A Most Important Question

What must I do to be saved?

That question was asked by the 1st century jailer of Paul & Silas and it still remains for us to ask today. We are troubled by our failures and our consciences bother us; we wonder what can rescue us from our fallen condition.

Their answer to the jailer was quite simple: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved".

What does that mean to us today? We must turn away from our race towards hell & destruction and turn TO God in Christ. Turning from our life of selfishness is to repent of the sins that have kept us from belief; turning to God in Christ is trusting in Christ as an actual person who completed His God-sent mission of an awful, violent death on the cross to release the penalty of sin.

We are the prodigal son/daughter who realizes that we can't do this thing called life on our own and we turn back and run to the Father's open arms. We cannot continue to run to God and run to sin at the same time.

Does that mean we will never sin again? Absolutely not! But it will be against our better judgment and deepest longings. Sin will no longer dominate us. As a child of God, we will be obedient to repentance and will put our complete faith and trust in Him and His Word.

How do we know if we are thus saved? Faith is a gift that God gives us; we can't grow our own faith, but we can grow in godliness. The evidence of our salvation will be lived out in us through the filling of the Holy Spirit. A continual examination of our hearts will be needed to see if we are growing or not. Disciplining ourselves to studying God's word is necessary so that we can rightly discern the condition of our hearts. Are our lives filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & discipline? Or are they characterized by immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger, etc?

Salvation is past, present and future. We have been saved from the punishment of our sins; we are being saved from the power of sin and we will be saved when we are with Christ bowing at the feet of our heavenly Father.

What must YOU do to be saved?

A Mom's Heart

How does a mom blog about some of the most momentous occasions in her life? I don't know how many times I've had a new blog window open, only to sit and stare at an empty white box; the words just wouldn't come. Last year held more changes than any year I can remember so far.

Last April 1, Adam & Heidi announced their engagement with an August 1 wedding date. Yikes! Four months to prepare. We did it and it was gorgeous, exciting, fulfilling and fun.

Words are a feeble attempt to describe my heart...my mom heart. It's hard to comprehend my first-born son being a husband.

My prayer is that as he faces the challenges that are sure to come, he will frequently fall on his knees before an Almighty, Holy God petitioning for the Spirit to give him the capacity to love his wife as Christ loves the church.

I love Heidi with the love a mom has for a daughter.

I pray that whatever circumstances she is faced with that God, through the work of the Spirit, will help her to reverence, with an awe-filled respect, the man He has given to her.

It was with great joy that Jerald & I were able to pronounce a parental blessing on their union.


Also on April 1, Colin had an accident at work that put a bolt through his hand.

Talk about jolting a heart to get that call. It just hurts to know my kids are in that much pain...hurts my mom heart. Praise God he's doing well, although the scar is very visible and he hasn't gotten complete mobility back.

In September, Nicole started school at Azusa Pacific University in the northeast corner of Los Angeles.

We are extremely excited for this opportunity Nicole has to spread her wings and see what God has in store for her.

We decided to take the family and drive with her to California.
It was a very pleasurable 2 1/2 day drive. We were able to see God's awesome and diverse creation.



The first weekend we helped her get settled in


and spent orientation with her.



We got to meet her 3 roomies; how comforting and reassuring to my heart...my mom heart to see her ready to tackle whatever God has in store.

After leaving Nicole there, we headed to the condo on the beach that we had rented for a week.







What a joy it was to my heart...my mom heart to see the family have such a great time together.

On top of an extremely full year, I now get to look forward to more changes. This May, we are looking forward to welcoming our new granddaughter into the family. My heart will soon become...my "nana" heart.
And THAT will be a blog all of its own.

The Superior Wife Syndrome

I recently read a book excerpt in Reader's Digest with the title, The Superior Wife Syndrome; the sub-title was: Why Women Do Everything So Well and Why-For the Sake of Our Marriages-We've Got to Stop.
THAT definitely piqued my interest.
The excerpt said:
"After being married for a while, and especially after having children, a large number of husbands deliberately surrender family concerns and responsibilities and begin to expect their wives to take charge. And in many marriages, that assignment eventually includes nearly everything. It's as if husbands raise the art of oblivion to new heights; they can fiddle, while wives burn through most of the tasks of adult life. Some wives claim that they have taken control of family life because 'it seems like I have no choice, it's just a natural occurrence', as a 42-year-old woman puts it. Others confess to being impressed that their husbands are able to function in the world at all...'I'm amazed he's still alive', says one wife."

