Category: trust

Feb 28

The Queen of Recycling

Probably not many people outside of my immediate family know this, but…I am the Queen of Recycling!

Yes, it’s true. I attained this title by memorizing what’s recyclable and then fanatically making sure nothing gets missed. I even bring home all the plastic containers from fast-food restaurants so I can rinse and toss everything into the recycling bin (also eases my guilt a little for eating fast-food).

My daughters know that I will be looking in their kitchen trash and recycling containers to make sure items are in the correct bin and will lovingly move them if necessary. However, I do refrain from inspecting friends’ kitchens and making the same adjustments. (Well, maybe I’ve moved a few items at our good friends’ house across the street.)

My obsession got a huge boost a few years ago when our local trash hauler built Total Recycle, a  multi-million-dollar “groundbreaking state-of-the-art single-stream recycling facility.”

Since then we have been able to recycle all kinds of flexible plastic packaging like candy bar wrappers, drink pouches, plastic wrap, and all those bags for chips, pet food, groceries and food storage,

We have weekly, curbside recycling pickup and our big blue pail always is full, sometimes spilling over into two smaller containers. (Disclaimer: I don’t always wear my crown when I take out the bin, but I wanted you to know my royalty is legit.)

Christmas 1980

And why am I so committed to recycling, you ask? I’ve decided it’s in my DNA.

My mother, born during the Great Depression, was the oldest of nine and learned from an early age to salvage, safeguard and save everything possible.  (In photo: my Barbie doll clothes she  made from fabric scraps and I handed down to my girls.)

Mom’s thriftiness carried over into my marriage, especially during those years of me staying home to  raise a family on a not-very-large pastoral salary.  I don’t need to scrimp and save like I used to, but repurposing, reusing, and restoring things (especially OLD things!) just seems to be in my nature.

And that got me thinking about the God I love and serve.

He doesn’t just recycle…He refreshes. He renews. And He restores.

It’s His nature.

And the One sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
–-Revelation 21:5

And while much of that promise refers to the final restoration of a new Heaven and a new Earth, there are still plenty of promises that God makes things new right now.

What would you like to see restored in your life? Relationships? Health? Peace of mind? Hope?

What needs renewing in your world? Your marriage? Your thoughts? Your words? Your attitude?

Hear God’s message to you:

Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin anew every morning.
–Lamentations 3:23

So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support and strengthen you,
and He will place you on a firm foundation.
–1 Peter 5:10

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs.
–Psalm 84:6

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
–2 Corinthians 4:16

Perhaps  Psalm 51:10 could be your prayer today: Create in me a clean heart, O God; restore within me a sense of being brand new.

And whenever you recycle something, don’t think about me, the Queen of Recycling. Instead stop and thank the King of Creation who can renew, refresh and restore your walk with Him.
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I hope you’re blessed by the song “You Make All Things New” by Big Daddy Weave ©2019 CURB/Word Entertainment .

Feb 14

Shock, Despair, Peace and Hope

Carolyn and Mark, Vermont vacation a few weeks before diagnosis

Last year when my friend Carolyn took ornaments off the Christmas tree, she wondered what changes would come to her family before she unpacked them again.

Never could she have imagined what 2022 would bring.

But neither could she have foreseen what God was going to supply for one of the most difficult years of her 59-year-old life.

First, in May of last year, a freak boating accident claimed the life of her brother-in-law, a respected radiologist.

Then in July after returning from a wonderful Vermont family vacation, two weeks of random stomach pain led her to consult a doctor, who thought she had a gallstone. But a scan showed something much more ominous: advanced pancreatic cancer related to an inherited gene mutation.

“Shock, tears and wrestling to understand, ” Carolyn recalls. “My daily life–and our family’s–as we knew it was over.”

This diagnosis was her “worst nightmare” as her mother died from ovarian cancer when Carolyn was only 9.

Carolyn’s genetic BRCA mutation, (which was found through testing I did with her many years ago at my oncologist’s office) is associated primarily with increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer. She had taken great pains to lower those risks, but now found herself among the 1-to 3-percent of carriers  who develop pancreatic cancer, for which no reliable early detection exists.

