The Books I Carried With Me

Sometimes I marvel which childhood bents will carryover to adulthood.

For me, the love of a good book is probably foremost.

I remember one occasion where I alphabetized my home library. I must have been in third or fourth grade. Perhaps I also instituted a check-out operation, though for whom I cannot say.

My love of reading was birthed in part by my third grade best friend, Holly M. Holly challenged me to complete my homework before school was dismissed each day, eat mustard and ketchup with french fries, and to read for fun. My first grade teacher, who also happens to be my mother, made sure that I read and was read to daily…even during the summer. However, a peer modeling such good study habits truly challenged me and changed me for the better.

Outside of a dog a book is man’s best. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. Groucho Marx

The first book that clicked with me I checked out from my school library. The name of the text has long eluded me. For years I looked in the same corner of the little school library for the book with the girl and the wagon wheel on the front only to be evaded.

It is of little importance what the book was or even its content. What matters is that the love of reading and learning was unlocked. Perhaps it had been evident to my parents earlier than it was manifested to myself.

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter. Paxton Hood

My mother loves thrift and antique stores. One particular store in our community we would frequent monthly. As my mother rummaged through piles and shelves and rows of china, nick-knacks, and furniture. My sister would look for antique keys. I was found digging through treasure troves of books. The hardcover, yellow paged volumes were my favorite. Black Beauty, Little Women, Nancy Drew, and Old Yeller soon became reading companions which I have kept.

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. Henry Ward Beecher

Today, our home library exceeds the shelf space allotted. Now as then, I continue to find searching used classic and modern volumes therapeutic. Many childish ways I left behind, but the books I carried with me.

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.”  Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

In honor of romancing our children with the love of reading, this week I will highlight the children’s reads:

For some time, I have been referring to Emily as flutterbudget or half-pint as Pa does Laura. Each time Emily replies, “I am not flugerbuget, my dad calls me Sport!”  She tells me herbrudder (brother) is Champ and she is Sport. Glad we have that settled!

That is what we are reading this Wednesday. What about you, how did you first fall in love with literature?

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Like Blue Hydrangeas

He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.  Matthew 28:6

My Easter memories consist of new Sunday dresses sewn by my mother, full Easter baskets, and beautiful blue hydrangeas.

 

Every Easter Sunday we would gather at Mama’s to celebrate our Risen Savior. Just outside her carport to the right was the most beautiful blue hydrangea bush brimming with blossoms. All the little boy and girl cousins would quickly run by them in a game of chase or hide-and-seek. Yet, last night as I paused to give thanks for the white hydrangeas on my dining room table what filled my mind were the beautiful blue flowers  of my childhood Easters of many years ago. The hydrangeas are why I choose the colorful mix from the supermarket initially.

My own mother, as she would remember the women traveling early to anoint the Savior, would spend many hours sewing my sister and I beautiful smocked Easter dresses. Her loving stitches graced many smocked dresses that my little girl wears as she grows and as my sweet newborn niece, Anna Bell, will wear in like fashion.

What Easter memories are we sowing into our children and heritage? When they are grown and making a new home of their own, what will they remember of their childhood Easter’s?

Last night, I tacked the sides of my daughters beautifully smocked pink Easter dress my mom purchased for Emily. As I feebly attempted to stitch, I marveled at my mothers gift of sewing and creating those beautiful dresses each year. I wondered how a mother learns to accomplish all that her children need. Did my mother’s and father’s efforts feel as novel to them as they do to me?

This year, on my table are white hydrangeas, but in my heart are memories of blue.

 

Praise Jesus our Savior is risen! May we be like beautiful blue hydrangeas and testify of the goodness of our Creator and Christ our savior this day and always.

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Remembering a Mentor in the Faith

Dear Dave,

It will be two years since I last saw you and two years that you have lived in eternal time with Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Does time fly in heaven as it does here on earth?

I am writing to tell you of your impact in the faith on my life. This letter comes with much forethought and tears many times I think of you. See, I cry here on earth because deep in my spirit I know I am not home yet. This truth sometimes is a distant knowledge of which I must remind myself. At other times, it is as close as a whisper in my ear.