Do you think husbands are deliberately surrendering control of the family? or
Do you think wives are taking that control by default because the husband is in la-la land?
Do you think wives are taking control because they feel they can do a better job?
Do husbands let go of leadership because they are too lazy to deal with it?
Are husbands truly oblivious to what needs done?
Is it unsubmissive for a wife to ask her husband to help?
What is the solution to a marriage with leadership issues?

Blank

I don't know how many times I've opened a new post tab only to sit staring blankly at the white box. It's not because nothing (double negative there) interesting has happened in my life in the last 4 months. There's plenty of thoughts here, but the idea of trying to organize it all and get it into something comprehensible leaves me completely overwhelmed. So, I'm still here and maybe one of these days I can get it all figured out.

In the meantime, I am of all people most blessed. The things that God has revealed to me about His love, grace and mercy in the last few months are unfathomable.

Memory Lane

My mom's birthday is June 1 and every year it is a challenge to come up with a gift. She doesn't need any more "stuff" inside or out. This year, my sister came up with a brilliant idea. We would all (mom & her kids) spend the weekend walking down memory lane with our mom. Gail, my sister, hosted us since she still lives in the area where we were raised. Some of us arrived Friday evening; others came Saturday morning and still others Sunday morning.

Saturday morning, Jerald led devotions about Godly fathers and fathering, which included several memories of my dad. It was a great way to start our weekend of reminiscing.
After breakfast, we all piled into a 12-passenger van that we had rented.



Our first stop was the elementary school that all 6 of us attended. After stepping into the hallway, my first-born sister commented that she believed she had stood outside every single one of those doors as punishment for some misdeed. We had fun remembering our grade school teachers, which ones we liked and which ones were mean. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures there.

Our next stop was the farmhouse that we moved to when I was 3.

On the outside it looks very much like it did when I moved out 28 years ago.

I lived there until I got married at 18. Our dad held down a day job and farmed the 70 acres in the evening with us kids helping out during the day. My farming career of driving the tractor came to an abrupt halt when I failed to go around a gully and drove INTO it. Needless to say, my dad wasn't exactly a happy camper when he got home and found the tractor there.
I remember a happy childhood of playing in the barn, making tunnels with hay bales, teasing my li'l sis, riding bike up and down the lane; but, we also worked. We mowed with a push mower, hoed corn out of the beans, did chores, cleaned, gardened, etc.
I tried to show my mom how big I remember the gardens (yes, with an 's') being, but she assured me that it wasn't quite the way I had it pictured.

This is five of us kids with mom; my oldest brother wasn't able to go until Sunday.


The cellar door- the icky, old, spooky cellar; half of it was cement flooring and the other half dirt.


The back of the house-


The shed where we parked our car (yes, without an 's') before dad built the garage on the house.


The spot where my oldest sister and her husband were married almost 35 years ago.


The amiable and very patient in-laws-


After the farm, we went to the house that my dad built- the place I was born and lived for about 3 years. My memories are a little sketchy, but pieces of it are very clear. Weird how a person can remember some things and not others. I lived here when the Palm Sunday tornadoes went through.



Our next-door neighbors were very close friends and cousins, so even after we moved a couple miles away, we came back and spent many, many hours playing in these woods.


The kitchen looks about the same.


The couple who live there now (the daughter of my dad's boss) so graciously opened their home and hearts to us. They added this awesome sun room that looks out over the woods. Tranquility...



Our next stop was the church that I attended with my family before getting married and the cemetery next door where my dad was buried 21 years ago.



Don't even ask how we got inside...

The four of us

My sister, Gail, and her husband. Thanks to all her planning and hospitality, we got to experience a wonderful weekend.


On December 22, 1987, my dad was killed in an accident on his way home from work. I still miss him, acutely at times; but I am so thankful for the heritage he left. I do not remember him saying an unkind word about anybody, even though he would have had plenty of opportunity. He was strict, but loving, fun and funny. I hate it that my own kids will never get to experience his teasing and humor. I often wonder what he would have to say about all this gb turmoil; I think I know because of the character he had.


The same pump (probably the same cup) I used as an excuse to skip church and be outside.



From the church, we drove around on familiar roads, talking, remembering, laughing and ending up back at my sister's just in time for dinner. Her son and his wife fixed, served and cleaned up dinner for us.



