The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 5: Interior Decoration

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Barbara Harper

It’s Week 5 of The Hidden Art of Homemaking Book Club hosted by Cindy at Ordo Amoris where we’re discussing Edith Schaeffer’s book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking a chapter at a time.

Chapter 5 is about Interior Decoration, and I have to say I think this might be the chapter I feel most at home in so far, because Edith talks about decorating one’s living space, whether a “dream home” or a boarding house room, not with the latest decorating fads for a magazine-worthy decor, but with originality and personality. She says our “spot” should not only express something of ourselves to visitors but should also be a place that is satisfying and feels “at home” to us. She advises the reader not to wait for certain funds or the ideal home (some of my frustrations along those lines are here) or even for marriage, but to start right where we are with personal touches to our space, and as she has said in previous chapters, ideas beget ideas, creativity begets more creativity.

She shares some personal examples that may be beyond the scope of what many of us can or want to do, but they’re good for sparking ideas. Some are time-honored traditions, like making quilts or rugs from scraps, or restoring old furniture rather than buying new. We did some of this when we were first married, transforming a storage barrel used in college into a side table with a long tablecloth over it. Once when the kids wanted a tree house, and new lumber was prohibitively expensive, my husband found some used wooden palettes and took the boards apart, sanded them down and made a great tree house. That was one of the things I hated leaving behind when we moved.

After last week’s chapter about drawing and sketching, I began to wonder why she didn’t include crafts or home arts, like embroidery, quilting, etc., but she mentions them here.

There is nothing inherently wrong with buying new furniture and decorations, and we’ve done a good bit of that as well, but the goal should be to make it homey and express one’s own tastes and personality.

We do need to keep in mind the other people with whom we live. I don’t believe in stripping the place bare when young children are in the house, but that’s probably not the time for antique vases. I have decidedly feminine tastes in decorating, but living with all males, I’ve tried to have the family room, at least, more neutral. My husband has said that if he lived alone he probably wouldn’t think to decorate, but he does appreciate the homeyness decorations add. He usually leaves the decorating choices up to me, but we do major furniture shopping together and consult on paint colors, etc.

We need to keep in mind, too, that “this world is not our [ultimate] home,” that we’re to lay up treasures in heaven rather than earth, that here on earth moth doth corrupt and thieves can break through and steal, and we’re not to set out hearts too much on “things.” And sometimes “we are to be willing to sacrifice in the area of material things as well as in all other areas, to put first the things of God, to put first His use of our time, or money, and our talents” (p. 79). I was reminded of that just yesterday morning with this post about a time of loss. Isobel Kuhn tells of a time early in her marriage when they were ministering to a poor tribe whose manners were decidedly different from her own. She was pleased with her nesting and her newlywed “things,” but then one of the women blew her nose into her hands and then wiped them on the new couch, and a mother held her baby away from her while the baby urinated on the new rug. Those things weren’t done to express hostility toward Isobel – it’s just the way things were done there. She had to struggle to not let her precious “things” take precedence in her heart over the needs of the people she was working with, and she learned to be very practical with her possessions. The Goforths lost everything four different times in their lives. After the last time, “when, in the privacy of their own room, the ‘weaker vessel’ broke down and wept bitter, rebellious tears, Goforth sought to comfort her by saying, ‘My dear, after all, they’re only things and the Word says, ‘Take joyfully the spoiling of your goods!’ Cheer up, we’ll get along somehow.’” He wasn’t being calloused: he had a generally faith-filled, buoyant spirit, while his wife had…one rather more like my own. We need to hold all of God’s material gifts to us loosely, remembering they are ultimately His and He has promised to supply all we need.

But even within those parameters, He often allows for some expression of personality and creativity in our living spaces.

I shared a tour of my house here, but I thought I might share just a couple of those expressions of personality here.

This one has a story behind it:

I collected Boyd’s Bears figurines for a while, and this is a small figurine of a flower basket with a teeny little bear hiding in it. I kept it on the windowsill above the kitchen sink for a while. One day I found this little dinosaur next to it, put there by one of the boys when they were younger. I don’t know if the dinosaur was supposed to be after the flowers or the bear. 🙂 Or maybe the boys were just adding to the decorations. But I’ve always loved this as a picture of living with boys, and now I keep these together in a little curio cabinet.

Of course, living with boys, sometimes the “decorating” gets a little out of hand…

I mentioned Boyd’s Bear figurines – I posted some of my collection here. I just love their little faces and the details of them. There is only room for so many, though, before they become just a blur of too many to keep track of, but I tried to get my collection to reflect my interests – there is one holding the music to an Irish folks song, one reading a book, a couple cooking, several “Mom” and “couple” ones. Most were given to me by my husband or Mom.

Another of my favorites is a needlepoint piece I did when expecting my first son. My youngest still had it up in his room until his twelfth birthday, when we took it down so he wouldn’t get teased about it. That was kind of sad – an official turning from little boyhood.

You can’t really tell from the picture, but there are different types of stitching in different places and the little cookies are raised rather than flat.

This is one I am hanging on to. I don’t know if I will hand it off to a grandchild (if any of their parents want it) or keep it for a playroom here.

A few years ago I realized that I had done a lot of cross stitch through the years that I had given away for gifts, but didn’t have much that I had done for my own home. I wanted to do a few pieces both to express my own personality and maybe to hand down to progeny. Of course, my tastes are more feminine, as I said, and having all boys, I don’t know if they’d be interested in any of these just because their mom made them, and daughters-in-law will have their own tastes. I hope when I am gone that they will keep some things like this for grandchildren – I often wish I had something personal from my grandparents. But at any rate, these are a couple of my favorites:

Our only investment in “real art” was a set of prints by Paula Vaughan, a gift to me from my husband, who knew how much I liked them. But I have also framed cards and pages from calendars.

