Ladies’ Luncheon ’09

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Thanks to those who prayed for the ladies’ luncheon. Everything went very well!

I had mentioned before that a lady in my church knew of someone who did a one-woman dramatic interpretation of one of my all-time favorite books, Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose. It is about a young missionary wife in the Philippines at the time the Japanese took over during WWII. Her husband and most of the other men in their compound were taken captive, then later the women were sent to a separate prison camp. At one point she was accused of being a spy and put on death row. This might not sound like a cheery ladies’ luncheon topic — but the main emphasis in the book is the triumph of faith — how God met her needs, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, through all that she experienced. As I told the ladies, I don’t think Darlene would have wanted anyone to exalt her, or even her faith, but she would have wanted them to see the One she had faith in and to know that He could meet all of their needs, too.

It would take too long to tell of the connections between people involved — and most of you wouldn’t know them, anyway — but the Lord did open doors for this young lady to come and present this drama for us. The same lady who told me of her volunteered to do the “leg work” for the program part, talking to the drama coach at school about using props, etc. That was a blessing to be able to just turn a major portion of the luncheon over to someone else! I’ve never been able to do that before.

The title of the book comes from Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I wrestled for a long time with whether to use that as our theme verse or I Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” That verse was certainly manifested in Mrs. Rose’s life as well. But I went with Hebrews 11:1 since it really was the theme of her life.

I chose a rose as the motif, since the author’s new last name after she remarried after the events of this book was Rose, and pink, because I like pink roses, and gold to represent the I Peter 1:7 passage.

Here is one of the tables:

One of the centerpieces a little closer up:

This may sound silly — but one of the things I was most pleased about was the little gold curlicue things in the vase. I got the idea from some more extensive gold swirly things around a candle at a bridal shower recently. I was going to borrow the whole idea, but candles of the size I needed and amount I needed would have been too expensive. As I wandered around Hobby Lobby, I noticed the flower stems were on sale half price, so I went ahead and got the roses, then also found these curly things on stems in kind of an orange-red color. I tried spray-painting them gold, and thought they came out great.

At one of our ladies’ meetings we worked on these bookmarks as favors:

The base of it looks brown here, but it is gold. We decided they’d look best laminated. Our church has a laminating machine, but…it just didn’t work on these. The plastic peeled right off. The gold card stock was a little heavier than usual, and our machine is old. It has to warm up to 250 degrees to adhere, and it got there, but when I ran these through the temperature dropped to 245. I was kicking myself because I could have laminated these the week before, but I didn’t think there was any hurry — I figured it would only take me an hour or so to do. An hour and a half later with it still not done — and the day before we were to decorate — left me very frustrated. I took them to Office Max, and they were able to laminate them, and at not too bad a price, though one way they tried it didn’t work because of the thickness. But we finally got them done, and I loved how they turned out.

Moral of the story: do as much as you can as much ahead of time as you can even if you think you have plenty of time.

We often have a heavier, dinner-type meal (baked chicken or something similar), but I saw on the caterer’s menus an assortment of wraps, and decided to try that this time along with a broccoli salad (which I had never heard of, but it included bacon and shredded cheese, and you can’t go too far wrong with those 🙂 ) and a fresh fruit tray and brownies. I thought everything tasted great.

We had a lot more volunteer help to set up and clean up, so that was a blessing. I mentioned cheerful helpers as one of my five favorite things last week. I don’t know if people realize just how much of a blessing that is when they just pitch in, and then do so with a smile. And my dear husband and oldest son agreed to help in various ways, being there for the caterer to set up while we were in the program and then helping put the pulpit and chairs back on stage afterward.

I had stopped in at the rehearsal after we decorated the night before where the two sound men from church were working with getting the lights and sound cue recording all coordinated. Everything came together really well, and the young lady did a tremendous job with the program. I should have forewarned people to have tissues handy. 🙂 There were several things that spoke to my heart again even though I have read the book a number of times. I was really glad the banana story was included — if you’ve read the book, you know what I am talking about; if not, I’ll let you discover it. It’s one of my favorite parts.

Usually we have some type of little game and door prizes, but I really wanted to give away some copies of the book this time. We had enough in our budget to give away 20. I love getting good books, especially the kind that feed your soul, into other people’s hands.

