Blessings, 1, 2, 3....

I sat this morning and just spent a few moments contemplating and lingering on the magnificent number of God’s blessings! From the most awesome blessing – that He would send His Son to be the propitiation for MY sins – to the tiniest blessing, He has truly blessed my life. While I was sitting there, the words of a song I learned as a child came to me.

Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
Count your blessings! Name them one by one!
Count your many blessings, see what God has done!

If you’ll forgive my recent indulgence in song lyrics, I just was amazed at how powerful an exercise it is to actually sit down and list out your blessings! We, as Americans, are so blessed that we lose track of just how many blessings we have until we start listing them out. As we list the obvious, the more obscure will pop to mind. Listing those lengthens the list even further! I ran out of time way before I ran out of things to list! Even the simplest of blessings can provide food for thought and cause me to sit in awesome wonder!

For example, consider dirt. Dirt is the bane of our existence in our nice big, shiny American homes. But think of this. Without the microbes in dirt, the garbage would never break down into its nutrient components, could not fertilize more dirt, and the dirt couldn’t grow plants that become your salad with dinner. Without sand there would be no glass. Without the ore buried deep in and mingled with dirt, there’d be no iron, copper, silver or gold. Without dirt, there’d be no trees to shade us or to hold water from washing it all away or to produce the oxygen we need to breathe! Plain ol’ DIRT!

I found that our amazing God has thought of everything! And He’s even thought up a mess o’ stuff that we humans have yet to even discover. As another song says:

Our God is an awesome God,
He reigns from Heaven above,
With wisdom, power and love
Our God is an awesome God!

Amazing!!!

From the Mouths of Babes

Today my oldest son repeated a quote that he'd heard from a friend he attends church with in Washington state. She said, "Try telling your worries how big your God is, instead of the other way around."

Isn't it strange when your kids get smarter than you are?!

I've found that focusing on the awesome power and majesty of God can be a cure for so many of my worries. He is to be magnified!

During our offering today, we sang a song that we do a lot:

I will celebrate! Sing unto the Lord! I will sing to Him a new song!
I will celebrate! Sing unto the Lord! I will sing to Him a new song!

I will praise Him!
I will sing to Him a new song!
I will praise Him!
I will sing to Him a new song!

Jehovah Jireh, my provider, His grace is sufficient for me, for me, for me!
Jehovah Jireh, my provider, His grace is sufficient for me!

My God shall supply all my needs,
According to His riches and glory,
He shall give His angels charge over me,
Jehovah Jireh cares for me, for me, for me,
Jehovah Jireh cares fore me!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Allelu-Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Allelu-Alleluia!

We frequently change the order of the verses, repeating some more than once, changing the tempo, etc. but it all comes out as PRAISE!! When I'm at my lowest, I need to praise Him and magnify His name and reflect on His glory. If I do that, I leave my worries where they belong -- in His capable and strong hands!

Pretty incredible when one of your own kids reminds you how important that is!

Suicide!

This will just be a brief prayer request. In recent posts I have mentioned my youngest son who is not yet saved. Yesterday, his friend's family had to make the decision to disconnect the machines that had been keeping their daughter 'alive' since Sunday. They found her that morning unconscious and not breathing on her bedroom floor. They rushed her to the hospital but despite all the medical efforts, she was declared brain dead yesterday morning. The cause? An overdose of oxycodone, crushed and snorted. No one knows if she intended to die or simply get high, but the end result is that a lot of people are searching for answers where there are none to be found. Pray that somehow, my son will see God's sovereign hand even in this tragedy, because right now he can't. He sees only the big question, "If God loves us so much, why did He let my friend be so disillusioned with reality that she felt she had to get high, or worse, want to die?" As a mother, I just don't know what to say to this or what answers to give him that won't sound trite or overly simplistic. I have enough faith in His purposes to know that He has one, even if I can't see it right now. My son doesn't. Pray that the right words will spill from my mouth somehow and that God will be glorified even at this horrific moment in time.

Cobwebs!