Because of your work for Jesus Christ in planning our mission trips to Ukraine, much work continues to go forth. Joe is serving as a full-time missionary in Horodok. Merrie and some of the others continue to take summer missions and continue to plant and water the seeds of the gospel that you helped to plant for many years.

Ron and I are continuing in the mission minded path the Lord Jesus used you to pave in our lives. I will be returning to the foreign mission field for the first time since our Emily was born four years ago. Do you remember that last trip? It came just after our return from a winter mission you helped me plan.

You were content to let a 25 year old young lady learn the ropes of leading a mission team and allowed her to take leadership responsibilities. Thank you for your training! Because you were content to nurture my call to serve in missions, a winter trip to Ukraine took place allowing for us to get our feet wet teaching English as a Second Language as a missions tool to reach the lost for Christ. One of my favorite parts of this trip was the fact I was accompanied by my sister. Thank you for your belief in me.

Few people touch the lives of two siblings groups out of one marriage, but you did. You led trips to Ukraine where both Ron and his brother, Tom, and I and my sister, Julie were able to go. These are memories that Ron and I will cherish forever.

This July I will be going on a new mission with a different destination than our beloved Ukraine. Following in the footsteps of Ron last year, I will be traveling with our team to Honduras to build four homes for children and their families who live and work on the trash dump in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.  Our work partners with a Christian school and church lead by Pastor Jeony of AFE.

I am so excited to plant my feet on foreign soil once again!

Dave, I wanted you to know that you are not forgotten. That your spiritual legacy lives on and the work continues. I am so blessed to have known you friend, and I look forward to seeing you when I come home.

Love,

friday favorite things | finding joy

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Restoration Projects

When winds howl at 95 mph and storms rage, damage is inevitable. Lucky people may escape with mere brush to pick up. Others are left with gaping holes in their homes’ infrastructure or worse, no home at all.

Imagine if your hometown is declared a national disaster zone by the President of the United States.

News teams swarm in donned in their galoshes, rain-gear, and microphones in hand.  Everyone makes the assumption that the President will make a speech empathizing with the community, promising to send aid to restore what the hurricane destroyed, and recognizing with understanding some valuables cannot be replaced. “National aid is sure to come,” think all watching.

Consider their surprise when the President walks by the cameras and outstretched microphones and boards Air Force One with a wave and a smile. He leans over to his press secretary instructing him to tell the people they can attend his next press conference. “I want to put this disaster behind us and forget it ever happened.”

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What? Forget 95 mph winds blew through and crushed everything in their path? “Come on”, you think, “I am not the President, but even I know it is impossible to act as though this hurricane never happened.”

It is the same way in our lives when families have a blow up of any size. Regardless of who started or finished the argument. It is impossible to merely sweep hurts and memories under the rug and avoid restorative reconciliation.

Yes, forgiveness on our part, even unsought forgiveness, is necessary. However, merely pretending a hurricane never happened is impossible.

While denial may be the best option for our pride, it is not the way of our Father and it does not restore health to the relationship.

Matthew 5:21-26 and Matthew 18:15-35 have much to say regarding anger, repentance, and forgiveness among brothers and believers. I am still sorting them out.

Consider with me that every good and even questionable mother teaches her young children to say “I’m sorry.” Our children are instructed to say, “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” To which the other should reply, “Yes, I forgive you.”

If children can kiss and make up, why not grown adults?

How can we ask our children to do what we are not willing to do ourselves?

I know what it feels to be an angry bird. I have a black belt buried in my back yard as a coercion ninja. Yet, I also recall this:

Put on then, as  God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,  compassionate hearts,  kindness,  humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and,  if one has a complaint against another,  forgiving each other;  as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on  love, which  binds everything together in  perfect harmony. ~Colossians 3:12-14

God is in the restoration business. He takes our failures, our sins, and when laid at the foot of the forgiving cross of Christ turns them into something redeemed. Something profitable. What needs restoration in your life? I am praying for restoration in mine.

