In God’s Box

John 16:33

It’s no secret in our house that I go through long periods of no sleep where I prowl, as my sons say, around the house and pray.   My guys are no longer afraid if they wake up and I am sitting in the chair in their rooms praying.  I’ve been doing this for years.   I pray for their wives even though they haven’t met them, but God knows who they are,  and I pray that He keeps my sons on the narrow path and they raise generations of godly children.  I’ve prayed for all their concerns like making friends, doing well in school, getting their first truck, college, jobs and the list goes on.  They know that if they are up to something I will know because God somehow shows me or they actually tell me themselves much to their dismay.  This is something they haven’t figured out how it works, but they will when they have children and pray for them.

Having shared all of this brings me to the main part of this post,  I always wanted my mother to pray for me and felt that if she had prayed early on for her children maybe the decisions I made in the past that hurt so much could have been prevented.  My mother came to Christ after my oldest son asked her where she would be when she died and would she like to be baptized with him.  I am sure the Lord had planted seeds long before my son spoke with her and he just helped as only a favorite grandchild has a way of getting things done that seemed impossible before.    They were both baptized at the same time when she was in her seventies and him at twelve.   She was a babe In Christ and was working out her faith the few years before she died.  Admittedly,  I have been jealous of  friends whose mothers have been praying all along.  I have literally mourned the loss of something that was never available to my mother’s children until later and then limited.   There is nothing so powerful as the prayers of a mother for a child and somehow I felt that I have been left out.   I am grateful that my mother knew God, even so late,  and I believe that she is in heaven with Him today; perhaps, praying

My sister, Sandra who passed away a year ago, was thirteen years older than me and my reluctant mother who was there for me when my mother could not or would not.   I have been mourning the loss of not just a sister to sister relationship,  but the comfort of knowing,  that no matter what,  there is someone else in this world that understands and will take me in unconditionally.   As most of my fellow floor walkers and sister warriors of prayer know, this stuff hits you in the middle of the night mostly between one and four in the morning.    I have been missing her so very much lately, especially during sleepless nights.

In the early hours I had a dream that my mother called and told me, “you need my help.”  Strange, I always tried to avoid needing her.  Then the dream progressed and my sister came to me and while hugging me whispered in my hear, “You are in God’s box.”   For weeks I have pondered that expression!  Don’t tell the sleep depraved, over analytical,  pre-menopausal, grieving basket case something that you don’t want her to pick apart for days on end.

“In God’s Box”, does that mean I am like Jonah in the belly of the whale and about to be spewed on to the beach.  Is God so unhappy with me because I can’t seem to figure out what or where He wants me right now?  Am I not doing something I should be doing?   On and on my brain bandied this about and it went this way for about a week.  I mentioned it to my sons and they had been thinking of their grandmother and aunt and missing them too.   What does this all mean???

Lo and behold!  It’s one in the morning.  No surprise, I am awake.  “…In God’s Box.”  “You are in God’s Box.”  “…In God’s Box.”   Just google it, silly girl, and so I did.  Here is what I found:

God’s Boxes

 I have in  my hands two boxes which God gave me to hold.  He said, “Put all your sorrows in the black box, and all your joys in the gold.”

I heeded His words, and in the two boxes both my joys and sorrows I stored.  But though, the gold became heavier each day.  The black was as light as before.

With curiosity, I opened the black, I wanted to find out why.  And I saw, in the base of the box,  a hole which my sorrows had fallen out by.  I showed the hole to God, and mused, “I wonder where my sorrows could be?”  He smiled a gentle smile and said, “My child, they’re all here with me.”  God’s Boxes!

I asked God why He gave me the boxes.  Why the gold and the black with the hole?  “My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings; the black is for you to let go.”