buckets

Monday, November 8, 2010 (9:54 a.m.)

Blessed Lord,

You are awesome and I love You. I keep wanting to get started here with You this morning and I truly don’t know how. It’s not so much that I keep getting distracted. There’s just so much You have to offer!

Once again I’ve turned to the internet to find the references the pastor made in church yesterday. I remembered something a friend shared with me the other day about hurts and unforgiveness being stored in a bucket.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 (6:49 a.m.)

I got more than a little lost yesterday Lord. I kept looking for what it was I thought I wanted to find, a reference to a bucket filled with the stones of unforgiveness and one filled with the cool water of forgiveness.

I got lost in the song ♫Cool Water♫ that my daddy used to sing. Lost with the thought that it was 17 years ago today that we had the doctors disconnect the machines that were keeping him alive. Lost just now in the tears streaming down my face at my decision to use the name “Daddy” instead of the usual just plain “dad”. Funny how two little letters can change everything!

Lord, thank You that I get to ramble on with You. Thank You that You’d rather have me here blathering along than out there on my own trying to figure it all out. I’m here Lord. Having found many stories about buckets of stones but not the one I wanted, I’m here again reading about Balak and Balaam (Numbers 22-24). I’m here because chapter 24, verse 6 says, “buckets will brim with water”.

Balak was a king, afraid for his kingdom, who sent for Balaam, a ‘prophet for hire’ to curse the Israelites crossing through his land. Some writings refer to Balaam as a ‘trafficker in magic’, a diviner. Throughout these two chapters Balaam is presented both favorably and unfavorably. His plan is to keep his contract with Balak and curse Your people. Thank You God that Your plans are so much higher than any of our own!

For every curse he attempted, You provided a blessing instead. Thank You Lord that Your ways are so much higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). Thank You that You are not swayed by our own spiritual blindness. Thank You that You can even make a donkey see [and speak! J] more than we can.

Lord, I have no idea what today holds for me. Thank You that You are absolutely in charge of it. Of this I have no doubt. Thank You for the true gift You have given me these past two mornings of a deeply rooted connection with my daddy. As I continue thinking about the buckets of blessings available to us, I just got the biggest “Ah-ha!” moment of the month!

All those years I heard my daddy sing ♫Keep a movin’ Dan, don’t you listen to him Dan, he’s a devil not a man and he spreads the burnin’ sand with water… Cool water♫ I never knew Dan was a donkey.

Leave it to me to let my mind wander around collecting all these dots and coming back asking You to number and connect them properly. I started out thinking about buckets, which led to a story about a donkey who saw an angel. In the midst of that story I thought of ♫Cool Water♫ and a much loved and missed daddy. And just now I thought even further into a desert and a twenty-mule team on which my daddy’s daddy worked. Was he the original teamster in our family?

As the tears gently fall, I close here thanking You for all the love and grace and mercy You provide. You never give us what we deserve. Your buckets are full of Your loving forgiveness. Thank You Lord. Help me have eyes as spiritually keen as Balaam’s donkey this day. And thanks for reminding me of all the times my daddy drew attention to our “family” members [donkeys! J] on the sides of the roads of my childhood.

Thank You Lord for growing me into a woman who can laugh and cry at the very same time! I love you so very much. Thank You for loving me more. Oh look! Even there! The memory of my daddy’s voice telling me the distance of loving me to the moon and back. Thank You Lord for buckets full of memories! I love You. I need You. I want You. I trust You. And I am so very grateful to have You in my life. Thank You Lord. Amen.

(773 words ~ 9:00 a.m.)