How Jesus Treats People

Preached at Wayside Friends Church

May 3, 2026

 Jesus Christ is alive and present to teach his people himself.  This was a central teaching from the founder of Quakerism, George Fox. It came out of his own personal shattering experience of meeting Jesus for himself without the help of preacher or priest. (His experience was not the first of its kind in the world, to be sure, and it followed the pattern of mystical experience around the world.) He was convinced that God is present for each person, not just special people, and that God is speaking to individuals and to communities of believers.  The central requirements are being open to hear and being willing to obey. Some branches of Quakerism have no pastors, only elders, and the pattern of worship is to sit in silence until someone is moved in the spirit to speak to the gathered congregation.  Others, like the one we come out of, have pastors and the expectation that someone will deliver a sermon, preferably short, and that there will be a time we call open worship in which anyone moved in the spirit may speak to the congregation.

But sometimes people ask, “How do you know if it’s God speaking to you?” (I don’t plan to differentiate between the members of the Trinity in this sermon, and I plan to talk mostly about how Jesus spoke to people when he lived in Israel.) This is a legitimate question because the minds of humans are subject to physical and psychological pressures and indignities, and we cannot claim to control everything we think and feel. I, for instance, am accompanied through life by migraine, and sometimes when I’m working into one, I am weepy, irritable, chatty, and/or even funny, but eventually I am migraining. I sometimes see stars or pixels, I sometimes lose words out of my vocabulary, I sometimes fall asleep.  So those things are not under my control.

Another problem we have is having sick consciences.  We either feel shame and guilt where there is no fault of ours, or we feel no shame and guilt where we are at fault. In 1 John 3:18-20, the apostle advises us that we cannot just talk about loving our neighbor, but our love has to show up in what we do, how we work, in our real lives. (IRL) And our active love is how we know we are from the truth, and it gives us confidence in God’s presence. Then, if our conscience finds fault with us, blames and accuses us, we know that God is bigger and stronger than our conscience and understands everyone and the whole of everyone.  If our conscience is clear as regards active love, then we have cheerful courage and can speak freely before God.  How I understand this is that the nagging inner voice that shames and finds fault cannot be in control of our lives. John tells us in ch. 1 of 1 John not to hide our faults but every time to bring them right to God, tell God the truth, and God will wash us clean.  And no voice can bully us after that, whether inside us or outside us. 

Before we look at specific examples of how Jesus spoke to his contemporaries, we need to recognize that 1) not everything Jesus said or did is written down; 2) not every aspect of any one encounter is written down; 3) what was written down was from memory, not diaries, so events which left a trace of emotion or mystery, or events/stories that occurred more than once are likely to be included; and 4) almost nowhere is tone or facial expression specified. I do believe that the Spirit helped the writers remember, in addition to the way writing memories drags up more specifics and further memories. And I will not limit how the Spirit can illuminate any one passage to the individual, even if I don’t see it that way.

So here are the few encounters I want us to think together about.

The Rich Young Ruler

This one shows up in three gospels, from which I infer that it was surprising to the disciples. When this young man speaks respectfully to Jesus, and asks him what he can do to have eternal life, Jesus is confrontational rather than welcoming. Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” I think that young man must have been taken aback.  Then Jesus says, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 

Intriguingly, the young man says, “Which ones?” What might be behind this question? Perhaps his own self-awareness that he is not keeping all of them, and he hopes he’s keeping the right ones.  

Jesus says, “These:  no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no lying about another person; yes honoring parents, yes loving your neighbor as yourself.”

The young man says, “I have done these since I was a child. What do I still lack?”

And here is the heart of the confrontation. Jesus says to a person who believes he has been loving his neighbor, “Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. You will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.” 

What I want us to observe here is that 1) Jesus won’t be flattered, and 2) Jesus lets him make his case, and 3) Jesus doesn’t shame, and 4) Jesus is direct in pointing out the next step he needs to take.

The Woman at the Well

This is only in the gospel of John, who says that he is trying to cover things the others did not and also that it would be impossible to write everything Jesus said and did.

Jesus strikes up this conversation, as he sits alone by the well.

