Love Notes...

 

Since it's Advent, I've been trying to slow down and see things from a different perspective than my own.  I want to see things through God's eyes.  I find that when I have "eyes to see" that there are Love Notes everywhere that He is trying to send my way.  And I know He's sending them to you too!  One Love Note was included in this Jade plant.  It was growing outdoors this summer and I brought it in for the winter months to enjoy.  It lives in the laundry room along with a few other plants.  It's not a showy place to live, but it's sunny and I'm in there regularly so I see and appreciate my green things growing.  If you look closely at this Jade, you can see little, pink rootlets hanging down from the branches.  They are just beautiful (to me) and what I see is a Reaching Down from above.  Little rootlets are wanting to reach down to some fertile soil and grow and grow and spread.  The Love Note came:  God is reaching down to me, and He wants to put roots down in the soil of my life and bring new life, and grow in me and spread His love.  I also think about the verse:  "I am the Vine and you are the branches..." and I think to myself, if I am one of these Jade branches, I need to reach out too and share the life that is in me and spread the Good News.  The life is Jesus. 

Another Love Note came while I was grandmothering.  While two little ones napped, I got the two older grandkids started on the old potholder looms.  Remember these?  I taught my own kids how to weave with them.  It was a trying experience reaching through and across and over.  It's not easy weaving with inexperienced hands.  The Love Note came:  You are like a woven potholder.  The potholder might look wonky in some places and lumpy.  It might be uneven,  the colors might not coordinate, and some of the loops might be missed in the weaving or loose.  It is imperfect, but it's a beautiful imperfection.  When a child gives a homemade potholder to his mother, it is a cherished gift that is loved and used as intended, and she thinks about those wee hands that made it.  There is love in the gift.  We are beautiful, imperfect gifts  to one another and beautiful, imperfect potholders that God loves unconditionally.

Thank you, God for these Love Notes.
Thank you for the Greatest Gift--
The Greatest Love Note ever written,
A baby named Jesus, from the Root of Jesse,
Sent
To live and grow
Among us and to us and in us and through us.
The Perfect Gift of Love
Sent
To redeem a perfectly imperfect potholder like me.