She’s got her eyes set on the summer sky, looking toward the clouds, assessing their danger. She asks, “Are those storm clouds, Mom? Is it supposed to rain?” And I answer, not just once or twice or ten times but dozens, “No, sweetheart, the forecast is clear.”

And my heart aches for her, a familiar pain, because I, too, was once a ten year-old girl afraid of darkness looming. And I hurt with a sense of powerlessness now because I can’t calm her fear any more than I can control the weather. But a mother tries.

When she was younger, I told her lightening was just Jesus taking a picture. She’d smile wide; thunderstorms made her very photogenic then. But now she knows how to read the paper and listen to the radio and she hears about tsunamis washing out entire villages and tornadoes tearing up towns and she wonders if ours is next. She knows God’s not scrapbooking, and the angels aren’t bowling.

So I teach her about meteorology, about high pressures and low, and together we check the radar online, together we are storm chasers, chasing nerves away with knowledge. We drive home through sheets of rain and electricity, and I reassure her about rubber tires and their grounding properties. When the horizon is gray and she can’t see the silver lining, I remind her of flying, how on the runway it can be cloudy, but ten, twenty, thirty-thousand feet in the air, there’s always blue sky. The sun is always shining up there; we just have to rise above the clouds.

And it helps. But the wind still howls.

So I tell her about God and how He’s in charge of the atmospheric conditions, and how He can calm any storm, and how, even if He doesn’t, we can believe His promise to never leave us out in the elements alone. And she knows this with her head, but it hasn’t been translated yet to her heart. And it makes me sad and frustrated because I know the faith it takes to believe, and it’s the one thing I can’t give her.

But, like a weather vane, I point her to the Person who can.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14:27).

A few hours after he said this to his disciples, Jesus Christ took on our sins, and, in our place, died on the cross to pay their penalty, thus guaranteeing our peace. Not peace with cyclones or our circumstances, but peace with God. By making peace with God we experience the peace of God whenever our hearts are troubled.

If in the darkest hour, we believe that somehow there is a purpose in life and that that purpose is love, even the unbearable becomes bearable and even in the darkness there is a glimmer of light. If we believe that in Jesus we see the picture of God, then, in face of that amazing love, it becomes, not easy, but at least possible, to accept even what we cannot understand, and in the storms of life to retain a faith that is serene (William Barclay, The Gospel of John Commentary).

Serenity, this is what I want for my firstborn when the forecast threatens. For her to know that even if a severe storm is on its way, peace is possible, and it’s only possible through Christ.

And so I pray for her:

Lord Jesus, thank you for your gift of peace. Thank you that by your death and resurrection you offer lasting peace to our souls. Help Rainey to realize that peace does not come in the clouds but by the cross and what You did for us there. In Your name, I pray. Amen.

The Words are almost as old as Time itself, passed down from one generation to the next, committed to memory by little Jewish children throughout the ages. They were also quoted by Jesus when asked by the religious experts of his day to name the greatest commandment.

Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).

These same Words saved my life not too long ago, when I was full of questions and my future seemed to be hanging on the answers.

She didn’t know when she said them that they’d have this impact.  She just hoped to say something that wasn’t hurtful, something encouraging that day as she sat across from me in my living room, me twenty pounds lighter but weighed down by heartache and humiliation.

I took a risk in telling her my secret, by exposing my heart, and when she said these words to me in response, I was surprised.  I expected rejection.  I expected abandonment. It’s what I received from the last person I told, and I was prepared for more. Instead, she offered me grace.

She told me she loved me, that she’d always love me no matter what I decided to do.  And she was certain, more certain than I was at the time, that I’d make the right decision, that God would make everything clear if I totally committed myself to Him.

“If you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, He’ll make the choice obvious,” she assured me.

And that was that.

Later that night we went out to dinner together and she shared her story, where she comes from and what makes her tick, and after our meal, we walked for miles in the rain. Details of the previous days and weeks poured out of me as the sky fell, her listening, laughing, loving me through the sopping mess of it all. And when we finally stopped, I knew I’d been in the presence of God that evening, His grace wrapping me up like an over-sized terrycloth towel, covering over a multitude of things.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8).

For months, she called me every afternoon, prayed for me, reminded me of those Words and gave me others, all the while waiting patiently for me to work it out. And, in time, I did.

Now, because of the way she profoundly demonstrated it, I not only better understand and experience the grace of God, I’m motivated to give it to others, too.