On a personal note, we had invited my mother-in-law, but she is really uncomfortable in social settings. Whenever I would mention it, she would start out saying she didn’t think she would go, but I would gently try to reassure her that it was in the same building where we have church and we would eat where she had joined us for a church dinner once, so it wasn’t all unfamiliar territory. I also mentioned here last week that a lady at church had begun going to see her once a week or so, and my mother-in-law really likes her and communicates well with her. I asked this lady if she would mind sitting with my mother-in-law since I would have to be up and down and wouldn’t be able to be with her all the time, and she very graciously agreed. When my husband reminded his mom of the luncheon the night before, she almost went into a panic, but he reassured her again. I wasn’t going to try to insist that she go if it was really going to be traumatic for her, but I felt if she would step out of her comfort zone, everything would be ok and she would enjoy herself. And she did — step out and enjoy herself, both. I was very proud of her!

And for me…I tend to get so nervous the day or two before these things, even though everything is going well. I have asked the Lord to take that away, but I guess it is just part of the package, and I just try to ignore it and carry on. Once we get started I am more or less fine: it’s just the time previous that my body reacts nervously in ways I’ll spare you the details of. There were some problems along those lines, but everything turned out ok.

All in all, everything came together very nicely, and the Lord’s help was evident in every way, from the ideas to the people and things needed, to good health for all involved (especially during allergy season!) and most of all in the program itself . Thank you again to those who prayed!

And even though I immensely enjoyed it…I am glad it’s over. 🙂

Catching up

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Last week was spring break for Jesse. Jim took the week off to start on one of our biggest and most needed projects: painting the house. This is the “before” view:

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The shutters on the left of the house are faded; the shutters on the right are peeling. We didn’t know that the ones on the left were made of plastic until Jim took them down and piece of it broke off. The ones on the right were made of wood.

With a split level, there are odd little places with pieces of roof sticking out from the rest of the house and little patches of paneling. I was inside the “sun room” at the back of the house when Jim and Jeremy were on a little section of roof to paint the wall above that and below the main roof. I took this picture from inside the sun room looking out at them.

Yes, Jim is climbing a ladder on a roof. Yes, I did pray for safety a lot during the week!

Jeremy and Jesse working in the front:

This is the contrast of the new color on the left and the old one on the right:

I was a little alarmed at first because the new color looks more yellowish (though not so much in this picture) when I was trying to avoid a yellow tone. When I told Jim’s mom we were painting it off-white, she said, “Ecru?” Unfortunately there are scores of tints and shades in that color family! But when I look at a wall of the new paint by itself it doesn’t look yellowish, so I think it’s fine. Better be! It’s too late to change it! I was just frustrated with myself in my color choice, but it will be fine in the long run.

Jim working on the front:

More prayers for safety!

Jeremy did most of the shutters and gutters:

While I was walking around taking pictures, I thought the view of the sky through the dogwood tree was pretty:

This is the view this morning — the lighting is a little different because the previous pictures were taken on a sunny day and it is overcast this morning. The old is on the left, the new on the right:

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I like it. It looks a lot lighter and brighter.

When I was looking at colors, I didn’t even think about the area around the windows, but changing that from dark to light makes a lot of difference.

Jim was frustrated that he lost two days of painting due to rain at the beginning of the week. He used the time when it wasn’t actually raining to do some prep work, cleaning and scraping. He had mercy on Jesse and didn’t make him work as much as he could have so he could just relax some over spring break. Jesse did get to have a friend over one night. Jason doesn’t get a spring break from his school and had a heavy week of homework, so he wasn’t able to help much. I felt bad that I didn’t contribute more. I am no good on a ladder: one of the residual effects of TM is balance problems. I did have some extra time on Saturday and offered to help Jeremy with the shutters or gutters, but where he was set up on the patio there wasn’t much room, and he was enjoying listening to his iPod while working and didn’t really need or want help at that point. I did provide lunch and dinner. 🙂 I don’t usually make lunches for all of us: years ago when the kids discovered the joys of sleeping in, they woke up at different times and ate at different times, and if I made them each something to eat whenever they got ready, I would have been in the kitchen all day. So they usually make their own lunches. But this week they usually took a lunch break all together, and I figured having a meal ready was the least I could do. And, of course, I’m the chronicler and photographer. 🙂

The greatest majority of it is done. The wall on the left and a little patch of siding on the right is all of the “big” stuff, and Jim will have to rent a ladder to reach the peak (at least I think and hope he is planning to. He did mention the possibility of putting a ladder on top of the van. :O ) They also need to do the doors. But there is some tedious little stuff left, like the wood parts on the window panes. We’ll just have to fit that in as we can.

