Did you ever put a hot pan under cold water in the sink and suddenly feel like you could shoe a horse? Or maybe press a dress shirt to crispy professional perfection? Or at least make a nice cappuccino?
Even before you get to the coffee (or shirt-pressing, or any and all black-smithery), a lot happens in a steam. When I find that one last dirty spoon and the dishwasher is already running, for instance, I open the dishwasher door and…instant facial. It’s especially interesting when I’m wearing glasses. Anybody else ever encounter fog-blindness?
Last winter, when one of my three-year-old grandlittles was on a car ride, she noticed steam rising off a distant rooftop and said, “That smells like…a idea.” I feel like she gets it on a sensory level most of us can’t fully appreciate. Though I do wonder exactly what her ideas are made of. And how she can smell them several rooftops away.
My ideas tend to be trickier to sniff out. I had a rather stressful week recently and I was trying to come up with a new idea for blowing off steam. Where’s a good idea for venting the anxious and the negative and the dark feelings when you need one? And what do we do when we haven’t the foggiest idea?
Emotions are a gift. Love is an emotion. Happiness too. So much good is wrapped up in feelings. We were created to feel. But when the feelings become a burden, where do we take that burden?
We often make it more misty-mysterious than it ever needs to be. The answer is beautifully and simply complicatedly uncomplicated. It’s deeply, always: Jesus.
“Come to me” He said, “all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 CSB).
A hymn we sang when I was a little girl popped into my mind as if it were my own bright idea. It wasn’t, of course. Jeremiah Eames Rankin wrote “Tell It to Jesus” in 1855. It’s a reminder that I don’t have to deal with burdens under my own steam.
Are you weary, are you heavyhearted?
Tell it to Jesus,
Tell it to Jesus;
Are you grieving over joys departed?
Tell it to Jesus alone.
The third verse asks the questions: “Do you fear the gath’ring clouds of sorrow?” and “Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow?” Clouds of sorrow are notorious for creating the worst fog-blindness.
But we can take our glad emotions, our sad emotions, our worrisome and our bad emotions—all to Jesus. He will work in and through them for our benefit and His glory, moving us through and moving us forward. Full steam ahead—in a good way. He can even build our character, conforming us to His likeness, through both the positive and the negative. We can find rest, relief, resolve. The dark fogs lift, and we find purpose in the presence of Jesus. And that? Well it smells like the best idea ever.