God is in CONTROL

Sunday, April 26, 2009

THEY DID IT!!




Bethany and Mat have been training in the Kansas heat, running in rain, snow and subfreezing temperatures. . . uphills and with tendinitis from their run last month in 6 inches of snow for 18 miles.


During her Chicago marathon -- Mat and I were worried at mile 23 when we couldn't find her after waiting on a bridge in the heat for over an hour. We'd seen her at mile 17 and she told us then that they had run out of water.
As we jumped on subway trains and hurried on foot block to block --with bottles of water and Gatoraid Mat said this would be the last time he would let her run a race without him.

In her blog, Bethany mentions how often verses come to her mind and keep her at it as she runs.


The Apostle Paul's words come to my mind now -- "I have finished the race!" You see Bethany didn't get to finish the entire 26 miles in Chicago in 07 when the race was called because of the heat. Her goal was to run a complete 26 -- My prayer was for her legs and lungs to be strong as she and Mat crossed the finish line together. MY PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED WITH A DEFINITE "YES!!!"

What's in a Name?



What's in a name anyway? How important is what people call you? There are books published for names to call your baby.
Nobody calls their child "Manson" or "Hitler" -- well that one lady did that I heard about the other day when ordered a cake for her son at Wal-Mart with "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler" on it after another store in town refused to decorate the cake.

I know that when I used all 3 of one of my children's names it meant they needed to stop what they were doing and look to me for cues on what to change in their behavior and do it quickly! Using their nicknames was something special and endearing.

In her book, Work in Progress, Kristin Armstrong quotes from Staci Eldredge's Captivating retreat "God has a special name for each of us". One of my friends is sure that her's would be "chubby". I still haven't gotten an impression of what mine is. (I hope it's not Martha-- but I'm thinking it could be. One of our elderly brothers at church said that's the Bible woman I make him think of - I did take one of those facebook quizzes - "Which woman of the Bible are you -- and I came up Mary Magdalene -- not sure about that one either.)


Seriously though, Just to know that HE knows each of our names and we're not just some celestial serial number is HUGE! I'm not #43786092175907 - But maybe my nickname "Jannie" or "Jan" -- I don't think Janice -- nobody ever calls me that -- that's too stiff. Jesus uses OUR NAMES as He intercedes for us daily! That is beyond my comprehension!

I remember Terry speaking at a retreat at Rockcliff Encampment near Denver several years ago and telling the teens about the name God will give us written on a white stone. Revelation 3 speaks of the new name that God will give to each of us overcomers that only HE and WE will know.

God's name is vital to our understanding of HIM. The study of the names of God and His Son has always been one of my favorites. I love studying and teaching about these names of God and Jesus. Jehovah Shammah means so much more to me after one of my teenagers told about sensing Jehovah Shammah (God is there) in the room as her mother was dying.

What I've learned in these 36+ years of being a pastor's wife is that as I go through difficult seasons, I often come out with a new understanding of one of HIS names. When my father died, the name EVERLASTING FATHER became dearer to me. When one troublesome ministry came to an end I saw HIM as My Deliverer. I have seen him as the Righteous Judge, The Prince of my Peace and My Wonderful Counselor, and My Rock when my life seemed topsy turvy. He's been the Way and my Rearguard when I felt lost and clueless.

God told his people to build a place for THE NAME.
What name do you think that is? JEHOVAH? YAWEH? Elohim? Almighty God? Everlasting Father? Jehovah Jireh?

I'm pretty partial to The Ancient of Days after studying the book of Daniel. I can now envision El Roi after writing a skit of Hagar's encounter with the God "who sees me". He reminds me at times that he is Sovereign and ALL-SUFFICIENT
when I get pretty stubborn and self-sufficient.