My youngest sister had to go home Saturday night and my brother and his wife joined us on Sunday. After a relaxing morning of conversation and coffee and another yummy meal, we went to the farm where my mom lived from 1st grade to marriage at 16.

The people who live there now


My mom used to walk to this little two-room school. It had a wall right down the middle with the classroom on one side and the gym on the other.




It was an amazing and fun weekend together. Mom decided that it was one of the best birthday gifts she had ever received. And now, waiting for next year...

Spring Cleaning

Now that summer is right around the corner, I will blog about the thoughts that have been rumbling through my brain for the last two months.

There are two things I clearly remember from my childhood: spring cleaning and fall cleaning. I was raised in an era when in order to be a successful housewife one must completely purge the home twice a year. I have to admit that, as a child, I hated those times of completely emptying the rooms, taking down all the drapes, clearing off all the shelves and washing everything- and I mean everything! My absolute least favorite job was washing down the walls and ceiling. I remember liking the end product- the smell of clean, the organization, the freshness- but not the journey it took to get there.

Recently, (a couple months ago now), I was going through this spring cleaning process in our closet and I got to thinking about my spiritual closet- my heart. I don't enjoy the process of cleaning out my heart, but the end result of sweet communion with my Jesus is indescribable. This process is much like cleaning out my own closet- examination of what's in there, pulling out the ugly, the unusable, decluttering, sweeping out the dust, dirt and cobwebs and allowing only beautiful things inside.

God wants to lovingly lead me to focus on the several bad habits that have piled up, the cobwebs of sin and rebellion that have been woven, the dust of unconfessed hurt and anger. These things have wintered in my heart and it's time to do some spring cleaning. When I allow the Spirit to convict and let God lead me in confession and repentance, I feel like my newly cleaned and organized closet. Getting rid of my unwanted habits and sin will leave me with a peaceful and joy-filled heart. I no longer have to search through the dirt of depravity, looking around the dust and stench of decay. I now enjoy the fresh scent of pleasing God in all I say, do, think and feel.

With summer on the way, now seems like a good time to meditate on one specific area in this quest of purging the heart. My church has given me a wonderful starting point to the topic on my mind. What a blessing it is to fellowship with a body of believers who think the heart is what matters. The following excerpt was in several of the recent bulletins:

"SUMMER PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE--Ladies, are you aware you can serve your brothers in Christ simply by the way you dress during summer months? We encourage you to consider this at all times, but especially as we gather together to worship. What a gift to men if they do not have to fight the battle of the eyes and mind when they gather with their sisters in Christ! We praise God for your desire to see Jesus magnified!"

Why do we even need to be reminded of this? Do we truly not understand that when we cannot even bend over without exposing a part of ourselves, we make the struggle ten thousand times worse for our brothers in Christ? Or when we show enough to distract the mind from glorifying Christ to lusting, we are the cause of sin in another believer? What goes through our minds when we stand in front of a mirror and analyze our clothing choices? Why are we Christian ladies reminded of this over and over and over and we still expose ourselves? I do not believe we can claim ignorance any longer. We have been taught enough; I am now without excuse and so are you. Maybe we should come at this from the negative aspect: what is immodesty?

Immodesty- indecent, shameless, vain, not properly restrained, boastful, arrogant.

Our source of rebellion in this area is not from the culture around us or the standards of the world. (It's easy to look around and think that at least we dress more modestly than "they" do- that is still rebellion).

The source of our rebellion lies deep within the hearts of each one of us.

If your heart is lacking peace and joy, perhaps it's time to do a little spring cleaning.

Please Pray with Me

for the husband/father who lost his wife and 2 children in a house fire late last night.

We've known this family all our lives. They are from Flora,Indiana, (where Jerald was from).

Brian & Leah Wagoner had a son, Harrison (almost 8) and a daughter, Sophia (4). Brian's dad was our dentist for many years and I worked with Leah's mother for several years.

Indiana had a very severe electrical storm last night which they believe struck the house and started a fire. Leah and both children died in the fire. Brian's hands were burned, but not too bad. They are strong Christians, but how...how is Brian supposed to go on? I guess I'm showing how weak my faith really is, but why? I know in my head that God is sovereign and good, but my heart still can't understand why God wants it to be this way. I hurt so much for the grandparents/parents, Brian, their friends...

And so, even though you don't know this family, would you still remember to pray for them? please?