Track 2: I'm the janitor... →
…and I’m so grateful for my life. So grateful.
Often in my “I don’t want to go into Forever 21” walk around the mall, I walk around and watch. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with thankfulness for having a job, a life, a roof, water…and I look around at people frowning – who look like they’ve been forced to live. I just want to shout at them, “I CLEAN TOILETS FOR A LIVING!” and I’m so happy to be here, anywhere.
But that joy is not from me though. It’s something that happened years ago; something that I got to witness happen to my bride with my own eyes.
I love Lou. I loved Lou from the first time I talked to her. So thorough, so inquisitive, so…many…questions… Listening to stories of her as a child seems as relevant as ever and it’s not a stretch to imagine her from year to year.
She is a list-it-and-get-it-done gal. I am a drive-three-hours-to-waffle-house-on-a-whim kind of guy. We have different schedules and different lives.
I can’t count how many times I’ve come home late at night after finishing work to the question, “TELL ME HOW THIS IS GOING TO WORK!?!?” I don’t hold her sleep-depraved rants against her and never will. Although, she’s not who she was when I met her. She’s not even who she was when I married her.
Lou broke. Lou broke for the better. The Holy God of all eternity whose justice is perfect and mercy is inexhaustible was making His presence known in her life. The little that she began to learn about God began to bother her, because she was seeing her life contrasted to the Truth she was learning about God. Then her life ended on August 26, 2015.
“Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.”
That day her heart was crushed with the overwhelming revelation that God the Son, The Lord Jesus Christ was Salvation. He wasn’t a plan, or a prayer or insurance to put out the flames that would someday burn. But HE ALONE IS SALVATION.
She realized that what she thought was her life for 30 years was bought and purchased with the precious Blood of Jesus Christ so long ago, and it belonged to Him from the beginning. She gave it to the rightful owner, The Worthy Sovereign. And now she lives as called, as a living sacrifice, as an enemy-turned-worshiper; as one who no longer lives, but one whom through Christ lives, so that He can get the glory.
That’s how it's going to work.
Christ the foundation of us.
Our love, devotion and hearts flow from the abundance of who God is.
Photo by Lou Valla in Antelope Island State Park, Salt Lake City, Utah.