11.29.06

Carolyn

Posted in Uncategorized on November 29th, 2006 at 1:13 pm by John Dobbs

This is from Al Sturgeon’s Blog post of November 28.

I discreetly pulled out my camera after climbing in my car, turned off the flash, and snapped a picture of Carolyn as she went back to her daily work without her knowing. I did not want her to think she was some sort of display, but after our conversation, I also did not want to forget.

I go to Biloxi every couple of weeks to visit my friend, Hezekiah, in the nursing home. Hezekiah is a disabled black man in his late 60s – disabled both mentally and physically – and Hezekiah is a hoot. He spends his days coloring in magazines and listening to his radio, with occasional interruptions for his harmonica and smoking breaks. He generally cheers me up when I visit, and today was no exception. We talked about Christmas approaching, and he renewed his constant desire for a “jew harp.” I have no idea what he is talking about. Oh, I know what a “Jew’s harp” is – actually bought one once upon a time for Hezekiah, but when he saw it he didn’t have a clue what I had given him. So who knows… In addition, he’s interested in a football this year, too. One he could kick. The nurses will love that…

I also visited with Mr. Flowers on the way in and on the way out. He cheers me up, too. He also sits in a wheelchair, but he has a lot more going on upstairs than Hezekiah. He always wants me to say a prayer for him, something I’m glad to do. Today was no exception.

When I made it back to my car today, there was a lady working hard in the nursing home yard, picking up trash, and piling up pinecones. As is normal for me, I said something to catch her attention – “You’ve got a never-ending job, don’t you?” I said as I began to step into my car. She responded as I put one foot in, and this unleashed a 20-minute conversation in that position.

I learned a lot about Carolyn while I stood there, and I’m glad I did. She walks around with her body a bit hunched and noticeably leaning to one side. This was explained when she informed me that her ex-husband had taken out a lot of life insurance on her and then threw her out of a moving pickup truck. She lost one of her ears on the fall. But she thanks God that she’s alive today. Carolyn has five children, all adults now. They come and visit her every now and then at the nursing home, and she loves them dearly. If she could have one wish, she told me she’d live somewhere where she could see them every day. But she thanks God that she was able to raise them.

Carolyn spends her days picking up trash and pinecones from the front yard of the nursing home. It is a never-ending job, but it is one she takes pride in. Her bedroom window faces this yard, and though Atkinson Road is a popular road for litter it seems, and although the trees continually shed themselves in this yard, it makes her feel so good to be able to clean it up enough to look out each morning and see it looking clean. She thanks God that her health is such that she can spend her day picking up the trash. And what was it again that I have to complain about? I told Carolyn not to work too hard, and she told me she wouldn’t. She was about to take a break for a while, but when I left she took her bucket and went after a few more pieces of trash before sitting for a spell.

Carolyn is quite the metaphor for life I believe. All of us damaged creatures get up to face the world as seen through our bedroom window every morning. And if we could just have the blessing of being able to pick up the trash we see cluttering up our part of the world, and if we could just have enough breath and life to make it through that day, and if we have been able to touch a few lives along the way… Then we have a lot to be thankful for.

11.21.06

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Uncategorized on November 21st, 2006 at 6:21 pm by Dee O'Neil Andrews

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

(Philippians 1:3-6)

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11.16.06

Meet Maryann

Posted in Uncategorized on November 16th, 2006 at 2:21 pm by Bill Williams

by Bll Williams 

Her name is Maryann. I once attended a class in Advanced First-Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, which she presented with reassuring confidence. Her poise was developed over thirty years as an emergency medical services worker, coupled with more than a decade as an EMS instructor. Not only has she saved hundreds of lives, she has also trained thousands of others to save lives. Thus, hers was not a mere academic presentation of procedures. She had first-hand knowledge of what really mattered when life and death were on the line. She captivated our attention.

