And the Winner of This Month’s Picture Choice Is…

A droid. Internet sources also call them androids, with the name from antiquity (otherwise known as the 20^th century)-- robot.

Since I really had no definite idea of what constituted a droid, I checked Wookieepedia (actually, I Googled the term and Wookieepedia appeared first on the list).  I digress, but I didn’t know such a site existed. Wikipedia, yes, but not Wookieepedia. It’s always a joyous day when my aged brain learns something new.

At any rate, I was reminded that droids were important characters in the Star Wars movies. When the first Star Wars movies came out my boys were little guys and totally enamored by the whole idea—light sabers, whatever the transporters were called and R2D2 and C3PO. So my memory is nudged and I’m moving forward (I think).

Another thing I read stated that droids or robots were made to resemble human action and I suppose to simulate emotion. I recall movies made to picture “what ifs” on that level.

 And the picture chosen for this month would mirror that somewhat as it appears one droid is eying the other’s rear (and I would suppose it wasn’t to tell the other droid she/it had a torn seam in her skirt).

I’ll close off this dreadful essay or whatever it might be termed as, with an interesting tidbit I read describing Verizon’s Android phone. It’s made with Dupont Kevlar fiber. I’m guessing that means if you get in a gunfight/driveby shooting, etc. you can hold up your phone to ward off the bullets. Something along the line of law enforcement’s bulletproof vests –only smaller.

Alexander Graham Bell would rise straight up out of his grave plot if he could see what his invention has become.

Who Am I?

What we term the holiday season—Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s—brings much joy, but can also usher in heartache we have managed to squelch the rest of the year. Instead of focusing on our blessings, perhaps depression settles in because of losses we have suffered.

This depression can very well be linked to how we view ourselves—our identity. The world, our environment, may look at us and say, “You are a teacher or a housewife, or a miner.” In other words, we are identified by our job or career.

There’s the aspect of relationship in identity—you are a spouse, or a parent or a child. Perhaps a friend or fiancé.

When something happens to change what we consider our identity, depression may well become part of our life. We lose a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend, or a job. Even our health can be an identifier.

We describe ourselves as unemployed, chronically ill, a widow/widower, divorcee, an orphan.

Our pastor gave such a great lesson on identity recently. He said, “Never base your identity on something you can lose.”

We can lose family members, relationships, jobs, health, beauty and brawn. But the one constant we can never lose is God’s unconditional love. Once we have given ourselves to Him and accepted the forgiveness He freely offers because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, we are locked into an identity that will never change. That being a child of the King of kings.

Which brings us back full circle to Christmas and a new year.  In chapter three of the gospel of John, we read in verse 16 that God loved the world (and we can each insert our name in place of “the world”) so much He sent His Son, Jesus into the world so we can live with Him forever.

In that same gospel of John, the very first verse says, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and lived with us. Jesus loved us so much He was willing to leave the awesome beauty and perfection of heaven to come to earth for thirty plus years and then take the penalty of our sin upon Himself. But it didn’t stop there. He was resurrected—He smashed death so His children no longer needed to fear it.

A child of the King--hat’s an identity to claim with a passion!

The Storm-Calmer

Death—of beloved young people in plane and car crashes, beloved elderly people to disease. Upheaval of families due to depressed financial situations or worse yet, torn apart by divorce. Chronic illness, depression, job stress, relation stressors—all part of the storms of life that come to us at some point just by virtue that we live in a fallen, imperfect world.

A scripture jewel I read and thought about this week was Luke 8:22-25 where Jesus asks His disciples to take Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the obvious and quickest way being by boat. They all piled in and Jesus was soon asleep because He was tired out from teaching and healing a mass of people in the area He was leaving.

A storm arises which is a common occurrence on the Galilee and the wind and rain were about to swamp the boat, drowning all on board. Someone woke Jesus to tell Him about their dire straits. He immediately rose up and rebuked the storm which instantly calmed. Then He turned to His disciples and scolded them a bit by saying essentially, “Where is your faith?” Even though they had seen Him work miracles with food, heal sick and twisted bodies and even raise the dead, they didn’t understand that their Rabbi, was also the Creator of the universe—so nothing was impossible for Him to do.

As I read this scripture, I was so grateful for the analogy between that storm the disciples were dealing with there on the Sea of Galilee and the storms of life that we have to deal with during our life here on planet Earth.

