11/19/08
Tonight we are finishing up the church decorating. It has been a process. First we pulled everything out a week ago, and since some of the stuff had definitely seen better days, we did a bit and stopped. Then we gave Kat and Jose free reign to do the tables and voila lovely new decorations graced the tables and the side lights sported new swags instead of the old wreaths. We could have stopped here and said, looks good but when you’re changing out things it’s still nice to have some of the old mixed in with the new as long as they cohesive and don’t detract. This is not a placating anyone by keeping the past but a meeting of the former and the later in unity forming an entirely new look.
Here we are on a Wed. night getting ready to put the final touch on what has been a process in order to achieve a desired effect. First however since our decoration crew is mainly guys it is smart to keep them focused and in order to do that we took steps that always insure happy campers, we ate. The shower of blessing on Monday had purposely had an abundance of preparation so that it would encompass tonight’s festivities. During this time of food and fellowship we had entertaining jokes, stories and some guy humor which the two of us ladies present might have rolled our eyes at but ‘hey we love you guys’. Then the real reason for the meeting began or at least the intended results for the meeting took fruition (hey sounds spiritual in any case), we started the decorating. Tracey took point on the lights stringing them out and checking for bulb malfunctions. Josh was given the ladder to coil the greenery across the sanctuary with Aaron holding it and probably giving him good instructions. Kat was in charge of the tree with Jose putting it together for her to decorate. Bill and Dave did finishing touches. As for me, I mainly cheered everyone on. ‘Woo-hoo, looking good, perfect’ were some of the phrases uttered and meant. Dave buzzed around snapping pics and suddenly it was done. (At least the inside we are going to do some outside stuff later) Cleaning up we ditched some leftovers that we decided didn’t need to be left over and stored the rest away for use perhaps as some later date.
This interior decorating for the season reminded me of the interior decorating that needs to go on in our hearts. Seasons change, so do situations and our hearts must be kept up to date or we find ourselves woefully out of step with Ruach’s moves. There are seasons in our lives when things which didn’t just work in the past but were cutting edge are no longer in that state due to use or for the situation we find ourselves in they would no longer be appropriate. There are other things which still work, still have viable use but perhaps need to be moved to a different venue or placed on a different backdrop in order for them to continue to form a unified whole. It is Ruach who can bring these things together, tweaking this, ditching that, building something different from old materials…and voila, the result is a redecorating of out interior lives to match the season we are in. If I had to make a guess, I would say that Ruach is decorating us to handle more of the Presence, conforming us more into the image of the one whose birth we were decorating in order to celebrate this great gift, Yeshua, our Messiah. Removing certain things which once were good only makes sure that we have room in our hearts for the true reason for the season; it makes room for the present Presence. Together we decorated the sanctuary; together we will become decorations (gems) of His sanctuary.
k