Something she repeated numerous times has been replaying in my mind. As she reviewed each phase of the CPR skills, Maryann would say in a deliberate and firm voice, “Do something! Anything you do is better than nothing at all. They’re going to die if you don’t do something!” After providing us with a base of knowledge and skills upon which to act, she was urging us to take life-saving action! Since last Tuesday night, when I attended the class, many spiritual applications of this admonition have been running through my mind. Let me share a few.

As Christ’s disciples, we are on a life-saving mission. To be precise, it’s more like a life-giving mission. The terrible tragedy of sin is not just that it is present in the world; but, it is present in every person’s life. According to Ephesians 2:1, each sinful soul is “dead” in “transgressions and sins.” Thus, the urgency is underscored. The spiritual death certificate has been signed. Eternal destiny, though, is yet to be decided. Thankfully, Christ died for our sins once for all—the righteous for the unrighteous—to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). Sinners can be “made alive with Christ” even though they “were dead in transgressions” (Eph. 2:5). Now that’s good news!

Christians have been commissioned by Christ to share this Good News. The base of knowledge from which we are to operate is already in place. For if you know enough to be a Christian, then you know enough to tell another person how to become a Christian. We must not overlook the urgency of the matter at hand. Indeed, if we listen with our hearts, I’m persuaded we can hear Jesus calling out to His present-day squad of rescue workers in a clarion voice, “Do something!”

From the EMS trainer’s point-of-view, the urgency of the admonition to do something decisive stems from experiencing the severe consequence of indecision and inaction. Lives have been lost simply because no one took the initiative. Everyone was thinking that someone was doing something when, in reality, no one was doing anything.

How many times has the curse of indecision and neglect hampered our efforts to rescue the perishing? Have our good intentions and good works been thwarted by analysis paralysis? How many life-giving missions have been missed, while members of the body of Christ debated over methodology and missiology? When a heart attack victim is lying unconscious on the floor in front of us, NOW is the time for decisive action! They are going to die if we don’t do something! When it comes to sharing the Good News, it is time for us to recognize that we are surrounded by a veritable sea of sin-sick souls who desperately need to hear the life-giving Gospel of Christ. We must do something!

One more thing. As I sat listening to Maryann’s expert presentation, scenes from past filled my memory. It was over twenty-six years ago that I first learned CPR. In fact, a quarter of a century ago, while serving as a Hospital Corpsman in the U.S. Navy, I became a paramedic in California. I was even certified to teach CPR to Marines with whom I served. But, I let my credentials expire. So, I needed to be taught again the elementary principles of First-Aid and CPR.

The principle in force is: If you don’t use it, you lose it! In this regard Paul said to Philemon, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ” (Philemon 6). As life-saving skills are kept current through practice, so, also, is our understanding of the Gospel enhanced through the sharing of our faith. Each time we share the Good News we are, in a way, being recertified in the faith in order that we might be prepared, when confronted with an opportunity to share our faith to DO SOMETHING!

By the way, Maryann is a Messianic Jew, who also loves to talk about her Lord, Y’shua.

© Bill Williams
October 27, 2005

Previously posted under the title of "Do Something! Anything Is Better Than Nothing!" at the Spiritual Oasis

11.14.06

Spirit-Control

Posted in Uncategorized on November 14th, 2006 at 12:02 pm by Bobby Valentine

Spirit Control


by Bobby Valentine

In latter part of the 19th century, it was a custom for preachers to open up the floor for comments after they had spoken. Questions could be fielded and clarification sought. Communication was thought to be enhanced.

Such a procedure came with a risk however. There was always the possibility that some person might take advantage of the situation to sound off, take the preacher to task, or push some pet agenda. These facts of risk are likely why the tradition was put to bed.

At the end of one of his sermons, the memorable T. B. Larimore opened the floor for discussion. An angry man jumped to his feet and railed at him on some point in his lesson. He stood and spoke for over a quarter of an hour!

