My beautiful wife loved nothing more than to beautify. She devoted herself to creating a beautiful home. She planted flowers, bushes and trees outside. Inside she hung, placed, painted and etched. Even when she was not well, this was where her heart was. Over the course of the last nine months of her life, most of it spent in sundry hospitals, she watched, I suspect, more Home and Garden Television than all of HGTV’s executives combined.
Her pursuit of beauty, however, did not have its end in a pretty house, but in a godly home. She worked to beautify me, and our children. This morning while I shaved I looked to the shelf she placed between our sinks. There she had placed two small plaques. One reads- “Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you” (I Peter 5:7). The other reads, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him” (Lamentations 3:25). I cried in gratitude to hear her voice, and to hear His gospel.
As the tears dried, and I began to mentally work on this brief piece, I thought about the simplicity of it all. My eyes passed over God’s Word, and everything changed. I thought in turn about what usually enters not just my eye gate, but ear gate. Like most Christians I live in a decadent culture, and consume far too much of its “wisdom.” My eyes are filled with images made in Hollywood , my ears filled with the wisdom of Nashville
Nor should it surprise me that my wife spoke into my life such graces. She adorned her home with God’s Word, and so adorned her life with the words of life. A godly woman builds up her house. She did not know, when she placed those plaques on the shelf, that one day I would be anxious about living without her. She did not know that the loss of her light would dim my hopes. She did not intend to whisper to me this morning from a better country. But she did. She whispered the gospel to me.
The next time you are alone in your car, turn on the oldies station. Sing along with as many songs as you can. Then turn off the radio, and begin to sing the Psalms. Then ask yourself what I ask, having failed the test so miserably- who has the words of eternal life, the Beatles, or Jesus?
Uptight evangelicals, which might just be a synonym for fundamentalists, are quick to decry the baleful influence of the broader culture. It’s all too terribly true. Better, however, that we should celebrate the influence of God’s Word. Treasure in, treasure out. Hope in Him. He cares for you.
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