RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE GRAPES

"Nine bucks? For GRAPES?!?"

I face-palmed big time as I stared at the receipt. And maybe you've done it, too--grabbed a bag of grapes and tossed them into the cart with no regard of the price per pound, the weight, or the final cost. 

And the result that day was one very expensive snack for the kiddos. I seriously considered standing on the street corner, trying to sell those grapes for a buck a piece just to recoup at least some of my money. 

 

Proverbs 5 speaks of a woman who gives no thought to her ways.  She doesn't CONSIDER (palas, in Hebrew) what she is doing. The translation means to WEIGH IT OUT.  Like if she had weighed her decisions, she might have chosen differently.  Spoken differently.  Done differently.  A weight of what was at stake would have led to a calculation of the eventual cost, and I'm guessing she would have concluded it simply wasn't worth the high ticket price. 

 

I've gotta tell ya, I do not want to be this woman.  I want to give thought to my ways.  I want to consider.  I want to weigh it all out and decide whether or not I really want to pay for what I decide.  Do I really want the harvest of what I'm planting?  And have I even given that 5 minutes of thought? Scripture says her ways are crooked and she doesn't even know it!  I'll say it again, I don't want this to be my story!

 

I want to leave a different legacy than this.  I want to be calculating--and while I know that word holds such a negative connotation, suggesting that someone is a schemer, that's not what I long for at all.  I DO long to be a woman who considers, who CALCULATES the cost of her decisions.  I don't want to end up with a basket full of a whole lotta mess I never wanted, and a high bill to pay. 

 

Finances.  Words spoken.  Relationships.  Time spent.  Too often we do not consider our ways. 

 

Let us be people rich in consideration. Ones who give great thought to our ways. 

 

Jesus, let it be. 

 

 

imperfect. CHOSEN.

It was an ordinary day, just chillin' at the "Free Zoo" (aka Petco), looking at all the animals in their cages. I wasn't really looking to take anything home. Believe me. 

 

"Look at this one, Mama..." my daughter called over to me. "I think she only has one eye!" 

She was a tiny little Tuxedo Cat, rubbing up against the cold, confining bars of the crate. She looked up at me with longing eyes (well, EYE, I should say--it was just the one) and purred out what I'm sure was a plea for me to take her home with us. 

 

At least that's how I choose to remember it. 

As I filled out the paperwork to make her ours, the woman arranging the pet adoptions told me, "A lot of people have held her and thought about taking her, but nobody has been willing to actually choose her and take her home because she's missing an eye. Too many families have worried it might require surgeries or additional cost down the road."

Maybe that should've deterred me. It didn't. We brought that little kitten home, and she's become an honorary Nelson. She's actually sitting on my lap right now as I type this. 

I think of how imperfect I am, yet I'm chosen. Flawed deeply, but adopted. My Heavenly Father wanted me and took me in--and did so fully knowing that there WOULD be a cost. A great one. It would cost Him His Son to take me in. How was He not deterred by my failures? And how could He so treasure and regard me that He would call me His, considering the enormity of the cost?

 

But He did. 

 

I'm imperfect. So very imperfect. 

And yet perfectly loved. 

 

And you...You are His treasure. The one He calls beloved. 

You are seen. 

You are wanted. 

 

You are prized. 

 

Forget the ones that may have passed you by. Decided against you.  Considered your flaws too great a liability.  Concluded that maybe you weren't worth the gamble. 

 

He says you are beloved. 

So Be Loved.