Several weeks ago I challenged our Life Park members to begin thinking of what name of God they associate with the most. I then mentioned that in our next ALLTOGETHER activity each flock or group would build a house for God, depicting the name that they believe best represents the name or character of God that they believe people need most today in their lives. You see as we build our new church building it's not just about having a nice place to sit and sing songs -- it's about a building a church HOME where we show HIM to the watching world around us and best represent HIM to the people HE so longs to bring into his forever family.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Angels on Earth Today



I got this e-mail from my cousin Janet today:

"My cousin, Jerry, lives in San Antonio, TX. They have 2 little girls aged 3 & 4 yrs old. Two weeks ago Jerry's wife had the girls out in the back yard playing. They were tossing water balloons at each other. Jerry's wife (and I'm sorry but I can't remember her name-I've never met her) ran inside the house to put a load of laundry from the washer into the dryer. She returned to the back yard in approx 2-3 minutes and there she found the 3 yr old sitting in a chair, soaked from head to toe. She asked the 4 yr old what had happened to her little sister and she told her mother that the little girl had gotten into the pool. 

This panicked her mother since the little girl can't swim and is not capable of pulling herself up onto the side of the pool. When asked how she got out of the pool the 4 yr old told her mother that she just pulled herself out. She then asked the 3 yr old how she got out of the pool and she told her mother "a big dragonfly" picked her up out of the pool. Her mother asked her again what really happened, and she said "a big white dragonfly with big wings" picked her up out of the pool and put her in the chair. 

The mother said that they are not perfect people and do not go to church every Sunday, but go when they can, and that they always have God in their hearts. When her daughter told her about the white dragonfly, the only thing she could do at that moment was drop to her knees and thank God for sending his angel to save her little girl.
Reminds me of the verse:
"Their angels in Heaven always behold the face of my Father." Matt.18

Lab Lessons


I have held labs for 125 students all week - shopping for $500 worth of groceries -- I'm worn out with labs -- and have one more week to go. We go to the grocery store before this final lab to explore unit pricing and making decisions on a budget. The students love lab experiences and they seem to apply themselves more to the other assignments I give, knowing they'll get their time in the lab to prove their culinary genius.

So many times I have to ask my students when the prepared product fell short of the picture in the cookbook - What did we learn from this?  
Essentially, labs in food prep prepare them to be pretty good cooks at the end of six weeks -- well not chef status -- but at least sous chef.
 
Though we do various activities to illustrate concepts - like creating mock families, building their own "house" out of craft objects, holding a mock wedding and managing a mock budget --I have often thought how valuable it would be to be able to create labs for some of the other life situations they might have to face -- relationship break-ups,  financial bail-outs when they have ruined their credit, facing serious illness or picking themselves up when they have given into something more powerful than they realized.

I started my life skills course by saying -- I want you to not just SURVIVE - but THRIVE! I tell them they are on the front porch of the rest of their lives and I don't want them to live SCARED -- but SMART. When they make a mistake in lab -- I often ask, "and what did you learn from THAT?" My seniors will be graduating soon.-- I hope I have them well prepared --I guess the question I should ask myself now about my course instruction is and "And what did they learn from THIS?"



Sunday, April 19, 2009

Teaching the book of Job to Primaries or "Who Signed Me Up for That?"?


Today it fell my task to teach the basics of the book of Job to my 1st - 5th graders. These are my kids who have been sitting in worship for an hour and a half and have just tanked up on donuts.
I have to first tell you who is in my class - I've changed their names to keep you guessing. :)
There is:
Sweetie Pie cute as a bug, can sing like a cherub .
Pete who is smart as a whip but sees himself more as a cowboy than a kid -
There's Slim who knows as much about the latest Superhero video as anybody and can tell you all about him whether you want to hear it or not. . . they know their Bibles -- when they want to give up an answer.
There's Sam -- who would prefer you not ask him questions, but follows carefully as we discuss and read our Bibles - and Phil who gives the most precious grin and tries hard to keep up with a teacher who talks far too fast.
Lastly, there's Will and Joe both tenderhearted to the core and can teach you about God's love with a single hug -- but you'd better keep it moving, lady -- or they're out the door if you don't have a pretty good dog and pony show.

So they bounded in the door, took off for the Junior High room and I wondered how could I keep their focus. I thought the first thing we would do was to have a "boo - boo" contest to see who had the worst scrape or cut and award  5 new bandaids to the kid with the ugliest scar-- surely that would be a good parallel to Job's boils.  For a group that usually has skinned knees and banged up elbows everybody was in pretty good shape. . . so that sort of bombed. (Should have brought the camo or super-hero band-aids.)

