Cleaning Away The Cobwebs
It’s early March and the evenings are still too chilly for me, even in San Diego. Since I’ve committed to staying inside in the evening until the weather warms up, it seems like a good time to start spring cleaning.
My mother grew up during the depression so she resisted throwing anything away. Her kitchen cupboards were full of empty jars (peanut butter, mayonnaise, any jar you can imagine), every dish and pan that she ever owned and countless plastic bags of every type and size. Her closets were full of old clothes, boxes of magazines and trunks of leftover fabric and yarn from sewing and knitting projects. You get the picture! I’m much better at getting rid of ‘junk;’ at least, that’s what I thought until I began to clean my own clutter.
Coming face-to-face with all of my packed-away boxes is overwhelming! I start the day tackling the storage boxes in the garage. The first box I open is filled with memories of my school years. Among other things, buried in that box are my 5th grade spelling notebook, report cards and kiddy valentines from fellow students. Who is Christie* who promised to be my best friend forever and why do I still have valentines from grade school?
The second box I open is filled with greeting cards. An afternoon is lost as I can’t stop myself from reading each one of them. In a letter dated forty years ago, Patsy*, from college, said that she’d be grateful to me forever for sharing my faith with her and changing her life. No matter how much I search my memory, I’m saddened by the fact that I have no recollection of her.
On my second day of sorting, I open the attic and my heart is filled with love. Here are treasures that I stored carefully away over the years. There are crib mobiles and clothes for my two children and bins full of toys, from Barbie dolls and Ninja turtles to cupcake dolls, beanie babies and toy trucks. Dare I mention that both of my ‘kids’ are in their mid-thirties?
Why do I, and so many of us, hold on to so much ‘stuff’? I Corinthians 13:11 tells us that,
“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”
Why haven’t I put away childish things? Slowly, I sort through box after box, stirring memories that will remain with me, even without these physical reminders. It is time for me to let go of much of this ‘stuff’ that I cherished in the past. I almost shudder as I wonder if I love that old rocking chair so much that it has become an idol.
I realize that my spirit, with its own cobwebs, is in need of a cleaning too. We baby boomers tend to tightly cling to the ‘good old days,’ frequently resisting change, including change for the better. It becomes a problem in our lives, in our communities and especially in our churches when we hold so tightly to the past that we can’t turn around and see the glorious opportunities of the future. The gospel is still the gospel but baby boomers like me need to meet millennials and Gen-Zers where they are. Baby boomers and Generation-X are responsible for passing on the essentials of the faith to the next generations. We need to be students of the questions they are asking, and of the challenges to belief that they are facing (see https://legacy.cmalliance.org/alife/engaging-gen-z/.) As hard as it may be for those of us in the ‘older generation,’ we must learn from the past and also embrace changes needed to reach the next generations. The message of the unchanging Word of God by an unchanging God is transformational, and transformation means change.
Praise God that in spite of the strengths and weaknesses of any generation or any person, we can rest assured that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against’ His church (Matthew 16:18). Our passion, regardless of who we are and which generation we belong to, must be the great commission that we are tasked with,
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)
We sat on cold metal chairs in a white room, leaning against a cold metal examining table...waiting. Our beautiful dog Sabrina had been hurried to the back of the emergency clinic without us. She was in danger and distress.
It’s been a minute.
I love that phrase. I probably overuse it. And my repetitious use of it probably annoys those in my listening (or instant messaging) range.
As I sat in the stuffy auditorium on a warm June evening, my mind raced. I had tuned out the energetic preacher on the stage who was delivering this Baccalaureate speech two days before my graduation from Ursinus College.
Why did the tomato blush? He saw the salad dressing! Thank you for laughing. I appreciate it.
My grandson, Silas, loves playing in the dirt. At two-years old, his passion for digging in the yard with toy bulldozers, backhoes and dump trunks is astounding.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
Our friends returned to the mission field last week. They had to go.
The incessant meowing grew louder by the minute, accompanied by a repetitive scratch-scratch-scratch at the bedroom door. “Ugh,” I snapped, “stop it, you silly cat!”
Lakes are pretty cool places. One might say that they're refreshing.
Being an avid baseball fan, one of my bucket list items, silly as it may sound, was to attend an opening day game.
Months ago, we taught Silas how to count to twenty. Recently, he has been skipping six. Poor six.
As the Santa Ana breeze whips against my back and the golden warmth of the mid-day San Diego sun kisses my shoulders, I stand in awe of the Creator as I look upon the majesty of the vivid teal expanse staring back at me and my grandson.
I’m a huge fan of Os Guinness (and his ministry The Trinity Forum.) If you haven’t heard of him, go look him up on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube because he is a gazillion times more articulate than I am.
“Anong balita,” my husband, Miko, utters, answering the phone with his traditional Filipino greeting. Hanging up after a few minutes of chatter in his native Tagalog, a language I don’t understand, he excitedly announces, “I’m going to be a sponsor at Tony’s wedding.”
In the past ten months, I have had to hold fast to Hebrews 13:1-2a, “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”
Hospitality to strangers is easy to neglect.
It seems everything these days is reported or gauged as pre-COVID or post-COVID. For all of us who weathered the worst of the pandemic, the question that taunts us is if life will ever return to the “normal” that we once knew.
What do you think of when you hear, “when strivings cease?”
Waking up this crisp Pennsylvania June morning, my heart fills with anxious anticipation. I gaze across the room, admiring my perfectly pressed sky blue high school graduation gown.
“When the burden is too much for you to bear, you do not need stronger shoulders, you need weaker knees.”
Dr. Mitch Kim
As evening approaches, I gently lay my sleeping 4-week old daughter into a basket beside my chair. Taking a deep breath, my mind fills with sweet memories from a year ago.
What do you do when life is rough? If you’re a follower of Christ, what do you do when your pursuit of Christian maturity keeps calling you onward and upward, to terrain that is steeper and more challenging?
What a frustrating morning! My plan to get to the Denver airport two hours before flight time was foiled by a sudden thunderstorm that backed up traffic, delaying my arrival until just minutes before boarding time.
What do you do when life is rough? If you’re a follower of Christ, what do you do when your pursuit of Christian maturity keeps calling you onward and upward, to terrain that is steeper and more challenging?
It’s a few minutes before eight this Monday morning, a slight drizzle in the air, but I’m so excited that I barely notice the raindrops falling on my head as I rush to the entrance of SUSEJ Technology.
Our cool-factor here at SBCA has been notched up tenfold the past month. Why you may ask? Great question!
Helpless, I had watched as a crown of thorns was placed on his head. So much blood trickled down his face that I had to turn my head away.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. We had a lovely time at church.
And while no Dickensian Ghost-of-Palm-Sunday-Past visited me, I found myself reminiscing. Holidays and rituals are meant for such a thing, I suppose.
The events of today, July 19, 1942, will be forever seared into my memory.
We attended a Christmas party last December and within two minutes of our arrival, Silas (age 2) showed me a toy he had just found. We were outside, in the dark, and on time (meaning not many people were there yet.) Looking around, I asked him, “where did you find this tractor?”
Shortly after bedtime, five-year old Simon is cuddling his stuffed blue elephant when he overhears the conversation that his father and older sister are having in the next room.
I nerded out this weekend at a ‘Faith and Science’ conference held here in San Diego. Praise the Lord for paid time off and for a grandma who is willing to watch the kid.
Cheryl Chua
Cheryl Chua is a retired technology manager. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and currently serves as office manager at South Bay Christian Alliance. She enjoys reading, baking, and spending time with her grandchildren (Silas and Hosanna) and her dog.