Multiple complications and severe chemo toxicity early on in treatment landed Carolyn in the hospital for extended stays three times in only two months.

“One night as I lay awake in the hospital, my left leg twice the size of my right and throbbing from a blood clot, I was trying to pray… pleading with God,” Carolyn recalls.” Was He even there? Had He abandoned me?

“Then these words came into my mind: ‘Are you willing to suffer for My glory?'” Carolyn says. “I knew immediately this was the Lord speaking.”

She didn’t have to think long before whispering: “Yes, Lord, of course.”

The words “for My glory” lingered in Carolyn’s mind because as a longtime journalist (we actually met in 1988 while covering a civil trial in a Harrisburg courtroom), she always has said “my mission with my writing is to use it for God’s glory.”

“Could it be that the best story I would write to showcase God’s glory would be my own?”

Much has changed since the first oncologist didn’t seem to think treatment could help. Seven months later, Carolyn’s tumor marker has decreased by more than 90-percent, the liver lesions have shrunk, and her current oncologist gives her something crucial: Hope. This month she starts a clinical trial with that Philadelphia oncologist who specializes in BRCA-related pancreatic cancer.

“I have come a long way since last fall when I told Mark to put me on hospice,” she says. “I had lost all hope in the midst of intense physical suffering…but God broke through and I was able to feel Him and talk to Him again. I was filled with a wondrous peace that sustains me still.”

Becky, Olivia, Amy & Carolyn

Carolyn doesn’t know what her future holds, but she’s looking forward to May when oldest daughter Olivia gets married and middle daughter Becky graduates from law school.

“It’s pretty hard for a planner like me not to let my mind wander too far down the road,” she acknowledges. “But there is great relief and peace in being utterly at God’s mercy, one day at a time.

“Every day I approach the throne of grace with boldness, asking God to save my earthly life.”

She also ponders one of her favorite Oswald Chambers’ quotes:

“Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God?
Then remain quiet…When you are in the dark, listen and
 God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.”

I’m trusting that Carolyn’s words will be a “precious message” for someone today.

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As soon as I heard the song “Desert Road” by Casting Crowns, I thought of my dear friend Carolyn.

Jan 17

God’s Answer to My Unrealistic Prayer

I distinctly remember a day in August 1980 as one of the saddest of my then 26-year-old life.

August ’80 church going-away reception

My husband and I, our two little girls in our arms, watched the moving van pull away with all our worldly belongings. Tears streamed as I said goodbye to my dearest friend, Gigi, her husband George and their three little boys. I finally had a friend with whom I could share the ups and downs of mothering, marriage and ministry, but my husband’s new job was taking me away. (He later called that move one of his “worst decisions ever.”)

This is the story of how that decision led to God answering my seems-to-be-too-good-to-be-true prayer.
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When our oldest daughter Danielle was 6 weeks old, the Gaffgas moved to our western New York village (think, one stoplight and lots of lake-effect snow!) . Their towheaded boys were 1 and 3. George pastored the Presbyterian church on one corner; my husband shepherded the Baptist flock on the opposite one. The church-provided parsonages were across the street from one another.

Our husbands enjoyed wonderful ministry between the two churches, as well as George’s practical jokes. A “For Sale” sign on our church lawn. A cracked toilet with a potted plant on our parsonage front porch…You get the idea.

In the spring of 1980, Gigi delivered a third boy six weeks after I delivered our second daughter. I had no car, no spending money, and no family nearby. But I had a friend right across the street who understood me, listened to me and prayed for me.

After our move to Connecticut, we stayed in contact mostly through letters–too expensive to call long distance! After they moved to Long Island and we moved (again!) to start a new church in Pennsylvania, we vacationed  together every summer at a free beach house on the Great Peconic Bay.

Our kids, summer ’88

Our kids (now numbering six after adding a third daughter in Connecticut!) swam and played Monopoly together while our husbands sailed the bay and Gigi and I played the word game Boggle.