I have come to really enjoy blogging! I really love hearing the opinions of other Christian brothers and sisters, and I truly enjoy when one of you finds what I've written interesting enough to add your comments! But I may have to take a break for a while or at least until I manage to sweep the cobwebs out of my brain. You see, this old lady has started work on a master's degree and the brain just doesn't soak up information like it used to. Further, I am required to take some liberal arts classes which may have made sense when I was very young, but now, from my "more mature" perspective, seem almost silly! So many things I have had to read my brain notates with, "Du-uh! If people would just read their Bibles, they'd know that!" It's in the liberal, "free-thinking" environment of a college that I realize just what crazy dance the secular world has to do to instill morality without mentioning God! From my textbook: "Ethics author Mary E. Guy defines ethics as 'that behavior which is the right thing to do, given the circumstances.' " How is a kid that's got no basis in the Creator of all things supposed to know what's right in ANY circumstance? The text plods through countless examples of what might be right or wrong in a variety of "case studies", but it's all situational. No where is there any reference to absolute truth or to scriptural guidelines that could give kids a foundation.

So, as I have to make my way through all this 'stuff' I respectfully request that you all pray for me. I just want to get through these core credits so I can move on to the ones that directly pertain to my major. I hope to be able to blog occasionally, but I think it will be sporadic at best. I will continue to read and comment when I can, and I hope sooner than later, I will be able to post something a tad more upbeat!

Blessings to all until then!!

Godless

I never completely agree with any commentator on today's society, but today's explanation by the author herself of the premise of her book, "Godless" by Ann Coulter made me think, and isn't that the best thing that any commentator can do? Unfortunately, if we do think and then attempt to express those thoughts we may be chastised for being unfeeling or insensitive. Somehow, being a thinking person is supposed to preclude the practice of Christianity. While at the same time we are told that we have free speech in America and freedom of religion, we are persecuted for expressing even the simplest of our Christian tenets. For example, if I say that I believe homosexual behavior is sinful, I am branded as intolerant. Worse, in this Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am expected to accept homosexual marriage! I'm not going to preach in this forum. I don't aspire to that profession in any capacity. But just for giggles, read Ann Coulter's column at http://www.anncoulter.com/welcome.html and let me know what you think.

Graduation Day

I attended my daughter’s high school graduation last weekend. All the kids looked shiny and polished, adorned with caps and gowns and tassels that denoted their membership in the National Honor Society. Each one was smiling from ear to ear, quivering with nerves and anticipation. This was the moment they’d been working for, for the better part of their young lives. Now they would enter a brand new chapter, full of new promise and adventure.

But it was the brief remarks of one of the class officers, read in a stammering, almost whisper, that stuck with me. She said that all their “do-overs” were done. There were no more chances to make up a test, replay a badly lost football game or bring that grade up to a ‘B’. She admonished the graduates to be mindful of the time, that the summer was short, and that if they had unfinished business with their high school friends and sweethearts, they should do what needed to be done or say what needed to be said, without delay and procrastination. Friends would leave for college or the military or would marry or take a job far away and contacts would be lost and connections would be broken. All too soon, their closest friends would be relegated to the Christmas card list.

I was impressed by the wisdom of this “child”. With only 18 years of experience, she had learned a lesson that some of us never learn. Procrastination is the killer of promises. Good intentions are the killers of souls! The time is so short! How often do we justify a wasted day by saying to ourselves, “Well it isn’t so bad that I didn’t get to this today because I did more than ________.” (You may fill in the blank with whatever name you wish.) But that is not the question that we should be asking ourselves. Even in this society of moral relativism, it is not whether we outperformed someone else but the proper question is, “Did I do the best I could today with all that God has given me toward the goal that He has set before me?” If I could honestly answer that question in the affirmative at the end of each day, I would be a very tired but very contented person.

The sad truth is, though, that I go to bed many nights and toss and turn wondering why I can’t seem to get a handle on some area of my life. Then that area will preoccupy my thoughts and rob me of sleep until the night is gone. The next day, fatigue robs me of all productivity and the cycle starts again. If we could only break our lives down into neat little projects that we could successfully tackle sequentially, finish, and then move on. I have found, though that life doesn’t move like that. Just about the time you’re making inroads into that project you’ve been putting off, that will be the time that you forget that you put the water on for tea and boil all the water out of the kettle, or the cat will throw up on the rug, or the dog will tip over the trash! These are the times when the mundane pulls you away from the meaningful and it is only with determination and drive that we return to the task at hand. All too often, I’ve re-bagged the trash and never returned to the project that should be commanding my attention.

And so, I left the graduation a bit envious of those “new adults” who still had one more summer of fun and minimal responsibility. They are still free to lean on Mom and Dad for their room and board while they tackle the important task of welding connections and firming up meaningful contacts. They are still able to enjoy a last bit of fun without the pressures of the everyday mundane to steal that joy away. May God bless this class of 2006 and teach them the lesson that their speaker put so simply, “time is short”. And may He teach us ALL this important lesson!