Okay, prepare yourself, this is a snapshot of the dessert table, coordinated in shades of turquoise and brown!  This beautiful temptation was the centerpiece of a recent fantastic women’s conference at The Chapel in Baton Rouge.   Never have I seen the color, turquoise, used with such abandon.  Talented women….women with an eye for beauty.

Flying home,  I was reminded how much beauty nourishes the soul.  It’s like something our souls were born to crave.   Something inside me exhales in the presence of beauty.   Life may be crazy.  People can disappoint.  Things happen you couldn’t have imagined could happen.

But then….the sunlight filters through the Carolina pines on the first crocus of the winter than never was.   Or my eyes drink in a meticulously color-coordinated table of treats.   Or my grand-daughter bounces through the door in ten shades of pink.

It’s God who has tuned our souls to come alive to beauty, I believe.  Splendor and beauty are in His presence,  the Psalmist declares.   Jesus covers our ugliness with his beauty broken for us.   The prayer of Psalm 90…

May the beauty of the Lord be upon us…

Perhaps I could use this picture to tell you about a golden day in Latvia in May      with some amazing women!

You know how we do women’s conferences here,  with piles of food, drama,    music, and comfortable surroundings.   Well,  here in Latvia in a Baptist church  (the Baptists have been in Latvia for 150 years), these women sat from early  morning to late afternoon in straight-backed pews,  with a bowl of (really good)  soup for lunch.

I kept expecting the group to dwindle.  Surely they had children’s soccer games to attend,  shopping of some sort to accomplish.   No,  at five o’clock they were all still there, listening.  When someone invited them forward for prayer, they came and stayed another hour.

Part of this picture is explained in new Latvian freedoms.  After 800 years of foreign occupation,  Latvians have their country back,  and their freedom.   They are still grateful people.  They sit in straight-backed pews and listen all day–because now,  they can.

I will never forget one particular moment.  A man with a beautiful tenor voice sang the old Beatle’s song,  ”Hallelujah.”   As if on cue,  the whole audience stood up and started singing along.  ”What’s happening here?”  I asked the woman next to me.

“Oh,”  she replied,  ”this is the song the crowds sang night after night  in 1990 in the public squares, celebrating Latvian freedom.”   Such hope you could feel in their voices.

I asked a friend who teaches and travels overseas this question recently.   “Do you ever get over the humility that when you “minister” in another country,  God gives you back more than you gave?”

She laughed.  ”You see God use you,”  she replied.  ”And you always get reminded that you are not the Big Cupcake.”

Here is one of life’s sweeter moments…watching your husband baptize your four   year old granddaughter, Molly.   She is so pleased, her small self dripping wet    beside her brother.   She belongs to Jesus.  It is simple and true and very real to  her.

Afterwards, she comes to me with her face turned upward, close so I can see, her   eyes searching.  ”Grandmommy,  is the cross still on my forehead?”  she asks.        The pastor has anointed her with oil and made the sign of the cross on her    forehead.   She wonders,  is it still there?

“Oh, Molly, honey, the cross will always be on your forehead,”  I reply, not skipping a beat.   I believe that is true.  She is a marked woman.

She thinks about it a moment.  ”Okay,  so did he get it on there straight?”

I had to laugh.  Yes, he got it on there straight.  Heaven forbid that one should wear the cross on one’s forehead a bit crooked.

This is one of those moments I am storing somewhere deep inside.  I need to be reminded.   The cross sets me apart.  It sets me straight.  I am not my own,  but I belong to Him as surely as if I had a visible sign etched on my forehead.

So many reasons why The King’s Speech won the award for the best picture!  Not the least of which was the exceptional writing,  the memorable lines of script.

My personal favorite concerns a subject I’m doing a lot of thinking about these days:  fear.   It stalks the perimeter of even our best moments,  waiting for the chance to intrude.   Fear has deep roots,  clear back to the Garden,  when we knew no fear.

And in our own lives,  fear often finds its origins in childhood experiences.

That’s why I particularly love the scene in this movie where the King is practicing with his speech coach for the upcoming coronation.  He takes his seat on the throne that dates back over a thousand years.  He is noticeably uncomfortable.  How will he ever fill the shoes of those who have come before him?

His speech coach intimidates him into believing that maybe, just maybe, he might have what it takes to be a king.  You don’t have to be afraid of the same things you were afraid of when you were five. How wonderfully true!

To claim the place God has for us in this world is to believe exactly that….that whatever sort of fear may have controlled our life in the past,  now is now. The Christ we know in the now breaks the hold of any fear in the past.

Be strong and courageous!  For the Lord your God is the One who goes ahead of you.  He will not fail or forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31