I did have one class in Home Furnishings in college, where we learned a bit about elements of art and principles of design, but I am far, far from expert in it. I never did get to go on and take the next class, Interior Decorating, which I would have loved, I think. Sometimes I watch decorating shows and “get” what the designers are saying, sometimes I have no idea. 🙂 I don’t always agree with what they do, but I sometimes enjoy listening to their reasons. But though some of these principles and elements are helpful (i.e., wondering why something looks “wrong” with the end table next to the couch and then realizing that it’s because the lamp there is way too small in proportion to the rest of the furniture), overall what’s most important is what Edith stresses: making a place homey, comfortable, and an expression of your own creativity and personality.

More discussion on this chapter is here.

This post will be also linked to Women Living Well.

Why I Wear a Hat to Church

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Every now and then someone sends around those “getting to know you” questions, and I’ve answered them a few times on my blog. Sometimes one of the questions is “What is one thing people might not know about you?” One good answer to that question is that I wear a hat, or headcovering, to church, but I have never mentioned it on my blog because I don’t want to be thought weird or misjudged because of it.

But in real life, of course, a hat in church is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb, even though I try to keep them unobtrusive and not overly decorative. My husband and I don’t want to make it our “pet issue,” soapbox, or hobby horse by bringing it up and discussing it excessively with people, so we usually only explain it when asked. I don’t think we have ever been asked, though I was once accused of “formalism” by someone who pronounced that judgment without trying to find out our reasons.

Online discussions of those who wear headcoverings often pronounce them as legalists. Since I am neither a formalist or a legalist, I thought perhaps an explanation would be in order.

The practice comes from I Corinthians 11:1-16, which I’ll include here for easy reference:

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

There are several different ways of interpreting this passage, so I’ll just go through them to explain the conclusions we came to.

1. It’s a cultural issue. I’m told that in the days in which this was written, respectable women wore veils in public and women of ill repute did not, so it was a matter of good reputation to be veiled in public. While that may be true, that’s not the reason given here (and the apostle probably would not have needed to encourage them to do what they were already practicing as a culture anyway). The reason given here for a woman to wear a head covering is to illustrate that her husband is her head and she is honoring him, and she is specifically to have it on when she is “praying or prophesying” in a public assembly of the church.

2. It’s just talking about hair. Verses 14-15 cause some people to attribute the whole discussion to hair length. There are a few reasons I don’t agree that that’s the case. The phrasing of the passage seems to indicate that this is an example of the same principle in nature, not the culmination of the discussion. And if it is talking about hair, wouldn’t it be saying that men should be bald when they pray (verses 4 and 7)? When it says a woman should have her head covered when she prays or prophesies, that seems to indicate something she puts on at that time.

3. Women should cover their heads all the time. Some people who do believe in using head coverings take this view because a woman needs to be ready to pray or prophesy (verse 5) at any time. However, the context of the passage is public worship (verse 1 talks about keeping the ordinances, then the remainder of the chapter after this discusses communion [or the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper, whatever you choose to call it]). The early New Testament church participated in the Lord’s Table much more often than modern churches do (I was told once that they did so every time they met, but I don’t know how to find out whether that is true). Therefore, since the context of the passage is public worship with both men and women present, I don’t wear a hat around the house or at the grocery store or to women’s meetings at church.

4. A head covering in Bible times is like a wedding ring now, just a symbol that a woman is married. They may both indicate marriage, but the instruction in this passage seems to me to go beyond just being married, particularly since the head covering seems to be something they put on while meeting together, not something that is kept on all the time.

5. Woman should wear a headcovering in a public assembly of the church to illustrate that she is under the headship of her husband and honoring him. That’s obviously the view that I hold.

What is the verse about angels referring to (verse 10)? Some think that is a reference to pastors, as the angel of each church in Revelation is its pastor. Some think it refers to actual heavenly angels and that God shows something of Himself to them through us (“so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” Ephesians 3:10, ESV).

To me the cultural difference comes in the type of head covering. Woman in Western societies don’t wear veils, so at some point they began wearing hats. Amish and Mennonite women wear prayer kapps. In some Eastern European churches, the woman wear scarves over their heads. Some of the women who wear headcoverings all the time here use a bandana style, though often they use white fabrics.

Women wearing some type of head covering in American churches was practiced up until the 50s or 60s, not that long ago. Somehow the practice fell away, maybe because it was no longer taught. Gradually people forgot the basis for it, and then didn’t see a need to keep on with it. Or maybe the practice was rejected because the world in general rejected the idea of man being head over a woman. Oddly, society has kept the practice of men praying with their heads uncovered. You do still see men removing their hats when during public prayer, though I think even that is beginning to decline.

There are some fundamental Biblical issues for which there is no wiggle room: the Deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith, and others. But on other issues, Romans 14 has instructions for those who come to different conclusions about what the Bible teaches in those issues that aren’t fundamental to the Christian faith (though the passage is discussing weaker brethren, I think some of these overarching principles apply). Some people can read the same passage, like this one, and come to different conclusions about what is taught or meant. Each should do whatever they do as unto the Lord (verse 6), not judging or condemning each other, (verses 3, 10,13), being fully persuaded in their own minds (verses 5, 22), remembering they’re accountable to the Lord (verse 12), not being contentious about it (verses 1, 17-19).

As I said at the start, this isn’t a soapbox issue and I rarely mention it. I don’t judge other women who don’t wear hats or headcoverings because I understand that they may read the passage differently. But because I see the passage the way I do, I need to follow what I believe it is teaching. I thought perhaps explaining where the conviction comes from would help others not to judge the practice unfairly.

This post will be also linked to Women Living Well.

The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 4: Painting, Sketching, and Sculpturing

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Barbara Harper

It’s Week 4 of The Hidden Art of Homemaking Book Club hosted by Cindy at Ordo Amoris where we’re discussing Edith Schaeffer’s book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking a chapter at a time.

