A Sermon from Ruby

For those of you who do not like posts with faith based content, this may not be a good one to read. It's a Ruby story that I really want to tell.

She was in the back of our car on the way for a McDonald's breakfast. Her parents and Sadie were in the van following. She loves to ride with us and TALK!! She's a chatterbox, but luckily, one with things to say. She was telling us about driving into the city the night before and seeing the CN tower. "It goes all the way up to the clouds," she told us excitedly. We were captured by her excitement and told her that the next time she came to town for a few days, we'd take her up the tower. "Sadie, too," she said, fiercely protective of her little sister. "Yes, of course, Sadie too," we reassured her.

She said that she wanted to go up the CN tower and be in the clouds to, "talk to God". It seems that God lives in the clouds so it just stood to reason that He'd be up there waiting to chat with 5 year old girls. I asked her what she would say to God. Here's the conversation that followed:

"I'd tell him I love his kid."

"Oh, and who is God's kid?"

She paused, horrified that we didn't know, "Jesus," she said simply.

"Oh, OK," I said.

She thought for a second and then, deciding that since we didn't know who God's kid was, she'd better fill us in on the rest of the story, "God came down to earth, this was before I was born, and walked around and stuff."

She actually imparted this information to us as if it was indeed, "Good news."

"Why did God come down to earth?" I asked.

Only a slight pause and then, "To see if we were taking care of everything right."

Our chat ended there and I called our friend Belinda who is a woman of deep faith because I knew she'd enjoy chatting with Ruby about God. So we asked Ruby if she'd like to talk to our friend, she nodded gravely. I dialed the number and then Belinda and she chatted for a bit. It was terrific hearing their second had conversation.

I wondered how God would indeed feel, if he dropped in to check and see how well we were taking care of things, taking care of each other, taking care of our responsibilities. I didn't go too far with those thoughts because they would have been unproductive. I wondered further, how well was I taking care of my responsibilities and my relationships and my requirements. On good days, I think I'm trying hard, on bad days, I just think I'm trying.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to have all sorts of opportunities to be tried ... did you notice that 'tried' is an anagram for 'tired' - there is a reason for that I think ... and I hope I remember that I'm called to 'take care of things, of people and of moments.' Here's to remembering that in moments are the opportunities we have to make a difference. And here's to trying hard to remember that one of the jobs we have as humans is to take care of the things we were given and the people who come our way.