The preacher was doing the Children’s Minute during a church service.

“If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would I get into heaven?” he asked the children.

“NO!” they answered.

“If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would I get into heaven?”

Again the answer was, “NO!”

“Well,” he continued, “Then how can I get into heaven?”

A five-year-old boy suddenly jumped up and shouted, “You gotta be dead!”

You have to admit, the kid had a good point.  Nobody is going to heaven until they’re dead.

Well, the body has to be dead.  Which makes it sound like we’re just sitting around waiting for it to die.

I guess in a way, that’s true.  But there’s so much more to life than waiting for the inevitable.

As a Christian, it is my responsibility to get to know God the best that I can and let Him worry about when my body will die.

This is what I believe:

Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.   2 Corinthians 5:17 (CEV)

New as in fresh, New as in all cleaned up and ready to go.  We’re not who we used to be.  Whatever our condition, morally and/or spiritually, it’s all brand spanking new!

I’ve been a Christian for – let’s see, 61 take away 17 – well, for a long time.  But do you know the really neat thing about it?  It’s still fresh and new. 

Only the Living Word can do that.  I just love it, don’t you?

 

 

 

 

Crushes

I was a TV kid.  I grew up watching what we now consider the classics:  Leave It to Beaver, Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best.  Wow!  Any problem solved in 30 minutes.

And then there were the shows that I would anticipate the most:  Bonanza, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Laramie.  I had a crush on at least one guy every night of the week.  Little Joe made my heart flutter with his dark, curly hair and quick temper.  Dr. Kildare was so earnest in his attempts to be the best doctor he could be.  Ben Casey was the more experienced doctor who cut through all the red tape to do the surgery that would save his patient’s life.  Jess on Laramie was just so darned cute, I really wasn’t paying much attention to the plot.

 

 

There were others, but these have endured in my memory of good times growing up.  I eventually transferred my infatuations to real guys in the real world.  It was exciting to feel transformed by a good case of puppy love.  As adults, we know that these little crushes don’t really go anywhere.  It’s just part of growing up and experiencing a little of what will someday be all out love for another, most of the time someone we want to spend the rest of our lives with.

Jesus wants us to have a crush on him.  He wants us to be excited every time we think of Him.  He wants us to reach out to Him, to be closer to Him, to do whatever it takes to be with Him.

What happens when a crush wears off?  It either turns into an enduring love or it just fizzles away to nothing.  Well, it’s obvious what Christ looks for on this one.  He not only desires love, He is love.  When we reach for our Savior because we love Him, we are fulfilling any need we can possibly have.  When that first excitement of asking Him into our lives wears off, He longs for our steadfast adoration. 

Love can be exciting, long-lasting, durable, fun, satisfying, and tender.  Christ offers us all this and much, much more. 

Do you have a crush on the King?  Do you feel the love for your Savior?  Christ is calling for you.  Can you hear him?

Our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and a good hope. 

                                                                       2 Thessalonians 2:16

 

A Love Letter

This is a love letter that I wrote a couple of months ago.  I hope it inspires you to do the same.

To be read on the down days…

Dear Carol,

I’m sorry you’re feeling down today.  Your energy is down, you ache, everything seems too much.  Easily overwhelmed, feeling worthless, feeling that you’ll never write again, never speak again, never do all the things you’ve been told you have to do to have a ministry.

I’m here to tell you that you are mistaken.  You will be able to write, study, speak to groups, have a wonderful ministry.  I know this because I am you on a good day.

Good days are when you have at least a little energy, enough to write a little, to read and stay focused.  You have good ideas for talks.  You wonder about things, you ponder.  You feel you can handle a talk now and then.

Great days are coming again to you, too.  Those days you have energy to work on your ministry all day, you have great passion for your work.  You see God everywhere!  It’s exciting!

It’s okay to have down days.  The up days are coming, maybe as soon as tomorrow.  But while you’re feeling down, don’t berate yourself.  Try to just rest and know that God is still working, you haven’t disappointed him.  You will be okay.

Don’t beat yourself up.  Please.  When you have the energy, you will do it.  If you have no energy, it’s time to rest.  Don’t worry that you can’t focus to read or write.  Don’t worry that you’re just staring at the TV.  Don’t let the father of lies fill you with remorse and bitterness. 

When you hold off the lies, the light shines through.  Let it through.  You will feel better shortly.  Just rest in God.  You can do it.  I know you can.

