Pages

Monday, June 13, 2011

Celebrations to Suds


Saturday Michael and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. Well, sort of. He was in Denver and I was here. (But I keep reminding myself, we had Rome…) All our wedding pictures are back in Ilinois so I thought I’d share a photo from our oldest son’s wedding celebration last July. I love you Mike!

The Father of one of my dear small group friends passed away this week and his memorial service was Saturday afternoon. I admired how his whole family honored him and celebrated his life by sharing memories, reading scripture and singing. The message was very uplifting. The pastor spoke of how his wife cared for him and I thought of the vows “in sickness and in health”.

Psalm 121 was read . ”I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? The LORD will keep you from all harm--he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Verses 1,7,8)

I stopped by a send-off celebration on my way home. My friend’s son is heading down to San Antonio for the Air National Guard Boot Camp. Christian was a classmate of my son T.J. He’s a wonderful young man and I wish him all the best!

I didn’t have any plans for Saturday night and I knew our laundry was getting out of control, so I decided to head to a Laundromat and just get it done. Normally I use the appliances here in the wonderful home I’m living in, but the girls returned from Europe and they had lots of loads to do.

Our town doesn’t have any Laundromats-guess we’re too swanky. Anyway, I headed to Tacoma and learned that just like in my kid’s dorms, they now use “laundry cards”. A super nice attendant helped me learn how to work all the machines.

I sipped my iced Latte, read my book, watched people come and go and reminisced. When I was a newlywed I would walk to a Laundromat that was near our tiny apartment and do Mike’s restaurant clothes. Now he wears dress shirts that I drop off at the cleaners.

I watched the clothes swishing through the washer window and thought of the book I used to read to my classes called Theodore. It’s the story of a little bear that accidently gets thrown in the machine. The bear comes out so clean that its owner hardly recognizes it.

If Jesus washes me white as snow am I changing so my character is getting more like His and less like mine?

The bubbles I had envisioned for my anniversary were the pink Mumm kind, not the suds in the washing machine kind. I still don't like my machines in the basement in Illinois, and I could have pouted to all my friends about spending my anniversary alone doing loads, but then I looked around and was reminded that I don’t have to come to the Laundromat week after week.

Whether I’m celebrating life or life-everlasting, with or without Mike, using my own appliances or ones I have to pay to use, I know the Lord is keeping me and watching over me.

I wonder how we'll be celebrating our 29th anniversary?

How about you? Have you been to some celebrations lately? Have you spent many wedding anniversaries apart from your spouse?


In His Grip, Jane

No comments:

Post a Comment