Moses' journey and our journey

I love Monday mornings and that first chance to dip deeply into the new Bible Lesson. This week it is God the preserver of man. And what a life preserver God is! My son had a motor boat several summers ago. We all wore life preservers when we left the dock. Encompassed in it we were safe from drowning for we could not sink while wearing it. God, divine Love, our true Father Mother, provides for us in ways that keep us 'afloat', unable to sink or flounder in life's challenges.

This Lesson follows Moses' from childhood, where he is preservered in a bulrush ark, lovingly shaped by his mother, to hide him from harm and Pharoah's cruel decree that all Hebrew male children were to be killed. It continues on with Moses refusing to stay in Egypt and live as a prince. He goes to Midian where he lives a very different life as a keeper of sheep. Years later he will obey God and return to Egypt to confront Pharoah and free his people. Then he will lead them away from that land and away from the thinking and worship of false gods through a 'wilderness' experience. The Lesson ends many years later with Jesus taking Peter, James and John to a 'high mountain' experience where they see him talking with Moses.

So today I will be studying that first example of preservation, the ark experience. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy's definition of ark begins with 'safety'. Just as Moses' mother protected and sheltered her infant son in that dry enclosure and sent his sister to watch over him during the day while he floated in the reeds, our Mother protects and shelters us, as the everlasting arms of Love 'are beneath, around, above' as we read in hymn 53. Those arms are around me and mine, and you and yours, all day today. We are being watched over as we move through the day in our personal life preserver.

I will also think about those summer days when my Mom and Dad bought bushels of delicious New Jersey tomatoes and preserved homemade tomato sauce. It was always wonderful to go down to the cellar on a chilly winter night and bring up a jar of that preserved sauce to go with our pasta dinner. The aroma is a favorite childhood sense memory. Properly and carefully made the tomato sauce was preserved at its most perfect best. Our Father Mother keeps us at our perfect best as well. No deterioration, no dulling of senses, no decay....just kept at that level of perfectness.

Rejoice today that you are safe in your 'ark', bouyed by your own 'life preserver', kept perfect in the exact image and likeness of God. What a great start to the week!