So Not My Gift

By Cynthia Ruchti 

I caught myself saying it again the other day as I cleaned up the church kitchen after helping to serve snacks during fellowship time following the worship service.

Choosing how much to purchase and prepare for an unknown number of congregants is “sooooo not my gift.”

The family of a newborn is counting on me to provide their supper on Wednesday night. Me? I can cook. It’s not that. I actually cook pretty well. But I feel so much more comfortable writing a clever little poem for a baby shower than I do providing a meal. I told the deaconess in charge of scheduling meals for situations like this, “I found it funny, considering my crazy life this week. Rather than saying yes, I should have requested meals for ME!”

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Who Decided?

Who decided wrinkles are unattractive and to be avoided at all costs?  What if we’re thinking backward on this issue?

Where is it written that a baby’s skin is the ideal?  What if the skin of a baby is really under-done and the ideal is a mature-looking face?  What if we looked at a baby’s soft, flawless complexion and thought, “Oh, that’s too bad.  Well, give it time.”

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Premature Season Change

By Cynthia Ruchti –

As I write this, I’m surrounded by the wonder of a warm autumn day, one that smells like toasted summer. The autumn light spotlights the bright colors of the autumn trees and autumn-crisped grasses, perfuming the autumn air with that mellow, smooth, ripe fragrance of cottonwood at its peak and rusty pine needles, of apples begging for picking and tomato plants giving up their last fruits of harvest.

By the time you read this, few places this far north will have leaves on the trees. The staccato dance of color and rustle will have given way to the rattle of bare boned branches against one another, brown against a gray November sky.

Autumn seems too short of a season, most years. And sometimes that’s my fault. I cheat it of its shelf life, because I know what’s coming–winter.

Winter–not my favorite time of year, living in this land of ice and cold, snow and blizzards, closed roads and colorlessness; unless you count white as a color.

Winter–the season that seems endless, its days short and bone-chilling.

Autumn, on the other hand, calls for sweatshirts and long hikes through the opening woods, for s’mores over the campfire and quilt cocoons, great sleeping weather with the windows open and the down comforters piled high, pumpkins and earthtone decorations and Thanksgiving and putting up the garden’s produce.

But I hesitate in autumn, never taking a full breath, because I know what the season right behind it will demand.

A cancer patient in remission might fail to take a full breath, knowing she’ll have another biopsy six months or a year from now. A parent of a pre-teen might miss some of the beauty because of a premature, imagined chill still years distant. A marriage might suffer from a similar syndrome: “We made it through that crisis, but there’s bound to be another one ahead”.

When God said through Solomon that there was a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3), I wonder if He also was telling us not to cheat the season we’re in. To plan for, but not pre-live, the crises of the next or opposite season.

“Don’t you be talking when it’s the season to be silent,” He might rephrase that instruction. “Don’t feel loss when it’s the season of gain. Don’t pre-worry about a season of death and miss the season of living.”

PRAYER: Father God, why should thoughts of an icy wind trouble me on a day like today when the sun is blindingly bright against the yellow leaves, the breeze merely cool, not cold? So fill my sense with this present moment that I don’t miss Your Presence in it!

“There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 CEB).

I Like What You’ve Done With the Place

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Some of the home improvement shows on television invite neighbors and prospective home buyers to walk through a house both before and after a major remodel. On their first trip, they’re filmed saying things like, “This room is so dark.” “What is that smell?” “Eww. Disgusting kitchen.” “Is that mold on the windowsill?” “The décor looks like something from the 60s, and not in a retro way.”

Then the remodel team shows up with paintbrushes, carpenters, designers, and granite countertops. They knock out view-prohibiting walls, replace or reinvigorate scarred hardwood floors, patch holes, paint walls and woodwork, and install state-of-the-art appliances. A designer sweeps in to stage the house with appealing furniture and distinctive lighting.

A second open house welcomes the same group of people who originally had little positive to say about the home. This time through, they make comments that in essence communicate, “I love what you’ve done with the place!”

Fresh colors. Better traffic flow. Clean. Crisp. Welcoming.

I’ve been thinking about the remodel concept since landing on a verse of Scripture that hadn’t drawn my attention before, for some reason.

Psalm 41:3 reads, “The Lord will strengthen them when they are lying in bed, sick. You will completely transform the place where they lie ill” (CEB).

Completely transform. God can completely transform a sick room. I wonder what that would look like.

The stale air would be replaced with the sweet fragrance of His presence. And that transforms everything. He knocks down walls blocking our view of Him and of the hope-filled future. He sands away the scarred places, digs and scratches from our experience. He patches holes, lines the sick room with a fresh perspective, stronger colors, evidence of the courage He offers in abundance. He lights the room.

In His Hands, a sick room can be “completely transformed.” The illness may remain. The diagnosis may be unchanged. But the place where the sick lie can be so thoroughly revolutionized by God’s presence that the suffering one will rise on one elbow to say, “I love what You’ve done with the place.”

PRAYER: Father God, it has sometimes been me in that sick room. Forgive me for not always noticing what You did with the place. And for those I care about who are lying in bed, sick, right now, I pray Your presence would be so strongly evidenced that their pain and distress are transformed in Your light.”

“The Lord will strengthen them when they are lying in bed, sick. You will completely transform the place where they lie ill” (Psalm 41:3 CEB).

Something About the Shore

By Cynthia Ruchti –

I know I’m not the only one who could sit for hours staring off into the water. Big water. The Great Lakes. The Atlantic. The Pacific. The Gulf of Mexico…

Anytime a vacation or conference takes us near a wide expanse of water, I always feel we’re leaving the spot too soon, as if to walk away from the shore is an interruption of something vitally important.

I was born in a Pacific coast town, but moved inland with my mother just a few days later. Far inland. To the heart of the Midwest.

It’s not just the connection to my birthplace that draws me to the shore. It’s more than just liking water. It’s beyond a fascination with waves and tides.

Today, I think I figured out part of the pull. I reread a verse I’ve seen before, but landed on it this time as if spreading a beach blanket for a prolonged visit to the water’s edge.

Isaiah 51 expresses God’s promises about the endurance of His salvation. “Pay attention to me, my people; listen to me, my nation…My salvation is on its way, and my arm will judge the peoples. The coastlands hope for me; they wait for my judgment” (Isaiah 51:4-5 CEB).

Just a few verses before the passage that reminds us the earth will wear out like clothing, we’re given this beautiful picture of the shoreline itself longing for Christ’s coming. Whatever a theologian would say about it, I gained a deeper understanding of why I feel so at home near big water. The coastlines hope for Him. They long for His return. We share that in common.

The whisper of the waves as they kiss the shore says, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus.” Just like the pulse of my heart.

Romans 8 affirms that the whole of creation groans with a longing we usually attribute to humans awaiting their answer, their salvation.

The next time I’m given the opportunity to linger near the water’s edge, I’ll understand a little better why staring out across the vastness of the sea resonates with an inner “watching and waiting.”

PRAYER: Father God, I’m amazed every day that even after years of digging into Your Word, there’s still more, always more to learn, more to grab onto, more to explore. Thank You for the reminder that I’m not alone in the pulsing anticipation for the future You’ve prepared for those of us who love You and follow Your plan. Glorious expectation that surges like the waves of the sea.

“…creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Romans 8:21 CEB).

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