Much Ado About...

"and the devil wants to cast all manner of doubt on the real Lover with the key dying to let you out from the bars that you fashion with your stolen clout"
from "parting shot" by Bill Mallonee

so, winter has come to northern vermont right on time (it feels early, doesn't it?) and we were not ready...we got caught without snow tires.

friday afternoon i get a call from dina that her car was stuck on the road and i chuckled to myself bc i had just got the van stuck in the driveway. she ended up getting some help and came home and the next day i got the van out and parked it up near the garage.

funny thing tho, the next day we couldn't open the doors. i tried. dina tried. i tried b4 church. dina tried again too. frozen solid shut. what do you do about that?

we came home from church and i tried opening them again...come on! it's sitting in the sun! it can't be that cold, yet!! so i try pouring very hot water over the door. still nothing. i put some more water on the stove and try again. nope.

i went and got the blow torch...

man...i was pulling so hard i thought the handle would break off. come on! every door...frozen? solid? how can that be? what could we possibly do? wait till spring?

so, last try b4 i do something drastic (which i hadn't decided what just yet).

what? what's that?

the doors are LOCKED!????

oh. (sheepishly goes to get the key).

what a great metaphor for the spiritual life. we waste our time trying to fix ourselves and we waste even more time trying to fix other people...

we go and get hot water and pour it over the door...

we pull and pull and pull...

we yell and curse and kick dirt...

we call the car stupid.

we call the weather stupid.

when, in the end, we just need the key. we wasted our time doing it our way...we wasted our energy doing it our way...we risked burning ourselves...we risked breaking our car...and, to top it all off, we looked pretty foolish.

Jesus died to set you free.
that's still all there is to it.

believe Him. and let Him use His key.