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The way things were…..


Is it just me or does it seem like the world is angrier these days? I asked my Mom about how things were when she grew up and she said, “Yes, the world was a much different place when I was growing up.” When she was in High School in the 1940’s they would all go miles away in carloads or by bus to the beach. Big groups of kids, boys and girls, and nobody ever had to be afraid of anything. None of the parents worried because there was no need. The girls were treated like ladies, and everybody danced with everybody, and not the way the kids dance now, real dancing.

None of the kids got drunk, nobody dreamed of committing a violent act against anyone else, and if one guy ever mistreated a girl, there were 10 other guys waiting to put him back in line.

Please and thank you were still said….doors were opened for the women, and men got up when a woman came to the table. Drugs were unheard of.

A group of young people walking on the sidewalk would never have dreamed of not yielding to an older person walking by, and high school students in my Mom’s class, in the 1940’s, would never have talked back to a teacher, let alone threatened or assaulted one.

Personally, I really miss decorum, and manners, and class. I wish children could be safe wherever they went, and if they were left out after dark, I wish we lived in a world where they could go up to any door and find someone to take them back home. It used to be that way in my parents world.

I would like to live in that kind of world. Although I would miss my IPHONE and my computer….

Things have even changed a lot since I went to school….I can almost imagine how it might have been back in those times. Growing up in small town 60’s and 70’s I got the tail end of it. A girl I knew in High School actually sang “Beautiful Savior” at an assembly and the students were respectfully attentive. Do they even have assemblies anymore? They certainly wouldn’t allow that song to be sung now!
What do you think? Do you feel like things have changed since you were a kid? For the better?

The waiting game….


“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2,3 Jesus

To me Heaven will be like one enormous family reunion, the best one we could ever imagine, and it won’t have an end. No endings, no partings, no good-byes.
We won’t have to leave, go back to dismal jobs, go back to the old routines and rhythms of life that we have to fit ourselves back into.

Everyone will be glad to see each other and no one goes home, because we will all already be home!

A giant church supper where everyone is welcome and nobody is a stranger.

All of life is some form of waiting, forward looking.
It is the momentum of life that keeps us going….
Here in Arizona, in the heat of summer, we know about waiting.
We wait for cool breezes, relief from the merciless heat.
The time for open windows and dining al fresco instead of al fry-o!
Or we wait for the weekend,
Retirement,
Vacation,
Kids to move out.
Kids to come back….

It is good though, to pause in the waiting, to savor what is happening right now this very moment. Enjoy the process of waiting because there is beauty in that too!

But someday our wait for everything will be over and we will hear Him say, “Welcome Home……”

Is there a major life event you are waiting for right now? Maybe more than one? What is it that makes the waiting easier?

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21

God loves happy endings


Growing up we spent a couple Thanksgivings at the home of my cousin’s cousins. The home of my Uncle Bruce’s brother and his family. It was an older home in Berkeley California, and I was charmed by it at first sight. It had a Hollywood driveway, the kind with the strip of lawn going up the middle and a big screened in porch just made for curling up with a good book. One of the most enchanting things about it though was the little bookshelf at the top of the narrow staircase. It was magic to me and I couldn’t wait to go up and explore the titles. Jackie was a librarian so she must have recognized a kindred spirit in me, a fellow book lover. I was invited to take any book I wanted. I knelt in front of it while everyone else was out playing, lost in my own universe.

In school I always gave a sigh of relief when they asked us to write a book report instead of solving a math problem. I love long books and I hate for a good book to end. But the great thing about reading is there is always another on the horizon. I am so glad there are those who just can’t stop writing! That, and reading is free.

God loves books too. He wrote a best seller. It is still selling like hotcakes. He is waiting for a happy ending. God is the eternal optimist! “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

The Bible is the one book with no ending, and we are all part of the story. God must not like for things to end either. He never meant for endings at all, only life ever after with Him. Open God’s book today. It will speak to you in the silence.

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it,
except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.
~ Thomas ã Kempis

Eternity in our hearts

Stairway at Butchart Gardens

Living with eternity always in mind changes our perspective on everything else that happens in this life. This is the great challenge, to keep this fixed always in the backdrop of our hearts and minds. In this way, nothing can totally devastate us as it would if we didn’t have this hope.

Everything around us, however difficult or bleak the circumstance may be, continues to be colored with this one idea, this one thought. This is not all there is….. Sometimes we feel as if we have one foot in this world and one in the next and we feel the weight of it when life gets to be too much. Some would say that living like that would taint this life, as someone who goes around with one ear closed, half paying attention to everything around them, but really it turns the volume up. Everything somehow seems more brilliant, more vibrant and alive, like a deaf or blind person who has just got their senses for the first time.

Paul felt the weight of eternity too……

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; Philippians 1:21-23

There is no going around it. We will constantly seek more in this life, because we know instinctively that there is more….He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

What do you think? Does knowing we have eternity make you sometimes want to give up on this life? Or does it make it easier to go on?

One Thing…..


This was on the Daily Devotional yesterday and I had to share it. In very few words he puts everything in perspective. Nothing to add here…..
Making the Right Choice
By Max Lucado

“Everyone must die once and be judged.” Hebrews 9:27

Eternity is to be taken seriously. A judgement is coming.

Our task on earth is singular—to choose our eternal home. You can afford many wrong choices in life. You can choose the wrong career and survive, the wrong city and survive, the wrong house and survive. You can even choose the wrong mate and survive. But there is one choice that must be made correctly and that is your eternal destiny.

Encouragement from Paul

Painting by Richard Serrin
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Col. 3:1-4

I can see Paul with his parchments in this cold, dank prison cell. Praying for his church. Praying for us all. This gives me encouragement today, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” people we may not even be aware of….praying for us, for the race, and at last the finish line…..”let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

May you be surrounded by the peace of Jesus today….

To see more of the artwork of Richard Serrin go here.

Place of welcome…..


Mom and Dad’s Porch

My Dad’s lifelong dream was to have a cabin. He never got it, so he figured he would make their house in town as close to one as possible. He still dreams of walking out and hearing nothing but the wind sighing through the pines. And yet this place has become something very important to so many people in the neighborhood. My Mom insisted on putting a picnic table in front years ago, so that she could sit outside and greet others passing by who could stop and rest, sit a spell, bring their lunch. They are still doing that these many years later.

This has been my childhood home ever since about age 4. Always it’s been a place of refuge and welcome, not only for me and the rest of the family but many friends as well. Their door is always open, and if I were locked out I know where the extra key is hidden. There are many other doors I could knock on in my hometown and I know that I would be ushered in out of the cold, offered a drink, a homemade dessert, a hug or welcome smile. How rich, how blessed I am, to have these all, in addition to my own safe harbor in Arizona.

It makes me wonder, to marvel, to shudder at the thought that there are those who have no place of welcome. No place of attachment, no place that says, “You are safe here, you are loved here, you are wanted here.” How can it be that I have never known that feeling and yet so many others have never known any different?

I think of Haiti and other parts of the world, and not only there, but right here in my own town! No place of refuge, no open door. No fresh brewed cup offered from a kind hand, no favorite mug….

Making people feel welcome is a gift we can give at any time. It may come in a form as simple as a smile at the store, for we never know what burdens another is carrying, what trials they face.

So today and every day I hope to get better at that.

Prayer for today:

Lord may I always remember that though you had no place to lay Your own head, you made me welcome forever by coming into my heart and making your home with me. May I remember always those who have given me that gift, made me feel welcome. Help me in turn to welcome others. Most of all, help me to share the gift of You; for in You I have all the home I ever need.

Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Matthew 8:20