Heaven

Juliette Gordon Low
Girl Scouts Founder

What do Jesus, The Girl Scouts, and The Proverbs 31 Woman all have in common?

Being Prepared.

Personally I find John 14:1-3 one of the most comforting passages in Scripture.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
John 14:1-3 NKJV

Whatever my circumstances in this life, at any given moment, I take real comfort in knowing that Jesus is preparing a place for me.
I have his promise on it.

A dwelling place made for me.
A mansion is our English translation, but I never think of it in terms of opulence or creature comforts.
I think of the fact that it is prepared for me.

A Prepared Place
Whatever I need will be there.
Most of all, Jesus will be there.
He will receive me himself.
And we’ll be there together.

Be prepared.
That’s The Girl Scout Motto.

She is not afraid of snow for her household,
for all her household are clothed in scarlet.
Proverbs 31:21

She’s made preparation for her family’s needs.
I say that like it’s no big deal.
Any Mom knows it’s a big deal.
It takes planning and calculation.
It means we have to carve out resources of time and money to ensure that our families have what they need for the foreseeable future.

Procurement is a acquisition of goods, services, or works from an external source.
It’s an important job in any business.
And it’s part of what makes this woman so valuable to her family.

I remember the late summer preparations my Mom made for our family.

School Shopping: clothes, shoes, coats, and supplies

Ordering and Stacking a Cord of Wood

Defrosting the Freezer

Ordering Half a Beef

Canning Peaches

Polishing Hardwood Floors

She didn’t do it all alone.
She enlisted our help and I’ll forever love the smell of Johnson Paste Wax as I remember two days in the late summer spent on hands and knees polishing and buffing our hardwood floors.
Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald sang as we readied the house for winter.
My younger brother loved hosing out the rapidly defrosting freezer before the beef was delivered.
We all knew evenings with a fire and Peach Cobbler were our distant reward for these chores.

My Mom not only provided a prepared place, but she taught us the value of thinking ahead and figuratively ‘making hay while the sun shone’.

The Proverbs 31 Woman makes sure her family has warm clothing; the clothing described in this verse means double thick. It’s what they would need for winter.

A prepared place.
What does it say to a family?
It says, I thought about you.
I thought about what you’d need.
I thought about being with you.

I look back and wonder how my Mom felt as she watched her family.
Closing my eyes I’m back in our living room.
My Dad teases my Mom and sneaks a kiss.
My sister and brother and I sit on the floor to get a closer look at The Ed Sullivan show on TV.
We all enjoy the warmth of the fire and the buttery cinnamon flavor of the cobbler.
Did she think it had been worth the effort?
Worth the planning?
Worth the cost?

We all knew we were worth it to her.

That’s what a prepared place says.
It says, “You’re worth the effort to me”.