Blessings

Where but Fellowship Baptist can I drive home from church with a five-gallon bucket of mulch and a dozen eggs on the front seat, from two fellow members? Once home, to be able to make a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers from another member, and zucchini bread from another member's garden. I love my church.

I realize that's not all that church is about. But it's a huge part. We are commanded to love one another. And what better way to show our love but by giving. This has been demonstrated over and over by Christ Himself when He fed the crowds, or when He filled the nets of the fishermen, or healed the sick and made the blind see. And the most precious gift of all: when He gave His life so that we might live. 

Book on Amazon

At last my book is up on Amazon. Title is Mark's Remarkable Summer and it's been in the works for probably seven years. I wrote it under a different title back before the ice storm, for a hugely different audience. Rewrote it for Christian audience. I have fooled around with it probably since 2008. It's not too long so you won't fall asleep while reading it. It's about a teenager struggling with being a teenager, summer school, smoking dope just to fit in; and distracted by voices, apparitions, and the fact his love life is beyond resuscitation.

It's self published on Kindle and that was certainly a challenge. But now that I've done it I guess I can do it again with the sequel. I've known the characters for so many years they're almost a part of my family. Since the book is set in 1988 I'll probably do the sequences in 5-year increments.
j

Thoughts During a Five O'clock Thunderstorm

There's no way I can sleep through a thunderstorm at my house. I have two very sensitive doggies. Maggie, my 60# mixed breed, is slightly hard of hearing. But she's very attuned to sudden or loud noises. So thunder always gets her attention and she becomes my shadow. Early this morning she jumped on the bed and started licking my face. Wakes me up every time; I know where that tongue's been.

Gus, my 16-pounder, simply gets on top of me and stays there. Even with his Thunder Shirt, he is very afraid of the lightning, the thunder, and the noisy downpour. Right now he's on my lap.

I was thinking how dependent these creatures are. They immediately come to us when something isn't right in their world. They never try to "fix it" themselves. They know their master will make everything as right as possible up to and often including giving his life, if necessary.

Isn't that what God did? And even when we weren't looking to Him because we were too arrogant to think we needed anything outside of ourselves. Don't we oftentimes try to plan and implement the plan without even considering our Master, who wants only the best for us? The Bible passage that comes to mind is Proverbs 3-5, 6: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lead not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.

What continues to astonish me is that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). I was wallowing around doing everything my way and Christ had already died. That knowledge brings me up short.

I need to have the faith of my doggies.

j

A Chaplain by any Other Name . . .

I stumbled across this article the other day. I can't seem to wrap my brain around a chaplain with no faith, whether it be Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, or anything else. The term "non-theism" linked with that name makes my teeth itch. I know several people who have served and are now serving in the military. I can't think of one who would be in favor of an atheist chaplain giving him or her spiritual comfort or any kind of comfort, for that matter.

So I looked up the word "chaplain" in Websters Dictionary, which is a pretty reliable source of information if you want to know the definition of a word. This is what it says:

Definition of CHAPLAIN

1: a clergyman in charge of a chapel

2: a clergyman officially attached to a branch of the military, to an institution, or to a family or court

3: a person chosen to conduct religious exercises (as at a meeting of a club or society)

4: a clergyman appointed to assist a bishop (as at a liturgical function)

— chap·lain·cy noun

 

 I realize atheism is considered a religion by some. But the Freedom From Religion group would probably disagree. So it seems to me the military might consider coming up with another, more fitting, moniker for this essential position .

j

Getting Started (again)

October 1st will mark three years since my husband, Cecil, closed his eyes, stopped breathing and went to be with the Lord. It was his time, despite heroic efforts by a team of medical professionals and the prayers of many. Three days before this he wrote his last post on Zion Beckons, apologizing for being out of touch for a few days while he had an angiogram on Thursday. He never made it to that particular test. Instead, he was taken by ambulance on Wednesday night to St. John's Hospital in Springfield. He had a stopgap treatment so they could wait for enough scar tissue to develop so that they could mend the hole in the posterior of  his heart. Unfortunately, the damage was too great. A badly damaged heart can't tolerate the trauma of resuscitation. He was pronounced dead at 7:40 on Friday evening. I hadn't even made it back to the hospital yet.

Since then, four other ladies in my church have lost husbands. We are now nine in number. For a small church this seems like a lot. We range in age from forty-something to seventy-something. We're tough, we're resilient, we're resourceful. And we're totally dependent on the Lord for our next breath. It's hard, and none of us wants to go through it ever again. I've learned how to fix a toilet, drag fifty pounds of dog food into the house, do carpentry work, use a pickaxe to dig holes in my rocky soil in order to plant anything. I've hosted a major auction, killed two copperheads and taught myself how to use firearms.

From the numbness that came when my stepson Marty called told me not to hurry back to the hospital, to the meltdown on what would have been our 29th anniversary on Sunday, to trying to make two mortgage payments this month, God has been with me. He's been with my friend who had to get rid of her horses because she can't buy them hay this year; he's with another friend who has a handicapped daughter with mysterious anemia; he's with another who lost her husband at age fifty. Widowhood.

Charles Stanley of "In Touch" ministries, says, "Fight all your battles on your knees," and I try doing that. But sometimes I try running instead and that doesn't work out so well. God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. It's hard to be strong and courageous when you can't pay your bills and your next check is three weeks away. But when I retired in March I told God that I would try to do my part if He would only keep me afloat. And He has. And I am so grateful. But sometimes I give in to the evil one and find myself in the middle of panic. With God's help I climb out of the pit and crawl to the foot of the cross again.

It's not always easy.

j.