A Breath of Fresh Air

Spring has sprung here in the Magic City. The Bradford Pear trees are blooming, the Tulip trees are flowering, and I even saw a few dandelions in our yard this morning. It makes you want to open the windows of the house and let in a breath of fresh air. Out with the old, in with the new!

Easier said then done at our house. It has old wooden windows that are sometimes impossible to open. But that fresh air would sure be nice and the house is starting to get warmer, I think to myself. Just try it, I say. Then as I'm banging on the windows trying to get the frame to release their death-like grip on the window, I muse to myself that there must be a lesson in this somewhere. Yea, like wait and let your husband with his superior upper body strength do this! But it will be too late by the time he gets home. I'll want to be shutting the windows by then! OK, OK... finally the frame lets go and I can push the window up....only to have the outer window slide down... I'm telling you, these are attack windows. I know it well...as one of them brutally assaulted me last year and I got three fingers on my right hand caught in between the two windows and had to quit crying long enough to rescue myself. Not an easy thing to do with the left hand which, as we all know, isn't as strong as the right one anyhow! I had nightmares after that whenever I went to open or shut those killer windows.

It comes to mind that making changes in my life is a lot like trying to open those windows. Old habits hold a tight grip on me and just when I get the window open and feel that fresh air in my life that change brings, the window slides shut. What did the Apostle Paul say? The things I want to do, I don't...and the things I don't want to do, I do.

I usually grab some kind of tool from my toolbox to prop up the window to keep it from sliding shut. I thank God that the Holy Spirit is that tool from His toolbox to help me keep the window open so the breath of fresh air can blow thru me --- out with the old, in with the new!