Lily Work

And upon the top of the pillars was lily work: so was the work of the pillars finished. 1 Kings 7:22

Hello Friend!

I’ve missed you, how are you? 

It’s been a prayerful few weeks since my last entry.  I've reflected upon the goodness of God and the fragility of life.  Spending time with fancy hospital machines made me contemplative and I found myself walking hallways late at night to pass time.  I shouldn’t have been up but I was running on adrenaline and thought laps around courtyard might still my mind.  I was on lap 4 when I had an honest to goodness late night revelation. 

I don’t like cupcakes.

It still makes me sad to confess it but it’s true.  Not that I dislike cupcakes, I just don’t prefer them.  To me, they are a bit dodgy.  Not confident enough to identify as a cake, they feel the need to hide behind copious amounts of frosting.  It makes me suspicious of the little beggars.  They were first heard of around 1790 and were baked off in tea cups (another sin) as muffin tins hadn’t been invented.  Since then, they have hung out at gatherings defeating dieters through the centuries. 

Not long ago, the food world went cupcake crazy.  Gourmet cupcakes started making appearances in bakeries and before long the internet was inundated with the things. Not just pictures but entire websites dedicated to the art of baking and icing cupcakes. Gone were the days of chocolate and vanilla, driven out by such flavors as pistachio, salted caramel, and green tea wasabi.  Suddenly, perfectly normal women lost their minds and became intent on building objects out of fondant and frosting.  Like my life wasn’t hard enough, without feeling I needed to spend hours sculpting Disney’s latest tutu-clad-abomination, dancing across key lime grass procured by a #233 Wilton tip.

Yet some people are what I call "lily work" people. People who are able to spend lavish amounts of time on precise tasks, without going crazy.  I am not a lily work person.  I am the bulldozer type, but I have seen lily work people in action and they are amazing.  Like my girlfriend who, without being asked, decided she would make party favors for a friends 75^th birthday celebration. She did her research and created a red cookie (symbolizing luck) and decorated it with a Chinese character denoting longevity.  Red dye, cookies, time, chocolate, characters, gold dust, more time, generosity, and attention to detail combined to create a delightful favor for 50 guests.  The birthday boy felt blessed.  It was lovely. If you had handed me the assignment, I would have stuck a red M&M to a fortune cookie and hoped for the best. 

The Old Testament doesn’t talk about cupcakes, which is a blessing, but I have found some wonderful references to artistry there.  The instructions for building the temple were precise and the Lord assigned gifted workers to specific tasks.  There were timbers to be hewn, rocks to be cut and beams to be raised.  However, what always strikes me were those who were called to the more ornate tasks in the temples construction.  Walk through 1 Kings 7 and see if you don’t agree.  Equally important to the establishment of the pillars, was the “lily work” crafted to display God’s glory.  Lily work was the ornate decoration that God instructed was to adorn the temple.  It required time, skill and devotion. Sometimes, my utilitarian nature scoffs at such extravagance, yet God mandated it.  

I was thankful for the gift of lily work last month as a skilled surgeon wound his way through tiny arteries and vessels, into ventricles to mend my daughters heart.  Again and again, my life has been touched by the thoughtfulness of those who bless others with lily work.  A card when I was blue, a meal when I was exhausted; all glorious expressions of God’s care and thoughtfulness. Is there any small tasks that you have left undone because it seems insignificant? I can assure you, that if the Lord has placed it in your mind, it is too big to ignore.  Friend you have no idea the beauty this lily work adds to a life. Be lavish with your time this week and generous with your love.  The Lord finds it beautiful.      

I'm praying for you this week,

xoxKaren