The Elastic Den

At the parents’ meeting for the middle school musical Libby was participating in this past winter, the typical volunteer sign-up sheets were touted with the usual “we can’t do this without your help” speech. Knowing my complete lack of sewing talent (thereby eliminating me from the costume crew), my daughter’s desire to not have me backstage during the performances (there goes the stage parent list) and my struggles with even getting my own makeup on correctly (elimination – makeup committee), I signed on quickly to host the cast party. I estimated that at least I knew how to open the front door of my home. Later, it was the look on my husband’s face when I answered his question about the size of the cast (about 70 students) that reminded me that we might have some space issues in our beautiful Northern Virginia home. Being a terrific host and dad, he quickly smiled and assured me it would be fine. After all, they wouldn’t really all show up – would they?

Having raised two other children who had been involved with theatre, we knew that a group of drama kings and queens can rival any sports team with their activity level. Not wanting to see groups of seventh and eighth graders go hang out in our bedrooms for the evening, we realized we needed a plan. Theater kids love few things more than the opportunity to reprise their stage roles. We decided one activity for the evening would be to run a DVD version of the musical the students had just performed. Our 10’ by 15’ den was to be the gathering spot for this particular activity.

As the students began to arrive, it became obvious that watching, laughing and singing along with the DVD was the activity of first choice for the majority of the cast. On a typical evening in our home, you can comfortably seat three to five people in our den. For opening Christmas presents with family, we added chairs from the kitchen and actually squeezed eleven of us in for a brief time. Yet, on the evening of the cast party, teenagers started pouring into our den like ants at a picnic. At one point, Rob counted almost forty of them squeezed into the den which seemed to suddenly have walls of elastic. They laughed, they sang and they had a blast – all sandwiched in on top of one another. If you had told me in advance, I would have sworn the den could never hold so many middle schoolers. But on this night, the walls truly seemed to be made of elastic.



Isn’t that just like God’s love?

Every so often, I seem to pull another stunt which causes me to wonder if I have not finally done it. This time, my mind reasons, I have pushed God’s love right to the edge. I have really messed up. This will be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Yet that is never the case. Is this true because I am so special, He just continues to love me? No, He continues to love me because He is Love.

God is love.
1 John 4:16b (NIV)

Isn’t that just like God’s truth?

Viewing the Bible as God’s word is a truth that seems to be pushed against from all sides in our culture. Every so often, there is a new scientific discovery which seems to disprove God’s word. Sometimes there are archeological finds that appear to conflict in time with the Bible’s account of events. Each year the bookstore displays work from a new “scholar” who touts the evils of religion noting that God is nothing more than man’s trumped up imagination. Yet for all these occurrences, God’s word never changes. His truth continues to stand – whole and unbent in spite of tidal waves of change in human culture and discovery. Do I know this because I am a Bible scholar? No, it is because He can be trusted. His word is true.

“I the Lord do not change.”
Malachi 3:6a (NIV)

Isn’t that just like God’s relationship with us?

God wants to place elastic in the walls of our relationship with Him. As women, this can be scary as we sometimes envision anyone coming towards us with expansion on their minds as just wanting more of our already stretched time, energy and emotions. It is not our Father’s desire to involve us in more activities for the sake of expansion. He wants to expand our relationship with Him. As we grow closer to Him, He will suddenly expand the room to hold more of Him. Does He do this because I have performed the right number of steps to be promoted? No, He does it because He is a God who actively seeks out each and every one of us.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.
Luke 19:10 (NIV)

At Libby’s cast party, my den surprised us. It held elastic within its walls I never knew was there. Every day, I love being surprised by the elasticity of God. Just when I think I have reached capacity . . . . .

His love
His truth
His relationship

The elastic appears and they get a little bigger.