From aunt Jackie's funeral time

February 7 th   

I don't think it is an accident the voracity of yesterday's storm.  I was sent on a pivot from Aunt Jackies funeral...New focus in the middle of a storm...

I used to sing Immortal Invisible before and during storms of such magnitude.  It was God and my favorite rainy day meditation.  New day was the pivot from such a storm as yesterday when the creek wa higher than I have ever seen it. 

Game on whistle, like no other. These are the days when all that practice comes to bear on your life. Game time..?How so, Lord is my question. But it is so whether I understand or not.

The providence of running across the word find of Ecc. 3 the day before the storm was pivotal.   More to come...

Praise!

Praise to the Lord, the almighty!

How many times have I been in worship and wondered,  what is making these people so happy.  They must have nothing wrong with them.  They must be professional praisers.  I love God and I love praise, but there is some times of my life, when praise is illusive to me.  

Praise to the Lord is a hymn that felt like a dagger of conviction for years as I worked through the grief of my losses in life.  When we lost our infant son and for years after that,  when that hymn came up in the Liturgy I was ready to leave.  I couldn’t cry 10, 15 years after the day and explain it to the people who had looked at me as a spiritual adult.  I am an infant in this portion of my life.  I am thinking too hard about my faith.  Why can’t you just accept God’s providence and stop asking him the questions that plague you so regularly.  Why can’t you just praise him, like your spiritual directors have instructed you.  I did the outward praise and external praise, but when that hymn came up, I couldn’t help but go all to pieces!

The King of Creation…

Almighty, is acceptable to my conscience, but the king of creation?  Catechism question:  God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.  All of creation and there is no thing that happens that wasn’t and isn’t in your control.  I know this in my mind, but when it comes to the things that go against my will, it is normal to recoil from this truth.  Let me tell you had it works in my soul.  I can think in my mind that maybe God missed it, than to think that it was his loving purpose to allow me to suffer through this or that trial.  An unsaved soul could grow to hate a being so powerful, who allows all the things that have happened in history.  I am not talking about all of the things in history, I am talking about the things that he has allowed in my life.  Why? 

It is always delightful to find out that I am not the only person who feels like this.  Many people have asked that question in Scripture, but the hymn writer seemed convinced and fully persuaded to guide us to sing…

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the king of Creation…

Oh my soul praise Him for He is thy help and salvation?

Commanding my personhood to find a praise in every situation of my life, is the only help in every situation.  You are going to be helped by this exercise, whether you know it or not.  This is going to grow your spiritual sinew.  That is why you ought to praise him.

Not only don’t I like to be told to praise Him, when I am in pain, but I would much rather stay swimming in my sadness than grow from this problem.  I become angry, with the hymn writer and angry with God who allowed me to go through this difficulty and then make it this hymn that we would sing.  That is like not wanting to reach your hand up to the helping hand that is going to pull you out of the water and you are drowning.  That is exactly what it is.  I would rather keep my hands at my side and stand on the bottom of the pool than to raise my hand and reach for the help that is right there.  Some griefs take you to that point.  I can’t get up!

Praise to the Lord, the allmighty, the King of Creation, Oh my soul praise him for He is your help and salvation…

He is the only one who can pierce through the crippling effect of unbelief.   Get up!  Get up!  He is the help of your soul!

All Ye who hear, now to his temple draw near, Praise Him in glad adoration!

 

Starting at the "AND can it be"

Thanking God for all his abundant blessings, the things that we see and cannot see, this is where we are in our prayers and once we have said "amen" this is where this hymn begins.

Lord, you have been so good to us in the tangibles and in the intangibles and now let me discuss the things that I have had no part or parcel in the investment.  God is a Lord of sowing and reaping.  I have sown some seeds and I have seen much reaping from these investments, but these are the things that I haven't sown and yet have reaped much bounty from:

I wasn't there when Jesus came to redeem his people and yet "Can it be that I, I should gain from this?"  I have seen your mighty hand set upon us for good in things and have known you as mighty and magnificent in creation and sustenance, but also the interest on those investments, which you have made, do you grant unto me? "An Interest in the Savior's Blood?"