Today everyone is back to school and work. I sure enjoyed not setting the alarm clock last week. Funny how 6:30 is “sleeping in” these days!

This Saturday is the ladies’ luncheon at church. We got the favors mostly done at the ladies’ meeting last week, and I have a pretty long to-do list before Saturday, but, though it is going to be a busier than usual week, it doesn’t feel really pressured and overwhelming. Even so, there is a little underlying feeling of nervousness that seems to be a part of planning any event, even though things are going well and there’s nothing to worry about and it is all in God’s hands anyway. I just try to ignore it and carry on. 🙂 But I’d appreciate your prayers that everything go well and especially for the lady doing the presentation of Darlene Diebler Rose’s Evidence Not Seen as she prepares. I’m praying that neither of us is adversely affected by the pollen that is so prevalent this time of year!

I was playing around with StumbleUpon last night after noticing in my blog stats that someone viewed one of my posts via Stumble. I clicked on the link, but it didn’t show me what page was viewed: it just took me to a page saying someone had viewed one of my posts, which I already knew. I had already signed in with them but just hadn’t done a lot with it. I looked around and read several things. I didn’t know if I could “stumble” any of my own posts, and I tried it just to see if I could. I was astounded this morning to see that the posts I had stumbled had all received over 90 views just since last night via StumbleUpon, and one, When there is no hunger for God’s Word, received over 2,000 views! I guess it works!

I think that about catches us up with the goings-on here. This will be a busy week preparing for the ladies’ luncheon; next week I’ll have the ladies ministry newsletter/booklet to do; Jason graduates in May, and his fiancee and future mother-in-law are coming for that, so there are some house projects I’d like to get done before that. Jesse has a sports banquet coming up as well as a piano recital and choir concert in May. Then when his school gets out later in the month, I’ll have a breather for a while — until Jason’s wedding in August!!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Hmm…I was trying to come up with a more interesting title than just…”Interesting links.” But I’m not sure that’s “it” either.

At any rate, here are some interesting (looks like I need to get out my thesaurus) things I’ve found this week.

Quilly’s Barefoot Weather made me smile.

Crystal’s A life poured out for others convicted me.

I don’t remember how I found this, but Encouraging Caregivers is a blog that seeks to do just as its title says by one who is a caregiver in her home. Though my mother-in-law doesn’t live in our home, we’re actively involved in her life and care, and I’ve found much here to be helpful. A couple of the many good posts there: Things you can do to encourage yourself and Life with Mom.

Brenda’s Blog from Paraguay has some great, great advice for short-term mission teams. I was thankful that the mission trips my sons have been on were led by people who had been on the mission field, and this echoed much of what they were told. You might pray for Brenda — she’s just found out she has breast cancer and will have to come home to the US for treatment.

I’m not familiar with the blog All you have to give, but from a link somewhere (I forgot to note where) I found this great post on fasting.

I LOVE Anita’s creative space.

Just for fun, I did go head and look up “interesting” at Thesaurus.com: “appealing, entertaining. Synonyms: absorbing, affecting, alluring, amusing, arresting, attractive, beautiful, captivating, charismatic, compelling, curious, delightful, elegant, enchanting, engaging, engrossing, enthralling, entrancing, exceptional, exotic, fascinating, fine, gracious, gripping, impressive, intriguing, inviting, lovely, magnetic, pleasing, pleasurable, prepossessing, provocative, readable, refreshing, riveting, stimulating, stirring, striking, suspicious, thought-provoking, unusual, winning.” I think many of those adjectives apply to many of these links. 🙂 Not “suspicious,” though. And I need to look up what “prepossessing” means (the dictionary can keep me occupied for hours…)

Hope you have a great Saturday. I need to do laundry (again), make a smallish trip to the store, restock the missions closet at church for visiting missionaries tomorrow, and attend a baby shower. And then maybe jump into any of the 101 other things that need to be done around here. Or maybe not. 🙂

Stray thoughts here and there

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Here are some other people’s thoughts that have blessed, encouraged, instructed me, and made me think recently:

Why we need the arts.

