MY KEYS - February 1998
by Sally Klein O’Connor

I like to have my keys with me wherever I go. Sometimes it seems silly, especially when I’m traveling. I know they don’t fit any of the doors I will encounter, but nevertheless it gives me a measure of comfort to have them.

There are a couple of keys to our house, a key to the gas cap on our van, and another fits the ignition. There is a key to my mom’s house, a key to my dad’s, and a few leftovers I’m not sure belong to any lock I am currently associated with. In some small way they remind me of who I am and where I belong as the scenery of my life speeds by.

The keys to my house remind me that I am first a wife and a mom. There are dishes to wash, a toilet to clean, a floor to sweep. When I forget myself these are some of the more mundane, humbling facts of life that help me come back down to earth.

There is a man who shares that house with me and sees the most of me that human eyes can see. White hairs are collecting around his chin, and here and there on his head. I’m sure I’ve contributed to a few. But there is safety in his embrace. He knows me well. Even so, he loves me.

Two little women also live in that house and watch over their daddy when I am gone. One is straight and deep, the other is curly and wired. They are love and joy, word and song, wisdom and wild abandon.

They are anchors for my soul.

Across the hours of sleep when I’m gone, our distance is bridged by prayer, as our hearts touch and we remember each other to our Maker. They alone are reason enough to bend my knee and give thanks to the One who gives beauty for ashes. They are all the reason in the world that I keep sacrificing my "old man" to God, and seeking the Lord with all my heart, so that my scars will never become their wounds.

The keys to my van, gas cap and ignition speak of journeys that have come and gone, and journeys yet ahead. Sometimes when I look back, it is a wonder to me all the traveling we do in a year.

Dusty and I spent June in Florida under the roof of the Kuttler family in St. Petersburg. Evelyn shuttled Dusty and I, and two of my nieces, Melanie and Coletta, out to Shell Island, a wildlife refuge, and home to some of the most beautiful shells I have ever seen. In July, Michael, Dusty, Bonnie and I all sojourned in the van through Arizona and New Mexico, to Colorado, where I went river rafting on the Arkansas river.

While we were in Salida, Dusty and I also learned how to spin-cast (I caught four trout—Oh yeah!). In September, our secretary, Cindy, and I took the early flight to Baltimore and spent a month yo-yoing from Virginia to Maine. We had a revival of our own on I-95 while watching the first touch of Fall paint the leaves scarlet and yellow and orange.

Somewhere, tucked into touring the east coast, I rendezvoused with Michael in Washington DC., post Promise Keepers. We walked the length of the Mall and I finally got to see Lincoln’s Memorial—in person.

There are of course, many other moments during the year which, at times, seem difficult to capture in words. The feelings and faces that pass through are too big to be described with a limited vocabulary, in small type. Now and then, as I look at the new year stretching out before me, I wonder how what is written down on our calendar will actually play out in our lives.

As I get older I realize how fragile life is and that only God knows the number of our days. And that, at the end of the year, through all the plane flights and driving in and out of state, through all the ups and downs of a ministry run by two stubborn artist-types, God willing, we will all be home, together again.

A key to my mom’s house and a key to my dad’s. These are reminders of where I came from. From my mom I inherited a love of beauty and a longing for truth. From my dad I learned how to bargain and, more recently, I am learning humility from him, even as he is learning it.

It is good to be able to look the past in the eyes—honestly. There is nothing there that cannot be healed and redeemed by the merciful hand of God. As I read through the book of Kings, too often God raised up a man to be King and he forgot himself—and his God.

Again and again God says the same thing in different ways—to Israel, to the kings and prophets, and to us: "I lifted you up from the dust and made you leader of my people Israel, but you walked in the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to provoke me to anger by their sins." (1 Kings 16:2) and "Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel... why did you not obey the Lord?" (1 Samuel 15:17, 19)

There are other keys in my life, not the kind found hanging off a ring, attached to my purse or in my pocket. They unlock other aspects of my identity.

A gold ring around my third finger on my left hand silently says I have committed to sharing my life with one man. There is a necklace Michael gave me one birthday not too long ago. I almost never take it off. It is a silver star of David with a dove overlaid in the center. It speaks of my heritage as a Jew and as a follower of Jesus the Messiah.

There is one turquoise earring I have been wearing for the last few years. A silver cross splits a blue heart that pierces my ear. Given many tours ago by a lady named Lee, it is a remembrance that through God’s piercing I am healed and set free.

We are a very physical, tactile people. We are not angels. We need food and sleep, to touch and be touched, to laugh, to cry. We need physical things to help remind us of the things we cannot see. God knows that about us and that is why the scripture goes into such detail about the sacrifices and the holidays.

In the Jewish calendar certain feasts were commanded by God in His Word, so that we would have a physical reminder of all He has done for us. One such feast is Passover. Passover has followed the Jews down through generations, from the time God first commanded them to celebrate it their last night in Egypt, until now. A slain lamb, without blemish or spot, the firstborn, was the biblical sacrifice for the meal and bread with no leaven in it, as leaven represented sin.

Many years later, while celebrating the Passover, Jesus spoke of that same bread as His body and the wine as His blood. Almost two thousand years removed from that "Last Supper" His followers still eat that bread and drink the wine, in remembrance of Him. These things connect us to those who went before us in this strange and wondrous journey of faith, and to the hope we have been given as believers for what lays ahead.

In this season of our lives, with so many comings and goings, symbols of identity are important to me. They help me remember who I am and to Whom I belong. A kind of keys to the Kingdom, if you like. There have been times in my life when I have found myself somewhat chameleon in nature, shifting with the scenery.

And I have wondered just how much circumstances in my life dictate who I think I am and what I do about it. Does my "voice’ change when I’m on stage or am I the same person doing the dishes and cleaning my house as the person who sings for God. For the Father of Lights changes not. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And it is in His image that I am being molded and fired.

My keys help me remember. They help me own who I am, especially when I am not in the mood, feeling more like a certain rebellious three year old than a forty year old woman who has given her heart to God.

Some people wear "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets (we bought one for Dusty), some of us put posters on our walls and scriptures on our doors, and there are those who apply the time-honored bumper stickers to their cars.

I couldn’t even get close to that idea for a long time. There were at least a couple of reasons. Mainly, I felt it would identify me to the world as a Christian, and I was painfully aware that I didn’t always drive like one. Secondly, there was the small matter of a song Mike and I wrote several years back called "Jesus On My Bumper". So, for whatever reasons, no sticker has ever made contact with our bumper.

Finally, I am privileged to have a special set of keys in my life. They are black and white, sometimes plastic, hopefully ivory, and they speak the language of the heart. They have become an instrument of expression of my love for my King.

But over and above all these keys and symbols there is the earnest, the deposit of His Holy Spirit, and that is how I know I am His! From Him I came. Through Him I was made. And to Him I shall return.

These are my dog tags on the journey from cradle to grave and beyond. These are the highway signs on the road. These are but transitory symbols to an eternal Truth that is far greater than any words can express.

©Copyright 1998 Improbable People Ministries

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