What a magnificent calculation of the amazing worth of all that we possess in Christ.  He is amazing and His wonder is magnificent, but the fact that God, as it were bequeathed him to us, in our condition of being bereft and ignorant?  What a thought!

And can it be that I should gain An int'rest in the Saviour's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

'Tis mystery all! Th'Immortal dies! Who can can explore His strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries To sound the depths of love divine! 'Tis mercy all! let earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more. 'Tis mercy all! let earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father's throne above— So free, so infinite His grace— Humbled Himself in matchless love And bled for Adam's helpless race; 'Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me! 'Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach th'eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own. Bold I approach th'eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

That is So Amazing!

My infirmity finding my voice, in prayer.

June 14 2020,

From your mouth too God’s ears”

The older ladies used to say that in my family. Nobody would ask them what that means.  I wondered and wondered.  That ½ hour session of gossip praying that I referred to in the earlier post seemed to shed some light on that for me.

I felt talked about and I felt loved from that short session of prayer.  I could hear my father in my mind sucking his teeth at how petty women are to consider so many tiny items and I knew that my Father in heaven wasn’t doing that. It was an amazing contrast and an amazing acceptance of the beauty of the feminin observations that make up our womanly prayer life.

If this woman loved me enough to carry, even my smallest requests to the throne of Grace for consideration of the almighty.  God must love us women , more than I had earlier imagined.  Truly, truly, that dear woman loved a good many people to a very small detail of consideration and I was rebuked by my own settled antipathy to consider these small details and think them worthy of God’s consideration.  God made me a woman.  I learned a lot of what that meant that day.  I was reproved and undone and learning that my gossiping tongue could become more efficiently channeled into a prayer posture than a spouter of exaggerated self aggrandizement, either about my gossip or my not entering into the sharing of such things in my self righteousness.  God wants us to come to him with our concerns.  Our Adams might not be able to carry our concerns to the throne.  They may minimize our female observations and think them petty and inconsequential, but not Jesus.  He made us women, The 2 days of baby not pooping and the smell and consistency of the child’s vomit are just some of the things God made us to notice and care about.  We are always using our minds to solve problems.  Tiny problems and big problems.

Stitches in time that save nine are the part and parcel of our prayers and we must carry those to the throne.  There are n infinite number of differences between us and men and God made it so.  He intends us to carry our sisters to the throne of Grace to find mercy and grace to help in the time of need. 

When my heart is overwhelmed…

My heart is often overwhelmed and there is no one to notice the days of my stomach upsets and vomits.  The concerns that used to be spent upon baby’s many infirmities soon turn to my own personal care.  My nerves are spent and there is none to listen to the multitude of small and inconsequential seeming details of life as a person retired from mothering and nursing.  My breasts still ache sometimes when I hear a baby cry. Who can I talk to about these things.  The ladies prayer circle is spent with “real” concerns of people and not the hypochondriacal thoughts of women who spent their last nerves to serve their families and who are now put out to pasture as though that was th most stupid thing that anyone could do.  

God comes near and cares for us in our sense of lack of usefulness in our career choice.  God says can a woman forget her own son?  He certainly doesn’t forget our works and service of care to our children.  Our experience may not be accepted by the workforce as legitimate, but God cares.  He really does and He is coming to our rescue, whether we can find a prayer partner to help us see it or not.  Thank you Jesus!

God's handiwork in the stars?

As we get further and further away from grandmother's handiworks, it makes me afraid that we will lose some of the awe and wonder of God's handiwork. In bygone era's there were women sitting down to watch a program or some other restful activity and their minds and hands were as busy as their feet had been, just moments earlier.  The wonder of their industry was a monument to the development of skills that could be completed by the hands while the mind was engaged in another activity.  It is so hard to develop these skills to the level of mastery that our grandmothers did.  It is a relaxing and conscience clearing thing to sit down to some knitting or crocheting and see some completed or even incompleted project getting done and growing.