Herb Cookery: Vintage Tip Sheet.

Being vs. doing.

Mothering, chores, and consequences. Favorite quote: “…one theme that seems to keep coming up in some of the episodes we watch, and that’s women feeling as if they’re hopeless about getting their children to do chores. ‘They never clean up! They see me cleaning, but they never help, and finally I give up because it’s not worth the hassle and arguments they give me!’ Where did women ever get the idea that they were this hopeless? They are the MOTHERS. They can make their children clean up.”

10 good reasons to exercise hospitality. The posts linked to there are good reading as well. This is an area where I fall short consistently.

Valentine’s Day Single.

Reassurance for parents of young ones. Quote: “…the first few years are the hardest, if you do them right. Picture discipline like a pyramid: you discipline a lot in the first few years, and then when they’re older you don’t have to do very much. What’s required gets smaller and smaller because they internalize good morals (and hopefully a relationship with God).”

Raising sons, raising heroes. Quote: “I’ve been wondering lately,though, about the wisdom of always counseling my guys to avoid risks. Truth is, there are plenty of times in life that you need a guy around who is bold enough to take a risk. To do something.”

20 tips for living on one income.

Write as you read — different approaches to Bible study and getting more out of devotions.

A vision for women’s ministry. Quote: “Women’s ministry is not about women’s rights or about women’s feats, it’s about expressing our love for Jesus and His church – his body.” — Mrs. Susan Hunt

What we call “traditional” gender roles. Quote: “Far too often a couple who claims to be following the Scriptural model for gender roles are actually following a cultural tradition without any foundation.”

Collected thoughts for the new mom.

Fabric boxes.

My son pointed me to the This is why you’re fat blog (that sounds funny…he shared it because he thought it was interesting, not because he was hinting that I was fat…), a site showing “deliciously gross food,” like this Deep fried cupcake with chocolate syrup and sprinkles, the Bacon Cheese Pizza Burger, which uses pizzas as the top and bottom of a burger, or this Bacon-wrapped meatloaf with a layer of macaroni and cheese.

Some of it is pretty gross — some of it actually looks good — but only in small portions!!

Have a great weekend!

Interests and Issues

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Gina at Chats With an Old Lady is running a series on Titus 2 women, sharing testimonies of women who have emphasized the Titus 2 characteristics of an older woman teaching and being an example to a younger one. If you don’t have someone like this in your life, perhaps these testimonies would give you an idea of the kind of person to look for and pray for. Some of us need to get used to the idea that we’re supposed to be on the other end — being a Titus 2 woman to someone — and these will give us some idea how to do that.

Those of you who pray, I’d appreciate your prayers for the talks in Washington about the auto industry bailout. I don’t pretend to have any idea what the best course of action would be, but this concerns not only the auto industry but also myriad other industries that contribute to it. Some of the big car companies are some of the biggest customers of my husband’s company, so anything that affects the “big” business affects his as well.

Frank Sansone brought my attention to something I had not heard of: the fact that President Obama has nominated David Ogden for the position of Deputy Attorney General. This is alarming because of Ogden’s record on pornography, as delineated in the article article: David Ogden and the New Pornographers: Why the Senate Should Reject His Nomination:

In addition to making it harder to prosecute those who sell images of child molestation and rape, Ogden has sought to ensure that pornography can be easily distributed and readily accessed in almost any medium or location. He has fought cases in Puerto Rico to allow Playboy to broadcast explicit programming on TV. He represented Philip Harvey, a man who runs the nation’s largest mail-order pornography shop out of North Carolina, in his attempt to deflect a Department of Justice investigation of his business. Completing a sort of multi-media grand slam, Ogden has sued to allow sexually-explicit content to be transmitted over the phone. Taking this quest to its absurd limits, he has even claimed in court that there is a constitutional right for pornography to be kept in firehouses. Ogden’s position is good for the industry groups he has represented but bad for female firefighters who could be subjected to humiliating and harassing images in the workplace. With an equal disregard for the comfort and protection of children, in 2000 Ogden sued to allow pornography to be accessed in public libraries

