Jessie's Corner

Moms “She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, ‘Whatever he tells you, do it’” (John 2:5). Have you noticed that moms seem to think they know more than we do? The first dress I made using a pattern had a full skirt, zipped up the back, and was made with blue chiffon. Mom didn’t particularly like that material for a beginning “seamstress,” but while she rolled her eyes, she didn’t say no, so we gave it a try. She was right. While it wasn’t a total disaster, she spent quite a bit of time fixing it for me. The first time I baked anything, I decided to try cinnamon rolls. You would have thought I would have learned something from my sewing experience, but apparently I didn’t learn enough. There was a little more eye rolling, but Mom never said no, so we moved forward into one of the documented disasters in culinary history. This scripture comes from the first miracle Jesus performed. He had gathered his disciples and was getting ready to take on the world, but before they could go too far, all of them were invited to a wedding in Cana. I can see Mary, the mother of Jesus, making sure that his robe was clean and pressed and that he had his good sandals shined to a fare-thee-well. Of course they were all going to the wedding. It would have been rude to miss it. Surely Jesus could postpone the saving of the world for one day so that they could attend this important event. So they went. During the reception, the wine ran out. There was probably a miscommunication, and the shipping company had more wine scheduled to be delivered the next day, but Mary knew that someone would be highly embarrassed by this mess. Being a mom, she tells Jesus to do something. As a rational adult son, Jesus tells his mother that he can’t do this. He’s getting ready to explode on the scene, and to do anything premature would jeopardize the whole project. Being a typical mother, Mary looks at the servants and says, “Do what he tells you.” At this point, everyone is looking toward Jesus for an answer, and the Son of God steps forward. There are many actions that Jesus could have taken. Compared to saving the world, providing more wine for this wedding was a minor blip in the schedule, but Jesus took a deep breath and set to work to fix the situation with the result that this becomes one of the favorite miracles of the New Testament. It doesn’t have anything to do with healing someone, casting out demons, or raising someone from the dead. This is one of the best gifts that Jesus gives us. He pays attention to our lives. If something is important to us, it’s important to him. His answers may not make sense to us, but in the long run, they’ll get the job done. Summer If spring is the time of new birth, summer is the time of young adulthood. The time when we start applying the lessons we learned in our childhood to the realities of our wider world. We move out of the family home and learn how to create our own home. We pay our own utility bills and discover why someone yelled when we left all the lights on overnight. We start paying taxes and learning about customer service—from both sides of the counter. We may have children and revisit our own childhood when our kids find their toes and discover ice cream. Whether we have children or not, we learn that life will often have more than one “correct” answer, and the questions we were asked in school will often have great meaning for our lives. All too soon, however, our lives start shifting once again. Our children move out on their own and have their own lives. Summer shifts into fall.