Little Things Bouy One's Spirit

Little things sometimes become powerful. The small moments in our lives often reassure us of God’s love, a family member’s, or a friend’s.

             As I look at the trees that line the creek near our home, I see them dying right before my eyes. Old oaks, stately pines, and a very old catalpa tree on our property to name only a few. We hope the trickle watering at night has been enough to keep the old live oak in our yard alive. I know that none of those trees really belongs to my family. I can’t determine their fate.  Indeed, they came up as saplings because of God’s design and they remain rooted in God’s soil, and he will water them when he wants. A small thing a raindrop, but its single vitality serves to nourish despite its smallness.

            Our land in South Texas is usually so well watered that it produces an abundance of mushrooms. I’m surprised we coast dwellers don’t have mushrooms growing in our lungs, since the air is so moist. Due to our historic drought, I will sorely miss the abundant splendor of morning glories blooming on the roadsides in Montgomery County – their vines climbing fences and roadway barricades.

            The morning glory’s heart shaped leaves and lavender blossoms have always been a favorite because they are September bloomers – pushing their delicate vines up through the ground even when high temperatures are still the norm. They arrive after dreadfully hot summers, but my search for them this fall has only brought sighting of a few stunted flowers, strugglers hearty enough to bloom beside cracks in the soil that could swallow them whole. A couple of tiny violet flowers, small things, but blooms during droughts always bring blessings.

            Even as grass crunches and breaks under each step of my foot, God’s ever nourishing earth disclosed something else this week.  A surprise lily dared the terrible heat, punching its lovely stem up through the dried earth producing floral trumpets.  Surprise lilies are just that. They most often bloom during hurricane season. They first grow broad leaves and about five days after these leaves wilt, a stem quickly pushes up through the ground producing the lilies.

            We live on an old home place, and I don’t know the network of old bulbs hiding beneath the soil; many have lain dormant for years. Suddenly, a resurrection takes place, and they surprise me by producing an array of color through no efforts of my own. God in his mercy provides a tiny but potent pleasure when he allows one to pop up overnight, a colorful reminder that he remains in control.

            My mother passed away over a recent hot record-breaking weekend.  As I washed the last clothes she wore and folded her socks and washcloths, I also folded little squares of fabric that helped to keep her hands busy over the last few years. You may remember when I told you about her dementia and shrinking interest in the world around her. Bedridden she could no longer read, write, or comprehend television. Family connections faded as well.

            I know many dementia patients pick at their covers, but there seemed to be more of a tailoring method as my mother, who could spend hours in a fabric store or at a pattern catalog, made exact pleats and smoothed them in place. Knowing her love of textiles, an idea was born to furnish her with quilt quarters, colorful pieces of seasonal cotton fabrics to occupy her hands and fill the years upon years of lying in bed and growing more frail. Quilt quarters, an insignificant thing, but I hope they brought her peace, and only God alone knows.

            Do you know someone who would benefit from telling them about the Talking Book Program (TBP), a division of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) in Austin, Texas, and works with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) in Washington, DC, a program administered by the Library of Congress?

            They bring the world of literature through the tiny dots of Braille and through audio to sightless worlds of the blind. They also broaden the borders of the disabled through lending and mailing books and the loan of audio playing devices as long as needed – one of their resources: “The Holy Bible” with both the old and new testaments (narrated by Alexander Scourby).

            This week, I pray that you watch for small but significant surprises brought to you by the Creator, and then make time to shine similarly into someone’s life. Pay the toll for the person behind. Show a genuine smile. Speak to a stranger (it’s okay for adults). Give a hug. Hand someone a flower. Truly listen to someone. Look into someone’s eyes. Small acts of kindness nurture others, and those deeds may become the dynamic catalysts to restore his or her hope.

            Index Card Verse for Week 38: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

            Contact Cathy at www.cathymessecar.com   

God's Shopping List

The dark, cobwebbed barn looked like a great place to find treasures. With permission from my husband’s grandmother I poked around in abandoned calf pens, behind crates, and opened a squeaky door to an old feed room.



Cautious in the darkened passageways, I watched for unfriendly spiders, and I heard scurrying things and wished for a flashlight to shine into the shadowed corners.


But curiosity had the best of me, and as my eyes adjusted to the barn’s dusky interior, I spotted a butter churn with dasher sitting near a slatted wall. When homogenized milk and butter wrapped in paper became the easier way to bring dairy products home, those conveniences had put the old churn out of work. I brought it out into the light of day. All it needed was a cleaning and it would shine.


Excited, I explored other dark corners and found a few chipped enamel basins, a galvanized wash tub, and a paint splattered wash bench and added them to the churn sitting outdoors. Back into the treasure den I went. Eyes once again adjusted, I spied a child’s trunk and two paint encrusted chairs. I hauled them out and stacked them next to my stash. They only needed to be brought out into the light, cleaned up, and made useful again.


I’d rummaged in every nook when a shaft of sunshine highlighted something leaning against a wall, covered with an old burlap bag. When I lifted the cloth, thousands of dust motes took wing. I found a beautifully framed large mirror, the last treasure I found in the barn that day and the only one still in use in my home.


The pottery churn sits on my back porch reminding me of my easier life. The trunk vacations in my daughter’s home. The two chairs, masquerading under multi-layers and multi-colors, were later dipped in a vat of stripping solvent. Two lovely oak chairs emerged. Their golden sheen restored, they now sit in our family room near our barley twist breakfast table awaiting coffee for two – useful once again. The wash tub filled with Miracle-Gro potting soil holds three patio tomato plants in a small garden area just off our kitchen.


But the mirror is the most used item from my barn snooping. The age-flecked mirror was discarded, the frame sanded and refurbished, and a new mirror installed. Because of its age, Victorian women with frilled collars up to their chins must have preened in front of it. Where it hangs in my home, I’ve seen grandmothers and granddaughters glance at themselves as they pass by.


Mirrors may be ones’ best friend and worst enemy. They don’t lie. So, if we walk by one smugly saying to ourselves, “Lookin’ good!” then we probably spiffed up quite nicely -- at least on that day. How many mirrors do most people own? Count yours. I just took a walk through my house and garage (auto too) and counted mirrors. Are you ready? I have an even dozen. Something about that number sets off an alarm.




Men and women often pretty up the outside. We groom our hair, select complementary clothes, and do our best to stay healthy. But today, I’m particularly thinking about what’s on the inside. Apostle Paul said “we have this treasure in jars of clay” (2 Corinthians 4:7). That’s how he described the light of Jesus in human bodies.



In the ancient world, gold or other precious metals were melted and poured in a simple clay pot and then the vessel could be broken and the expensive metal retrieved when needed. Or a clay jar could hold oil and fire and offer light.



Any of us, whether beautiful or high mileage, looks a whole lot better when Jesus shines through us. Sometimes God presented his message through the humble and poor -- a young virgin, a carpenter, or a fisherman. But he also chose people of influence such as Paul and Nicodemus because they were willing to repent of selfish desires and inherit a healing light – for themselves and to shine out to others.



God has a treasure and he’s looking for a place to put it. What’s on his shopping list? He’s looking for jars of clay that he can remake into lamps.