Swimming by the SPIRIT- ?

We kept a junk room in the basement; This is an understatement. A small path,- through knee- high piles of art supplies, books, boxes of elementary, high school and college keepsakes, letters photos, baseball cards, children's artwork, and household cast off furniture,- allowed one brave bushwhacker to cautiously navigate her way to the washer and dryer in the room behind. This 10 x 15 foot warehouse had been collecting precious paraphernalia for the last 10 years, ever since we moved into the house. Sadly, it reminded me of my childhood bedroom, only with more mountainous piles and no bed. When my 13 year old suggested spending last Thursday night on the "family project" of cleaning out and organizing the junk room - an overwhelming flood of exhaustion descended upon me at the mere thought. "Tonight, Daddy and Elliott are watching MSU basketball finals, and that room needs more than an evening; it needs the WHOLE family giving a concerted effort for a couple of Saturdays," I discouraged. Her face set like flint, Kyria persistently pressed on, "we could at least get started; I'll do it myself." More back and forth bantering filled the kitchen, as I tried to dissuade her from taking on an insurmountable task, which would inevitably drag me into more work. Finally, I gave permission for Kyria to begin, while I proceeded to make dinner. She wasn't amid the mess 10 minutes, when she hollered up, "Dad, quick - there's a funny sound down here." By the time Kevin bushwhacked his way to the closet at the far side of the room, moved boxes and shut off the spraying water supply (this is where the water main enters our house,) a thin flood had filled the closet and was spilling into the room. Towels safely absorbed the mess before the puddle destroyed anything important, and visits to our neighbors' procured pitchers of water needed to finish dinner, while we waited for a Board of Water and Light worker to arrive (thankfully, the spraying pipe flowed from their side of the meter.) While we waited, we marveled that we had been home, not out for the evening, or in even Florida, which would certainly have allowed our entire basement to fill like a giant swimming pool. At the rate of our junk room "shower" pouring into the room, our trash and treasures would have sunk within a half hour, if nobody had caught the leak. It took handy dandy BPW man only 15 minutes to arrive, and another 10 to replace the pipey gadget - a gasket. After all was resolved and while BPW man was leaving, we asked him, "What happened??" "Oh, common problem," he told us nonchalantly, "these things corrode and rust out over the years. This one just gave out and broke." "No way.. you mean, it was just it's "time"... right now, to BUST and spray?" "Yup." Well, it may be a common occurrence for gaskets to corrode and break after x -many years, but what seems uncommonly providential is Kyria's sudden and unquenchable desire to clean the junk room at the exact minute the thing gave out, and began showering our basement. OR - maybe GOD's looking out for us, by prompting us to move in certain directions, or follow certain desires is not as rare as we may think. MAYBE, HE does this kind of thing often, and some times we sense HIS stirrings and sometimes we miss them. Maybe "walking by the SPIRIT," is no more mysterious than talking to GOD often, learning to recognizing the way HE speaks and following HIS gentle whispers - in our day to day lives. Most of the family was pulled into the Thursday night project, as it turned out, and Kyria diligently continued it on Friday. About a dozen bags of garbage were generated and in the end we reclaimed one cleaned out art and crafts room. The more significant gain of the weekend is a lesson in sensitivity to the "nudges" of GOD. In our case, we're very thankful Kyria was "walking by the spirit," instead of "swimming by the spirit."

a bowl full of water...

• In the book of Judges (6:36-40) - in the Bible, you find a story about Gideon, desiring to know GOD's will and sending up a prayer to the LORD. He asks GOD to make a sheep's fleece wet with dew when all the ground around remains dry. Then He asks GOD to make the ground wet with the dampness of the night, while keeping the fleece (left out of doors) dry. Since these requests wouldn't be a natural occurrence, Gideon would know that GOD had intervened in the way he had asked and consequently, be assured of GOD's direction. This kind of confirmational request has been coined "a fleece prayer," by believers down through the ages, after Gideon's experimental interaction. I, myself, can't remember ever really trying it until last week.

Two years ago I pursued a volunteer teen zoo keeper's position at Potter Park Zoo for my son Elliott and was advised to wait until he was older, as he would have a better chance of acceptance into the program. Last year, our plans to be away for much of the summer deterred me from encouraging it. But last Monday, GOD brought the zoo possibility, for this summer, to my mind. After looking up Potter Park's website and reading about the application process, I wondered if this was really the right direction for Elliott. In two years it hadn't come up and easily, he would have forgotten all about it. As the application for 2011 had not yet been posted, I decided not to say anything to anyone (except my husband) and I sent up a "fleece."

"GOD," I prayed, "YOU know I want YOUR direction for Elliott's future. If the Teen-Keeper's program is a door YOU have for him to walk through, let me know by bringing it to Elliott's mind, AND by HIM showing excitement for the opportunity."

For anyone who KNOWS my son, a rather "non-pulsed" young man, who doesn't exactly wear his emotions on his sleeve. you can be sure that this request fell outside the realm of a natural occurrence.

A week passed, as I daily, and secretly, checked the zoo's web-site to see if the application had been posted. Nope, not yet. By the following Monday, I had forgotten about my vigilant checking, until quite out of the blue, at breakfast, my daughter, Kyria, blurts out, "Hayley might work at the zoo this summer, can I work at the zoo?"

At his sister's announcement, Elliott immediately looked up and EXCITEDLY EXCLAIMED "Hey I want to work at the zoo! I was going to do that! Can I do that?!" He said this loudly and with "unnatural-for-Elliot" expression - so much so that I'm left without a shadow of a doubt that GOD, indeed, answered my "fleece."


When asked what made her think of the zoo, Kyria didn't know why, it just came to mind; Hayley had mentioned it the previous Monday night at their girls' Bible study (the same Day, a week earlier, on which I had put out my "fleece.")

Icing on the cake highlighted GOD's timing, as I moved directly to my computer and found that the Zoo, that very morning, had posted the 2011 Teen-Keeper's application. I downloaded it. Elliott diligently filled it out, concentrating carefully on the essay questions, and e-mailed his Algebra/Science tutor, requesting the required letter of recommendation. By Tuesday afternoon we submitted all the paperwork and now Elliott happily and hopefully awaits the outcome of what, to me, seems very clearly GOD's leading.

"Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew - a bowlful of water." - while all the ground was dry.