Author Archives: Barbara Harper

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About Barbara Harper

https://barbarah.wordpress.com

Legacy of an Adopted Child

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November is National Adoption Month, so I’d like to take at least a couple of posts to highlight adoption. Today I want to share a poem that touched my heart, and later I want to highlight how adoption has impacted our family.

I first saw this in a Dear Abby column some years ago, cut it out — and just found it again last week.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women who never knew each other,
One you do not remember — the other you call Mother.

Two different lives shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star — the other became your sun.

The first gave you life and the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love and the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality; the other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent; the other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions; The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile; the other dried your tears.

One gave you up – It was all that she could do.
The other prayed for a child and God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me through your tears the age old question through the years:
Heredity or Environment – Which are you the product of?

Neither my darling, neither –
Just two different kinds of love.

~ Author Unknown

I’m not naive enough to think that all children placed for adoption are given in love: I have known people who adopted or were foster parents to children from abusive situations. But even then, the gift of life, allowing that child a chance to live in a loving family, to grow up, experience life, and become a productive adult, is always a better answer than abortion.

Thank You to All Our Veterans

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The following has been attributed to Reverend Denis Edward O’Brian, but he says the author is unknown. I originally received it via the Good Clean Fun mailing list of Tom Ellsworth.

WHAT IS A VETERAN?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them, a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

A vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

A vet is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is overshadowed by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th Parallel.

A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back at all.

A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

A vet is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

A vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

A vet is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, “Thank You.” That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Those two little words mean a lot … “THANK YOU”.

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Satisfied and thirsty

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“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show my Thy glory, I pray Thee, that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me the grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Friday’s Fave Five

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Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

We had a super-busy weekend, but thankfully the last few days have been a little more restful. Here are some favorites since last Friday:

1. Having a get-together to get to know some folks better. We didn’t sign up for our church’s Dinner For Six this session as Jim was traveling quite a lot in October and it’s hard to fit it in around the holidays. But we did have some couples over last Sunday night after church and had an enjoyable time.

2. Lots of goodies. I thought I had seen the idea for mini pumpkin bundt cakes on Pinterest, but couldn’t find it just now. I did see big cakes done like this there, though. But they also had these in Family Circle magazine this month. Here is how mine turned out for our get-together:

Jim thought one looked a little angry. 🙂

I used my Harvest Loaf cake recipe in mini bundt pans with cinnamon sticks and pretzels as stems.

We had lots of goodies — homemade caramel corn, Choco Peanut Butter Dreams, barbecue meatballs, sandwiches, cheese and crackers from a guest, and Mittu made some great homemade tortilla chips and spinach dip. We’ve been enjoying leftovers all week even after sending a few things to my oldest son and giving some away to our guests.

3. Unexpected help. Some time ago I made a master cleaning list for when company came (not that I don’t do those things when company isn’t coming — I just don’t get them all done at the same time normally). My list was out on the counter when I went to the store: Jim saw it and started working on the things I hadn’t checked off yet. He’s a keeper. 🙂

4. A dinner made by someone else. Mittu offered to make dinner the next day after our get-together, and I gladly accepted. It was nice to have a night off from the kitchen. She made a couple of great cheeseburger pies.

5. Winning a give-away! I won Courting Cate from Leslie Gould during the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt a couple of weeks ago and received it this week. I’ve never read Leslie’s books before and I am looking forward to trying this one out.

Happy Friday!

Book Review: Wildflowers of Terezin

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Steffen Petersen pastors a Lutheran church in 1943 Denmark. He likes safety and predictability and thinks if everyone just lays low and cooperates with the German occupiers, everything will blow over soon.

A bicycle accident lands him in the hospital under the care of Jewish nurse Hanne Abrahamsen who mistakenly thinks he is part of the Danish resistance movement and protects him from the questions of a German officer. Steffen’s brother is a part of the Resistance and comes to take his brother out of the hospital. They have many arguments about the right way to respond to the troubles in their country.

But when Steffen comes face to face with the need to smuggle Jewish citizens out of the country before the Germans whisk them off to camps or worse, he cannot help but aid them.

