Category Christian Service

As they say, Hope springs eternal, therefore we do not give up.

For all that my mother loved the holidays when I was younger as we all grew older her love somehow got lost.

I don’t know how things get lost but they do. But what makes the holidays special? Why is it that when we have something bad happen at the holiday time of year it feels much worse?

Partly we want laughter, merriment, and maybe something else—warmth? Safety? Love? And when we have a bad experience we feel robbed or violated in some way.

As a single mother, it became a struggle for my mother to provide for herself and her family. There were no safety nets no ‘government daddy’ back in her day. And my sister and I ended up at my Grandparents’ farm.

What happened to mom? I don’t understand exactly, because all of our lives are made of choices, why didn’t she choose differently?

Relationships take work. How easy it is to let people slip away. From my observation for any relationship to work at least two people must work at it.

I don’t have an answer for a good takeaway. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I’ve been on the side that knows ‘all of the right answers’.

But having all of the right answers sometimes leaves the person with the questions wondering why those answers aren’t enough.

If you’re missing someone this holiday season, don’t blame the holidays. Bad things happen all year round. Traditional times do have a sense of magnifying the feelings of aloneness. That is the way it works.

But it can also be a time of healing as we recognize the blessing of what we’ve had we can grieve that loss, and tuck the memories of those blessings into our hearts. As they say, be thankful that we’ve had them.

In a society that in some ways has become more isolated, it may be difficult to turn back our clocks.

Back in the day when people were busier with their own private lives, it was easier to lose track of other things that were just as important but not as urgent.

Now we may not be as busy in the same ways as in the past, but other spectors have taken their place.

People are more fearful and more quarantined than before. What we do need to admit is our lives are in the hand of God.

Although no illness should be taken lightly we aren’t dealing here with the plague. Covid may or may not be dangerous depending on who you are, but life itself is filled with uncertainty.

We can’t isolate ourselves and be safe. Life doesn’t work that way. Many people have felt safe behind the screen that ‘health care, doctors, and medicine’ would take care of them.

They believed they would live forever, but that was a false narrative. No one will live forever. Even in uncertain times, humans have the stupidity to put off their need to be right with God.

There is a book that will help those who are seeking to do the will of God. It’s called the Bible, and the New Testament is where we need to be to learn of His will for believers today. Begin today by learning and doing God’s will. Then do what we can to be safe and go ahead and live life.

Leave it in God’s hand, knowing it was always there in the first place.

2 Timothy 1:

7  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

8  Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

How do we feel about where we’re at? In this present climate it depends not only on the day but the hour of day.

If you are standing in front of a brick wall you can deny that the brick wall is there, but without a door of some sort, you can’t walk through the wall. Belief needs to be backed up with reality.

We live in a world that sometimes looks and feels transitory; a world where we can kind of make up our reality as we go. Many people live their lives from day to day, much as my cousin’s findings that 70% of our population live from paycheck to paycheck. We can try to make up a fabricated life that at the end of the day is morally deficient and tell ourselves that everything is all right or be honest.

We hear from a number of religious people that we are living in ‘the last days’ and they are counting on the second coming as coming soon. Whereas we have had ‘wars, and rumors of war (Matthew 24:7 “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8) All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

We do live in the last days. We have been living in the last days since the Resurrection and the day of Pentecost when Peter and the Apostles began to preach the Gospel of Jesus.

We have options. We can continue to live paycheck to paycheck type of lives deficient of moral integrity or listen as we are called by the Gospel to repent and turn to God giving Him our lives.

The practical takeaway is that we are daily presented with the opportunity to become what God wants us to be. We are broken sinners and we need to let God heal us. We need to fill our vessels and be ready for when the bridegroom comes.

Because come He will in the day and hour which we know not and by then it will be too late to trim and fill our lamps.

Matthew 25:

1  Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

2  And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

3  They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

4  But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

5  While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

6  And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

7  Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

8  And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

9  But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

10  And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.

11  Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

12  But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

From time to time it is a good thing to take oneself aside and have a heart to heart conversation. Having the right conversation is necessary for moving forward. However, it is not always apparent as to what the right conversation is.

This conversation can be with yourself or because (as it has been stated) ‘No man is an island.” It may involve others.

In other words, it can be either a self-check or a selves check.

A self-check can help us make sure we are on the right path. We know as it says in Proverbs 16:9  “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” That doesn’t mean that every step I take is directed by the Lord. They should be directed by the Lord if we’re Christians, but…

As I’ve shared before, back in the day I had MY life planned out. After marriage, I was going to wait two years before we began our family. I would then have two children first a boy, then a girl…

There wasn’t anything wrong with those plans. We got married and began on the right foot and.

In a world of ‘Well, that didn’t work out,” that didn’t work out. The first child was a boy—born nine and a half /ten months after we were married. The second child (girl) turned out to be a boy. Well, life is what it is, and that is what it was. Three years later we decided to have a third child, which turned out to be a boy as well.

The point is in Proverbs 16:9 Are we more interested in the course we’ve charted (A man’s heart deviseth his way:) or in following in the steps God has planned for us? (but the LORD directeth his steps.)

I’m using these scriptures in the writer’s vernacular of writing, outline, critiques, and editing. God’s plan is his outline.

I read a woman’s story of how ‘she rose above the mean-spiritedness of some other women’ who told her she should not wear short shorts when she came in to worship. Those women were mean and hurt her feelings…

Maybe the woman who was unkind in telling her to wear something more modest should have been more tactful and kind. I don’t know, but there was a day when people could figure out for themselves that a woman wearing two pasty spots on their bosom and a tutu for the bottom wasn’t enough outside of their home.

