Cloud Rainbows are the Best...

#RitaHutchesonCobbs at #PointMallard #DecaturAlabama

If is a really big word. However, I have to think that "if" I had thought my options through as a child to teenager, would I might have made other choices in what I would have been when I grew up to be an adult. When asked as a child, I would tell my Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Alexander, every single Sunday that, one, we were moving back to Phil Campbell, Alabama to our family farm, and, two, I was going to be mayor when I grew up. Then regardless who you were or what "test" I took that asked me what my big dream was for the future it was to be a wife and mother to which I succeeded at both. The wife part lasted thirty-four years at least but the mom part is a lifetime even when a child might want a different mother, heard a child say that to his mother one day. With all THAT said, I think I would have studied clouds. I have taken so many photographs of them over the years. As a child and then as a mom with my sons, I would watch them, making up stories about them as they floated overheard.

Garrett loves to say, "Puffy clouds" this or that when referring to rain coming or the possibility of a change of weather other than a warm sunny day. This is usually when he can't play golf. Puffy clouds come our way beyond the weather. They come in situations, circumstances, people, places and things. It is how we handle the puffy clouds that determines the inner ability to deal with them and experience continued joy and peace. If we don't have a well deep in abundance of peace and joy stored up then we can't deal with puffy clouds and what they may bring our way. It is easier to watch them pass over when we have water plenty within our wells.

This mom that had her child say, "I hate you! I want a different Mother!" told me how it broker her heart when he was a child and said this, but then when he said it again as a teenager, she begin to realize, he meant it. Thinking he would someday out grow it, she sees now that he hasn't. I asked her how she was handling this and she replied, "I have so much peace about the situation, knowing that someday, he will make the decision to turn around." The rest of the story is that he was also verbally abusive and due to the already domestic violence in the home, the husband, the boy's father, did nothing to correct the son in his behavior. The boy grew up, educated, good job and a family of his own, but estranged from his mother. To this she said, "I have apologized for my part in the breakup of our relationship and let him know he is welcome to come home." She showed me a box, white and not decorated, the top folded into itself. She gently opened it with hands shaking a bit. As I looked inside, there were cards in envelopes, gifts wrapped and then items laid inside. I asked her what they were for and she replied, "Each holiday or on a random day, I put something in this box so that when my son comes home, he will know I have loved him all this time and that more than me, God loves him."

Tears came to my eyes. Without excuse, we live forgiveness. There is nothing that can or will be done to me or you that can't be covered in grace, love, and forgiveness. One day, we will come face to face with the One who gave the ultimate grace of all wrapped in love and nailed with forgiveness with a cross, nails, a tomb and eternity. There is nothing I can do more than what He has done for me. When I asked this mom what she would say to her son when he comes home, she said, "I will say that I love him and for him to forgive me." I was again wrapped around the words. Nothing in those words of the past. Nothing in those words of forgiving him. Nothing in those words of "if". Nothing in those words but grace. Nothing more than no excuses. 

Regardless if this son comes home to this mother, she is living grace and she is living peace. She isn't walking in regret or unforgiveness. She is walking a healthy mindset of what life is now, not worrying about what could have been or what will be. She isn't living in what ifs either. She is living a life with no excuses. It is ironic how I know about a life living with no excuses and my greatest desires is to please Him by living grace, living love, living forgiven.

Maybe it's time we open the box and release the gifts it holds...

the gifts from our Father...

He has been holding them so long for us to come Home.

Hugs, Rita