A Note From Tom: May 27th, 2011

Hey, everyone!

Wow! What a week! Hope your week has been completely awesome and blessed (like mine was)! To have a week like mine you would have had to spend it on the Costa Brava in Spain (like I did!) with folks who are serving Jesus with all their heart in foreign countries (like I did!), sharing your heart and struggles, laughing and crying together about all that God allows you to go through, (like I did)!

It was sooooo amazing to be with Young Life people from all over Western Europe! Some have been serving our Lord there for over 25 years! Some are brand-new to the adventure. But they’re all giving it all they’ve got! It was an honor to be with them!

My trip didn’t start out so well.

Tina and I have this thing we do when I have to go on a trip by myself without her. We smooch good-bye as I’m about to go through the security check. Then, when I’m all checked out and before I put my shoes back on, I look and see her way back there among the non-departing, unsecurity-checked. And we wave one last time. Then I put my shoes on. And I look for her again. And she’s still there! So we wave like I’m being deployed for the next year. We do it every time. Except this time.

“We’re going to have to ask you to step aside,” the security lady said.

Somehow I set off the security alert. She rubbed a piece of paper on my hands. “We’ve found something on your hands that is causing our sensors to go off. Would you mind stepping into our secured room, please?”

“But I’ve got some waving to do”, I thought…but didn’t say.

I could tell they weren’t kidding at this point.. Two dudes were waiting on me in there. One of them was telling me all the things he was going to do to me and all the checking me out that he was about to do, so that I would be too surprised about how well we were about to get to know each other. Meanwhile, the other guy was going through all my stuff and turning my bags inside out. After about ten minutes they said I was OK and I could go ahead to my gate. Before I thanked them for keeping our nation safe, I asked them what it was that they thought they might have found on my hands that set the thing off.  “We can’t tell you that,” they said. “Wow!” I thought. “You now know what size my underwear is, but you still can’t tell me anything about you!”

I was rocking in those rockers they have at McGhee Tyson, talking to my daughter, Val on the phone about my little adventure, and she said, “Dad, did you handle any fertilizer this morning?”

Well, I guess I did! We had about a half a bag of cow manure we got from Home Depot. It’s called “Moopoo”. I just decided to put it on our baby tomato plants while I was waiting to go to the airport. I washed my hands a lot after though. Val said that’s what they found. Apparently, terrorists make weapons out of fertilizer. I don’t know how you’d make anything other than a stink bomb out of Moopoo, but I’m not a security expert.

I was trying to think of all the spiritual lessons I could learn from that episode.

Was the lesson…

“When you get into something spiritually stinky, it lingers even if you think it’s gone?”

Or maybe…

“Even if you think you’re clean, you’re sins will find you out!”

I don’t think it was either of those! I wasn’t doing anything wrong! I was just taking care of my ‘maters! Even if gardening makes someone suspect that you might be an international criminal! The whole time they were checking me over, I had total peace. I knew I hadn’t done anything or hidden anything that they had reason to suspect me for.

In fact, the lesson stirring in my heart as I was getting myself together and saying goodbye to my security guard buddies, was…

“When voices halfway imply that I might possibly be guilty…or unacceptable…I can know in my heart that no matter what they might be thinking, in God’s mind, I’m clean!

“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God!” Paul tells us.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children”

Been feeling criticized? Feel like you’re always failing somebody’s tests that you didn’t even know you were taking? Feel like somebody’s always pointing out stinky things about that you thought were long ago washed away?

It’s not your Lord saying or thinking those things! In His heart, you are “His chosen people, holy, and dearly loved! (Col 3.12) He rejoices over you with singing! (Zeph. 3.17)

And that’s the opinion that matters!

We put in twenty eight tomato plants! I think we’ll have more tomatoes than we’ll need! When they start to come in, I might take a few Brandywines or Better Boys out to my two new friends at airport security in Alcoa!