He says, “Give me a drink.”

She says, “You, a Jew, want a drink from me, a Samaritan?!”

He says, “If you knew the gift of God and who I am, you would have said, ‘Give me a drink.’ and I would have given you living water.”

Let’s pause here to see what might be going on. I don’t think she’s going to start any conversation with a Jewish man, so Jesus begins, very directly. 

But she’s a bit spiky, or at least shocked, that he would speak and take water from a Samaritan woman, and she says so.

Jesus says, “You have no idea what’s going on here or who I am or what I’m here to do for you.” This seems to me to be a confrontational response to her spikiness.

She changes tactics. “Sir, you have nothing to draw up water with.  Where will you get living water.” At least now she’s polite, but she’s certainly skeptical. “Are you greater than the patriarch Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, along with children and livestock?”

Jesus replies, “Whoever drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I give will have within them a fountain of water springing to everlasting life.”

I still hear a hint of skepticism in her reply.  “Sir, give me this water, so I don’t thirst anymore and have to come to this well to draw water.”

Jesus says, “First, bring your husband here.” And she says, “I have no husband.” Now Jesus is getting personal, as he did with the rich young ruler. 

“You speak truth, you have no husband, because you’ve had 5 and now the one you have is not your husband.” 

Jesus is direct again.  Jesus does not shame, but I suspect he uncovers some shame for her, shame that may explain her spikiness, her defensiveness, her evasiveness in their conversation. 

So she tries to deflect one more time. “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet. What is your opinion about where we should worship, here on this mountain or in Jerusalem?” 

Jesus says, “Woman” (which is how he also addressed his mother), “believe me, not long from now people will not be limited to worshipping the Father here or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship a vague idea of God, whereas we Jews at least know whom we worship. But soon true worshipers will worship anywhere and everywhere, in spirit and in truth. These are the kind of people the Father is seeking. God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.”

She says, perhaps defending her lack of knowledge), “I do know that when God’s chosen one comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus says, “I who speak to you am God’s chosen one.”

And she runs to town and brings the whole town back to see if this man is indeed the Christ, this man who told her everything she’d ever done.

I hope you can see how Jesus moves this conversation closer and closer to the bone, not so as to make her miserable, but so as to make her honest. She flatters, spars and parries, as one does when one is ashamed.  But when she caves in, she isn’t shamed.  Instead, she is set free. Her feet have wings to spread the gospel that the Chosen One is right outside of town by Jacob’s well.  

When Jesus promised his disciples that he would send the Spirit of Truth, who would guide them into all truth, I think it was more about two kinds of truth: the truth about ourselves, learning to be honest and open with God and with others; and the truth about God, learning that God welcomes our honesty with forgiveness and instruction, and meets our openness with God’s own open-hearted love.  

I used to think that God spoke to me through my fear and shame, that I could never be good enough, and that I would easily slip through God’s hands because of my ignorance and my errors. As God taught me to trust in God’s character and love, I came to hear God speaking differently. 

After about a decade of semi-forgiveness of a deep wrong done me, I heard God say, “You can do better now.” And I said, appropriately, “You are right, I can. Please forgive him. I let him off the hook.” I found a new freedom in that moment that persists to this day, even though occasionally the pain resurfaces. There was no shaming in that voice, and I wasn’t required to weep and wail for my previous insufficient efforts.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I heard God say, “You don’t need to swear so much. I notice that it makes you more rather than less angry.” And I said, appropriately, “You’re right.  I’ll work on that.” Again, direct, not shaming, no threats, just a truthful observation. (BTW, I will tell you honestly that it was just a couple of the swears, not all of them, that I’m working on.)

I conclude that we can recognize that God is speaking to us when the voice is neither shaming nor condemning but instead is direct and on point. We can choose to reject it or to open ourselves to it, admitting in honesty that God is right, and taking the steps God prescribes.

Someone asked me to describe how I sensed God asking me to share something in open worship, and I replied that it was how I imagine feeling if a lion was getting near me—I feel alert, maybe in awe, a little apprehensive, and appreciative. That any of us can sense God approaching us personally and can share out of our honest relationship and understanding at God’s request is such an honor, such a grace. 

