Do you look like Jesus today? Listen to Paul’s testimony and promise:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. (2 Cor. 3:18)
In these busy summer days, stop to gaze. Glance up. Turn from work to worship. Schedule an August audience in his august presence. Renew your acquaintance, and renew your resemblance.
Here are two writings from my mother—prose and poetry—to help you turn your eyes upon Jesus.
BEING GRANDMA
Ken and I have just returned from a few days at a lakeside cottage with our oldest son and his wife and their five young daughters. I spent time with the girls splashing in the shallow beach and watching the older girls learn to swim. We played games and sang around the campfire. We studied God’s creation, the little fish in the clear water, the different bugs and birds. We fed the ducks, listened to the loons and explored the lake. The girls cast lines for elusive fish.
Photo Credit: Paul R Lamb via Compfight cc
Now that I am home, five unique voices calling “Grandma, look” echo in my memory. I carry fresh imprints of each granddaughter on my heart. New memories are impressed on my mind and I feel a deeper bond with their individual personalities. I watched them conquering fear, shyness and impatience. I saw what makes them excited, bored, curious, restless. I learned what they are reading, writing, singing and laughing about. They taught me a new song about a worm in a box that, every time we sang the song, (gasps of wonder) turned into a butterfly! I watched their eyes sparkle as Daddy played guitar and they sang along. I listened to a toddler delight in singing “How Great Thou Art.”
When we left them at the cottage their hugs and ongoing chorus of good-byes sent me home feeling so loved as a grandma. Though we are in the same community and church, in the busyness of daily life we can get out of touch. Some of our grandchildren live far away making it even harder to stay connected. I spend a lot of time with the elderly in hymn sing ministries and with my mother who lives with us. Sometimes the responsibilities of life can almost make me forget that I am a grandmother.
Because interacting with all five girls at once can be overwhelming I recently invited the older ones to visit me two at a time. It was so rewarding. I learned their faces, voices and smiles in a new way. I discovered a common interest with one granddaughter that immediately drew us closer together in a delightful personal connection. I gained a new vision and longing to bless our grandchildren.
Though I am always a grandmother, I need time with my grandchildren to make it real, to refresh the essence of being a grandparent into my soul.
In a similar way, although I am God’s child, in this world of distractions and distortions, of pressures that would mold me into ungodliness, I too need time alone with Him if I want to truly know Him and to have His image real and reflected in me. This poem prayer reflects that longing.
—Elaine Gingrich, August 2015
FRESH MILLING
Photo Credit: Lawrence Chard via Compfight cc
Lord, let us not like coins rubbed smooth and faceless
By constant mixing in the purse or hand,
Become, like all the world of coins around us,
Innocuously indistinct and bland.
Lord, spare us from the polishing of theory,
The shrewd abrasion of materialism,
From fads that fool the crowd and cause us, weary,
To lose our message of evangelism.
Lord, call us each when we are worn and dented,
For time alone with You in some still place
To stamp upon our coin, like freshly minted,
The express image of Your glorious face.
—Elaine Gingrich, November 1994
For the rest of the poems in this monthly series, see here.
And if you enjoyed this poem, leave a comment here for Mom, or send her an email at 
. Thanks!