I went to pretend to crank an old tractor at the Agricultural Fair. I enjoy the fair – and it was a late 1930s tractor like my grandfather’s, although his was red, that I pretended to crank. I can visualize us kids trying to crank (wow vivid memories), but we needed Grandpa’s strength. I enjoyed riding on the tractor, but living as a farmer is tough, so my grandfather built houses instead. They kept the farmland and farm and tractor too…

That was 45-50 years ago when I was a child babysat at Grandpa and Grandma’s in the daytime – being babysat while my mom had a great job down the road. Farm days and summer living and even winter days were pivotal and meaningful to my well-rounded education. Even days of boredom, we looked at clouds and thought things through. Just last month I was looking at farm and house-building photos from the 40’s, in which you can see the hardworking house building that my grandfather and great grandfather did. Grandma too, hardworking by raising the many kids – my mom, Aunts and Uncle’s generation – there is even a photo of my Grandma shoveling in a dress, yes – she ran the farm and raised the kids while everyone helped build the houses. I love old photos, Grandpa laying pipes while wearing his classic hat, and of my other great grandfather with the goats (they called him Grandpa Goats). I can see the love in the living.

The photos are fun to see, the joy evident, the kids were always holding cats or stuffed animals. To get a camera was a rarity for my aunt to have – and isn’t it great she did!  I can easily tell even the youngest twins apart by the nuances of their faces, and my mom being taller. My uncle is clear to me, but wow he looks like his son, my cousin. My one aunt is taller and more lanky compared to the others. It’s in their faces of course which still look like them, some 75 years ago. 

Faces are made in God’s Image, even if we are all unique, we can make out a face in a child, in a cat, even on the moon. Faces connect with ours. And even not seeing, our hands can figure out the configuration. We are made in God’s Image. If we can see a Face and know a Face – then we will be able to know that Love of God – we are seeing God when we see people – we are knowing LOVE when we remember that God is Love. We can crank up our memories of Love every time we see a face we recognize, but when we don’t recognize a person, at least know that God knows them too. 

I heard a preacher state that it is the innocence in a lamb’s face where we see a resemblance to the innocence of Jesus – Jesus as the Lamb slaughtered, His blood sacrificed as a fitting sacrifice for our sins. His ransom for our freedom. And it is the faces that we can make out on creatures as well as ourselves which crank up our heartstrings of love – the love gifted by God of God – of us.

I can see these faces and know them – I can see them and feel the love of my experiences – perhaps that is why God gifted us the ability to know these facial features – so that we recognize Him too – and one day, when we are Face to Face, we will call out “hey, I recognize You” – and we will know Him by His Love.

Amen…

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John 14:5-14

Thomas said to him [Jesus], “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.