From my November 2023 archives…

Today was a beautiful blue sky day. Warm sunshine and time for much porch pondering before I retreated inside for some Thanksgiving cooking. Having our McMurray family dinner tomorrow. I’m the ham cooker, the chocolate and caramel cake and pecan pie baker, and the collard cooker. Chief was always the collard grower. Got oldest brother to grow the collards last year but never entered my mind this year to plant some or get him to grow them. So I bought some at the grocery store, hopefully grown locally. You know, we always picked our collars when they were smaller than the store sells but I’m sure they’ll be good. Always wished someone would invent something to wash turnip greens and collars. I love them but don’t enjoy the washing process. I’m thankful my sink has two compartments, makes it easier. An older woman at Russell Corporation told me once she washed them in the washing machine…think she was pulling my leg. But don’t think I haven’t thought about doing that.

Watched Mother Nature during sunset as she color washed the horizontal a beautiful pink champagne, the sun setting as a glowing white light, sliding down the horizon in her beautiful golden gown, kissing the day goodnight as she lay her head down. Father Sky gave the sun a goodnight kiss and hung a crescent moon, bright and luminous, and set a million stars to shine as nightlights in the navy sky canopy. I will never tire of watching these magnificent sunsets and always think of Rosie and Chief, wondering what they see at sunset and sunrise. I think it would have to be glorious and breath-taking being viewed from heaven.

I was making a cake late afternoon and using one of my mason jars for a measuring cup. Haven’t had a measuring cup in years, just always a use a pint jar, and I started thinking how our lives and God can be compared to a mason jar. Today my jar is filled with happiness in preparing food for our family dinner and with joy in looking forward to seeing my children and grandchildren and my three brothers and their families. My jar is running over with love for my family. I know I’m fortunate to have them in my life and I thank God for them every night in my prayers.

A mason jar is clear and fragile. We can screw the lid on tight or leave it loose. We can see through the jar and know what we’re getting. When I was a child I stored my marble collection in mason jars. The jars let us enjoy the blessings of fruits and vegetables from our summer gardens in the winter months. The older mason jars are marked with cup measurements. Don’t think the new jars have the measurements on them. Mason jars are ordinary but what we put in them makes them special. We can put our treasures in a jar, save our pocket change in a jar. We can fill our jars with delicious jelly, relish, or homemade vegetable soup, use our jars for bacon grease drippings, or even sit in the porch swing and sip sweet tea from a mason jar.

Life is like that, we choose what to put in our jars and carry with us. Some of us fill our jars up with every day blessings, leaving the lid loose. Others tighten the lids, stingy with life’s treasures, always waiting for the shiny objects to catch their eyes, not willing to add their everyday blessings to their jars, afraid their jar will overflow. As they keep waiting, their everyday blessings go to the wayside instead of filling their jar. Others of us gather our prizes daily, thankful to wake up with breath for another day, going through life with God as a treasure in our mason jar, pouring out his love and grace by our words and actions, filling our jar with prayers and thanksgiving.

In the Bible, jars of clay, easily breakable, were used to hold treasures and keep things safe. God gives us treasures and his treasures last forever. We can fill our mason jars with God’s light, too, and remove the lid and share his light with others. God doesn’t measure his love, he gives it freely and unconditionally, pours his spirit and blessings on us. In Isaiah Chapter 44, God says, “I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.”

Don’t be stingy with things you put in your jar. Fill it up with scriptures and stories of God’s blessings. When the going gets tough unscrew the lid and pour out some of God’s grace.

“A God Jar is anything you wish it to be, in which you can put your wishes, dreams, problems, prayers. You may want to think of it as a spiritual mailbox.” — Julia Cameron