Albert Mohler has some additional thoughts here. I hope you will contact your senators to reject this nomination.
The Common Room rightly describes as “Deeply disturbing, heartbreaking” this news and these clips from Palestinian children’s programming glorifying hate, war, and antisemitism.
I’ve been saddened and even sickened by the ramifications of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Sherry at Semicolon has a good summary of it here. The main purpose of it is to keep our children from being poisoned by lead in toys — a good and worthy goal. But it has spun off into senseless mania. Retailers, thrift shops, and others are having to do away with multitudes of children’s books even though there has never been a known instance of someone getting lead contamination from a book. The Headmistress has been blogging about this for days — I would encourage you read even a portion of the info. there on it. It is absolutely mind-boggling.

Finally, I have also been greatly frustrated at the push for the economic stimulus package. Again, I know very little about what would be the best thing for the economy, but what frustrates me is the push to get it voted through before it could even be read. On a local radio interview with my state senator, Jim DeMint, he said he was trying to get them to delay for a week so they could take and read the thing, but that didn’t happen. It’s just irresponsible to push for a vote on something when very few have any idea of the specifics, and I have heard the bill contains some alarming policy changes. One of President Obama’s campaign promises was that the people would have five days to view any bill once it reaches his desk before he signs it. I hope he keeps that promise, but it would be nice for lawmakers to have at least that long to study a bill before signing it.

Sorry to be so depressing. 🙂 I am not feeling depressed — just bothered. I started to look for something cute or funny to end up with, but I decided to leave this post as is to encourage our alertness and prayers for our country and our world.

Stray thoughts…

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I have a dentist’s appointment this morning (ugh!). It’s just a cleaning, but there is still a sense of unease. I am a little concerned about the root canal I had last time. A few days after it I was eating a little mixed fruit cup, of all things, and inadvertently bit down on something hard in a piece of peach — right on that tooth — and it left an indention there. So I am hoping they are not going to say I have to have anything done with that. (Back from the dentist — everything is fine with the tooth. 🙂 )

Jesse’s last regular basketball game is today. To be in the playoffs they have to win, and by a good margin. This team beat them at their last meeting by twice their score — 34-17, I think. So this will be a challenge! They have a good strategy, though, so there is some hope. Win or lose today, they’ve done a great job and pretty steadily improved.

We had a wonderful ladies’ meeting last night. A lady gave her testimony who is a very quiet lady — you’d never know she was such a dynamic speaker! Her husband is a pastor, but they are in between ministries right now, looking for the Lord’s leading. They’ve been in our church now for a year — much longer than they had ever thought they’d be in a state of waiting — but they are still actively serving however they can. At last year’s ladies’ luncheon, her mom told me it was so nice her daughter could just come and enjoy since she usually speaks at them. I thought, “Aha! Someone I can ask to speak some time!” Then I heard she was a real dynamo at VBS last summer. She kind of wove her testimony in with something the Lord had laid on her heart, and He wonderfully used it.

Plus…I have been thinking and praying about the upcoming ladies’ luncheon in April…but just wasn’t set on anything yet, and I was starting to get a little panicky and really hoping to have at least a theme this week. This lady suggested a lady she knew who does dramatic readings and did one recently based on Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose, a tremendous book. My first thought was that it might work better for a regular ladies’ meeting, since the luncheon doesn’t usually have a missionary focus. But then I thought, since we usually have more people at the luncheon than at a regular meeting, it would have a wider audience there. Then this morning, more ideas of how to incorporate this into the luncheon came to mind — so this might be what we do! Maybe that’s why the Lord hadn’t given me any other ideas yet. I’ll try to make contact later today and see if this lady has the date free and then go from there.

Normally when planning for the luncheon, I like to have the verse for it first. Usually just in the course of regular devotions or while praying about the theme, a verse will stand out, and after further prayer and thought, then theme ideas, favor ideas, special music, etc., all just flow forth, and that, to me, is kind of confirmation that that’s the way we should go. I like to have the spiritual emphasis first rather than a cute or clever theme that we then try to dream up a spiritual basis for.