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It Is Like Wearing a Bathing Suit

Being from the south, beauty pageants are in my past, as well as swim suit competitions. Talk about wanting to permanently erase some images from all minds exposed to that! Never mind the swimsuits for “scholarship programs,” comfort in a swimsuit in front of peers has never been a breeze.

For instance, the constant primping that teenagers inevitably face before pool parties and meet-ups at the beach. Oh, the agony! (OK, most of the time it is not that bad, but work with me here.)

Being a pudgy child, it may be that discomfort in a bathing suit has been a reality from elementary years. Though by no means enough of one to keep me from the water. This fish loves to swim and explore the shore.

Why all of this talk about uncomfortable bathing suit scenarios? I am getting there.

With writing comes moments of exposure akin to public speaking in a bathing suit.

A recent re-tweet on Twitter summarized “good writing” as follows, “If you don’t spill your heart’s blood on the page, or leave your soul’s echo in the story, they’re only words.”

On trips to the beach I am primarily comfortable in my skin. Everyone is in a swim suit…some needing more fabric than they allotted. Everyone is more exposed. Move this to a pool party among coed believers and up goes the inhibition alert. Especially when it is a kids pool party and I am primarily the only mommy in the pool. Anyone else been there?

The readership of my posts makes me feel the same way. With no Google Analytics or any other stat counter plugins on this blog, I have no idea how many people nor whom is reading my diary so to speak. Unless people I know personally tell me they have read a post then for all I know I am writing to my pals and gals at the beach.

Why would writing for an audience of strangers feel less threatening than writing for an audience of friends, family, and acquaintances?

Much like evangelists in the past who traveled between differing congregations, a blogger without real community readers, those who know him or her and their daily walk, can write virtually without accountability. That is why my insecurity as a writer makes me cringe at times when a friend or acquaintance tells me they read a post. I worry about grammar errors, the quality of the post, was I dogmatic, was I too vulnerable, how did this change their opinion of me?

All of these insecurities are not of the Lord. My purpose in writing is to share. Be it our life, our Lord, or encouragement to run the race with perseverance.

When a friend tells me she read a post,  it also makes me joyful because it provides accountability. Often times real-life readers provide affirmation and spiritual support. Authenticity is a cheap word in many cases today, but true possession of authenticity in speech, life, and writing is worth more than thousands of page hits per post. Thank you to “real-life” readers who help keep me authentic.

I praise the Lord for giving me this word picture while I was at the beach with my kids today. While comfortably wearing my bathing suit in front of strangers He brought this concept full circle. Praise be to His Name, Jesus.

P.S. Don’t worry, I never blog in a bathing suit in real life. Thanks for stopping by. I am linking with Katie and Stacey at:

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My First Valentine

It is not a dozen red roses, heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolates, nor balloons and pink and red cards that I remember as my first Valentine. Rather, a simple heart shaped stamp with an adorable dalmatian puppy affixed on top.

My daddy gave me this precious Valentine many years ago. Perhaps my mother should be credited with this purchase instead, but somehow I remember this being one of the gifts that my daddy purchased for his girls himself.

In the fall, Ron and I were reading Charolette’s Web to Emily and what do I find in the back of the book? My early elementary school signature beside my very favorite stamp from my first memorable valentine.

Phases and stages in the home come and go, but memories are forever stamped on our hearts.

Such a simple and sweet treasure.

I love you mom and dad and thank you for all the love you have given me.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my precious husband, children, and family… and of course, you readers too!

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

1 John 3:11

What do you remember as your first Valentine?

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The Water Ripples and Wrinkles Time

I had not been there in years.

The creek at my father’s birthplace.

A few miles from the house that he and my mother now call home… yet really a world away.

Standing on the slippery, wet rocks took me back to elementary years when trips were more frequent and apprehensions of falling in ran a bit higher. Reminded of the thoughts of long ago that only encompassed myself and held no room for the two that we now call our own.

The water ripples and wrinkles time and this home is temporary.

A few decades back would have found my father and his family here playing and bathing in this same creek; full of water to the brim then. Yet now it finds him the grandfather of three and one on the way.

