THE NEW EWE

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'"

Luke 15:4-6

January 18, 2023

LIFE IN THE FOLD

A few weeks ago I got my eyes checked and ordered new glasses. I have astigmatism and a pretty strong prescription. When my new glasses arrived, I was wearing them home from the optometrist office and realized that something was off. My distance vision was blurred and just not sharp and clean like it had been with my old glasses. My prescription had changed a little, so I thought perhaps my eyes needed a little time to adjust. But it just wasn't happening!

I took the glasses back in and they rechecked the lens and made sure that the prescription was correct in them.... it was. So they made another appointment for me to have my eyes rechecked by the optometrist. Everything seemed basically the same as they had a couple weeks earlier. I wear progressive bifocals and the optometrist found that the segway between my distance and reading was set too high; which meant when I was looking through what should have been distance, I was actually seeing through the reading portion of the lens. So they took my new glasses and said that they would have new lenses made for them.

A week later I got a call that my glasses were ready to be picked up. When I went to get them, it seemed as if nothing had changed and I still couldn't see clearly out of them. I was so frustrated! My glasses are really expensive, even with insurance, but I couldn't wear them like they were. The lady told me to just try them for a couple days to see if my eyes would adjust to them.

Jon and I talked about what to do. I didn't want to continue going in, complaining, being told that they were right and feeling as if I was being a whiner. But I had paid several hundred dollars for the new glasses and really needed to be able to utilize them!

First thing the next morning I got a call from the optometrist office. It was the lady whom I had talked to the day before when I had picked up my new glasses. They had gotten several new pair of glasses in at the same time and my name was on the list as being one whose glasses were in. But this was a different person than who had helped me the first time I'd gone in and she didn't realize that I was getting new lenses to be put in my new frames. The next morning, she found the package with my new lenses in it!

This lady was very apologetic and explained what had happened and that my glasses still had the old lenses in them and they hadn't been changed out for the new ones. I was incredibly relieved!! I told her that she didn't need to apologize, that I was just happy that the new lenses weren't messed up, too. I went and got the new lenses put in and can see perfectly well now.

Sometimes in life we may be looking at a situation that seems as if it should be right, people are telling us that it's right, and we struggle to try and see it clearly; but it's just off. No matter how hard we work at trying to adjust our perspective, it's still blurry and we don't feel right about it.

I recently had lunch with my teenage niece. We had an in-depth conversation along these lines.

She had a situation where she had met someone at their neighborhood park and the girl wanted her to walk to Walmart with her, which is fairly close. The girl told my niece that she knew a shortcut and wanted my niece to follow her. My niece knew the way and knew that the direction they were going was wrong, so she mapped it on her phone and said that they were headed the opposite direction away from Walmart. She said she had this internal nudge that she needed to get away and go home. She told the girl that it was past her curfew and her parents wanted her home and would be looking for her if she wasn't there soon. So she turned around and headed for home as fast as she could go.

I told her that those nudges we get are from God. He gives us those instincts to keep us safe; but it is our responsibility to respond and obey.

Throughout life Satan will try to tempt us with various things or cause us harm or get us headed down our own path away from God. But God has placed His Holy Spirit within us, which will nudge and prompt and convict. He will speak to our minds and place thoughts there to guide us. But we have to listen and obey.

There may be times when people will tell us, "You need to do this;" or "Why don't you do this... it's not wrong." But we feel that nudging in our heart telling us otherwise. Perhaps it's not anything bad, but it may be something that we aren't supposed to do or somewhere we don't need to go. God may have another plan for us or He has a reason why we need to do something differently.

We all have to rely on God to give us clear vision for each situation in our lives. We can't be dependent on listening to other people, because what they are telling us is right may not be God's will or plan for us. We'll end up with skewed spiritual vision and frustrated because we can't see as clearly as we used to be able to.

But when we are where we need to be spiritually and walking the path that God has placed us on, we will see clearly and our vision will be sharp and focused.

We, also, need to be careful that we don't try to influence others to handle situations like we do or to do what we are doing. That may not be God's plan for them, and it will blur their spiritual vision. We all have to know and follow God and let Him lead us in the way that is right for us.

Jon and I both wear glasses, but have very different prescriptions. All my sisters wear glasses, but none of us have the same prescription. In order for each of us to see clearly and in focus, we have to be fit with lenses that are made specifically for our vision. If we tried to exchange glasses and wear one another's prescription, we would all walk around unable to see clearly and it could end up damaging our eyes. But we all have glasses that are made to fit our eyes, so that we can see crisp and clear.

God created us each differently and none of us are exactly the same. Therefore, we each have to allow Him to be our "spiritual optometrist", so to speak, so that He can make adjustments to our spiritual vision that will keep us each in focus and we will have clarity of mind, soul, and spirit.

Don't compare yourself to anyone else or allow someone to tell you that what you know is blurred is really okay and you just need to keep focusing on it so it will become clearer to you. God has placed His Spirit within us, and we each have that ability to listen and hear what He is saying to us specifically.

JON'S PERSPECTIVE:

Some things aren't meant to be focused on. But our brains don't like that. It can create quite a bit of anxiety in our minds no matter how much we are at peace with it. When people need new glasses, they commonly get headaches. That's mostly because the brain keeps telling the eyes they need to get their act together and fix the focus, but the muscles flexing their lenses can only do so much, and can't quite make it.

I don't quite trust the source, but I was told when I was young that the 'Water Torture' was nothing more than a loud dripping of water that didn't have a good rhythm. The brain desperately wants to hear a pattern in the dripping, but when it comes quickly sometimes and waits for a long time for another drip, it is infuriating. The torturers can watch the water drops forming, so know when to expect the drip. To them, it is natural and relaxing.

A very corny British sci-fi/comedy featured a woman trying to sleep in a room with noisy pipes. She didn't get a wink of sleep because just when she thought she got used to the pattern of squeak-nearick-clang-freeep, it would change and do a squeak-freeep. If she could see the source of the noises, it would be relaxing instead of filling her with anxiety.

Life is filled with things that almost have a pattern, but keep breaking it. For our own sanity, we have to learn to ignore it. Or look at the source to understand it better. A popular song says, "Many things about tomorrow I don't seem to understand, but I know Who holds tomorrow." Just knowing Jesus doesn't always mean we can see the pattern (or disruptions from the pattern), but it does mean we have Someone with us Who sees it all. We don't have to understand it all because He does.

ON THE MENEWE:

Meatballs

Place frozen meatballs in crockpot. Pour the chili sauce and about 1 cup of jam over the top. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Stir, to mix the jelly, and serve. Great as an appetizer or serve with mashed potatoes for dinner.

Note: Instead of using store-bought frozen meatballs, you can make your own fresh. No need to brown; just place them in the crockpot and they will cook through.

The recipe called for peach jalapeno jam, but I could only find strawberry jalapeno which was good. It's not very spicy, but just adds a little kick to the sauce. If you can't eat spicy, you can just use regular jam without the jalapeno in it.

THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER:

I pick up my nephew's two 4-year olds up from pre-K in the afternoons. Recently, his daughter told me, "I tooted at school today. But it was just a little toot! And it was very, very quiet!!" I told her those were the best kind of toots to have, so nobody knows who did it.

My sister's son and his family live with her. His 5-year old daughter told my sister, "I want to go swim at the beach.... hmmm.... or make a snow angel." She's wanting to have fun, regardless of the weather!

THOUGHT TO PONDER:

When you have a friend that is going through a personal storm,

instead of being a weatherman and spreading the news,

try being an umbrella and cover them with love. - unknown

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS TO YOU:

We love you!

Loretta & Jon

http://www.graysheep.org