If you had been in Larimore’s place, what might you have done? Knowing how defensive all of us can be, we might have been tempted to respond point for point and try to turn the argument on him. Most of us would not have allowed him to keep the floor for 20 minutes. At the least, we might have responded with “righteous indignation” about such callous behavior.

When the diatribe ended, Larimore spoke. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Does anyone else have something you would like to say?” When no one in the stunned audience offered anything else, he turned back to the gentleman who had maligned him and said, “Sir, would you lead us now in a closing prayer?”

It calls for tremendous self-control … Spirit-control … to take abusive treatment from another without responding in kind. Since self-control is a feature of the fruit of the Spirit, our general inability to withstand provocation surely testifies to the weakness of his presence in our lives (I speak for myself!). The weakness is not with him but relates to our degree of yieldedness to his transforming power.

Because Christ is in us, we do not have to be out-of-control people. We do not have to be victims of our temperaments, desires, or circumstances. We have the potential for Spirit-control in all things.

We are never more tempted to lose control than in the face of personal attack. Jesus knows what it is like. He not only had to bear false accusations throughout his ministry but eventually with blows to his body. Although he could have struck back, he surprised both friend and foe by his restraint.

The ability to turn the other cheek is not weakness but exercise in Spirit-control and Christ-likeness. It is the response only love can generate.

11.07.06

Grace in the Streets of the City

Posted in Uncategorized on November 7th, 2006 at 10:32 am by Ray Fleming

by Ray Fleming

This past weekend, my wife Gale, my son Joe and I traveled to Chicago to celebrate Joe’s tenth birthday.

After a week of indecision and some budgetary wrangling, everything fell together and we left Friday afternoon right after school got out. We drove four hours and then putted through the construction on the Dan Ryan expressway. My son, Joe’s, first view of Chicago was from the west, at night. I know the sight impressed me even though it wasn’t my first viewing and, above it all, I was driving. It is difficult and dangerous to both drive and gawk in Chicago.

We skirted by the city and drove to our hotel out by O’Hare airport.

Next morning, rather than dealing with city traffic and parking hassles, we boarded the Blue Line train at Rosemont to go downtown. According to the clerk at the hotel, we were to get off the train at the Jackson stop. No problem. Then we were to catch a bus on State Street that would take us to the Shedd Aquarium. But the stairs to the street on Jackson were under construction. We needed to emerge from the subway using a different exit. After winding our way through a tunnel—guided by little handwritten cardboard signs with arrows saying “this way”—we found another exit and came up somewhere on Dearborn Street. I was immediately disoriented. All of the information I had gleaned from staring at the map while on the train was completely drained out of my head.

“Where are we?” asked Gale.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s walk this way.”

We started walking—I wasn’t sure where—and came to a street corner. A train screeched by on the “El.” Joe’s head was bent straight back trying to see through the buildings to the sky. Gale held Joe’s hand so tightly—as she mentioned later—that Joe had “claw marks” in his palm. We passed a beggar holding a paper cup half-filled with coins, mostly pennies. He mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear over the noise of the street. I stopped. He looked up and caught my eye. I smiled at him. He smiled, nodded, winked and then turned towards some other people coming down the street. We continued around the corner looking at street signs trying to get our bearings.

I should say at this point that I spent my childhood growing up on Detroit’s east side. Gale grew up on Detroit’s west side. We learned, at a very young age, to be suspicious, cautious because the city was dangerous, and downtown in any city was the locus of danger. We transferred this hermeneutic of suspicion from the streets of Detroit to the streets of Chicago. That there are major differences between the two cities was of little concern.

But are the differences that starkly drawn?