Present. The present is all that we really have and it is ever fleeting. Yet we choose to run ahead to grayer hair and “the day when,” although I dare say that day will not find me all “caught up” and content unless I choose to abide in the this day.

Our trip to Daddy’s land was a gift on the cusp of the new year, as was visiting with a cousin. Both I will treasure these next twelve months and in years to come.

Linking up with Rachel.

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Of Christmas Without “Them”

I can still hear her voice quiver as each year she gathered her houseful of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren around the table. Just before the blessing, she would recount her love for her family and her thankfulness to God for being alive to share in the celebration of Christmas with those she loved most.

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My great-grandmother was a mother to five, three girls and two rambunctious boys, but known as “Mama” to most. I called her Grandmother Cost. She lived through the depression, along with her husband and children, and her life-long work ethic was a testimony to this.

Each Sunday she would prepare a home-cooked (usually home-grown) meal complete with a made-from-scratch, scrape the plate clean, chocolate cake. For any and all family that would gather to eat after church, Mama’s was the place to congregate.

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Her home would not grace the spreads of any fashionable magazines, but rather was a place of memories made. I can picture in my mind the brown and gold shag carpet and worn linoleum floors. Feel the coolness of rooms long ago filled with laughter and quarreling, that in the later decades remained shut to sustain heat in the main living areas.

It always felt to my childhood mind that the presence of those past memories and people,  namely at that time my great-grandfather I  never knew, roamed about in those rooms, but that is probably attributed to the overactive imagination of a child.

Mama worked her own garden and mowed her own lawn until her death in her mid nineties.  If the Braves or Crimson Tide were playing, you could find her in her matriarchal recliner occasionally arguing with calls made.

Sunday’s you would find her at church.

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My Grandmother Cost knew that her days were numbered, but she did not know the number of her days. That is why with tears and a quivering voice each Christmas before grace was said and thanks was given, she would let her offspring know of her love and appreciation for us all.

When we were ready to eat, we knew that Mama would be making her yearly speech and the room would grow uncomfortable with the thought of not having her presence at the table in subsequent years. They were the words of a woman who loved and was loved and needed to tell you one more time.

As we are entering Christmas week, my thoughts turn to broken hearts that have lost loved ones this year. How they must weep with their loss. I can recount the lives that I know have passed this year. A father, husband, and cop. A daughter, mother, and sister. A friend, co-worker, Papa and dad. These are only three lives who have in someway intersected with mine, but who bring hot tears when I think of their loved ones who miss them so much.

What about us? Who is it that we need to express our love, extend our gratitude, or grace with verbalized (perhaps unsought) forgiveness this Christmas?

This may be the last Christmas… or the beginning of more meaningful friend and family-filled Christmas’ to come.

I would much rather be remembered for a quiver in my sentimental voice than have regrets that I did not say, “I love you, He loves you, and the only real decision that will matter in light of eternity is:

What did we do with Jesus?”

When the coffin is closed, when death has stung, when our time has come, what did we do with the baby born in Bethlehem? The Christ-child turned crucified Savior and finally the risen King of Redeeming Kings?

We may have some regrets as we contemplate the thought of one last Christmas or that last Christmas with the one we loved. Our Father knows that we are but dust-formed lives. He sees, He knows, and He forgives those who ask. I pray for healing in hurting hearts that may read this post. After being a wreck earlier this year, I know even more fully that it is God who numbers our days.

As we joyfully celebrate this blessed season, may we seek restoration in Him and seek to restore others who are hurting and broken over Christmas without them.

If you are reading via e-mail subscription, get out your tissues and click here to watch the accompanying music video by Matthew West.

Raise the Risk Challenge:

  • Say, “I love you, I forgive you, or thank you,” to those whom God speaks on your heart.
  • Write a card or word of encouragement to someone who is spending their Christmas without a dear family member or friend.
  • Help a family in need in spiritual and physical ways this Christmas.
  • Watch this message by my pastor, Dr. Willy Rice.