And it makes me want to pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for these life-saving Words, and for those whom you’ve placed in my life to live out your definition of Grace.  Thank you for their acceptance and love which is a window into your heart. Thank you that the first and greatest commandment to love You is not about doing a bunch of hard things or following a long list of rules; it’s about receiving this gift. Help to me to seek it and accept it every day for the rest of my life, and as I do, I will be saved, strengthened and encouraged to give it to the rest of the world, thus fulfilling the second greatest commandment to love my neighbor as myself. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

I have ants on my mind tonight.  At the moment, I also have dozens of them infiltrating my bathroom, seeking higher, dryer ground after my husband hosed down the patio at the back of the house yesterday afternoon.  It creeps me out, really, and my fear of the situation — that they might, for example, crawl across the threshold into the master bedroom, up the headboard of my bed and all over my body while I’m sleeping — has led me to do some research. I find that learning about something I’m afraid of often dissipates my fear. So, from a stash of free books I’ve collected over the years, I grabbed Exploring the World of Social Insects, and prepared to conquer my phobia of carpenter ants.

Turns out, these black buggers and I have a lot in common.  For instance, both of us are highly organized, sociable, and have an insatiable sweet tooth.  We both lead a busy life, too, always doing something, hurrying this way or that, lugging food around so we can feed our young, and cleaning up our nests.  Most interestingly, scientists have found that older ants often pass on the fruits of their experience to the younger generation simply by playing a game of follow the leader.  Unfortunately for the ants in my bathroom, they are being led into a trap, lured by their acute sense of smell to a sweet, poisonous decoy.

And it makes me wonder if I’m doing the same thing.

This week in my morning devotions, I’ve been reminded of the daunting task of mothering, what an honor and privilege it is to teach my children but how overwhelming it is to think of the influence I can and do have in their lives.

A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40).

Do I want my kids to be like me?  Do I really want them to follow me like the ants follow their leader?  Most days, honestly, the answer is no.  My life and how I live it is not always worth imitating. But I know Someone whose is.  His teaching is radically different from what my own actions often demonstrate: love my enemies, don’t judge others, forgive.  Thankfully, in God’s schoolhouse, I get to sit on both sides of the desk, and as a student in His classroom — as I seek to follow His example and build my life around His teaching — He promises to give me all the tools and training I need to teach my kids, too.

And so tonight, then, my prayer to Him becomes:

Lord Jesus, thank you for using my current pest problem to show me how important it is to choose our teachers wisely.  Some day we will become like them. If we follow the wrong one, we run the risk of falling into a deadly trap. That’s why I choose to follow You.  Only You can keep me from taking the bait.  Help me to clean up my act before I even begin to think of teaching and leading others, especially my own children. In Your Name, I pray. Amen.

Down in the cellar, on the second shelf from the bottom, sits a cardboard box I like to call, “The Scott Box.” In it are all the keepsakes I’ve saved since we first met. The hockey puck he shot into the stands in Buffalo. The mesh tea bag he bought me in Syracuse, persuading me to keep our date at an off-campus coffeehouse, even though I don’t drink coffee. The cassette (yes, I said cassette) he recorded for me the summer my parents split up, when he and I were miles apart, and I really needed his sense of humor and evidence that love still lived among us.

At the bottom, beneath the ticket stubs, pressed petals, and pictures of young lovers, are his letters, written to me in horrible handwriting but with a tender heart. I blush when I read them now, much like I did back then, turning crimson at the sight of his inked intentions, his devotion so clear – even in chicken scratch – from the very start. My letters to him aren’t as easy to find. There’s no “Megan Box” to speak of, but that’s okay. Scott likes to live in the present, and presently, my affection for him is written all over the walls of our home, deeply etched in the faces of our children and the wrinkles in mine.

I’ve got his box out now, and I’m looking through the memories, searching for the sentiments, because that’s what I do sometimes when he’s out of town and the rooms feel empty, or when I need to connect our middle to our beginning so we won’t come to an end. And that’s when I come across another box containing other intimate letters written over decades of time, private conversations between a young-girl-turned-woman and the Author of her life. Maybe I should call it, “The God Box.”

No one has ever read these journals before, not even Scott, though I’ve invited him to when I thought it might help him understand me a little better. I expose my buck-naked heart in most of them, carving words out of the tender places in my life, and as I sit here looking at them, notebooks full of devotions and prayers, I’m tempted to keep them in this box, hide them in the darkest corner of the house, and hope that no one ever sees them.

But, like the things in The Scott Box, these letters are precious to me and they serve a purpose, too. They prove that, yes, I’m a hot mess most of the time. But they also testify to a woman in love, captivated by the One who still woos her with his Word, regardless of her shortcomings. And that’s why I have to share them. Not because I enjoy being vulnerable or because they’re beautiful works or art.  I don’t, and they aren’t. But I know there are other women out there — women who yell at their kids too much, who sometimes ache with loneliness, and who worry about paying for piano lessons. Women who don’t have it all together and who could use a little hope from time to time. Women a lot like me.

So, every Wednesday this summer (as part of a book club I’m doing with a woman I heart like crazy) I’m going to rip the lid off The God Box and share my deepest, most personal thoughts with you, dear Internet.  I hope they encourage you to believe you are loved, too, and not alone.

As for the romantic letters from Scott?  Sorry, those are going back in The Box. He’s coming home tonight.