I remember once, a couple of years ago, after taking Joe to a Tiger’s baseball game at Comerica Park, leaving the stadium from a different gate than where we entered. I got turned around, disoriented and started walking, trying to find something that looked familiar. I passed a street corner where a young man approached me and asked, “Is everything all right?” I lied to him and said everything was fine because I didn’t want him to know that I was temporarily lost. I was suspicious and scared and drawing upon all I learned about danger that lurked in darkened street corners on downtown streets. Forget that the young man’s voice was kind. Forget that we were standing in front of a church. Forget that we looked like outsiders—Joe was holding his big foam finger—not used to walking the streets of downtown Detroit at night. I walked a few more blocks, my heart in my throat, and finally found my way back to where I needed to be.

This day in Chicago was a bit different. There were lots of people everywhere. As we walked by the downtown campus of DePaul University and a law school and passed under the elevated train tracks and listened to the noise and confusion and watched the hustle and bustle of people walking briskly to wherever they were going, our pace slowed again. We stopped to look around. And there on that same street corner stood that same beggar we had passed only five minutes earlier.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“State Street,” answered Gale.

He pointed. “It’s just over there, by that light.”

“Thank you,” we said, but he was already arranging his pack, acting as though he would move on.

We walked to State Street and Gale found the bus stop where we waited for the bus that would take us to the museum campus.

It was a little thing, just one point of the hand and a nod of the head. The elapsed time of the interchange was probably less than 30 seconds. He would not remember us, at all, ever. But I will never forget him.

As I sat on the bus I thought that street people know how to live by grace. They live by grace day-in and day-out. We’re no different. I’m sure that the suspicion we were taught as kids was well warranted. The dangers of the streets are real; we read about people every day who are struck down by dangers that well up from the street. But there, in the middle of it, amidst the noise, confusion and suspicion, are people placed and guided by the same spirit, who ask a simple question, point their hand, nod their head, and give the same grace they live to receive.

11.06.06

Sunrise - Sunset; A Spitfire and A Gentle Ben

Posted in Uncategorized on November 6th, 2006 at 12:07 am by Bill Williams

by Bill Williams

 One of my favorite people that I’ve actually never had the privilege to meet is a fellow-blogger named Kathy. I know that some of the readers of Grace Notes have visited her blog: beauangel’s world. If her blog is new to you I hope that you will visit her often. Kathy is a loving, gracious and very wise person. I am certain that you’ll be blessed each time you stop by.

A recent post at beauangel’s world caught my eye. It seemed like something that would fit very well here at Grace Notes. I asked for and received Kathy’s permission to post it here. Please overlook the first couple of sentences. It really isn’t my intention to call attention to my post. Instead, I hope you will be amazed, as I was, by the two precious souls Kathy writes about. They are two people whose lives seem to epitomize the whole idea behind Grace Notes Ministries.

Now, read and enjoy…

— — — — —

 Our dear brother in Him, Bill - wrote a beautiful entry on his blog regarding senior citizen believers - drawing a lovely allegory between them and gorgeous sunsets. That entry prompted the following.

We who are living those sunsets of life also are aware of the sailors’ weather prognostication ditty:

“Red in the morning, sailor - take warning!
But,

Red at night, is a sailor’s delight!”

My only grandparents [paternal] weathered 60+ years of a Sunrise-Sunset marriage.

My grandmother was the red sunrise of impending storms. She had a gargantuan-sized temper and spirit housed in a mirage; appearing 6 feet tall, when in reality she was 4′9". She didn’t give into the sunset time of life until she reached 103 years. At that age, In October 1989 she called her kids and all the grandkids, she could find to make her announcement. [She missed calling most of her great and great-great grandkids]

"I’m going home to Jesus tonight, so wanted to tell you goodbye."

She then bathed, washed her hair, applied makeup, donned her prettiest lacy nightgown and bed jacket, laid down to sleep and went home to Jesus.