Then I took them to the trash pit out behind the building and showed them the type of place Job sat scraping his booboos with a broken pot.   I even broke an old flower pot to give them the idea of what Job's life became -- nobody offered up their scratches or scrapes to try it out.

I stressed what a blameless and upright man Job was and that he offered sacrfices and worshipped God. Slim thought that would have cut his supply of cows to offer up one for each of his 10 kids every time they gave a big party.

Their biggest questions of the day -- "Was this before Satan was kicked out of Heaven?" - that was Slim.
They get pretty fascinated with Satan's fall -- especially Pete and Slim so they honed in on the conversation between the devil and the angels. They wondered if it was like The Emperor's New Groove where there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the next. They were thrilled to know the verse about their own angels. I wonder if they keep some of their's pretty busy.
"Did Job's children go to the bad place (you mean Hell?)- when they died?" -- Joe wanted to know.
 Nobody knew for sure what an oxen was.  They're weren't sure what it meant to be upright.
No, Job didn't give up and curse God.  (though I did hear some bad language in class that I probably should have addressed).

I stressed that Job still worshipped after his first big losses --Joe continued to read the verse that said that Job was naked when he came into the world and naked when he was taken out. ("Naked" made Joe giggle)

In conclusion
They all agreed that Satan was testing Job and that yes remaining faithful was the right thing to do. I suddenly realized that they had gotten pretty quiet and were intent on Joe's reading -- he loves to read. They were working hard on filling in their verses. They liked the part where his brothers and sisters came and gave silver coins and a gold ring. (This was a good place for a ring pop treat.)  With blue lips and tongues sucking on their ring pops, they did the math and realized that God blessed Job twice as much  for remaining faithful.

How do you teach a child that tests and trials come when we least expect or deserve them?  There was no way I could explain  the questions Job had for God nor could I help them understand his pain was compounded by the stress of feeling abandoned.  They're too young to realize that at times life is not fair and that we just have to accept and believe that God is in charge and HE will bring us through.

When calamity strikes or our lives get disrupted ever wonder, "Who signed me up for that?"

Several of my family members were no strangers to suffering:  My Dad with muscular dystrophy, my Mother-in-Law with post-polio syndrome, my mother with Lou Gehrig's disease and most recently in the past 5-6 years my husband, with rheumatoid arthritis.  Each of my dear ones, over time, accepted and endured the pain and still kept on faithfully loving and believing their God.  My husband has been my greatest teacher most recently in handling and coping with searing pain.  Every morning, he dutifully got up and continued his pursuit of God.  Even when ministry efforts weren't always rewarded with success.

We're in the season now where healing and relief have come!!!
Like Job, we're twice blessed to have learned lessons through the pain and come through to now enjoy this time of healing and refreshing!!! Blessed be Jehovah Rapha! (Our Healer)




Saturday, April 18, 2009

Living Your Dream - Fulfilling Your Life Goals

Recently our son, Marshall, said to me "Mom, can you believe it - I'm going to be a surgeon? I am so happy in what I am doing!" I will have to say that about his sophmore year of high school my prayer was "Lord, help that boy learn how to read." He hated English, wasn't too keen on math and had as his life goal to be a drummer and make lots of money so he could support us in old age in a good nursing home."

He presently is in India having just finished a surgery rotation there, another of his goals.


Our daughter said two years ago, I'm fulfilling one of my life goals to run the '07 Chicago marathon." Her Daddy had to stay at his post in the pulpit and our son-in-law and I became marathon buddies as we raced from checkpoint to checkpoint in the Windy City to get a glimpse of her several times during the race. Next weekend they both run the Big Sur-- another of their life goals - to run one together.

I teach goal-setting to my high school juniors and seniors and I try to motivate them to envision a life beyond the high school hallways- envision a life lived large. I had to ask myself -- "Jan, what are your present life goals?" I had to admit I have achieved most of the things I desired to do -- marry a good man, have a family and be a teacher and really hadn't verbalized any major life goals in a long time -- I work to meet my deadlines, finish the myriad of projects I create and just try to make it till Fall Break, Christmas Holidays, President's Day . . . etc.