In Chapter 4 Edith discusses how to incorporate “Painting, Sketching, and Sculpturing” into everyday life as an expression of creativity and encourages us that we can do so without having formal training or making a career of it. It can be used, just like the other categories of creativity that she’s discussed, to enrich our lives and stimulate our imaginations.

This chapter was a little harder for me because I have absolutely no talent in this area. In fact, a photo I saw on Pinterest pictures this perfectly:

I don’t even do stick figures very well, though they were useful at times when I had a little one on my lap that I was trying to entertain and keep relatively still and quiet, in church or a doctor’s waiting room. I’d draw something and ask them what it was, and they’d recognize my fledgling attempts to portray a duck or a car (I had to laugh when the Cube first came out because they looked just like the cars I used to draw.)

I don’t even remember doodling much in high school or college. In Junior High a new classmate said something about having had art in her previous school, and I was incredulous and envious. I don’t remember having any kind of artistic instruction in school (until a college Art Appreciation class), and no one in my family, as far as I knew, had any artistic tendencies. Somehow my middle son developed a talent for drawing quite well in his later high school and college years, mostly teaching himself with various art books, except for a year or when he was under the instruction of a gifted art teacher who helped him refine his talents.

I went through a “paint by number” phase in elementary school. I did enjoy a little bit of painting when a talented lady in one church we were in hosted a night to teach other ladies how to paint a flower on a tote bag. She used the same pattern with everyone to make easier to teach en masse but had different paints so we could each choose our own colors. It was exciting to me to learn to use light and shade to make a flat blob of a flower appear more realistic. I took a couple of One Stroke painting classes at Michael’s and loved them, but just never went any further with it.

But though I can’t draw well, I can use aids. I went through periods of using stamps or stencils or even stickers to make cards or decorate various things. I like to buy decorative Post-it notes or notepads rather than plain ones. I disagree with Edith when she says “Original ideas carried out can be an expression of love and care which cannot be made by buying something ‘ready made’ or plastic” (p. 50). I think that kind of thinking can be burdensome and guilt-inducing, to feel personally or to make our loved ones feel that a gift that’s store-bought doesn’t “measure up” to something hand-made.

She didn’t discuss art appreciation in this chapter, but she has discussed in other chapters that we can come to appreciate forms of creativity that we may have no talent in ourselves. I did mention an Art Appreciation class in college: I enjoyed it, but didn’t retain much from it, perhaps because one can’t go over the material as readily as one can music from Music Appreciation.

Unfortunately we did not go to museums much as the children were growing up, so I’m afraid I’ve perpetuated my ignorance in this area. I found one neat book about identifying art and artists that I wanted to use some time with them, but we never got around to it. These days, however, there is so much information available on the Internet that one can learn something of classic art if one wants to. I did discover over the years that I seem to like realistic more that abstract art, like that of Normal Rockwell and some of the old masters, though I liked some of the Impressionists, too, like Mary Cassatt. I find that I do enjoy art more by learning about it: the last time we were at a museum, as we were leaving I saw there were headphones one could use for a self-guided tour, and I thought that would be the way to really get the most out of it (for me).

But besides learning about great paintings and painters, one can develop an eye for artistry, for appreciation of color and design. I think for me that happened mostly through a Home Interiors class (thankfully interior decorating is the next chapter!) and then grew through various craft classes and helped as I started doing a newsletter for our church ladies’ group in terms of layout, making a cover page that is reasonably attractive, etc. Someone who really knew what they were doing in that area could probably point out many ways in which I could improve, and that’s fine – we all can grow, no matter what our level of knowledge or talent. But I am thankful for the ways I have grown so far.

I liked her idea of using drawing, even simple stick figures, to not only help keep a child’s interest during a sermon but also to help them grasp what was being taught. A former pastor used to say that it helped him in his Bible study to draw things out as he read.

My favorite line in this chapter, which really could be applied to the whole book, is “Ideas carried out stimulate more ideas” (p 49). I tend to gather a lot of ideas and my imagination can be stimulated by perusing Pinterest or web sites or books, but even that doesn’t compare to actually carrying out those ideas. Whatever area of creativity we’re discussing, just starting in some way or another stimulates more ideas, more creativity.

You can find more discussions on this chapter here.

Previous chapters discussed:
Chapter 1: The First Artist.
Chapter 2: What Is Hidden Art?
Chapter 3: Music.

Myths and Maxims of Ministry

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Recently a friend told me that she was somewhat overwhelmed with the details of a particular ministry she had started and had trouble finding joy in it until she reminded herself of the reason she began it in the first place. That got me to thinking about some of the misconceptions I had about ministry over the years, and I thought I’d share some of those here. I’m not talking about “the” ministry: the paid professional, full-time minister of some sort, though some of these may apply there as well, but rather I am talking about the average Christian who participates in some ministry and then gets dismayed with it.

Here were some of my faulty assumptions:

1. Since this is being done for the Lord, everything should go smoothly. I can picture some of you smiling. Though I don’t see the devil behind every little problem, we do have an active enemy behind the scenes, and we do live in a fallen world where things break down and problems occur. The icemaker doesn’t know it’s in a church and shouldn’t fall apart just before a banquet that has been planned for months (just one of my “things gone wrong” scenarios.) The microphone makes an excruciating noise just as the soloist steps up, the babysitter forgot she should be there, etc. etc. It just happens.

2. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all agree on how everything should be done. If you read through the book of Acts, you see that the early church leaders had to hammer some things out. Even Barnabas and Paul had a major disagreement, causing them to part ways (and the Bible doesn’t really say who was right and who was wrong there. Some have faulted Paul for not being gracious, but maybe John Mark needed to know how serious his previous failure was. At any rate, they all reconciled later and God used it to multiply the number of people sent out). Leaders should not expect a panel of “yes men” (or woman), no one should be oversensitive about their proposals or ideas, we should all be open to differing opinions but be prepared to stand firm when something needs to be done a certain way.

3. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all have the best attitudes and act in an exemplary way. We should. But we don’t. We’re sinners. That’s not an excuse, but it is a truth. We fail. We disappoint each other. We display selfishness. We need to react to each other with grace, remembering our own faults and failures and need for grace. We might get our feelings hurt, but we need to take it to the Lord: we might need to go to the other person and let them know and try to explain and apologize to each other, or we might need to just let it go, but what we should not do is get bitter and drop out of church or avoid that person forevermore.

4. I should always feel joyful in my ministry. There are times when we get bogged down in details, feel overwhelmed, get tired of it, just don’t enjoy it, wish we hadn’t signed up, etc. And if we think about it a minute, we can feel that way in other areas of life as well. We don’t always respond to our loved ones with love and joy, though we want to and strive and pray for help to. We can get bogged down in the daily duties at home and get irritable about them instead of lovingly ministering to our families. A lack of joy in a ministry may be an indication it’s time to make changes, but more often than not it just means we’re human and, like my friend at the beginning, need to remind ourselves of why we’re doing what we’re doing and for whom we’re doing it. And I usually find that the joy comes not before or even during a task, but afterward.

5. If God calls me to do something, I should always feel sufficient for it. I have found just the opposite to be true. Usually, like Moses, I feel insufficient for it even before I start, but sometimes even if I am asked to do something that I feel God has equipped me for, there is always a point where I feel overwhelmed (I mean locked in the bathroom crying type of overwhelmed). But that’s a good place to be, because that’s when we learn by experience and not just principle that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

6. If this ministry is in God’s will, there should be plenty of people willing to help with it. Not necessarily. A lot of ministries end up being understaffed because others don’t catch the vision or feel just too busy. Once when I needed to round up some helpers for a particular endeavor, I asked someone who looked to me like she’d have time, but she didn’t feel she did. Then another lady whom I would never have asked because she had so much on her plate volunteered. You just never know, but instead of getting frustrated, just pray about whom to ask. In some cases, it might need to be laid aside until enough people get burdened for it. Once when we were part of a Christian homeschooling ministry, the lady who had started it had her seventh child and just could not carry on with it. We went without it for a year, and then several ladies volunteered to take it up again, breaking it into more manageable pieces for each one rather than having the whole thing on one person’s shoulders. Praying for laborers isn’t restricted to the mission field.

Those are some myths, or misconceptions. Here are the maxims, which will overlap a bit with the above.

1. Something will go wrong, some times worse than others, no matter how well you plan. Take it patiently and pray for wisdom about what to do. God’s given me some marvelous ideas right in the midst of a crisis. And on the other side, if a lady comes tearing out of the church asking you if you’d be willing to go buy some ice because the icemaker stopped working and the banquet starts in half an hour and 100 ladies are coming — please don’t act grumpy and displeased and take 20 minutes to get going (yes, that happened). You don’t know what a balm you can be for someone in the throes of a major problem. And if you come to an event and it’s starting late, don’t be critical: you never know what has happened behind the scenes.

2. Disagreements will occur no matter how much you prayed beforehand. But don’t just dismiss them: sometimes they are God’s way of showing you an aspect you may not have thought of. Even if you can’t make a change and do what the other person suggested, you can make sure they feel heard and respond graciously.

3. You won’t always feel like doing whatever it is you’ve agreed to do. Pray for grace and do it anyway. You’ll probably feel better about it afterward.

4. Realize you can’t do it on your own. Jesus said, “without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5b), but “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

5. People will fail you. They failed Jesus, too. We have failed Him and others. We may need to discuss the specific matter with the person involved as part of their growth and training, but we also need to forgive as we have been forgiven.

6. People will surprise you with sometimes with their willingness to pitch in and help, to support you, to do what needs to be done, to have a great idea just when you can’t think any more, to say a word of encouragement to edify you.

7. Ministry will stretch you. If we never venture out of our comfort zones, we’ll never grow. It’s scary, but we can find God meeting us in our need and providing in the most wonderful ways when we let Him stretch us.

8.Get adequate rest before or in the midst of extra-busy or pressured times.

9. Delegate. Easier said than done sometimes, but pray not only for helpers, but the right helpers. Be prepared that they might not do everything just the way you would and pray for wisdom about when to insist on something being done a certain way and when to go with the flow.

10. Sometimes it is best to say no or step down. A principle instilled in me early on is not to say “no” unless I’ve prayed about it. But sometimes the answer should be No, and sometimes the desire to step down from the ministry is from the Lord. I don’t know how to tell you five easy steps to discern that, but as you walk with the Lord, He’ll show you. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of weariness or problems, but take it to Him to see whether he wants you to lean on Him more to carry on, or whether He wants you to make way for someone else to step in.

11. There is nothing like seeing God provide strength and ideas and and even tiny barely-significant details that make you marvel at His attention and care.

12. There is nothing like being used of God (which is what ministry comes down to: allowing God to work through you in some way to minister to another). When someone lets you know that they were blessed or instructed or encouraged through some small thing you said or did, and you know it was only through His grace that it was accomplished, it rejoices your heart, encourages your faith, and spurs you to minister for Him even more. And even if no one else notices, you can be sure that God does.

13. We’re all called to ministry. We may not be a part of an official ministry within the church, but all those who know God are called to minister to one another, to exercise the spiritual gifts He has given, whether in an official church-based capacity or just quietly behind the scenes.

14. Keep first things first. Like Martha, we can be “cumbered about much serving,” “careful and troubled about many things,” and forget the one needful thing: fellowshipping with our Savior. Serving is no substitute for engaging with Him, getting to know Him better, growing in love for Him, believing in Him. Sometimes weariness in service is an indication we’re off track just here.

A beloved former pastor, Jesse Boyd, once said:

Worship without service is a hollow farce.
Service without worship is a hectic fervor.
But worship which issues in service is a holy force.