Critique, we all need to endure critiques. Sometimes the criticism is valid, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it does hurt our feelings but weigh the advice. As a writer/critiquer, the advice goes: if one person questions a passage (in your writing), think it over. If two critique partners question it— seriously reconsider what you’ve written, but if there are three or more, just throw it out.

There are many people who want to give you free advice. Weigh it carefully. Free advice can be worth exactly what it costs.

 Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

If you’re a follower of Christ, God wants the best for your life. He wants to transform you to be more like Jesus. But that requires each one of us to let him lead. Back when I had my life all figured out, I didn’t have anything figured out.

I had become a Christian, yes, but I thought I was still in control. Our fourth child (unplanned, but very much loved) was a girl, but by then I could see how my prayers for ‘wisdom and patience’ were being answered. I knew I had enough wisdom and patience.

God added two more children for good measure, and then we asked for one more.

Psalms 139:

1  …O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

3  Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

4  For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

5  Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

6  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7  Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

12)  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

There are certain milestones that for some reason we believe once we reach them we will have arrived.

The big milestone when I was young was graduating from high school. In my ignorance, I thought I would be an adult. I would be grown up. I can’t remember what benefit that would give me but on that side of the ledger, it was a milestone in my life.

During high school, my mother had wanted me to become proficient in secretarial skills but that skill sorrowfully didn’t fit me. To add insult to injury, I didn’t drive a car or have access to transportation. But graduate I did anyhow.

Other people saw graduation as a milestone just as I did because at graduation people gave the graduates gifts. A blessing indeed, and a surprise to me. I had already planned on leaving Ohio to go back to my (kind of) adopted/home state of Iowa.

With the graduation money, I bought a one-way Greyhound bus ticket back home. I would stay with a girlfriend for a visit. After that? Well, I had no plan after that, but the first step was to get there.

The second step happened when I went to live at my aunt and uncle’s. Obtaining a job and someplace to live were the final challenges. My Aunt helped me find a sleeping room with a bathroom in a nearby small town, and a job that I could walk to in that same small town.

Milestones—graduation was a milestone but when I reached it it wasn’t exactly the milestone I had expected. In looking back I wonder at the boldness and/ or stupidity of youth. I left my mother’s with less than a hundred dollars and a suitcase that contained most of everything I owned.

Some people like to think they’ve lived their life like the Frank Sinatra song, “My Way.” I’ve never found that song appealing. I find it arrogant. For them to think they chose their path, and how good and laudable it was—on this side of eternity we really can’t know how good it was.

Milestones—when I think about life I marvel at how quickly it goes; how quickly it passes. As someone wrote just lately, I knew I would get old, but I’m sure surprised by how fast it happened.

Psalms 90:

9  For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

10  The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

11  Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

12  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Philippians 2:

1  If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

2  Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

3  Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

4  Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

You can find good advice almost everywhere. You can find bad advice almost everywhere. And…

You can find situations that good advice becomes bad advice and situations where bad advice becomes good advice.

If that seems a bunch of gobble-de- gook, it can be that as well. A few months ago I was congratulated by someone I didn’t give advice to because I didn’t give them advice against marrying the person they wanted to marry.

I did feel grateful that they felt grateful, but I had a nagging question. Will they still feel that way if it goes sideways? Like a young man wrote oodles of years ago when he was looking at his picture in his high school yearbook when he said, “Look at how long my hair was, and no one warned me I would look back at this picture thinking how dumb I looked.”

Someone may have reminded the boy with the graduation picture/long hair that he had been warned, but… So, I was feeling accomplished, not because I didn’t agree with some of the naysayers, or could have agreed with them. I felt accomplished because after seven kids I absolutely knew that nothing I said would make a difference.

And the second thing I know is even if the odds of naysayers and/ or me being right were on one side, only God knows how things will really turn out. How many times do old people witness that—Everyone told us it wouldn’t work, but here we are fifty years later.

And there we must leave it in the end, at the foot of the throne.

Philippians 1:

20  According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.

21  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

22  But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

23  For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:

24  Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

25  And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith;

26  That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.

27  Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

28  And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.

29  For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

30  Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Matthew 14: 14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

15 And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.
16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

17 And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.
18 He said, Bring them hither to me.

19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

I remember three art class teachers from my public school days. I don’t remember any of their names but oddly enough it was a lesson from the very first teacher that I remember most vividly.

We were maybe sixth graders sitting in the art class. Mr. Teacher held up a very pretty picture he had drawn with crayons. His message was Don’t let people discourage you. Art isn’t the medium you use, it is how and what you create. Even crayons in the hand of an artist become art.

I don’t remember any other art classes until my Sophomore and Junior years in high school. We did still life oils in one quarter and somewhere in there, we did pottery. I loved both oil painting and working with clay.

Working with clay has its challenges. We didn’t have class every day and if, as is normal, you don’t finish your project in one day it went back in the clay bin wrapped in wet paper towels.

The school bought our clay in large amounts. I don’t know if it came in a powder then they mixed it, or if it came wet. I have thought about and read on the subject of using ‘natural’ clay—Clay that you can dig out of the ground.

The caution as I remember with natural clay was making sure there were no rocks left in the clay. If there were rocks in the clay during the firing they would cause the piece to explode and break of course destroying the pottery.

Very seldom as we go through life do we wonder where we are going, not in the broad sense. Keep in mind as you go on your way this excerpt copied from Facebook by Rick Holland: “When I was 15 I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

Jeremiah 18:

1  The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2  Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

3  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.