Hi friends, Ann here!

In preparation for today’s post I’d been asking God what to write. I had a head full of ideas but in the early hours of this morning those went completely out the window as I woke with a pounding heart and a picture of a cavernous wooden bottom drawer!  As I lay trying to make sense of it, words from the Holy Spirit landed in my head:

SUMites, as you fill your bottom drawer you’re providing for those who have been named ‘clear and bright’, and you are evangelizing through a microphone.

This, it seemed, was to be today’s post: A bottom drawer, provision, and a microphone, what fun! I’ll describe where it took me, and I hope this word encourages you today.

The Bottom Drawer

In times past, hopeful young women used to collect special things in a ‘bottom drawer’ to bring to their marriage. It included beautiful linen, tea-cups, and other treasures that would be both pretty and useful for their home.

As I write, I’m looking straight at two tea cups that sit on my piano, bottom-drawer items: One belonged to my great-grandma, Lucy, and the other to her mother, Elizabeth. I know for sure that Lucy’s was part of a set gifted to her by church when she turned 18. 

Setting up a bottom drawer was an act of imagination and anticipation. There was an element of the great unknown. Who would the husband be? What would her home be like?

SUMites, I relate to this as I carry a whole bellyful of hope for my family these days! While we wait, we can fill our own spiritual bottom drawer and do it with a whole lot of hope and imagination; yet, there’s a leap of faith, and perhaps a little anxiety there. I well remember as a teenager, thinking ‘what if I don’t get married?!’ In the same way, thoughts creep in: What if the three people I love most in the world never say yes to God? It can floor me, that thought.

But NO. The fact we have this word from the Holy Spirit says to me don't go there. It’s as if He says, ‘Go ahead and fill your bottom drawer, SUMites!’ These are bottom drawers to be brought not only to our physical homes, but also our eternity with Jesus Christ (Rev 19:6-9), bottom drawers that will eventually provide for those who are going to be ‘Clear’ and ‘Bright’ – Does He mean our families? I’ll gladly receive that as a promise.

But what are the special things we’re collecting? As I chew on that, it seems that they’re items that support rest, beautify the home, and help us feed our family and invite others in. They’re things that will be passed down to generations -- enjoyed in the immediate family, but also beyond.

As I think of all the comments I’ve read on this blog over the years, I picture each SUMite’s bottom drawer being filled with the prayers they’ve prayed and the promises they’ve believed. I see family records they’ve kept, and acts of church giving that have been so tough to pull off.  Most of all, I visualize each, and every, choice to love – often against the odds or against popular opinion.

Whatever they look like, these drawers of ours are full of things that are carefully curated, ready, and just waiting. 

But wait, what about the last words, As you fill that drawer you are evangelizing through a microphone? As someone who finds it hard to speak up against opinions, can I say how much that surprises me and shocks me into a different way of seeing things? See, I’m surrounded by friends and colleagues who are verbal in their opposition to Jesus. In that environment, I tend to be the quietist one on the block. I often feel, ‘I don’t even have the words...’ 

“O my Lord, I am not eloquent..” (Exodus 4:10)

But, quiet as I am, this word now says something different: Every time I invest in my, and my family’s, future I'm out and loud. Others will hear it as clear and bright as day and will catch the light. After all, it's the loudest sound in the room.

“Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.” (Acts 10:4)

SUMites, what are your thoughts? How does this word speak to you? Let’s chat - I can’t wait to hear your insights.