As Sarah Young aptly wrote, we are so prone to try to fix problems when our abilities are actually very limited. Changing our top priority from trying to fix problems to seeking such a close relationship with the Lord that we are able to see His perspective on the matter makes all the difference. David shared what the Lord told him in Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you.”

Praise God—the same Jesus Who calmed the Galilee is also able to calm the turbulent waters in our lives.

And Then There Was One

Werener and Hannalie Gronewald made the momentous decision to leave South Africa with their small children and move to Afghanistan in 2003. Werner was the senior pastor at a Dutch Reformed Church and Hannalie was a doctor at a trauma unit.  Their children were ages three and five at that time. They had gone on a medical mission to the area some time earlier and felt an unmistakable calling from the Lord to move. They did so with eyes wide open, knowing they might well lose their lives in Afghanistan because it is a country extremely unfriendly to Christianity.

The move was not easy, the culture difficult to adjust to and the couple was particularly concerned about the educational and social needs of their children. However, the Lord was faithful in taking care of their needs and by 2014, John-Pierre, 17, was hoping to study aviation technology at Moody Bible Institute and Rode, 15, was becoming a gifted writer as well as being interested in the arts. Over the years Werner worked with various humanitarian agencies teaching leadership institutes for Afghans, community development, and always planting seeds of the Gospel. In addition to caring for her family, Hannalie also worked as a doctor in a clinic in Kabul. 

The Gronewald Family

On November 29, 2014 Hannaliie and her fellow doctors had been put on standby at a UN meeting because an attack by the Taliban was expected that day. She had no idea that her family was to be the target.

The Three Who Are Gone

That evening on her way home from work, Hannalie received word that their apartment had been attacked. Eventually, she discovered that Werner, two Afghans, and their two teenagers had been gunned down. Hannalie said in an interview that her one regret wasn’t necessarily that she survived but that “I wanted to be there, especially with the children, just to…hold them and face the bullets.” However, there is no doubt in her mind that Jesus was right there with them.

On October 2014, Werner had spoken at a conference on “Counting the Cost for Christ.” He ended his presentation with this statement: “We die only once. It might as well be for Christ.”  The Gronewald family practiced what they preached.

(Anyone interested in hearing Voice of the Martyer’s interview with Hannalie on September 23, 2016 can go to VOMRadio.net. You can also watch Hannalie's story at persecution.com/idop)  

Which Will It Be?

Enervating? Or energizing? On a recent morning I woke up thinking of cocoons. Actually, I woke up thanking the Lord for the comfy, snuggly cocoon I was nestled in made of several blankets. Since I keep my hair cut short, my ears and neck are exposed, and when it comes to cold, winter winds or drafts in my bedroom, I pretty much become a hibernating human on chilly nights.

As I debated the pros and cons of emerging from my cocoon, there was the continuing warm, safe, snuggly sensation as opposed to the time on my clock announcing it was 6:22 AM. This was a day I could sleep in a bit, but I was properly "guilted" that I should get with my morning schedule as I had a full day ahead. 

As I pondered the idea of cocoons, I naturally thought of the lowly worm that encases itself in a cocoon and at the proper time emerges as a beautiful butterfly. That transformation or metamorphosis in nature is also possible supernaturally for us humans—not that we’ll become butterflies:) but we can become transformed. The apostle Paul explained this best in ­­­­Romans 12:2a, “…be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

So, just as I cannot stay in the comfy cocoon of my warm bedcovers on these chilly mornings, and as the worm cannot stay in its cocoon, I must emerge from that safe, snuggly spot, perhaps going so far as to get out of my so-called comfort zone and be/do whatever the Lord has laid out for me on a particular day. I can retire to my nest of snuggly, soon to be warmed by body heat, covers at the end of my day, ready to be energized at the start of a new day if He so wills.

Sparks of Joy

I recently returned from a delightful vacation which included seeing dear high school classmates at a Branson, MO get-together (no, we didn’t graduate from that area). In addition to enjoying visits with classmates I hadn’t seen in four years, I got to ride in one couple’s Mustang convertible, see a couple of good shows, take a railroad excursion of the area in a dome car, and enjoy my son’s company on the road trip there and back to Ft. Worth.  