Well, I was going to share some interesting links I’ve seen lately, but since I have rattled on thinking out loud and ended up with rather a long post already, I think I’ll save them for another time.

Happy Tuesday!

Whose life is it, anyway?

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s interesting how God brings something to my attention just as I need it. I had just been chafing under an area of service to another, a particularly minor service, when Michelle’s post about serving the Lord with gladness convicted me. That led me to thinking about serving one another in love. Then last night in Joy and Strength I read the following:

Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good.
ROMANS 15:2

Let us consider one another.
HEBREWS 10:24

LOOK around you, first in your own family, then among your friends and neighbors, and see whether there be not some one whose little burden you can lighten, whose little cares you may lessen, whose little pleasures you can promote, whose little wants and wishes you can gratify. Giving up cheerfully our own occupations to attend to others, is one of the little kindnesses and self-denials. Doing little things that nobody likes to do, but which must be done by some one, is another. It may seem to many, that if they avoid little unkindnesses, they must necessarily be doing all that is right to their family and friends; but it is not enough to abstain from sharp words, sneering tones, petty contradiction, or daily little selfish cares; we must be active and earnest in kindness, not merely passive and inoffensive.

There is no author listed for the quote: under it is just “LITTLE THINGS, 1852.”

Selfish as I am, I have to be frequently reminded my life is not my own. It’s His, and often serving others is serving Him.

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2.

When children’s beliefs and practices differ from ours

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Barbara Harper

When you work with young people, whether as a parent, teacher, or just another adult with some influence in a particular child’s life, there comes a time when you’re dismayed to discover the child has a mind of his or her own and is not afraid to use it. 🙂 Of course we want our young people to develop and use their minds, but when they take views opposite to ours sometimes we wish for the “easier” days when they agreed with everything we told them and our primary care of them was physical (though at that time we longed for the days ahead when our kids could take care of themselves more.)

Let me encourage us to, first of all, keep the lines of communication open, and second of all, to choose our battles. I sometimes wince at that last phrase because I have seen some parents use it when they abandon training their children in some area that the child is resisting. But there are some areas of difference that are fine and just expressions of different personalities. For instance, if you like pastels and florals in your decorating, but your daughter likes dramatic colors and modern abstract patterns, that’s fine. God gave us different personalities to reach different people.

It’s a little harder when it comes to different convictions. We may hold strong views on courtship vs. dating or schooling or entertainment choices or any number of things, and we see signs that our children are not going to maintain those views in their adulthood. Romans 14 applies within families as well as within the church. I had to really wrestle with some of these things when we lived out of state and could not find a church that held to some of our convictions, though we found many with whom we agreed doctrinally. Unity in Christianity doesn’t mean we all do everything the exact same way. Roman 14 and related passages teach that good people can be on complete opposite sides of an issue and still be right with God, still doing what they do as unto the Lord, fully persuaded in their own minds that what they are doing is what He wants. So we need to discern whether the issue involved is a matter of core doctrine and truth or whether it is an issue that good people can disagree on. If the latter, as parents, teachers, authorities. or mentors, we can still insist that a certain standard be maintained in our home or classroom, but we don’t need to regard the young person with the differing conviction as a second-class Christian or as out of the will of God.

Still harder and scarier is when the young person does begin to question our core values, doctrines, and beliefs. Let me encourage us all not to shut down the questions. The first fundamentalist pastor I had was an old-school authoritarian who not only did not entertain questions but looked on the questioner with suspicion as a rebel. Even as adults we can sometimes wrestle with questions like “How do I know this is all really true?” I’ve often prayed for myself as well as my children, when those kinds of questions come up, that if there are answers, the Lord would help us find them, but also help us to be willing to take by faith what there are no answers for. One of the best messages I have ever hear along these lines was “God Is Wise and We Are Not” by Dan Olinger of the BJU faculty. I like that he says “God is able to handle our questions.” He doesn’t always answer them the way we’d like. But He’s not intimidated by them. And, honestly, I’d much rather have a young person wrestle through some of these things and truly make their beliefs their own and come out the stronger in their faith for it than to be swept along in a positive peer pressure without knowing why they believe what they believe.