As a young bride she "converted" from the Methodist church to the Church of Christ. It was over a century ago, at the very beginning of the baby 20th century. The local Methodists didn’t take to her treason. They tried her for heresy. We have giggled about my sassy grandma being tried for anything. Who would dare do such a thing, braving her famous temper? LOL

She was the only person I’ve ever known that could attack a rocking chair, especially when she propelled herself out of one, seemingly being rocketed up to 10 feet in the air - to land on her feet halfway across the room. It was not unusual for the heavy wooden rocking chair to travel backwards, somersaulting into the opposite corner of the room when she decided to leave its confines.

My grandfather on the other hand, was the serene sunset - never raising his rich, deep bass voice to a living soul, only in praise and prayer to his LORD. I thought he was Santa with his pure white hair, sparkling blue eyes, and little round belly that actually did jiggled like a bowl full of jelly.

He loved his family, especially his grandkids. I was his "Kat". My happiest times were riding with my grandad on his horse-drawn buggy as he made his rounds as the rural postman. He had a car, but didn’t really trust it, preferring the quiet meditative time in the buggy.

My grandad lived the sunset all his life. He was gentle, always arising just before sunrise and sound asleep right at sunset. He attended to their farm animals, the large vegetable gardens, bringing their harvest to my grandmother, who in turn filled their storm cellar with row upon row of her home canned veggies and fruits from their fields, as well as salted meats.

Well, I should say he lived the sunset MOST of his life. One New Year’s Eve I made my traditional call to them to wish them a Happy New Year. It really had always been a call to my grandmother because my grandad would already be asleep. But this night, she was in a full snit.

"That old man in there won’t go to bed. Ever since the television came into this house I don’t have anytime to myself, [meaning no time to have her daily dip of snuff.] :) That old man won’t turn the dern thing off and GO TO BED!"

She always held to the fantasy that my grandad knew nothing of her snuff habit. No matter that he bought it, hid it in her secret hiding place and never said another word about it, and she never questioned the fact her snuff stash never seemed to dwindle. What does that remind us of, I wonder? They were so dear!!

Sunday mornings my grandad was in white shirt and tie, dress pants and fedora. Bible under his arm he’d take off early in the buggy, leaving us to arrive much later in the car. His was a quiet committed love of God and he lived a grace-filled life with seemingly no effort - it was just him - just his way.

His last days on earth were spent in semi-awareness - in almost a walking coma. But to the day of his death, he got up from bed, came to the supper table, and gave thanks to God and my grandmother for the meal. He’d move the food around on his plate, touching his lips with maybe a morsel or two of food. After dessert he’d then fold his napkin, and as was his lifetime habit, he’d reach out to the meat platter, take a sliver of meat, eat it, bow his head again thanking God for the delicious meal and my grandmother for preparing it, then he would return to his bed.

That last day, Fathers’ Day 1960, the doctor called us into his room to say goodbye. My grandmother went to the far side of the bed, took his hand, reached down to his beautiful face and whispered her love for her life partner. He looked at her, half raising his head toward her saying, "I’ve always loved you, Molly!" - laid his head back on the pillow and slipped into the arms of Jesus. In that moment of farewell they seemed to return to their youth. I witnessed a 16-year old bride lovingly kissing her 23-year old groom goodbye. It was one of the most precious moments in my life.

I’ve been so blessed by their example and dedication to their God - Molly and Hub - she a spitfire first generation Dutch, he a hard working, God-loving gentle Ben from Spur, Texas.
My beloved and sorely missed - Sunrise-Sunset grandparents.

— — — — —

Originally posted at: beauangel’s world

11.01.06

Can You be Mistaken for Jesus?

Posted in Uncategorized on November 1st, 2006 at 4:18 pm by Dee O'Neil Andrews

Contributed by Dee Andrews 

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago . They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner.

In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these  salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.

All but one.

He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl,


"Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?"

She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly." As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister….." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes.

She continued, "Are you Jesus?"

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"

Do people mistake you for Jesus? That’s our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working, reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would.

Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church.

It’s actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by
a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill
called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

Let us live like we are worth the price He paid.

Author Unknown