There is much more that can be said about ministry: there are whole books written on the subject. But I hope some of these thoughts help encourage you in your ministry for the Lord.

What have you learned about ministry along the way?

Other posts about ministry here at Stray Thoughts:

Am I Doing Any Good?
Women in Ministry.
Why Older Women Don’t Serve.
How Older Women Can Serve.
God’s Help for God’s Assignment.
Whose life is it, anyway?
Mentoring Women.
Church Ladies’ Groups.

This post will be also linked to Women Living Well.

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Book Review: Betrayal

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Betrayal by Robin Lee Hatcher is the second in her Where the Heart Lives series about three orphans who were separated and try to find each other as adults. Each book focuses on one of the siblings: the first book in the series, Belonging, reviewed here, featured older sister Felicia.

In Betrayal older brother Hugh Brennan has just been released from prison where he had served as a result of his father’s betrayal. He has heard that Felicia is in Idaho and sets out to find her, but then his horse is injured and he has to stop for a while. He comes across the ranch of Julia Grace who, though wary, offers him food, a place to stay, and a few days work while his horse heals. Hugh, of course keeps his background as private as possible.

Julia has secrets of her own. She was plunged into a marriage of convenience to escape a lifetime of shame, but her husband abused and belittled her. He has passed away, and her one security is the ranch he left her, which she steadfastly refuses to sell to her husband’s brother.

Can these two wounded souls ever come to trust each other with their futures as well as the secrets of their pasts?

I enjoyed the story and the journey Robin led Hugh and Julia through and the things they learned along the way about trust and true security.

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

The Hidden Art of Homemaking Book Club, Chapter 3: Music

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Barbara Harper

It’s Week 3 of The Hidden Art of Homemaking Book Club hosted by Cindy at Ordo Amoris where we’re discussing Edith Schaeffer’s book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, a chapter at a time.

In Chapter 1, “The First Artist” (linked to my thoughts) Edith makes the case that because God as Creator is artistic, making the world not just functional but beautiful, and we’re created in His image, it follows that we’re created to be creative and to appreciate the artful and beautiful. In Chapter 2, “What Is Hidden Art?” (also linked to my thoughts), she goes on to explain that she is talking primarily about everyday endeavors, not necessarily pursuing the Arts as a profession (though some are called to that), and encourages us that though we’re finite and limited, though being creative requires some discipline and prioritizing, there are ways we can pursue it. The next several chapters are going to delve into some specific areas where we can learn to appreciate and perhaps even incorporate beauty and creativity. Chapter 3 discusses music in particular.

Experiencing music together as a family or with friends gives an outlet for expression, for relaxation, for “creative ideas and imagination [to be] sparked off” in each other, for enjoyment, and for personal development. She encourages letting children start off with their natural inclination to explore sound and rhythm (I can remember mine banging pans and such as toddlers).

She spends only the last few paragraphs talking about musical expression in the Bible, but that would be a very rich study to pursue further. We have the Psalms with their variety of emotions expressed in song, we have the encouragement to “make a joyful noise” unto the Lord, the instruction to teach and admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. God tells Job about when the morning stars sang together and is Himself called a song: “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).

To my regret, I don’t know how to play a musical instrument, but I do enjoy singing around the house, in the car, etc. I can’t say I know a lot about music, but I have always enjoyed it, and one of my favorite classes in college was Music Appreciation. I did not grow up with classical music but developed a love for it in college. I’m not much into pop music – the closest I get to it is some of Josh Groban, Michael Buble, Il Divo, etc. I love “the standards” – “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” etc. I also grew to enjoy folk songs – American, Irish, Scottish, English – a lot of songs from musicals, and a rich variety of hymns. Music, even secular music, touches the soul in a particular way that nothing else does.

I remember having a little toy drum and piano when my kids were toddlers, and if I remember correctly, our library had a regular time for preschoolers that involved musical instruments. Of course I sang to them from their infancy, we sang a variety of songs together, and they grew up hearing music at home. They all went to sleep listening to Patch the Pirate and other musical tapes. We didn’t start any formal lessons until they were 8: that was the age recommended to me by a friend who is the mom of a very musical family, and coincidentally, the age their school began piano lessons. I wanted them to take piano because it would give them a good foundation for singing, for choir, and for any other instrument they wanted to take, plus it’s a good discipline and use of time. I don’t know if any of them liked it. They were excited to begin, not so excited about practicing. They would have liked it a lot better if they hadn’t had to play in front of people at recitals. Only one taught himself a variety of other instruments (guitar, penny whistle, ocarina). But they do all enjoy listening to music. They all sang in school choirs, one sang in the church choir for a while, and one sang with an ensemble at school.

Edith mentioned at some point in the first couple of chapters that even if we don’t have talent or skill in a given area of art or creativity, we can learn to appreciate it, to see the beauty in it. I had not originally planned to do this when I first started this post, but this morning I was thinking that it might be helpful to some to share a little bit about listening to classical music from an amateur. I mentioned earlier that I didn’t have much exposure to classical music until college. I grew up with “You’re Cheatin’ Heart” and other such lovely little ditties. 🙄 I can remember going to hear an orchestra with my Girl Scout troop and being fascinated, hearing a high school concert of Handel’s Messiah, and a few other exposures, and then when I got to college, I not only heard more classical music from some of the programs we were required to attend, but I had a Music Major roommate who got me started with some basic classical records. Then my senior year I was required to take Music Appreciation and loved it. But the first time or two I heard a whole concert, I was lost. I found a couple of parts that particularly appealed to me, but afterward I couldn’t have told you what they were. Listening more and learning more about classical music helped immensely. I don’t know a whole lot, but here are a few pointers for enjoying classical music:

1. Listen for the theme, a few notes put together in a specific pattern that repeats. This is easiest to do at first with something that is a variation on the same theme, like the second movement from Hayden’s Symphony No. 94, the Surprise Symphony (so called because it has some unexpected loud parts designed to wake up those who were dozing :)) or Ravel’s Bolero or the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The composer takes the same series of notes and repeats them with different variations: different instruments, different themes, different harmonies, different tempos and rhythms, etc. It’s similar to your music leader at church saying, “Everyone sing harmonies on the first stanza of this hymn, men sing the second stanza, ladies the third, then we’ll all join in unison on the fourth without the instruments.”