Hanne is instrumental in aiding them as well but stays behind to help at the hospital. But with an ambitious German officer in charge in the town, can Hanne remain undetected, and can Steffen help her if she is captured?

I first came across Wildflowers of Terezin by Robert Elmer when the Kindle version came up for free. I’ve often said that those free Kindle app books are a great way to try new authors, and this is one case when reading one book through that route led me to exploring the author’s other books and wanting to put many of them on my wish list.

I liked many aspects of this book. I’ve read many WWII-era novels and biographies, but never one set in Denmark as this one is. That added a fresh perspective. The author shares at the end that many of the details and incidents are based on real-life happenings. There is humor sprinkled throughout which counterbalances the grimness of the circumstances. The deepening relationship between Hanne and Steffen, her growing attraction to his Savior, their individual personal growth, the new vibrancy that comes into his own life and ministry, are all unfolded and blended very nicely. There is a sweetness to all of it amidst the danger — not saccharin, not overly done, but the same effect as….finding lovely wildflowers in a prison camp.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Thoughts about the election

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After yesterday’s election, of course several thoughts are floating around my mind. I had another post planned for today but decided I’d pin some of these thoughts down.

1. Though I am disappointed in the presidential election results, “the powers that be are ordained of God” ~ Romans 1:13b. “[God] changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings” ~Daniel 2:21. If that is true for kings, I am sure it is true for other leaders. For reasons only He knows, He has allowed this administration to continue for another term. That doesn’t mean He approves of everything it does.

2. I think conservative Christians are more watchful and prayerful when someone is voted in with whom we have strong disagreements. When someone is voted in whose views are more in line with ours, we tend to sit back and relax.

3. Though I disagree with many of the president’s views and policies, I am instructed to be subject to him (unless his requirements violate Scripture) and to pray for him. These instructions were written while under a leadership much worse than anything we have ever seen in this country.

4. As I mentioned yesterday, government cannot change a human heart. Only God can do that. Many of the underlying issues affecting governmental policy (and the choices people make to vote for such policies) are a matter of heart. We need to be about the Father’s business of trying to lovingly lead people to Him and disciple them by teaching His Word.

5. The talking heads analyzing the election last night made the point that for conservatives to win office, they need to be more “electable,” and that would mean compromise. Compromise can be a good thing in some instances, a  bad thing in others. The type of compromises they are talking about are probably going to be the ones conservative Christians would be most opposed to. The fact that there are more people voting for those policies than against them, and the pressure will be on to compromise in those areas, highlights even more the need for us to be the salt and light we should be.

6. Government cannot meet all my needs or take care of all my responsibilities.

I do have some different posts planned: November is National Adoption Month, and I have at least a couple in relation to that, and I’ve finished some books I want to discuss. I’m looking forward to moving on and sharing some of these things in the days ahead.

Praying and voting

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Our ultimate hope and need is not in a certain political leader. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9).

Ultimately the only hope for change in a country is in change in the human heart, and that can only be effected by God, not government.

But though our hope is not in leaders, God uses them to accomplish His purposes. We have in this country the privilege of voting for our leaders. Not every country in every time has been able to do this, and I don’t see how we can take this responsibility lightly or ignore it. Neither candidate is my ideal choice, but one clearly edges out the other in the issues of highest importance to me.

So I urge folks to vote their conscience as well as to pray for our country, its leaders, and its people.

Here are a few other thoughts on the election, more thorough and eloquent than mine:

Thinking about the election from a Biblical point of view.

Conscience, Christ, and the ballot box.

Election.

Notes on the election for believers.

A Prayer for America on Election Day. (Mohler)

I am going to vote (Piper).

A prayer for the election (Piper).

