Visiting Cousins

Several years ago my husband Bud and I were shelter parents in Howell to abused, neglected and delinquent teenagers. Eventually we took 280 kids into our home. You can probably figure out that number means they did not stay for a long, long time. We were suppose to determine what the next step of their journey would be. We loved everyone of them. Over the years i have lost track of many of them and that makes me very sad. I pray for all of them almost every night, I have their names written in my notebook, column after column. Now that I am 77 years old, i think of all of them often and wonder where they went, what happened. A small bunch of the kids adopted us and have stayed close. Many, many of them have fallen through the cracks. Some have died, but it would be my joy to see them or hear from them again. They have all changed and I probably wouldn't recognize them now. Twenty five years can make a big difference.If any of you are still around and read my blog, know that i would love to talk to you, give you a hug or get a call. Please forgive me if i don't recognize you, small pieces have been falling out of my mind and I am a cancer patient.

Love and Prayers, Mom

Anxious?

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God and the peace of God that passes comprehension shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:6&7

Be anxious for nothing is not a suggestion in this verse; it is a command. If we let anxiety rule over us it has become a small, dark god which destroys the peace God intends for us to have. Worry takes us out of the hand of God and places us in the trembling hand of our own ability. Our tormenting fears should be brought out of the shadows and dubbed what they are: sin.

If our heart becomes obsessed with fear the beacon God has intended us to be dims. It is up to us to decide if we will trust God in this trying moment. Either we trust God or let our potential dissolve in the acid of fear.

Our worry makes the sad statement to the world around us that we do not trust God’s love for us. Our statement should be, “I know God will never leave or forsake me.”

Good Material

All things work together for good - -Rom.8:28

Most of us would never start to construct anything with faulty material, yet in His dealings with man faulty material is all he has with which to work. Not one of us is perfect.

God is to be praised for He has made provision for our mistakes and imperfections. He, the great Creator says, “all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purposes.”

Our blunders and our disobedience are rightly held up to the spiritual law, “You reap what you sow”, yet there is always the greater power of God’s creativity at work. He does not need a good piece of material in order to create something good. He uses our failures as tools to teach us. Sometimes failure is the very chisel He uses to sculpt us into His likeness.

Satan is continually frustrated by this marvelous power of God. The evil one has done his worst, yet still God raises us up victory.

We are more than conquerors through Christ who gives us strength.

Just A Minute- -by Barbara Bekkering

The Unknown Soldier

My grandfather was a gentle, kind hearted man. I remember him most for his patience with us, his tag-along grandchildren. Due to failing health his duties on the farm consisted of errand running and occasional baby sitting. Often he would pack a couple of us into the car with him when he drove to Howell or Pinckney to pick up binder twine, chicken feed or whatever else was need on the farm when the rest of the family who were too busy to leave their work. Those rides were pure joy, for he sing along with us, teaching us old songs all the way. Often the trip meant we might be treated to a piece of candy- -just one. I think that may have been where I developed my sweet tooth, as just one was never enough. Grandpa always had a stash of candy somewhere, pink winter green tablets, horehound drops of licorice, but always just one piece.

Another place we tagged along was to the little graveyard up the road from the farm. His father had donated the plot of land to the township for the cemetery and the little white church that stood beside it. It fell to grandpa to keep it neat, well raked and mowed, to dig the occasional grave when a neighbor died and to place flags on the graves of the veterans before Memorial Day each year.

Placing the flags became a yearly ritual for us. Grandpa considered this ceremony to be a serious and sacred obligation. If we wanted to be a part of this ceremony we were expected to walk quietly, single file and solemnly behind him. The ritual ended with a trek down to the far corner of the cemetery where the old flower and broken flower pots were heaped in disarray. There was placed the grave of the unknown soldier.

Each time grandpa affixed the flag the bright new flag to the small tombstone, he became teary.

“Just think,” grandpa would say with tear filled eyes, “This young man’s body was returned to the township after he died for us in the big war, but no one knew who he was. Some mother never knew her son died, and must be wondering what ever happened to him.”

By this time we too would have become sufficiently saddened and the tears flowed.

Grandpa would continue, “We will be his family today and mourn for him.”

So there we’d stand, grandpa and the two or three of us who were with him that day, all soberly remembering the young man who died in the war with no one to mourn for him. Grandpa would say a prayer and then we’d all raise our voices in the mournful hymn, Battle Hymn of the Republic., - - -Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…

It is a grand memory of our childhood with a sweet old man who may have seemed strange to the world, but to us brought only kindness and a sense of compassion that molded and shaped us for life.

I went back to that lonely grave site this year and wondered why had the unknown soldier’s grave been place there in the far corner of the cemetery?

Grandpa's Church

It was unlocked, unused, with the appearance of abandonment after years of emptiness, but it was my grandfather’s church. He was the only one who opened its creaky doors to worship, pray or sing there in his old man’s gravely voice, some times with tears streaming down his cheeks. The old church was about a quarter of a mile up the dusty gravel road from our farm, and Grandpa would trudge up the road with three of us, Rosie, Janie and me, Barbie, his granddaughters trailing after him. It was a solemn little parade. I suppose we could have been a bother to him, but Grandpa considered it an honor. It was his joy to take us to church with him. We usually went at sun set and as we entered Grandpa’s hallowed ground he would remind us in deep reverence, “A church is not dead if it has only one worshiper. This is God’s house, and He is here with us. We will show respect.”
We obediently sat on the dusty pews and listened to the golden quietness as grandpa
read the Bible and prayed . Rosie, my older sister by fife-teen months, learned how to play the old pump organ. It wheezed out as much dust as it did music, but by its fragile notes grandpa patiently taught us the ancient hymns of his youth. We sang with all our hearts. Sometimes I think the angelss sang with us.
The sermon could be a few words of Grandpa’s, but often he would urge us on. “Stand up front girls and tell us about Jesus. One by one we would say our very few words, but they were just right Grandpa would say.
Grandpa was right. God was there in that wonderful old church. There in the witness of an old man’s faith, three little girls met Jesus.
There must have been a sad story concerning the empty church, but I never asked. I was only seven. I have been told that the small piece of land it occupied along with the cemetery next to it had been donated to the church by my great grandfather.
Now, some seventy years later, the little church has been painted and a small congregation worships there faithfully every week.
Grandpa would like that

May I Introduce Myself? I'm nearly seventy-seven years old, How I ever got this old mystifies me! I know the person that lives inside my body is only about forty years old, and feels great.

My Blog is a combination of several things, a journal, a history lesson for my family, right down to my two week old great grandson, and a place to publish my lessons learned from God. These short devotions can each be read in a minute, so I have entitled them,"Just A Minute"

A City On A Hill

A City on a Hill

You are the light of the world. A City on a hill cannot be hid. Mt. 5:14

Our lives should be a billboard proclaiming,
“Jesus is alive!
Come drink at the well that never runs dry.”
Sadly, our life’s billboard to the world is often blank.
We say “Yea!” to the pastors and missionaries.
We attend church and put money in the plate.
But we have no personal mission.
It is not just the brave missionaries who are planted far away,
Or our pastors who have dedicated their lives to serve,
We each have a personal mission.
It is here, the place where we stand at this moment.
Our mission field is important to God’s plan.
It requires bravery, courage, boldness and dedication.
This is the spot where we are to reveal Jesus to a troubled world.
Is our life a billboard for Christ,
Or is it a tightly sealed envelope?
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works,
And glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Mat. 5:14