2. Listen for how the themes work together. This is easiest to do if the themes mean something to you, like in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture: the first part is here, the second part is here – I guess maybe it was too big for one YouTube video. It begins with what some people would consider high church or holy-sounding music, representing the friar, then goes into the the fight theme, representing the discord between the two families (the music picks up, clashes, you can imagine sword thrusts back and forth), then goes into the love theme (which you’ve probably heard at some point), – and then all these themes start interacting, playing over and above each other as the young lovers try to connect amidst the fighting, the friar tries to help out, etc. Even if you can’t follow it line by line, you can get the overall feel of it. One of my favorite examples is The Moldau by Smetana, representing one of the rivers in his native Czechoslovakia. It begins with two streams that merge into a river, then the river flows alongside a country wedding, through mermaids, rapids, etc. It wasn’t until the Romantic Era that music was made to represent nature or literary themes on a large scale: before that it was mostly “absolute music” the same interplay of themes, but just as themes and not meant to represent something in life. Still nice, but a bit harder to pick out sometimes.

Two good piece for children are Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals (especially the latter with Odgen Nash’s poems in-between.

3. Listen for the progression. Like a good story, most classical pieces have a beginning, build to a climax, and then resolve.

4. Read up just a bit on the different kinds of compositions. A symphony, for instance, has 2 or 3 “movements,” and each one usually following certain parameters (the second is usually slower, for instance) and each with its own themes. It helps you not to feel so lost if you know a little bit about how it is put together and what to expect.

5. Learn a bit about the piece. Knowing that Dvorak’s New World Symphony was written when he felt America didn’t have a”national sound,” and that he invoked a lot of Native American and African-American-sounding themes in it, helps you get more out of it. The song “Going Home” is from the second movement.

6. Learn about the composer. A friend did this once: chose a composer and read about him while listening to various works of his to get the flavor of them. Knowing that Hayden’s situation and personality were both different from Beethoven’s, for instance, helps to account for some of the differences in their music.

You can see why Easy Listening music is called that. 🙂 It’s not that classical music is hard, necessarily, but you do get more out of it if you put a little more into it. And then just like any other song or story, once you’re familiar with a piece, you enjoy it, anticipate your favorite parts of it, etc.

I wish I had listened to more classical music with my kids. I had planned to have some sessions with one of these pieces playing in the background while we did other things, but I either never thought about it when we could have done it, or it never worked out as they got older and busier.

I mentioned my thirteen favorite classical music pieces here and some favorite CDs here (though I’d have several to add to that list now). Here are some of my favorite selections from different genres:

Book Review: Comforts From Romans

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Comforts From Romans: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time by Elyse Fitzpatrick wasn’t originally on my radar, but I saw that the True Woman site would be going through Romans 1-8 in the four weeks preceding Easter, using this book as a supplement. I had been wanting to do something a little different in my pre-Easter reading, and I had been wanting to read something by Elyse Fitzpatrick, so I ordered the book. In the meantime, I decided to do a different reading plan for Easter, so I saved this book for afterward and caught up with the weekly discussion about it at True Woman (under Romans Reboot).

The book is not a thorough exegesis or commentary of all of Romans 1-8, but rather a “devotional taste” of its truths. Elyse mainly just pulls out those parts of it dealing with “the absolutely shocking message of grace” (p. 13). The gospel isn’t just for the obtaining salvation at the beginning of our Christian lives: we need to hear it and think about it daily. Why? To stir up praise and gratitude to God for it, but also to remind ourselves, because we’re too prone to forgetting that our relationship with God is based on Jesus’ righteousness and not our own even after salvation.

If you’re familiar with Romans at all, you know that the first three chapters start with very bad news: the fact that we are all sinful, that our sin deserves judgment from God, and there is nothing we can do in ourselves to deliver ourselves. Even if we could perfectly obey every command of God from here on out (and we can’t), that won’t erase the sin we’ve committed up to now. It’s hopeless — which is why the gospel is very good news: Jesus kept every law of God in our place, and because He was perfectly righteous and the eternal Son of God, He was the only One who could take our sin and punishment in our place so that we could be saved when we believe in Him. Elyse discusses all of these factors in more detail: our “ruined righteousness,” our inability to keep God’s law, the great grace of God in Jesus Christ, what He accomplished in our salvation, and the implications of grace in our everyday lives. It is very refreshing and encouraging: even having known these truths for decades, it has been good to meditate on them again, to be reminded of the freedom we have in Christ.

One aspect of that freedom that particularly resonated with me was when she discussed receiving an email from a friend about something she had done wrong. Elyse writes that she was able to receive the criticism, acknowledge its truth, confess and apologize for it without negative feelings for the messenger: “Because the gospel tells me that I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, I am no longer entrapped in trying to prop up my former flawed identity…I can freely admit my failure without needing to cover up, be defensive, or beat myself up…Rather than raking myself over the coals, wondering, How could I be such an idiot and sin like this? I am now free to say, Of course I sinned like this! It’s just God’s grace that I don’t get e-mails like this every day! I am, after all, a very great sinner…but I’ve got a very great Savior” (pp 79-80).