I 

The Consuming Fire of God's Love

 Preached at  North Valley Friends Church

September 22, 2024

The Consuming Fire of God’s Love

When Leslie asked me to consider preaching at NVFC, I told her that I think I am always preaching one sermon in different guises, namely that God’s love must have an object and God’s creation is that object, that God loves you and me. Often this is a consoling message. As Jesus said, perhaps with a bit of wry humor, “are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and yet not one of them falls to the ground without my Father knowing. Fear not, for you are of more value than many sparrows.” Here is a bit of the flavor of Micah 3.  "Listen, pray, chieftains of Jacob and captains of the house of Israel. Is it not yours to know what is right? Haters of good and lovers of evil . . . who devour My people's flesh and strip their skin from them and crack open their bones.  And they cut it like flesh in the pot and like meat in the cauldron" (The Hebrew Bible, "Prophets," tr. Robert Alter, 2015).

It was a surprise to me to find that it took only a few hours to see that this message too is about the fact that God loves us, you and me.  This is a message about God’s grace.

But first, I want to respond to Micah. I notice that he addresses three classes of people with power in their culture: priests, judges, and prophets. These define morality for the rest of their society. They tell other people what is right and wrong. But Micah accuses them of cannibalism towards other people, skinning them, breaking their bones, sucking out the marrow. To bring this into non-figurative terms, they destroy the lives of those for whom they define the rules, those in their care, under their influence; they take away their lives in order to enrich their own. They are predatory. 

We can look at those in our own society’s leadership who also cannibalize others, who remove from them the means of life; who destroy others to add to their own abundance; who ruin others’ chances to live fully and freely. 

And while it is comforting to point the finger at corruption above us in the power structure,

it would be a mistake to hear Micah talking only to those at the top of his culture. For this to have relevance to us, we need to consider that power includes greater physical strength, greater prestige and social capital, greater ability to decide who gets in and who must stay out—gate keeping. We need to recognize our own power over others, whether it is coercive or manipulative or accidental. We need to admit when we have misused our power, our privilege, depriving others of the ability to thrive and become their whole selves.

We can hear echoes of Micah’s message in the words of Jesus, first to the religious leaders, but then to everyone who has ears. I won’t rehearse all of the condemnations of the actions of the scribes and Pharisees, but I’ll remind you of this one: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and uncleanness. You bind heavy loads on others’ shoulders but you are unwilling to lift a finger to help them carry those loads.”  I will remind us, remind me, that Jesus also said, shockingly, that anyone who makes it hard for a little one to trust God would be better off drowned, and that whatever is done to the “least of these” is done to Jesus Himself.  And also that not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what Jesus’s Father and our Father says to do. And further that those who look on their hungry, thirsty, ragged, imprisoned neighbors and do nothing to alleviate this distress are not part of God’s sheep, not among God’s people. How much worse to actively contribute to or even cause another’s misery.  Jesus is not less demanding than Micah, and perhaps, given that he is talking right to us, is even more so. No wonder the liturgical confession includes both what we have done and what we have left undone.  

When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment, he said, “Love God with everything you are and have, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus knew he had to add the second, which he said is like the first, because we can talk ourselves into believing we love God while we are doing harm to our neighbor. But also, this contains in it the truth that when we harm others we also harm ourselves, and conversely that love for others and love for oneself go arm in arm.

We have seen that Jesus shares Micah’s outrage about the misuse of power and influence. So how can we move from admitting our selfishness and apathy and self-indulgence at others’ expense to a better understanding about God’s love for us, God’s grace toward us? We need to recognize that God’s grace may look a lot like judgment, God’s grace is surgical, and our response to this intrusive grace of God makes all the difference.