I don't want to stop before I'm finished so I have begun to challenge myself to dream big again, asking what I could do now with my life in these "empty nest" years? -- There are still people to serve and lessons to teach -- family to love and friends to enjoy . . there are places I'd love to do mission work with my family. Paul said it best, "pressing on to reach the prize of the high calling." PRESSING ON -- sounds like we are to do some goal setting while we're keeping on.
-- It's sure to be an adventure -- God promises to make the way sweet as we run (or walk) to our Ultimate Goal -- the prize of the High Calling.

Hide n' Seek -- Lost and Found

I have a 5 1/2 yr. old friend, "Missy" the Explorer.  That's what she loves to do at my house and she even kind of looks like Dora. She helps me to see how very big the world is by showing me all the infinitely small creatures and critters I overlook in my busy pursuit of "keeping up" with life.  I find myself totally engrossed in her pursuit of ladybugs, worms and crickets as she unearths the big rocks in my flower beds.

One of her favorite games this time of year is to have me hide my four huge Easter Eggs and let her find them.  She then hides the eggs for me and this goes on for what seems like hours.  Each time she finds her four huge prizes she becomes equally as excited as the previous time . . . and then it came to me . . . that's how it is with God -- HE's about finding what (or who) is lost (or has lost their way) and each time, HE  is truly and completely ecstatic!

Home



We've just returned from our daughter and son-in-law's home and I have to tell you it's one of the most inviting and welcoming places we go. Terry said from the first "this place just feels like home." That's because they make it that way for each person who takes shelter under their roof.
When I grew up HOME was everything to me. My family was extremely close and Mom was the hub of our household. Those days we'd come home from school and holler for Mom because we knew so many of our needs would be met when we found her.


As I grew older, went to college, got married and moved away Homecomings became even sweeter. As I think about home several images come to mind of the house I grew up in. There was the sight of home as we rounded the "bend" on Main St. in my little hometown of Moro, IL. The lights would be on and my mother would be watching for our car, we knew from the kitchen window. There was the feeling of coming through the back door, looking for Mom and Dad, the smell of food cooking and the sense of relief that came over me because I knew I was back where I first belonged.


A couple of weeks ago my pastor husband talked about an older saintly sister who was "homesick" ready to go her Heavenly residence. It caused my heart to quicken with anticipation as I thought about how it will be when we go through that front door -- that overwhelming sense of relief and joy knowing we're HOME. I'm sure we'll not have to holler or look for Jesus, because I believe HIS face will be the first we see, I'm sure the lights will be on and the sights, sounds and smells of home will be inexpressible!!!!

Every Thirty Years . . .

My mother used to tailor and design her own clothes and all of ours, for that matter, even my dad's sport coats. I often heard her say "Every 30 years fashion repeats itself. If you hold on to your clothes long enough they will come back in style". Now I don't know anyone who would want to have that jacket or pair of pants hanging around that long . . . but when you examine trends not only in fashion, but in thought and life patterns I see this to be true. Young moms again are considering cloth diapers, staying home with their children longer before returning to careers and some even making their own baby foods. We did that 30 years ago. Remember diaper pails and baby food grinders?

In every age there emerges thoughts new to that group of young people as they each search to develop their lives and find their own way.

It makes me happy to see they are finding lasting fulfillment in family, in helping and supporting their communities and making the world a better place to live.

Life seems to come full circle -- whether it be every 20 years or 30. . . and the best trends return. . . others remain steadfast -
"Now abides faith, hope and love -- the greatest of these is love."

Friday, April 17, 2009


We're with Bethany and Mat our daughter and son-in-law tonight celebrating her 29th birthday. I wonder where did the time go? It was only yesterday that she was that tiny one in my arms the first night after her birth -- I remember - thinking what a miracle and how very blessed I was. Our children are all truly gifts from our Creator.

New to This...


To keep up with my technologically advanced family, I decided to try something new. Why not share my thoughts with the entire world? So here's to sharing my thoughts, laughs & inspirations with my friends and family!


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