There are a few places I have some quibbles with. One is in an otherwise very good series of chapters about “One Man’s Obedience,” Jesus’s having fulfilled all of God’s law perfectly every single day of His life. How He interacted with His siblings is conjecture, of course, since the Bible doesn’t say much about His childhood, but we can imagine what He must have encountered showing love to His siblings, yet being laughed at, misunderstood, sinned against, and so on. When she gets to His baptism, however, she says, “At that moment He knew without question who He was and why He’d come” (p. 86). I don’t think He doubted it or didn’t know until then: I don’t think His Father’s voice saying, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” was meant to reassure Him, but rather to be a testimony to those witnessing it. She goes on to say that “The Spirit, His Spirit, was finally released and flew to Him like a dove, granting Him the power to live and die and rise again.” I don’t think that’s what the Spirit was doing, but what exactly was going on and signified at Christ’s baptism is a discussion for another time, and I do understand good people can differ in their opinions about it.

In another place, she’s discussing the righteousness we have in Christ and the joy we should feel because of it: “Be done now with all your stupid efforts to approve of yourself and to look good…Be revolted by your own goodness and your love of reputation!…Dance a lot. Brag a ton about how righteous He’s made you. Show off your new clothes! Be as free as a drunk to look stupid and hop about for joy. Weep over your sin. Rejoice over His obedience…All those lessons about how to keep your religion dignified and presentable will be completely blasted away in the raucous party that will be known as ‘heaven'” (p. 100). I get that when we really grasp that we have the righteousness of Christ, when we really comprehend that as much as we’re able, we’ll be exceedingly joyful, but I don’t see anything in the glimpses of heaven the Bible shows us that compare it to a raucous party. Yes, the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7), but I don’t see that rejoicing as “raucous.” Not a big deal or a big quibble — we’ll see when we get there what it’s like. 🙂 I also cringe a little bit at “hopping around like a drunk.” I grew up in the home of an alcoholic: I have seen happy drunks (and other kinds as well), and to me it’s incongruous to think of rejoicing in Christ’s righteousness looking like that. Yes, I do know the Bible says “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) as a comparison of being under the control of something else, and that may be the kind of allusion Elyse means here, or she probably was just getting at the idea of rejoicing with abandon. It just kind of rubbed me the wrong way because of my background, but again, it’s a small quibble, taking more time to explain that it is probably worth.

Another quibble is the interchangeable use of “law” and “rules.” The verses in the Bible about “the law” are referring to the commandments given to Israel in the first five books of the Bible. Much of Romans deals with the fact that we’re no longer under that law, but that doesn’t mean we’re no longer under any “rules,” that rules are evil, etc. The New Testament is full of commandments. I delved into that more here. We don’t keep rules, or even commandments, in order to be saved, because salvation is by grace through faith. We don’t keep them to be “made” or “kept” righteous even after salvation: our walk, our growth, is by faith, not by our own works. But we don’t ditch the NT commands to love our neighbors as ourselves, etc., either: we seek His grace, His power, is strength, His love, to enable us. Commandments and laws can’t produce righteousness, but they show us what it looks like so we can see where we fall short and how much we need help.

The one area I had a big problem with, though, is when discussing Romans 6:12-14, she says, ” My guess is that you’re feeling a little nervous right now and that you’re tempted to ask the same question that Paul does in the next verse: ‘Yes. yes, but, but…are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace?’ to which I respond, ‘You can if you want to. But God forbid that you would want to in light of all He has done'” (p. 112). She then says very much the same thing at the beginning of the next chapter. I do see the “God forbid” in Scripture, but I don’t see the “you can sin if you want to.” That totally threw me.

I wish she had talked a little bit more about sanctification in the book. She does somewhat. She discusses that we “serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6), that we’re motivated to live for Christ not by heaping on more rules, but out of gratitude for what He has done, that we’re dead to sin, etc. I really would loved to have seen a discussion of Romans 8:13 about mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit. I’ve mentioned before that there are action verbs in the New Testament that indicate effort on our part, though it is not an effort to earn righteousness but rather effort springing from His righteousness in us. But I still wrestle with all of that, with what’s my part and what’s His part.

Probably one of the most helpful statements in the book, which ties together much that I’ve mused on here, is this, in a discussion of what it means to have died to sin: “This happened through our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection as is demonstrated at our baptism. Paul doesn’t give us new, more stringent rules to live by. No, he tells us who we are. It is the realization of our new identity that will ultimately and at heart level transform us” (p. 102).

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

To You the helpless commits himself

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Barbara Harper

I was searching through Scripture this morning, mainly in the Psalms, to try to find something that would both express what was going on in my heart concerning the bombings at the Boston Marathon plus guide my thoughts aright (the Psalms are very good for that). Here is one passage that helps, from Psalm 10 in the ESV:

²In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
³For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
⁴In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
⁵His ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
⁶He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
⁷His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
⁸He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
⁹ he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
¹⁰The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
¹¹He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

¹²Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
¹³Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
¹⁴But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
¹⁵Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.

¹⁶The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
¹⁷O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
¹⁸to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Though the poor were not the target in Boston as they are in this Psalm, there are many similarities. Verse 8 particularly seems to describe the cowardly bomber: “He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless.”

A verse I left off is verse 1: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” We know, as the psalmist did as well, that God does not hide Himself in trouble, that He is not far away. Other Psalms affirm His nearness in trouble. But it can feel like He is far away, and here the psalmist reasons from his feelings to the facts he knows, that God does see, is just, and will some day set things to rights. A good example for us.

And in the meantime, we can rejoice in those who stepped up to help and pray for people to turn to the Lord.

I had particularly wondered about the older racer who fell to the ground at the first explosion: The first and last paragraphs here tell about him: he got up and finished the race.

“What God Ordains Is Always Good”

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Barbara Harper

“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting:
for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.”

Ecclesiastes 7:2

I’ve been laying some things to heart after watching the recording of Julie Herbster’s funeral. Julie was a youngish (39) wife and mom who loved music, sports, literature, and especially her family. But above all she loved her Lord. She passed away just before Easter after a ten month long battle with cancer.