I owe much of my understanding of God’s intrusive and uncomfortable grace to three writers: George MacDonald, Flannery O’Connor, and Julian of Norwich. George MacDonald was a novelist and preacher in the 1800s whose writing was hugely influential on C.S. Lewis.  He writes in one of his Unspoken Sermons, “The Consuming Fire”:

Nothing is inexorable but love….Love has ever in view the absolute [the potential] loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more…Therefore all that…comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire. (18-19)

Let us have grace to serve the Consuming Fire, our God, with divine fear; not with the fear that cringes and craves, but with the bowing down of all thoughts, all delights, all loves before him who is the life of them all and will have them all pure. (20)

…the fear towards God will be one with the homeliest love. Yea, the fear of God will cause a person to flee, not from God, but from the self, in terror lest that person do [wrong to ] God or [to] a neighbor .… (21)

In sum, God will love us into our best selves, and whatever we carry around with us that prevents us being that best self will have to go. This is the work of grace for us.

I learned a similar view of God’s grace from Flannery O’Connor, a mid 20th century writer of novels and short stories. Her self-satisfied characters are often jolted awake by God’s grace in a way they would never have chosen. Their casual American Christianity is not enough. I’ll mention one character and how God’s grace destroys in order to redeem.  In “Revelation,” a good solid Christian woman named Mrs. Turpin is attacked in the doctor’s office as she is making banal conversation about who is and who isn’t trash. A young woman throws a book at her, raising a bump on the forehead, and shouts, “Go back to hell where you came from, you fat warthog.”

What makes this traumatic moment redemptive is that Mrs. Turpin turns immediately to God and complains about being treated like this, while all the while wondering why God would send her this message. And because she turns toward God instead of away, and in recognition of her willingness to learn despite her anger and humiliation, God gives her a vision of the redemption of humanity, beginning with those she places at the bottom of the heap and ending with her kind of people. She sees the vast stream of human beings moving into glory, and her own kind of people are at the end of the line.

She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were [singing] on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.  She lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead…In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah. (The Complete Stories, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 508) 

And finally, to Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchorite from the 1300s. She had a near-death experience in which she had a vision of Jesus. She meditated on that vision for the rest of her life and gained profound understanding about God’s love and God’s intention to redeem and make all things well.  Along the way, she hears Jesus say this:

“For I will wholly break you of your vain affections and your vicious pride; and after that I shall gather you and make you meek and mild, clean and holy by oneing (uniting) you to me.” ( The Revelation of Love, tr. John Skinner, 86)

So what can we take of comfort and consolation from Micah 3? We can rejoice that God’s love always intends what is best for us and always builds up what is best in us; we can trust that God will make us good, and we can welcome the intrusion of God’s grace when we are not good as we face the both the consequences of doing harm and the divine surgery that will save us.  We can understand that God’s grace is not about excusing but about remaking, about healing, about redeeming what is perverse, wounded, and lost.  We can take heart, even as we tremble, that God’s love is inexorable and will do us good.

God's Repair Shop

Preached at Silverton Friends Church

September 24, 2023

 
I’ve been watching The Repair Shop from England on YouTube. The show is built around a workshop of experts in restoration and repair in woodworking, clock-making, leatherwork, art, ceramics, toymaking, metalworking. These experts meet with ordinary people who bring in cherished heirlooms that need attention. As the show says, “While some of the items pass through The Repair Shop due to unfortunate accidents, others are simply ravages of time.” And still others are there because of bad actors. But all are welcomed into the shop and the skillful crafters there work on them, often with nearly magical results. As Will the woodworker says, “This is the workshop of dreams.”

This show makes me reconsider how God looks at the work of restoration and ask myself, “Do these experts reflect something of God’s response to human beings who  need repair, restoration, conservation?”

There are some problems with the analogy I’m going to draw, so let’s acknowledge them up front. First, when people in the Bible encounter God personally (or even just God’s messenger), God often has to say, “Don’t be afraid.” Something about God is awe-inspiring, filling ordinary humans with dread and even terror. “Woe is me!” said Isaiah. Even Jesus occasionally terrified his followers, as when he stilled the storm.  “Who is this that even the weather obeys him!” The experts on The Repair Shop, though amazingly skilled, are friendly humans.  Not scary.  So there is that.

Second, the items brought in do not have wills. They are objects rather than persons, so they do not resist or evade their repairers, though they are certainly often a challenge. Often these items have been loved almost into life by their owners, particularly if they have been a part of their childhood; nonetheless, the items cannot and do not sabotage the repairs.