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Why Santa Doesn’t Deliever Presents to our House

I remember defending his existence in fourth grade, then finding out I was wrong soon thereafter. A man I had never met in the flesh, but looked forward to his coming on December 25th every year.

Santa Claus.

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The good-will ambassador for many girls and boys across the world is truthfully presented as a character along with Charlotte, Wilbur, Rudolph, and any other fictional characters we encounter in the children’s literature in our home.

As far as I know we are the only people in our family who do not teach our children to believe in Santa Claus. We have not been ridiculed for our choices, but I want to lay out my reasons here to prompt your thinking on the matter. Truth is too important to flippantly follow the status quo, and therefore, I want to give you some meaty measures to add to your milk and cookies for Santa this year.

First, there are  attributes we assign to Santa that are only manifested in God: omniscience and omnipotence.

Omniscience, means that one is all-knowing.  The holiday song, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, goes, “He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake.” 

Only God knowns our thoughts and ways, our lying down and waking up.  He judges the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts like no one else can.  Omniscience belongs to God in His triune state alone.

Omnipotence, or unlimited power, is attributed to the man who can fly around the world in one night, fit down chimneys or pass through locked doors, and magically provide your heart’s desire one day every year.

Unlimited power is only found in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Second, and equally important, Christmas is a religious holiday about the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This Christian holiday has been secularized so that it is more palatable to non-Christian’s worldwide. Yes, there is an atheistic movement to quiet or extinguish the celebration, but Christmas is largely a money-making secularized holiday.

We have run the risk of making Christmas more about ourselves than the King born in a manger. A jolly old man bringing us more material presents is not the presence that should be celebrated this time of year.

Please understand that I genuinely love Christmas movies, music, and decorations. You will find me glued to Hallmark on many occasions during the Christmas season. Honestly, one of my favorite creations of my artistic mother is a two foot Santa and Mrs. Claus that she painted in ceramics. However, I have chosen to make Santa a fictional character in limited books and movies for my children so that they will not miss the message of Christmas found in the nativity and Christ-centered books on our shelves.

Growing up, my parents followed the three gift rule like many other parents I know. They gave my sister and I three gifts each Christmas just as the wisemen presented to the Christ-child. (Albeit there could be ten pieces to the “one” gift.)

My mom and I.

However, this post by Ann challenged my perspective on even this practice. Jesus is the gift and the three gifts were given to Him on His birthday not the opposite. What do we give Jesus on His birthday?

That is why we, along with multitudes of others, choose to give to Gospel for Asia, Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child, World Vision, and Compassion International at Christmas and throughout the year. In serving the poor, needy, orphaned, and unreached, we are presenting sacrificial thank offerings to God and His Son, Jesus at the celebration of His birth.

Does this mean that we cannot exchange gifts with others? I would say no. To show our love and appreciation for each other as an extension of the gift of Christ Jesus in our life is a blessed privilege. Must we exchange gifts to celebrate Christmas? Likewise no.

We have had the Kneeling Santa figurine since a Christmas Wedding Shower 10 years ago. As I reflect upon its meaning now,  I am unsettled in my spirit. Yes, Santa is bowed worshiping the New Born King, but this even implies that Santa preceded Christ. The true “Santa” was actually St. Nicholas who lived after Christ and gave to the poor in the name of Jesus.

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The face of the Father of Christmas may indeed be merry and bright, but it is not found at the North Pole. Conversely, He chose the lowly and humble stable to make his glory known. Then brought forth wisemen from across the earth and angels soaring in the sky to announce His coming and celebrate His Son, the gift of Christmas. He brought His Messenger in this way so that the heart of every boy and girl could know the favor of their Creator through Christ the King.

However you choose to celebrate Christmas in your home, I hope that you will submit these practices to God and seek His will. I pray that you will make Christ predominate in your hearts, homes, and heritage this Christmas and each one to come.

Raise the Risk Challenge:

  • Read Ann’s post referenced above here.
  • Consider who the face of Christmas really is in your family and make any necessary changes.
  • Give a gift to Jesus by sponsoring a child locally or either here, here, or here.

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