I did not know her well. We “met” on an online Christian forum, where I appreciated her humor, intelligence, grace, wisdom and balance. Her husband was on the staff of The Wilds Christian Camp, which I’ve linked to before, where my kids have attended for many summers. The Wilds was not too far from where we lived in SC at the time, and I invited her to speak at one of our church’s ladies’ luncheons, and she graciously accepted. I was delighted to find her online persona and her real life personality were the same.

I was very sad to hear of her cancer diagnosis last spring, sadder still to hear of her passing. She had five children, ranging from about 8 to 15 in age. I appreciated her pastor’s comment to her husband in the funeral message (I’m paraphrasing). “You’ve wondered how you’re going to minister and live without Julie. I have no earthly idea. But that’s why we’re going to pray for God’s grace for you.” I appreciate a man of God who is honest that not everything in this life makes sense or is to be faced with a smile, and yet affirms, as he also said, “Understanding God is not a prerequisite to trusting Him.”

I was touched by Julie’s having always wanted to be a mom and how she poured her life into her children. Though her husband was in a public ministry, she enjoyed staying in the background. I appreciate how her pastor wove her love for literature, especially Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald, into his funeral message, with Lewis’s themes of this life being the Shadowlands and the real world beyond it. I’ve never read MacDonald, but the pastor said Julie saw in her cancer fight and chemo treatments a parallel with his The Princess and the Goblin (which I have never read but now want to), with the goblin mines being the cancer and chemo, but the golden thread that Princess Irene held on to to guide her through them representing Julie’s clinging to the truth of God’s Word to sustain her through this time.

I had never heard one of the sings that was sung at her funeral, but it speaks volumes:

What God ordains is always good:
His will is just and holy.
As he directs my life for me,
I follow meek and lowly.
My God indeed
In every need
Knows well how he will shield me;
To him, then, I will yield me.

What God ordains is always good:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me in his own right way,
And never will he leave me.
I take content
What he has sent;
His hand that sends me sadness
Will turn my tears to gladness.

What God ordains is always good:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my physician sends me.
My God is true;
Each morning new
I trust his grace unending,
My life to him commending.

What God ordains is always good:
He is my friend and father;
He suffers naught to do me harm
Though many storms may gather.
Now I may know
Both joy and woe;
Someday I shall see clearly
That he has loved me dearly.

What God ordains is always good:
Though I the cup am drinking
Which savors now of bitterness,
I take it without shrinking.
For after grief
God gives relief,
My heart with comfort filling
And all my sorrow stilling.

What God ordains is always good:
This truth remains unshaken.
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
I shall not be forsaken.
I fear no harm,
For with his arm
He shall embrace and shield me;
So to my God I yield me.

By: Samuel Rodigast

Book Review: Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Barbara Harper

At 36, Joni Eareckson felt that marriage was probably not in God’s plan for her, not only because of her age, but because of her paralysis resulting from a diving accident in her teens. Who would be willing to take on all that would be involved?

After Ken and Joni met at church, then got to know one another, then started dating, Ken felt he could. He knew he loved her and he felt their marriage could work.

Joni was afraid he idealized her. He had read about her before meeting her, accompanied her on mission trips, heard her speak, and even though she tried to be realistic about herself and her humanness (when the leg bag collecting her urine broke in public while on a tour behind the Iron Curtain, she quipped that that was God’s way of not letting the attention and acclaim go to her head), she was afraid some people thought of her more highly than they ought to.

But after much time together and discussion, they married, And though they loved each other dearly, after some years the relentless details involved in Joni’s care began to wear on Ken. He began to pull away, to need time to himself to get away from it all. Soon their lives were on nearly parallel tracks, rarely intersecting. She had had a ministry and association before he came on the scene, and he felt unneeded in her world: he had his teaching and coaching and fishing trips.

Then unexplained and excruciating pain descended on Joni, not only requiring more care, but causing frustration because nothing seemed to help. And then came a cancer diagnosis…

Marriage has its rough spots anyway, but add all these to the mix, and any of them could break a marriage. In Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story, with Larry Libby, they want to make clear that what pulled them through was not their own strength, but God’s grace when they came to the end of their own strength. They don’t want to come across as super-saints, but as real people who found God’s grace sufficient in the most trying of times “to attain a new level of love rather than simply surviving or grimly hanging on” (p. 15).

I loved Larry Libby’s preface, talking about fairy tales and sad love songs, then musing:

We all dream dreams and know very well that they don’t always work out. Life is particularly hard on high expectations. Things hardly ever fall together the way we would have scripted them. The fact is, if we put our hope in a certain set of circumstances working out a certain way at certain times, we’re bound to be disappointed, because nothing in this life is certain.

So what’s the solution? To give up on dreams?

No, it is to realize that if we belong to God, there are even bigger dreams for our lives than our own. But in order to walk in those bigger dreams, we may face greater obstacles than we ever imagined and find ourselves compelled to rely on a much more powerful and magnificent God than we ever knew before (p. 15).

I know it’s the style these days to have a book jump back and forth in the time line, but it is somewhat confusing and choppy, and I think would have flowed much better maybe by opening with one incident and then flashing back to the beginning and progressing from there to the current time.

There is one kind of odd spot in the book when Joni had a horrible night suffering from pneumonia and prayed that Jesus would manifest Himself to her in a special way. As Ken ministered to her, suddenly she said.”You’re Jesus!” She went on to say that she could feel His touch through Ken’s, could see Him in Ken’s smile. That I can understand, but manifesting Jesus, being a conduit through which He can work, isn’t the same thing a being Jesus. And I think that’s what she ultimately meant.

I scanned some of the reviews on Amazon and was surprised to find some criticism that the book didn’t contain enough or reveal enough. I thought it was quite gracious of the Tadas to reveal as much as they did in order to show God’s grace and to encourage others: the rest really is none of our business.

Overall I loved the book and would recommend it to anyone.

I linked to this speech of Joni’s before, but it shares a condensed version of some of what is in the book.