Pumpkins Still Need Carving, Even Five Years Later

This morning, my youngest walked into my room and said, "Hey mom, it's halloween today."  Ahh, yes it is.  I forgot.  Then as I began to think about halloween, because we let our kids participate..but we don't get into all the craziness of it, I began thinking...I have three pumpkins to carve...and today is the day!  Then, I remembered, 5 years ago, the Lord gave us a really special day together as we 'carved' pumpkins.  I thought I'd update that blog and share with you...I pray you are blessed by it.

 

 

(the following is my 'halloween' blog from '08,

the above is my sweet 5 year old with three pumpkins ready to be carved)

 

So today is November 1st, and technically halloween was yesterday. I could honestly care less...I mean really...I'm not into it at all, I think it's waste of time...and quite honestly there are a million things we could do to bring attention to our need for Jesus as believers and unbelievers alike....because let's be honest...we all need Him..daily...just in different ways. At any rate...we allowed our boys to get a pumpkin this year...I don't even know why...I can't even say...isn't it ridiculous for someone who doesn't care for Halloween?     Oh the irony of parenting.

So here sits this 16 pound pumpkin on my kitchen counter for the last two weeks....every time I look at it, it's begging the question..."what am I going to do with this crazy huge pumpkin?" So today, as my spouse was out of town and we've already passed halloween... and I do not bake pies...I thought..alright here goes...I vaguely remembered from my childhood how nasty the inside was of a pumpkin and how slimy the seeds were...but I've got boys so they should enjoy it. We got started...rather I got started my two oldest boys sat at the counter and watched...it was tough.  Seriously the pumpkin was hard to cut into.  Finally I got to the inside and it wasn't nearly as disgusting looking as I thought it would be. So I instantly thought...ah this should be easy. Well...it wasn't too bad at first, we started digging out the slimy seeds, and yes they loved it...we collected them, because I wash them and bake them for a snack. 

We're elbow deep in pumpkin seeds and goo and the Lord reminds me of something I had heard, I think while at the Seminary. People are like Pumpkins! So I asked my oldest...I said, "can Mommy tell you about how pumpkins and people are similar?" He said yes...and I told him, we are like the pumpkins and Jesus is like the carver...when we ask Him into our hearts...He comes in...and He takes all the yucky stuff out and replaces it with His light...just like we take all the yucky stuff out of a pumpkin and put a candle into it to make it shine. Okay...he's 4 he wasn't overly impressed....but all day I kept thinking about that...and even now I as I'm reflecting on it...you know...it was TOUGH to cut into that pumpkin.  Just like me.

 I'm tough to "cut into" I'm stubborn, I have to learn lessons over and over...I'd be arrogant to even say that there are certain things I've got "whipped" because I know that uttering those words opens me to the possibility of failing..."let him who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall" 1 Cor 10:12 Okay...so I've been recently struggling with my attitude with my kids.... I absolutely love them...I mean I would do anything for them, I want them to love Jesus so bad it hurts....I want them to be God-fearing, God-honoring leaders in His church...but I've just been really struggling with them lately...okay I've got an almost 3 year old who will not obey...the words "strong-willed" do not hold a candle to his behavior...and my almost 5 year old seems to be just down right mean to get attention...all the while this precious 4 month old just wants some love from Mommy. Going in 3 different directions is not easy... it's tough and gets tougher everyday.  Parenting is tough.

And as I was teaching my son about pumpkins and how they parallel our lives and our relationship with Jesus..I just kept praying...God SHOW me Yourself...I NEED you to change me and give me the love and the strength because I am overwhelmed...I've been begging God to speak to me from His word...I need that so intensely I just can't give up....I won't give up....because I know in ALL things God is teaching me...He's working out sanctification in my life to His greater glory...and there are days when I just feel so callous and so tough to cut into (like that pumpkin) I feel like not even God's word can get through because I'm such a sinner...and then I read "Arise, cry aloud in the night, at the beginning of the night watches; pour out your heart like water before the presence of the LORD." Lamentations 2:19...I thought, I I can do that because I just need HIM!!!

 2 Timothy again... "...and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." 2 Timothy 3:6-7 How my heart longs for a steadfast immovable spirit as in Psalm 51:10...how desperately I need to have His love increase and overflow within me as in 1 Thes 3:12, and how fervent I must be about praying without ceasing 1 thes 5:17.

So this morning as I was carving out that pumpkin every time I would scrap away a layer of the "yucky stuff" I'd think I was almost done...and I'd dump out what I had scraped off only to reveal a little bit more that needed to be scraped off.....this adventure I'm on...following after Christ, is like that...every time God refines my heart and scraps off a little more of the yucky stuff that has to go for His glory to shine bright...it reveals a little more that needs to go....and what I noticed was this...sometimes I could scrap really hard and sometimes I could scrap gently...it just depended on how nasty the yucky stuff was....so I guess I'm more like a pumpkin than I thought....and how thankful Iam that Jesus is the Master carver and I know He has a perfect image of what He is making me into...not some haphazard drawing of an unskilled artist...Praise God!