 

Branson bridge from train window

The first part of our return trip back was gorgeous because of the beautiful vistas of all the GREEN trees. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many green trees, which, I imagine, have now turned to glorious colors of orange, red, yellow and brown with many shades in between.

Jeff at lookout on Hwy 7

My trip from Elko was actually to celebrate Jeff’s birthday with him on the 14^th but he graciously agreed to drive me to Branson for the first weekend. We were back in TX by Sunday night so he could go to work the next day and I could begin to settle in for the next ten days.

Happy birthday Whole 30 style

I got to do a lot of reading done (and actually some writing on Debra, too) and two of the books I read are really what I want to write about now. In my mind they are linked, but that sounds rather preposterous as the first author is a Buddhist “tidying” consultant and the second, a Christian psychologist:)

Spark Joy is a method of sorting through all your “stuff”, by specific categories, deciding which item gives you joy (meaning you want to keep it). If it doesn’t give you joy, you give it away or throw it away—the last, depending upon its condition. The six categories she lists are Clothes, Books, Papers, Kitchen, Miscellaneous, and Sentimental, and the categories are to be sorted in that order. Once all the sorting is done you are ready to make permanent storage for all the things which give you joy. The book is small and easy to read and she also has some Youtube videos on her method which is called the Kon Mari Method of Tidying.

The next impactful book I read was Dr. Henry Cloud’s Nine Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life.  I have to admit, I found the title a bit cheesy and figured I wouldn’t get through more than a chapter or two. But who can resist chapter headings like, “Act Like an Ant,” or “Hate Well?”

I came away from reading the book motivated to re-memorize piano pieces that I will have to learn a measure or phrase at a time because of my vision limitations, reviewing finger-picking on my guitar—and implementing a lot of what I’d read about what I now call “sparks of joy.”

When Jesus said He “came to give us abundant life,” I believe the sparks of joy we come to recognize in our lives may well be a piece of that abundance. May your day contain many of those “joy sparks.”

Yearning

I was searching for a subject to write about and when our pastor used the word, “yearn” as a central idea for his message on Psalm 63 a couple of weeks ago, I knew I wanted to explore that.

 “Yearn” is not a word we use much in our vernacular these days. My synonym finder listed words like “crave,” “desire,” and “long for” to help define “yearn.” The word seems to have a connotation of great intensity, rather like soul-hunger.

Back at the beginning of time when God created Adam and Eve and placed them as caretakers in the beautiful garden He’d created, everything/everyone was perfect (something we can only guess about). Communion and communication between God and His creation, Man, was also perfect. When sin entered this perfect place through pride or rebellion or whatever you want to label it, that perfect connection between God and Man was broken. And ever since then, that hole in Man’s heart has yearned for God and that perfect connection with Him.

When King David wrote Psalm 63, his kingdom was on a dreadful, downhill slide with his own son, Absalom, seeking to take his throne from him.  David was on the run, not a pleasant sight nor a pleasant plight.

When David said he was yearning for God in a dry and thirsty land, that was literally where he found himself physically because Scripture says he was in the Desert of Judah. Those of us who live in Nevada are well acquainted with dry and thirsty land because we live in it. Nevada’s average rainfall is 7.87 inches. The wilderness of Judah gets a rainfall of 16 inches in a year  yet the pictures look even more bleak than Nevada..

David, the man after God’s own heart, writes in verse 1 that he was seeking, thirsting, and yearning for God. In addition to the harsh country the king was having to traverse, I imagine his father-heart had moved from discomfort and anger to great mental pain. His own son had turned against him and had led many of his countrymen to turn on him as well. This had to be an extremely difficult time for the king.

Yet in the next few verses we witness how God fulfills David’s yearning for Him because David writes in verse 5: “My soul is satisfied…my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.” That doesn’t sound like someone fleeing his enemy in the hot, dry desert. God plainly answered David’s yearning for communication/comfort.

We all have to endure some of that “dry, desert land” time. It may not be in a literal desert like Nevada. It could very likely be a time of illness, a time of loss, whether it be that of a relationship, a loved one, or a layoff at work. As we yearn or seek or thirst or meditate on God’s power and love, we will see His glory and then we can praise Him. Praise leads to a satisfied soul. And a satisfied soul has no need to be concerned about a dry and dusty land.