok?” he asked as he started to knead the knots from the weekend. “God, why do you allow me to be so loved?” I asked him. I can’t scam God, so why does he love me so much? Why does he allow my children and husband to love me with such a passion? As the tension melted away I found myself once again so grateful I could have wept. My son showed me the love of Christ.

The fatigue and failure melted off me and kicked down the outside steps to languish in the cold. There is no place for failure here.

In my home, I am never just a thumb. In my home, I am Mama and Sweetheart. In my small circle of influence, I hug with my entire heart and make caring into an art. I welcome my loved ones to our home, and if I can, I will love the granola out of you with good food. In my home I am never just a thumb, I am a daughter of God, a princess, a queen, a star beside you.

In your home, you can step up to the plate and accept the baton and run well with it. You can be loved, respected, and cherished.

You can accept the filling of your flour and oil jar. You can allow yourself to float ceaselessly in an ocean of trust. You can allow him to be enough in you. You can accept that you don’t have enough to offer and you never will.

You can accept finally your utter inability to be enough. Bury that dead body and move on.

It’s ok to stop jumping through hoops.

It’s ok to refuse to perform for anyone, including, but especially God.

You cannot scam God. He made you. He knows all about those pesky feelings inside you.

He knows about the parts of you that are superstitious. He knows about the secret desires inside you.

He knows you feel trapped.

Let yourself finally reach out and grasp hold of honesty.

Admit the unkosher things. If you don’t know a Jesus person, then I pray God brings you to one. A Jesus person is able to see past the DUI, the pregnancy out of wedlock, the shattered dreams, the porn, the secret hatred, the broken glass.

It is not a religion you need.

It is King Jesus.

If you have known only desperate repeated failure and you hear that vile whisper to just give up. Go ahead and give up. Give up on your own humanity and get honest with God. The enemy says your mess is irredeemable. God says to bring you his mess and let him handle it.

Honesty is the door that opens for truth who will take you into a different world of clarity and freedom.

Continue to invest in religion and you will continue to wind desperately among smoke and mirrors becoming more and more confused and broken.

Only Jesus.

King Jesus.

He is real. He is for us in the peasant class in the airport. He isn’t frightened off by the sins you’ve been infected with.

Why would he be frightened?

He is the antidote.

You have been snake bit and you are dying. Why do you resist the antidote?