The hardest of all, though, in this progression of differences between our beliefs and our young people’s, is when they outright reject truth. The Common Room a few weeks ago shared some remarks that started off my whole line of thinking here. The context of the remarks she has that I want to share had to do with a child of friends who was marrying someone the parents did not approve of. I’ve seen parents handle things the way she describes, a way that will make reconciliation all the harder, if not impossible, and I felt her thoughts here to be valuable:

I wrote last year about an unhappy wedding we attended (and that wedding has already ended), and while I wrote it specifically about a situation where a rebellious and wayward young person was marrying somebody most unsuitable, the general principles apply to several situations, and I’m reviving it slightly for this post:

I am seeing an awful lot of defrauding going on- and it’s the parents defrauding their children.

The time to raise objections, to point out possible character flaws, to object to a relationship that you believe may be toxic- even if you are right, dead on target, and absolutely correct in all your judgments is before there is a relationship to cloud judgment, before saying these things will cause a fatal wound in your child’s relationship with you, and especially if you allowed that relationship to develop in the first place.

Do not let your most fondly cherished hopes and dreams for how your child’s marriage will happen… come between you and your adult Progeny, whether they share those hopes and dreams or crush them under foot.

I have conservative views on mating, dating (we don’t believe in it) and courtship, views shared by my husband happily, still shared by our Progeny- but those views are not more important to us than our children themselves.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love….

All my earnestly held beliefs in the world will not matter a fig if I conduct a slash and burn policy towards a wayward child and use my convictions as an axe against the root of our relationship in such a way as to drive my adult son or daughter away from me. In fact, in several instances I can think of, parents have attempted to bludgeon adult children into compliance with their own cherished convictions, only to see that weapon shift in their hands and become a catapult which only serves to launch that young person as far away from his parents as possible, often into the arms of any waiting other.

It is possible to speak winsomely and gently of those convictions, to explain them sweetly when leavened well with humility.

But too often we prefer to pontificate proudly and strut and huff and puff about them, sure that we are producing a new breed, if only that breed will shut up and get in line, we mean, obey their spiritual heads, and then it is of no matter how pleasing to God the convictions themselves may or may not be, our hearts are poisoned in His eyes, and we are acting in such fashion as to poison any future relationships with unsaved in-laws and grandchildren.

It is a tragedy to see parents angrily but sincerely pleading, insisting, that their children return to the fold, something they truly desire with all their hearts, while all the time they are pleading, they are pouring gasoline on the bridge between them and their loved ones and then setting it afire.

There are times we do have to take a painful stand. But we need to remember that some of God’s tenderest expressions of love, some of the times He most reveals His heart for His people, are in those passages in the prophets where He is having to confront them with their sin. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” applies to loved ones as well as to strangers — perhaps even more so. The purpose of chastisement is reconciliation. We need to avoid destroying the relationship and making it all the harder for the young person to return to the fold while standing for truth. Let us not burn the bridges but rather, like the prodigal son’s father, gaze with anticipation down a clear path while we wait for their return.

(Photo courtesy of the stock.xchng)

Catching up

Posted on November 1, 2008 by Barbara Harper

My word, you all are prolific! I had to discipline myself not to even open Google Reader yesterday til I finished my task. After dinner I finally got to “play” a while — and there were over 120 posts! I read some last night and some this morning. Saturdays are typically slow in Blogland, so it is a good day to catch up.

I also missed out on Friday’s Fave Five, Show and Tell Friday, Saturday Photo Hunt, but it is my own fault.

The last week of the month finds me working on a newsletter/booklet for our ladies’ group at church. I never know quite what to call it. It started out as about eight pages with news of our group, our missionaries, and other little bits of interest to women, based on a similar booklet my mother-in-law’s church published. I took some of those to my pastor and asked if we could do the same, and he said, “Go for it!” This month marks my eighth year of doing it, and it has grown to 16 pages and includes a section on devotions, a book summary of a missionary book or biography or an anecdote from a missionary’s life, an “around the house” section of tips or encouragement for homemakers, a “Christian womanhood” section where I rotate topics related to different to women in different situations — single, married, mom, older, widowed, etc. Some of it I write myself, some of it I compile from other sources. It is a blessing to me — sometimes I would love to lay aside other ministry tasks and just do this.