Wanting our own way

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I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had once done a study on what the Bible has to say about wanting our own way, looking up phrases like “own way,” “own thoughts,” “own heart” etc. I thought I’d share the results with you:

  • Judges 17:6b Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
  • II Kings 17:33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods.
  • Prov. 14:14a The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways
  • Prov. 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.
  • Isa. 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
  • Isa. 65:2   I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
  • Isaiah 66:3   Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
  • Jeremiah 18:12   And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
  • Ezekiel 13:2   Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD…
  • Ezekiel 16:15a   But thou didst trust in thine own beauty…
  • Mark 7:9   And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
  • Romans 10:3   For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
  • Romans 16:18   For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly
  • Philippians 2:21   For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.
  • II Timothy 3:2b   For men shall be lovers of their own selves
  • Jude 1:16   These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

Results:

  • Proverbs 25:28 He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.
  • Psalm 22:29 None can keep alive his own soul.
  • Psalm 81:12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
  • Proverbs 1:31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
  • Ezekiel 11:21b I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.
  • Ezekiel 36:31   Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
  • Romans 1:24   Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

Remember:

  • I  Corinthians  6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
  • Psalm 44:3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.
  • Proverbs 25:27b   For men to search their own glory is not glory.

Remedy:

  • I Samuel 15:17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
  • Proverbs  3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
  • Proverbs  3:7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
  • Proverbs 12:15b The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
  • Matthew 7:5a   Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye…
  • I Corinthians 10:33   Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
  • I Corinthians 13:5   [Love] doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil….
  • II Corinthians 8:5   And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
  • Philippians 3:9   And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

 

The Captain of My Fate

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Some years ago during the brief four years we taught at home, our curriculum contrasted two poems. The first was “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The second poem is obviously a response to the first: “Conquered By Christ” by Dorothea Day:

Out of the light that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be,
For Christ – the Conqueror of my soul.

Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under the rule which men call chance,
My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.

Beyond this place of sin and tears,
That Life with Him and His the Aid,
That, spite the menace of the years,
Keeps, and will keep me unafraid.

I have no fear though straight the gate:
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate!
Christ is the Captain of my soul!

My son at that time had a problem with wanting to yield the captaincy of his fate to Another. That’s understandable. We’re born with an intense self-will. We’re hesitant to trust someone else with our destiny. We want to make our own choices.

But once when I did a lengthy study on one’s “own” way in the Bible, I found that following our own way didn’t usually turn out well. Here are just a couple of examples:

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6

“The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, But a good man will be satisfied from above.” Proverbs 14:14.

I didn’t realize until looking for these poems online that a handwritten copy of “Invictus” was the only statement Timothy McVeigh left behind when he was executed (see here). Invictus means “unconquerable.” How sad to remain unconquered only to come to such an end. “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices” Proverbs 1:31.

It’s one of those seeming paradoxes of Scripture that “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it” (Luke 17:33). Whatever we want to hold onto for ourselves we will eventually lose. What we yield to Christ He will keep for us and give back so much more.

There is good reason to trust Christ as our Captain. He knows what is ahead. He has the wisdom to guide us. He has the power to keep us. When the path passes through deep waters or dark shadows, He promises to be with us and uphold us. He loves us so much that He gave His own life for us and has promised to provide for everything we need, not only physically but spiritually. He is the only One Who can provide for us beyond the grave. He is more than worthy of our Captaincy and our trust.

Laudable Linkage

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Here are a few good reads from the last week:

Book Review: A Year of Biblical Womanhood. I’m sharing this not just because of the book, but mainly for the discussion of Biblical interpretation. I don’t know if you have encountered this, but in many secular venues where there is any discussion of Christianity, often someone will toss out what they consider as absurd OT requirements as a reason to toss out the whole or to say we can’t or shouldn’t live by Biblical principles. This explains what is wrong with such an approach (and though it doesn’t say this, one could turn the conversation to a good witnessing opportunity in that all of these requirements were fulfilled in Christ.) Though the author of the book in question is asking questions many are asking and dealing with a confusing and controversial subject, the way she handles Scripture inclines me not to trust her conclusions.

A helpful, hopeful election perspective.

The greatest of these is “Sola Scriptura.” Good thoughts on good that came from the Reformation. “Luther and the Reformers didn’t get everything right… But their role was like that of a good teacher—not to teach students every fact they will ever need to know, but to teach them how to learn. The Reformers reminded the church how to learn—how to think—by pointing us to the Scriptures and away from human authorities.”

Sixty years of memories. Neat gift idea.

15 things home sewers can lean from industrial sewing.

Questionnaires for writing character profiles.

And I saw this on Pinterest.

Gotta run — busy day ahead. Have a great weekend!