…and the chaos was ordered

For quite some time I have been agonizing because I lost my Bible sometime in the Spring. I don’t know what day it happened because I had been using a smaller Bible for referencing some things and study. I don’t know why I was using that one at that time other than the fact that it is red and has a neat little magnetic closure and it fits in my purse or in the side of my 4Runner door for quick grabs!

But when I went to get my Bible – the one that has all the wonderful yellow highlights and underlined scriptures and notes in the margins from sermons or Bible studies – it was no where to be found. I looked everywhere – multiple times. I’ve asked people to look in their cars. I’ve prayed over it – lamenting about it. I’ve had other people praying about it.  SB kept telling me that I’d find it, but I feared it was gone forever. I feared I had left it in a hotel room during one of my training sessions where I was teaching.

Finally Big D (my father-in-love) declared I should have a Bible that had just “appeared” at their home and no one had ever claimed it.  Oh, it is a nice Bible. Thick, black, crisp pages – a clean slate, if you will.  But I longed for the pages of my Bible because I knew where every book was just by the feel of it. I yearned for some of my notes and to see the dried up daisy pressed between the pages of 2 Samuel. My junior high best friend had picked it for me from the “gardens” of Glorietta during our last youth summer trip before I moved away. I wanted the yellowed slip of paper that quoted 1 Thess. 5:11 that my 8th grade Sunday School teacher had prayed over that we would each have what the Lord wanted us know especially for our lives.

Week after week I was tormented about losing my Bible. How in the world does one lose a Bible?  Well, in my house, it’s pretty easy between all the hunting equipment and clothes (we could ALMOST run a Cabela’s outlet) and the room o’junk and clutter that belongs to me, sometimes things get sucked up in the oblivion we call home.  And I’ve had enough.

For several months, the Lord’s been moving in my heart and my mind that I’m being “called to order.” That has been involving almost every aspect of my life from quiet times, to workloads, to home organization, etc.  I used to be a lot more organized and orderly than I have exhibited in the past 2 years, but we won’t go there analyzing all the whys and why nots. 

Having order is quite biblical. From the beginning, God ordered the universe into motion and it was methodical and intentional. Through the pages of scripture, parable after parable and verse after verse, we see history and the perfect plan all ordered in perfect harmony. Jesus taught it and the scriptures played out just as he said.

So heading into 2009 and beyond, I spent my weekend tackling a huge organizational effort. I’ve decided to start cleaning out and getting rid of the junk and clutter in my home and in my life.  I cleaned out a mud room that had become like a landfill except without the stinky smells. I’ve made separate places for things to sell and things to donate. 

And as I was cleaning out, I bent down to pick up something that had fallen under my handy Container Store gift wrapping station and it was as if the heavens had opened up and all the voices of the angels in unison sang out, “HHHHHHAAAALLLL LE LUUUU JAHHHHHHHHH”!  There it was.  Somehow my precious Bible had gotten pushed or kicked under my gift wrapping station.  I picked it up and twirled through the laundry room and into the den. No one was home to see me, but I didn’t care. It was a moment of completion.

How appropriate to find it under the GIFT WRAPPING station (like a gift) AND after I made the decision to begin to bring order to my life.  God showed up and showed out in my life, and I just wanted you to know it too.  When we claim order in our life, we open ourselves to receive that which stands the tests of time.

I’m off to clean out some drawers – maybe I’ll find that $20 I know I didn’t lose!!!