So what about this show reminds me of the love God has for human beings? As Psalm 8 says, “What are mortals that You God should notice them? What are human creatures that you pay them heed?” There is a mystery about why God loves us, and we take refuge in the word from the Bible that God is love. Jesus is historical evidence that God loves us and wants to save us from error, from brokenness, from evil. This is simply the character of God.

Many Christians have been taught to think that God sees human beings as evil. Some theologies even say that God cannot look on us human beings because of our sins. Imagine this attitude in The Repair Shop.  Clockmaker Steve looks at a broken watch and all he sees is brokenness. So he simply looks away until someone puts a brand-new watch in between him and the broken one. As long as that perfect watch blots out his view of the broken one, he can be happy. Otherwise, he tosses someone’s cherished heirloom into the rubbish.

All through the Bible, the various writers are well aware that God sees their good and their evil.  Job challenges God by reciting how he is good and asking to be told what he’s done that is so wrong it deserves punishment.  The psalmist who wrote Psalm 139 explores in detail how well God knows him or her: You know when I sit and I rise…and with all my ways you are familiar. Wherever I go or even run away from you, your hand leads me and your right hand seizes me. Search me, God, and know my heart, probe me and know my mind. And see if a vexing way be in me, and lead me on the eternal way. (Alter, 316, 317, alt.) And the writer of Hebrews reminds us that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword…a discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

George MacDonald, 19th century writer and preacher, believed in the inexorable love of God, a love that absolutely wants the best for us, wants us to be our best, and will work on and with us until that goal is met. When C.S. Lewis suffered the loss of his wife Joy, he wrote that if God was just cutting us open to torture us, we could hope that he would lose interest, but that if God was performing surgery to heal us, we could not hope for any relief until God’s work is done.  (Sounds a lot like Job, who said, Could you not look away from me long enough to let me spit on the ground.) Perhaps absolute love can both terrify and comfort us.  After all, God remembers we are dust.
 
When someone brings their beloved object into The Repair Shop, broken, worn, sometimes vandalized, clockmaker Steve and his colleagues say things like this:

I love the challenge of [fixing] something like this.

I love to improve things; I hate to see things thrown away.

This is a nice exciting project.

It’s an honor to be working on this.

I’m thrilled to work on it.

I’ve been imagining God’s Spirit with me, with us, seeing our brokenness, our missing parts, our worn-out-ness, and saying to the rest of the trinity, “I love the challenge of fixing something like this.  I love to improve things; I hate to see things thrown away. It’s an honor to be working on this. I’m thrilled to work on it.”

One scripture that comes to mind is this from Psalm 103.

God forgives all your sins, heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit, surrounds you with steadfast love and mercy….The Lord executes righteous acts and judgments for all who are wronged….As a father [an ideal father] has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For He knows how we are formed; He is mindful that we are dust. The Lord’s steadfast love is for all eternity toward those who fear him.” (The Jewish Study Bible, p1396)

Or this translation by Robert Alter: [God] forgives all your wrongs, heals all your diseases, redeems your life from the Pit, crowns you with kindness, compassion…The Lord performs righteous acts and justice for all the oppressed….As a father has compassion for his children, the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For He knows our devisings, recalls that we are dust…The Lord’s kindness is forever and ever over those who fear him…(Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, “The Writings” p. 239-241)

These words stand out: Forgives, heals, redeems, surrounds, crowns—These are the actions of our God. This is the God we stand in awe of. This is the God who has to say over and over, “Fear not!” Respect is too small a word to describe our response to our God. We can see a little of what it means to see God in action when Jesus stills the storm on the lake, and his close followers and friends fall back in fear and amazement. This is the God who forgives, heals, redeems, surrounds, crowns.  This is the God who, for reasons beyond us, loves us.

It is the attitudes of the repairers toward both the object and the owner that reminds me of God. Their tenderheartedness toward the present owner and absolute respect for the original craftsperson shine through over and over.