Love,

Carol

Yogurt and Gasoline

What does a full tank of gas and yogurt that tastes like Boston Crèam Pie have in common?

They both put a spark in my honey’s eye! 

My Honey

David never, ever liked yogurt until Yoplait came out with wonderful flavors that don’t taste like yogurt at all.  We’re now both hooked on flavors like Apple Turnover, Red Velvet Cake, Cinnamon Roll and Triple Berry Torte.

But when I come in from the grocery store with Boston Cream Pie Yogurt, his smile is extra big.  He knows that I don’t eat that particular flavor, so I bought it just for him.

However, his smile is practically non-existent when he uses my car and finds the gas tank in desperate want.  My idea of needing to fill up is when the little reminder light has been on for a few days.  Definition of the word “few”:  Being more than one but indefinitely small in number.  (It’s the indefinitely part that we argue about).

In my defense, I point out that I don’t drive very far anymore, to which he replies, “You won’t be going anywhere with an empty tank of gas.”  I hate it when he’s right.  So I try to always have at least half a tank to cut down on the disapproving frowns.

These are little things, but I do them because I love David and he loves me.  And he does little things for me, too.  It’s all part of having a relationship with him.

‘Course, relationships are very complex.  Taken by itself, being thoughtful is sort of a small thing.

But that’s what makes it so simple, and that’s what makes it so profound. 

To meet a simple need in the midst of a multifaceted relationship is to touch the other in a very deep place.  It is enormously gratifying to be dear enough to someone who will show the depth of their love by doing this just for you.

And if this is true of connections between human beings, how much greater is it when God Himself meets a simple need of ours?

I just love it when He does that…

What I Know About Marriage

I’ve been married a l-o-o-o-n-g time.  I’ve been married my entire life minus 18 years.

I look back on who I was when David and I got married, and sometimes I laugh out loud remembering the things I thought  and what I said.  I must have been a royal pain in the keester.  I’m surprised anyone from that era will even speak to me today.

Fortunately, I’ve changed quite a bit.  It’s hard to relate Carol at 18 to Carol at 61.  I’m all grown up now; past growing up, really.  I’m entering the elderly department.  New expectations.

The new expectations are from others.  I know I look my age, so there’s no doubt of the phase of life I’m in.  I’m recovering from knee replacement, so I know that I look kinda pathetic taking one stair at a time and being very careful about it. 

One of my biggest fears is falling.  Carol at 18 or even Carol at 55 didn’t have that fear.  It goes with the elderly department, which, in my mind, is always accessed by elevator.

You don’t realize how long hallways can be and how daunting stairs appear until you somehow can’t manage to traverse them.

Growing old means lots of changes.  I wonder how many couples stay together because it’s just not worth the trouble of parting?  I always told David that if we ever got a divorce, he was getting the kids!  We joke that that was the only thing keeping us together, and now we’re staying because of the cats.

When I was 18 and David was 20, we repeated the marriage vows with no comprehension whatsoever of what they meant or how we were going to live them out.

When we reached our 25^th anniversary, we renewed our vows, this time knowing what they meant.

Or at least I thought so.

Seven years ago, my world collapsed.  David was diagnosed with severe congestive heart failure, with the real possibility that his heart would suddenly stop.  He was a workaholic who had retired the year before so he could run a business of lawn care, stump grinding, odd jobs, part-time at a hardware store.  He loved it, being his own boss, doing what he enjoyed. 

But on that day in February 2006, his world collapsed, too.  He had no idea that he had heart problems.  He is blessed in that he has few symptoms.  On paper, he was a wreck, but in person, he looked fine.

So now we find ourselves living with this illness and around this illness and through this illness.  It defines us in many ways.  We have to work around it a lot.  Our dreams have changed and will continue to change as we face each crisis as it comes.

If we renewed our vows now after 42 years of marriage, would I know what they meant?  Would I realize what I was getting myself into?  Would I even bother to voice them if I thought I wasn’t going to follow through and do them?

My answer:  I would know better what they meant, but I wouldn’t believe that I knew them completely.  I was full of pride early on because I thought I was in control.  Even at the 25-year mark, I thought I could manipulate any situation to fit our needs.

That’s almost laugh-out-loud funny.  What a fool I was!  Pride goeth before a fall, and I learned that the hard way.

David and I have stayed together all these years because we love and respect each other, and we have fought hard at times to keep our marriage afloat.  People can’t go through these life altering events without being changed. 

