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!

Even the Laundry!

It's no secret really...you can come to my house and glance around and you'll recognize that I enjoy cleaning.  Yes.  Cleaning...dusting, vacuuming, cleaning windows and mirrors, sweeping and even laundry.    Yes...I said it, I LIKE LAUNDRY!

I'm sure most of you are like, well good for her, but I don't.  I know...cleaning is one of those tasks that if you think about it, it's almost pointless...you sleep in the bed day after day...do you really need to make it every morning?  I mean, soon as you clean up one thing...another seems to mess right up.

Today as I was cleaning in my kitchen...I began to think...you know the everyday cleaning is not bad, I enjoy it...you get instant results...personal gratification.  Dirty surfaces become shiny and fresh..and it really isn't a ton of effort.  But that deep down "spring" cleaning....where things get taken apart...couches get moved...fridges are pulled out...and in our home..lost Legos are resurrected...well that cleaning...it just doesn't really do much for me.  It's a lot of work.

And then, I began to wonder what the Lord feels when He begins a deep cleaning in our hearts.  He doesn't back down because it's going to take awhile.  He doesn't just give up because He knows the deeper He digs...the messier it will often be.  What a patient Father we have.

"The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."  Psalm 145:8


It's hard to get motivated to attack that Spring Cleaning, in fact, I often enlist my husband or my kids...it's easier to go at it together.  That unending list gets shorter and shorter faster and faster the more hands you've got attacking it!

It's like our walk, our journey as believers...we so easily can get discouraged...lose focus and wonder what in the world is going on here?  But God, rich in mercy, abounding in faithfulness has placed fellow Christ followers in our lives at different seasons for specific purposes..one of which I am certain is so we can sharpen one another.

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17

Then as I moved into the bathrooms, I began to think about sanctification.  The act of God Himself setting us apart for his own purpose.  Sometimes it's refreshing.  Honestly at times...by the grace of God I can see sin in my own life and...often I will cry out for mercy...just as the man in Luke "God have mercy on me, a sinner"  I mean...there is a tremendous weight lifted when the Lord walks us through the a battle with sin, and we emerge victorious!  That victory...and the freedom from sin is liberating...it often overwhelms and overflows my heart with gratitude and grace.  It's so amazing the grace that flows from a victorious an free heart.  Praise be to God.

In Ephesians 5, the word talks about familial relations and shows us the example of how we are to love.  Specifically...that husbands are to love as Christ did.  But what is so beautiful about this, is the way Christ's rich love is expressed....it is expressed in the very act of the Cross.  The act of literally giving Himself up for us...because of His love.  Follow me through this, I believe it will richly bless your heart.  In Ephesians 5:25-27 it says:


"just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless."

The deep cleaning, or biblically speaking...the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God in our lives...is purposed to dedicate us to the Lord. I absolutely love this about the original language of "sanctify" in this passage.  It can mean to purify....in three ways....first to cleanse externally, second to purify by expiation: free from the guilt of sin  and third to purify internally by renewing of the soul. (emphasis mine...and the third is my favorite)....this is what I'm talking about.  The Lord digs in.  He knows that the cleaning will take time, He knows the mess or in my case...messes that will surface when He begins a work in my heart...and yet...He goes for it anyway.  He also in absolute perfection, does something that not many a friend will do...He stays right by our side...in fact..not even besides us..He leads us.  He will never leave us nor forsake us...Hebrews 13:5 promises us that. 

When we emerge from that deep cleaning, that time with the Lord....our souls radiate His presence because of His great grace and faithfulness.   Our souls are renewed.  They are more likened to Christ than when we started.  Our hearts are revive according to His word...and I honestly believe that God our Father rejoices.  
Because no matter the time, no matter the mess...the result is always the same...the Lord has sanctified in our hearts Himself as Lord...He has replaced the world's lies and temptations that so easily ensare us with His truth....His truth that is living an active an absolutely sets us free.

"I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth."  3 John 1:4