The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork .


Perhaps we are unaware of the continued ability of God to show us his wisdom and dexterity in the sky in the daylight and especially at night.
Somewhat like a beautiful quilt and an extravagant embroidery the night sky shows us a beautiful, untouchable skilled designer and handiworker, who in his spare time threw a blanket over us of tremendous extravagance.  How can we imitate him?

Sept 14, 2009 6:30 am Devotional thoughts

Gracious God to begin the weaving process with a young man named Timothy who had believers as mother and grandmother and a Gentile father.  Paul seemed to have him circumcised to prove to everyone the faith of the mother and grandmother, meaning that he had had instruction in godliness from a young age.   He knew the scriptures and was well equipped at a young age to be a teacher.  Paul didn't want any questions about his credentials.  This would be different than those who were brought up as rank gentile cultured people.  The issue wasn't about salvation, but about maturity in the scriptures and the ability to use the scriptures in a godly way and not in an intimidating way.  The other Judeaisers were saying that people needed to be circumcised to be accepted in the beloved.  This was far from the truth.  Paul was acting as this young man's Godfather, so to speak: to attest that his gifts and graces were come by honestly and he truly did have the root of the matter in him.

What an encouragement it is, to meet young men with the root of the matter in place!  Those who have grown up with the training of the scriptures and prayer and the privileges of the grace of God in and upon their homes are truly blessed and a blessing.  It was God's mercy to introduce him to Paul at such a time, I can imagine.  Awesome, how God tempers our encouragements between the discouraging circumstances.  It will be worth it all when we see Jesus, Lord, but in the meantime, I would like to see some fruit.  A young godly man can give you a picture of what you are trying to rear in the young people that you preach to.  This seems to be what Timothy was to Paul.  The picture of the promise of the gospel going to the ends of the earth.  He wouldn't live to see all of his spiritual progenitors to maturity, but God gave him a token of blessing to spend some time with.

I pray for the young people whose privilege it is to know the Lord and the grace of God at an early age.  The privilege of having it as a tool in the house and the privilege of having tasted of the goodness of the Lord in daily living is something to rejoice in.  It is an unspeakable treasure.  It is the greatest gift from God is the gift of His presence in your life from your earliest thought.  May these children not take it for granted.  May they not be puffed up in pride for the privileges. May they be humbled and gracious and grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord.  Help them to know that they can never use up the graces and the knowledge of God.  They need not ignore it because of its familiarity, but grow in it.   I think that another element of Jesus growing in the grace and knowledge of God was that He, in His earthly body did not take for granted the relationship with God, but grew and was seeking God regularly.   Sometimes we say, I know you God, I don't need to know anymore about you.  Jesus showed us that for eternity, we will be continuing to do just that, getting to know God, who is infinite.  

The beauty of the human frame is that it is eternally lower than God and could seek and seek and continue knowing him and never attain to God, that is something the Angels do not have.  They have a knowledge of God that is consistent and glowing and not sought or reached for.  We have longings which must continually be reigned into bring to the conformity to Christ.  Just as soon as we know Him in this or that area of life, we are dusting ourselves off to see another area that needs His grace and needs to seek His face to know where He is in there.  It is like getting to know Him all over again in another area.  God grant our young people eyes to see that You are blessing them with the knowledge of Yourself.  Give us those young Timothys who will be an example of godliness at a young age and continue to seek Him through the vicitudes.  God,  I pray for those young men that were young and gifted when we were young and pray for fortitude and strength in going through these hard older days.  Plant their feet in your word Lord, use them for your glory and do not allow them to make shipwreck of their souls or their testimonies, either by the sin of pride and presumption or the sin of gross misteps.  Hold them fast, Lord and make them examples of the humble Savior to the young people.  Bring us to the unity of the faith, bring us to know You and be directed by You. 

