“Can we have a water slide in the in the back yard?”
“It’d be more fun than the sprinkler…”
“Please, Dad? Please? Please?”
“No way!” I tell my daughter…
A water slide will tear up the grass…
Turn the back yard into mud.
A water slide?
No way!
Inside the house, finger prints on a glass top table are just as bad…
Quick, get the glass cleaner and the paper towels!
All of that was years ago when my daughter was younger…
And so was I.
Today I found more finger prints…
Not finger prints from my daughter…
But from my granddaughter…
Clean them up right away?
Why?
They are proof she was here…
Proof she lives a part of her life in this space…
Just as she lives all of her life in my heart.
It makes my heart glad to see her finger prints…
It makes me smile.
I remember what she was doing when she left those fingerprints.
Standing on her tiptoes, trying to reach a toy on the table.
How like us…
Reaching for what we cannot grasp..
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? Robert Browning
Leaving behind fingerprints in the effort…
Does God reach for heavenly glass cleaner to erase the evidence of our faulty attempts?
Does He scatter grass seed to immediately hide our muddy footprints?
Or does He look at our fingerprints and our muddy footprints and see the heart behind them?
… the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
And seeing our hearts…
Cover the fingerprints of our failure efforts with His grace…
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
