I was reading the Book of Matthew from the bible last evening in bed. I often read my scriptures in bed before I go to sleep, along with other books of course . . . but the scriptures have a special way of stroking and pricking my heart at the end of the day. Often I just let the book fall open and read them where it lays . . . what comes next is always pretty amazing to me, because it is often exactly what I need to read.
Last night I was reading about the genealogy of Jesus in the first seventeen verses of the first chapter of Matthew. As I was reading through it, it struck me about how very important genealogy seemed to be to these Biblical records . . . as it is an exercise which is repeated time and time again in the scriptures . . . and indeed it is something which my church espouses . . . genealogy study and research. As I was reading through this account though, something popped up that I had never noticed before . . .
There were women mentioned in this particular account, and each of the women listed in the account of the genealogy of Jesus were women who had issues in life to deal with . . . and not exactly women you would expect to find in the Saviour's family tree. Rahab was a prostitute. Tamar slept with her father-in-law. Bathseheba was an adultress. Ruth was a Gentile, a pagan and an outsider to the Jewish faith . . . and Mary . . . she was just a young girl, daughter of a peasant, common and poor . . . to all who saw her, nothing more than another teenage girl, pregnant out of wedlock.
And then another thing struck me. Women are not normally mentioned in someone's lineage in the scriptures . . . not really, and here was God wanting these particular women to be noticed and marked as members of the Saviour's lineage . . . but then again, these were also women which the Bible also makes it a point of bringing to our attention through the stories and histories which it shares of them with us. It came into my mind that these women were women who had a special place in our heavenly Father's heart, these unlikely five were obviously very important to him . . . and to us.
These five women, to my way of thinking, represent things which, in a lot of cases, might prevent and hold back women today from having the kind of relationship with their Heavenly Father that He wants them to have. In this list of women, we have a few sexual sinners . . . someone else who feels like a newcomer to the faith and outside the body of the church, and a young girl from very humble means who probably considers herself to be small and insignificant in the scheme of things eternal . . . and yet they are not, not any of them insignificant or small in the scheme of things eternal.
These very broken, small, and insignificant seeming women were used through the goodness of God to bring about His eternal purposes during their time on this earth . . . and not only that . . . they were important enough to Him . . . that we should make note of them, and learn from them . . . and they were important enough that they should give birth, down through the generations to . . . our Saviour.
These thoughts were so amazing to me . . . and still this morning I stand in awe of them and of the goodness of God, and His ability to use broken men and women to fulfill His greater purposes for us. None of us are so insignificant or so broken that He does not have a plan for us, or that we are outside the sphere of His love and possibility. To me that is just awesome. Nobody is outside His reach, or His love.
I love that about God and I love that about His word, which teaches us beautifully and wonderfully . . . and sometimes, yes . . . fearfully. The scriptures are amazing. God is amazing.
We had quite the day yesterday. First our car wouldn't start. The recovery guy thinks that we were sold a dodgy battery when we had our car serviced in the autumn . . . so Todd will have to go and see the people that did the service this week. And then our wireless modem broke and stopped working and so we spent most of the rest of the day trying to sort that out and get back on line. I have nothing against foreign people . . . but when you are dealing with problems via the telephone in these call centres, it is so very difficult to understand foreign accents, especially when they are speaking very quickly. We had to keep getting the person to repeat herself and spell things out for us. I am sure she was quite frustrated with us, but that was nothing compared to how very frustrated we were with her I am sure!
Never mind . . . in the end we got it done and here I am. I was flabbergasted that AOL doesn't service their own modems without charging you a service call, or that they won't send you a new one without you paying for it! Especially when, according to my son who is a computer engineer, the natural life of a wireless modem is only about 3 to 4 years. We did not get any satisfaction from AOL even after all of the frustrations via the telephone . . . and so Todd just ended up going to PC World and picking up a new modem from them. Once we got that home, then a few more hours were spent in trying to get that working on all of our devices, which meant more phone calls, this time not to AOL, because they won't deal with any problems with equipment which isn't theirs (understandably) but with the people who made the one we had bought, which meant another hour or so on the phone with another foreigner.
Whew!
Yesterday's silver lining . . . despite our frustrations nothing was pitched out the window and nobody screamed. (although I can't speak for the first lady we had on the telephone . . . she was probably pulling her hair out by the time she was finished with us!)
A thought to carry you through the day . . .
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."
~Lao Tzu
Cooking in The English Kitchen today . . . . "House" Baked Apples. (You know, kinda like a "house" dressing, cept it's dessert!)
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