Please, don't give us up to our own misgivings and the deceptions of the enemy of our souls.   When the devil accuses the brethren, in our ears and in our minds, raise up a standard against him.  When the enemy of our souls seeks to use our love for oneanother for sordid purposes, raise up a standard against him.  Help us, indeed to live in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and to provoke one another to love and to good works.  Help us to comfort one another in our distresses and to encourage one another in our most holy faith.  Give us the energy and the boldness to live in community with eachother with love unfeigned.  Help us, of this mesh of intercultural conditions that we have inherited, to truly respect one anothers' cultural differences and love eachother, provoking eachother to love and good works.  When there are those going through the griefs that will and do come, help us to be sympathetic and compassionate to one another and not to compound the grief by our course insensitivity.  Give us this in our local assemblies and give us this in our interchurch fellowships.  

I pray for Trinity and the ministry of Pastor Chanski, bless his transparent and humble attitude with the flock.  Help them not to run ripshod over him because his hand is not as unyielding as they have known in times past.  Help them to learn the beauty of obeying and being guided as with Your eye and not just with eyeservice.  Use this man to grow up a generation of humble and submissive people of God.  Bless Grace in Long Island and Pastor Doug strengthen his hand in the work and give him help and hope for the next generation.  Bless Pastor Loran and the Central Church to be a beacon for the next generation and to truly preach the truth of God over the airwaves.  Raise up men who can and will be the gentle shepherds and not idols or icons.  Bless the Pastors in Michigan, Pastor Nichols and Pastor Chanski, minister to the elderly people there and raise up the next generation to love and fear you.Bless Bishop and the people at Bethel, build community and hope there, as well. Halleluia to You Lord that You said that You will build Your church and that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.  We need You Lord.

Ecclesiastes?

I was in a wonder of the sticking power of God's Word. 
Aunt Jackie's reading was Ecclesiastes 3...

The beauty of the next generation reading that beautiful passage and the beauty of the realness that Aunt Jackie fleshed that passage out to us. Isn't there a time for everything?, her life seemed to say.

The clouds came down and embraced us on the way to NY for that trip.  A complete rainbow was over us as we entered Jersey.  There she is, there is Aunt Jackie helping design the NY sky so that it can compete with the NC.  We couldn't have a lesser sky design than any other state.  She seemed to be right there. There was a cloud that looked like a chair that was dark on the under side and bright and rainbow colored on the top of it.  That was the seat I chose to represent Aunt Jackie's chair around the table that Uncle shows me so regularly.

I didn't wail like I have at other times coming and going from the greatest city in the world and my hometown and Aunt Jackie being gone on ahead of us.  All of this couldn' catch me, I thought if I wizzed in and wizzed out.  My emotions are on the clock.
Getting a bag of bagels was a comfort.  Standing on Union Tpke at the bus stop was a comfort.  Why did I walk home so much?  Why didn't I take the bus?  Why are the bagels so delicious?

All these questions took my mind off my cry.

Days later I was at work and decided to carry my Bible Word Find Book.  Providentially I was at Ecclesiastes 3 on my word find.  Oh Dear God, do you want me to cry at missing Aunt Jackie at work?  You can handle it, he said.  I did.  It was a study that I had never done before.  15 couplets of things to do between the 1st couplet and the 15th there were 14 other things to do before you get to thing number 30: a time to die.  Have I done them all?  I asked myself.  Some are easy planting, reaping, embracing and refraining from embracing and some are very hard, like number 30 which is a perseverating contemplation of mine.  It is March and I am Marching for Jesus and for the completion of my 30 things and honoring the memory of a wonderful example of doing the things in time.  She changed my song for the storms and she changed all of our lives and God showed me many things through her life. 

I will continue to meditate on Ecc. 3 for a long time because of the beauty of the granddaughter carrying her Great Grandma's legacy to the altar...