Oh, there is also a “funny pages” section at the back. That is probably what I get the most comments on. 🙂

It seems that most bloggers love to write to some degree — you might ask your pastor about a similar ministry, and he just might say, “Go for it!”

Some months I know what I am going to put in the booklet, and it is just a matter of getting it down. Other times I am not so sure until I get started. This month was about half and half. I usually work on it the last week of the month to have out the first Sunday of the next month. I keep telling myself I should work on it earlier then let it “sit” and incubate for a while and edit it the last week — I would probably catch more mistakes that way and find better ways to word things. But I somehow end up not doing that. This particular week I ended up not getting the bulk of it done until the last two days!

I don’t work best under pressure — but I do get more done under pressure.

But my point in saying all of this is to testify that God is faithful to guide and direct and give ideas even to such small endeavors as this. There was one section I was drawing a blank on until He reminded me of an idea I considered last month, but then went another direction. I hadn’t made note of it and had forgotten it. Sometimes putting the clip art in can be the most time-consuming part of it, but He reminded me of a file I had downloaded some type back under an obscure title. Time after time I see Him faithfully helping things to come together, giving me ideas, etc. And I have seen that in other areas of ministry as well. So I just wanted to encourage you not to refrain from certain types of ministry because you don’t think you’d know what to do. If it is something the Lord wants you to do, He will work through you and help you to do it.

“In other news”… last night was Halloween, and somehow our neighborhood gets flooded with many more people than I ever see on the streets here at any other time. I think people from other neighborhoods, or maybe a nearby apartment complex, bring their kids here. I even saw one truck that hauled a lot of people around. We always get some kids’ tracts printed up for just such a purpose (our local Christian bookstore has them but they can also be ordered at Good News Publishing) to give out with the candy. I bought 114 tracts — about all our bookstore had that I liked — and those were gone within about 45 minutes. I scrambled around between my purse and desk and a cabinet and found maybe 40 or so more. Then we just gave out handfuls of candy but got tired after a while and went ahead and closed the door and shut off the lights. We have much more candy left over than any of us needs — I may send some to the dorms with Jason’s girlfriend.

I used to be very anti-Halloween, and I still think there is a darker side to it. I feel almost oppressed sometimes at the types of things in the stores and on TV — I don’t watch horror movies, but I do see them listed and advertised a lot this time of year. And I think a lot of the really gruesome costumes and decorations go too far. But I can see how it can also be an innocent, fun time of dressing up and having fun.

When my older boys were little, a friend used to host a fall party on a week apart from Halloween. Each year it was a different theme: one year it was clowns, one it was fairy-tale characters, one it was what you want to be when you grow up. The kids just loved that, and I loved the creativity of getting a costume together to fit the theme. If I had time today I’d scan in some of their costumes, but I don’t — and this post is too long already. My friend also had games and goodies, and those parties were some of my favorite memories from my kids’ childhood.

Speaking of going on too long, I need to get going, but I wanted to share one last thing. A few days ago I mentioned I was chuckling over a mom in a store calling to her little son, “Walker, don’t run!” Well, this morning there was a related headline in the paper that made me chuckle again:

Have a good weekend!

Making cards

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home has started hosting an opportunity for bloggers to show their cards, bookmarks, or other paper crafts on Thursdays. I’ve been enjoying Kelli’s cards and others for a long time.

I have posted this picture before, but these are bookmarks I made when our ladies’ group was making them to send to our missionaries to use in their ministry.

This one was made a couple of years ago as a thank you to someone who helped with our ladies’ banquet where the theme had to do with hearts.

This past week our ladies met to make some cards for our missionaries to use. Here are a few I made:

We had a lady in our church who I call The Card Master show our ladies some techniques to make cards last month, and one idea she gave us was to start with what she called “cheater cards.” They sell these by the box at craft stores: cards with different background designs which you can then add embellishment to. Our ladies who hadn’t made cards before thought this was a great way to get started. Here is one that one of the ladies made:

And finally, this is one The Card Master made:

You can see she is eons ahead of the rest of us!! But that’s one reason I enjoy doing this together — it inspires more creative ideas.

Kelli, I think I have been bitten by the card-making bug!

By the way, I created a Flickr group called Creative Cards here — if any of you use Flickr for your photos, I’d love to have you submit your cards there!