That’s what the vows possess.  Even as we change, it’s their power that stays with us.  God uses that power to sustain us, “us” meaning both, not one at a time, but us together.

So be it for a l-o-o-o-n-g time…

 

How to Happily Camp with 3 Cats

 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.

                                                                                    1st John 4:18

 

My husband and I enjoy camping, and we always take our three cats. 

At first, I was very worried about those cats.  They are indoor cats and have very seldom been outside.  They mainly stay away from the doors at the house because we keep shoo-ing them away.  But what if one got out at a campground, ran away, and we never saw her again?  I would never forgive myself.

After some thought, I decided to use an old but useful apparatus called Mr. Behavior Modification.  It comes in a handy spray bottle filled with water. 

So off we went on our first trip with the cats. 

While we were getting organized after reaching the campsite, I placed Mr. Behavior Modification on the outside step.  Meanwhile, Gracie, Trudie and Satin were fascinated by this new location and sat at the screen door while sniffing the air and watching anything that moved.  

When I approached the door from the outside, I would say “Get back!” and spray a little water in their faces.  They absolutely loathed it and would run to the other end of the camper (which was only 24 feet away!).  It took about twice for each cat to learn to move away from that door when I said the magic words, “Get back!”



One more victory for Mr. Behavior Modification!

Basically, the cats were doing something I didn’t want them to do, so I used fear as a motivation for behavioral change.  Normally they’re not afraid of me, but they learned to be when I punished them.  They developed the fear of a face-full of water if they didn’t get away from that door.  Fear expects punishment. 

It’s the same way with the world.  We all live in fear of all kinds of punishments.  When we’ve said something in anger, we fear a broken relationship.  When we can’t pay the mortgage, we fear homelessness.  When we hear of layoffs, we fear losing our job.

How can love drive all of that away?  How can love help pay the mortgage or keep someone employed?

Because God is love.  So if you substituted God for love in that last paragraph, it would look like this:  How can God drive all of that away?  How can God help pay the mortgage or keep someone employed?

And now that we’ve seen it put that way, it’s a little clearer on how this love thing works.  God takes care of everything in one way or another.  Loving God through times of trouble makes the bond between us stronger. 

God’s love is perfect, but he doesn’t expect that from us.  He does expect us to do the best we can while leaning on His Son.  Keeping our eyes upon Jesus gets us through it.    

Oh, You Shouldn’t Have!

Don’t you just love to get a gift?  I always feel a little greedy as I frantically tear the wrapping off or jerk the tissue paper out of the gift bag.  I never was one to carefully pull the tape off, gingerly unwrap, and then smooth out and keep the wrapping paper.  No, gimme my gift!  Who cares about the paper?

But sometimes it’s hard to take a gift from someone.  If it’s not my birthday or Christmas, why would someone give me a gift?  When I was working at the Clerk’s Office, every once in a while one of my customers would bring me a little something, and it really made my day, week and year!  But I always protested, “Oh, you didn’t have to bring me anything!”  And the customer would be smiling broadly at me because the gift was working its magic of making me feel special.

That’s what we really want, isn’t it?  We want to feel special, we want to be special.  We want to know that someone somewhere is thinking about us, wanting to be with us, praying for us. 

And most of all, we want to be loved.  When we are given a gift just out of the blue, we feel loved.  It feels so good!

Do you know what your spiritual gifts are?  Do you know what your talents are?  Do you know which are spiritual gifts and which are talents?  As Christians, we can get all tangled up in these questions.  We love the Lord and we want to do things for Him out of the joy we have for Him.

There are plenty of books and studies on discovering your gifts and/or talents.  I know people who have taken more than one class on this subject and still are not satisfied that they know the answers.

I think we should forget the questions and just relax.  Why not take everything, gift or talent, and use it for God?  Just assume that whatever it is that you’re good at is from God (because it is) and then use it for God’s glory.

I have said this before and I will say it again and again:  As Christians, we have to be different.  Who cares if it’s a spiritual gift or a talent if it’s used for God?

Anybody can have a talent.  Anybody can do good works.  There are many fine people out there doing just that, but they are not Christians. 

Spiritual gifts come to Christians from the power of the Holy Spirit.  When you’ve done something that satisfies your soul, or something you know is beyond your capabilities, you have tapped into that power.  It’s a glorious thing, and we need to look at it and be aware that we have been used by God. 

Come, Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.          

                                                                       1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)