Listening
When a person brings an object into The Repair Shop to be worked on, The Repair Shop expert will ask: What do you want me to do with this? Sometimes the owner replies, I want it back as close as possible to when it was first made.  Sometimes the owner says, I want this repaired, but I don’t want all the marks of history taken away. Sometimes the owner says, I just want to hear it chime again, or see it move like it did when I was a child, or I hope you can fix the corner the woodworm ate away.

(This is different from when I took my diamond ring in for cleaning and got it back with all the 1970s antiquing removed as well.  I was shocked and sad, but it was too late to change.  Look at how new it looks, the jeweler said.)

The experts listen to the stories of the objects from their owners.  Their response is always tender and hopeful.  They have confidence in their expertise, and they value what the owners value in the item.  No item is beneath their interest. Steve the clockmaker spent hours on a plastic toy spaceship from the 1960s, getting it to spin but most importantly, getting it to hum like its owner remembered.  

Loving the challenge
These experts love a challenge.  They may moan a little over the complexity of the task, but they really enjoy their work.  Will the woodworker looks at a hundred pieces that have fallen off a chalet music box and puzzles them back on appropriately.  Kirsten the ceramicist looks at a shattered vase and not only reforms it but creates the missing pieces and then carefully paints it so it blends in. The toy experts dismantle a much-loved teddy bear, gently clean years of grime away, carefully match fabrics, and return it to the person who loved it as a child. In many cases, the owner does not want the years of love and use erased, but instead just wants it to be whole again. The owners often value the history revealed in scratches and worn patches, and they also are overjoyed that the bear has both eyes again.

Exercising patience
The experts are patient.  They will say things like, “This is the fiddly bit, but I like fiddly bits.” I’m always amazed at the man who repairs music boxes. He gets it moving first, then listens for false notes.  Again and again he solders or files and then tests it again.

Going beyond expectations
These experts like to do even more than asked. When restoring the chalet music box, Will notices a tiny dog house on the front. So he carves a tiny dog for the dog house. Extra. The toy restorers tie a bow around the teddy’s neck just to dress him up. Extra. Lucia, the art conservator, researches the provenance of the painting she has just restored and gives the owner more reasons to be proud of it.  Extra.

God also listens, God loves the challenge, God is patient, and God goes beyond expectations.

Here are a couple of Repair Shop stories that are lovely parables for us.

Lucia, the art expert, works to conserve the paintings brought to her. The one I saw most recently was a portrait with a hole through the lady’s lips, the result of an adolescent boy throwing a dart at it.  So she had first to repair the 15-year-old hole in the canvas by wetting the threads, restoring them to position with an adhesive behind the canvas, filling in the hole from the front with an acrylic filler, and then painting that twice, once with watercolor to cover the filler and once with oil or acrylic to blend in with the rest of the paint.  She also took the time to carefully clean the painting, and in so doing discovered decades worth of nicotine stain that obscured the rich coloring. Her careful work brought the painting back to its original beauty, and took away the damage caused by carelessness, though of course you can see the repairs from the back.  She also took time to research it, and she explained to its owners why it was more than just a sentimental heirloom, how it fit into history.

Steve, the clockmaker, had a pocket watch that was the only family possession saved by a woman taken to the concentration camp in WWII. She had hidden it by sewing it into her clothing. It was so thin and delicate that it gave Steve more anxiety than most of his repairs.  He began by opening it up and observing the works. He cleaned the clockworks of 80 years and he washed its face. Then he put it back together and it ran, as they say, like clockwork. It was a reminder of resilience and also of the present time. The grandson was moved to tears with gratitude.


When people get back their items, they will often tear up in the stoic British way and then apologize for being emotional. They most often say “Wow” and “I can’t believe you were able to do that,” “this takes me right back to my childhood, to happy memories,” and “I want to give this to my grandchildren, to people I love.” They want to share with their loved ones how the item was magical for them, how it brings simple pleasures and sparks the imagination. They want to share joy with their beloveds.

Imagine God asking us, what do you want me to do with you? Do you want yourself restored to like new? Do you want yourself conserved by having areas of wear and tear and damage remedied? Do you want cleaning so you can operate normally? Do you want the signs of age removed? Or do you want to keep the honorable scars of your history, even as the brokenness is repaired and beauty is restored?