Jamie’s high school graduation ’95

Through the years we occasionally reconnected at family graduations and weddings. Eventually technology made staying in touch much easier–texts, phone calls and online Boggle fun. Finally, we all retired–us to our current home and George and Gigi to Colorado.

When the frightening reality of the pandemic hit, Gigi became my steady contact with the outside world. We Boggled everyday to distract us from the isolation, FaceTimed while working on jigsaw puzzles, and encouraged one another that God’s love never fails.

Fast forward to early last year when my elderly neighbor across the street (in a one-story house exactly like ours) had another stroke and was hospitalized for months. Each morning as I sat at my dining room table reading my Bible and gazing at Paul’s house, I prayed for his recovery, but I added something else.

“Lord, if he can’t come home and be safe, please let George and Gigi buy his house and move here.”

It was quite an unrealistic prayer.

Even though Psalm 37:4 says that God “will give you the desires of your heart,” I know that doesn’t mean you always get whatever you wish for. But I do think God sometimes does put an “unrealistic” prayer on your heart because it is His desire.

So I prayed.  And when I found out in August that my neighbor needed to sell his house, I told the Gaffgas about my prayer.  Because they had been wishing they were nearer to their Philly-area son (a single dad with two young daughters), they started praying too.

Dec. ’22 and YES we laugh a lot!

I will summarize the next few months as a whirlwind of negotiating, planning, questioning, pleading and believing. But a week before Christmas, they moved into their new home–across the street just like nearly 45 years ago.

We have come full circle. (Except now we try to get our husbands to nap at the same time instead of our toddlers 🙂 )

We raised our children together and now we will dote on our grandkids together. We cared for our church families and now we will care for each other.

And we will pray the Lord uses our deep friendship to deepen His image in each of us…as together we praise the God who makes “unrealistic” prayers come true.
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I pray my story has encouraged you to embrace the message of this song by Passion: “There’s Nothing that Our God Can’t Do.”

 

Jan 03

A Good Word (or two or three) for the New Year

Do you know the first word you ever spoke? Perhaps “da-da” or maybe “ma-ma?” I don’t recall whether my mother ever told me mine, but I know for certain what our oldest daughter initially uttered.

Lindsey, 8.5 mos. old, Jan. ’83

Danielle was 8.5 months old and crawling after my parents’ Siamese cat when my mother and I heard her say “kitty.” We both thought perhaps we were imagining, but she clearly kept repeating it and has impressed us with her vocabulary ever since!

(BTW our very articulate and youngest daughter Lindsey, born on Danielle’s 4th birthday, also  spoke the same first word, also at 8.5 months, also while crawling after my parents’ cat!)

I love words.

I love word games.

And I especially love the people who are willing to play word games with me (both of you)!

I know many of you select a personal word for the new year–something to inspire, encourage, challenge, or focus you. I was contemplating why I never have embraced this great idea and concluded it’s because I love words so much, I don’t want to stop at one!

Instead I’ve chosen three sentences on which to meditate as I walk with the Lord in 2023. I plan to say at least one of them each morning even before my feet hit the floor and perhaps even before I open up my eyes.

The first is: “God is God and I’m not.”

I don’t know who gets credit for this simple statement, but I’m certain that basically all my worries, fears and anxiety are centered on me wanting to be in control instead of me trusting that the Creator of the universe can handle it all. My health, my family, my finances, my future are all safe in the hands of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. I don’t have to plan it or even understand it. Instead I can respond as our Father commands:

LifeHopeandTruth.com

The second is: “God says, ‘I loved you first and I love you best’,” (spoken by pastor/author Albert Tate https://alberttate.com )

If I truly believe this in the deepest part of my being, I can quit trying to earn God’s favor because He’s the one who began this whole love relationship. He loves me more than my dearest friends. More than my beautiful family.  More than my wonderful husband of nearly half-a-century.  And whenever I feel lonely, disappointed or unappreciated, I can find comfort in God’s declaration:

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
—Jeremiah 31:3

The third sentence is: “How shall I use my inheritance today?” (penned by my favorite devotional writer, Chris Tiegreen https://christiegreen.com )

“And since we are His children, we are His heirs.”
—Romans 8:17

What do heirs get? An inheritance! The Apostle Peter describes our inheritance as “priceless”–and while some of it is still to come in Heaven–much is already available now, including the power of the Holy Spirit, participation in the Kingdom of God, and authority over the Enemy!

Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

Tiegreen suggests you “ask God if there’s any aspect of His authority, His Kingdom, His purposes, His resources that He wants to entrust you with today” and then “watch for opportunities (because) they will come.

“The owner of all that exists…has promised everything to His Son and the Son’s siblings.”

So as you face the new year, pick one word, or like me pick a bunch of words.

But whatever trials come your way, never doubt that God is God and you’re not.

That He loved you first and always loves you best.

And that from Him you have an incredible, infallible, and inexhaustible inheritance.
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P.S. (If you’re curious about middle daughter Bethany’s first word, it was “ball” and foretold the great athlete she would become.)
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Please enjoy the music video “This My Inheritance” by All Sons & Daughters

Oct 12

Two Women (Make that Three) Defying the Odds

This is the story of two women God brought together more than two decades ago, forging a faith-filled friendship which has seen them through incredibly scary diagnoses.

L. to R. Chris, me, Jutta Sept. 2022

Chris’s ordeal began in July 1999 when at the age of 36 she suffered a grand mal seizure while sleeping.

“My husband thought I fell out of bed,” she recalls. “He was trying to get me up, but when he rolled me over I was turning blue.”

Hospital tests revealed a golf ball–sized tumor in the right front area of her brain. Chris remembers nothing of those events until she awoke from surgery and received the shocking diagnosis of anaplastic astrocytoma, which is not usually considered curable.

“I never knew what the odds were regarding survival,” says Chris. “No one ever told me that I only had a certain length of time left. If they had, I think I would have panicked.”

While still finishing radiation and chemo, Chris was befriended by a young mom named Jutta (YOU-tuh), who was leading the women’s Bible study Chris had joined.

“I had so many questions about God and all kinds of spiritual things ,” recalls Chris, who, along with her husband and 2-year-old son had recently begun attending Jutta’s church. “I always thought they were stupid so I didn’t bring them up [before], but Jutta didn’t seem to mind explaining things to me. And she would always give me a hug when I got there and when I left.”

A friendship was easily forged between the two, and Chris’s love for God grew alongside her love for Jutta. On the one-year anniversary of her brain surgery, Chris was baptized in a swimming pool with Jutta cheering her on.

LifeHopeTruth.com

Then in July 2003, at the age of 38, Jutta also awoke from surgery to discover she had cancer.

Doctors initially thought her jaundice was due to a drug reaction, but instead discovered a malignant tumor in her pancreas. Up until that time, Jutta, a wife and mother of children ages 6 and 10, had never even considered the possibility that she might be seriously ill.

But the harsh reality was that she had one of the deadliest kinds of cancer and it already had spread to the lymph nodes.

“The day after surgery, the oncologist came up to my room and said, ‘You better get your act together. You have cancer and you’ve only got two years,’” Jutta recalls.

Hearing that she had such a difficult-to-treat cancer was shocking, but even worse, Jutta says, “was the way I was told.”

“It took me at least a month to get over that,” she adds. Eventually she decided the doctor’s prediction was only that—a prediction—and she would not live believing it had to come true.

“I always prayed that God would use me no matter what, but if I’d have known it would result in this, I wouldn’t have prayed that way,” she adds with a laugh.

Jutta, who still speaks with a rich German accent, believes setting goals is important for survivors.

“Even if my cancer would have been stage 4, I would still have gone for my goals,” she says. “One of my goals is that I want to be an encouragement to other people.”

“You don’t stop living just because you hear that word cancer–that’s the worst thing you can do,” Jutta says.

“I wouldn’t change anything about my journey,” Chris adds, ” because without it, I wouldn’t have met the wonderful friends that I have and I wouldn’t have a relationship with Jesus.”

Recently at a Cancer Prayer Support Group concert we all reconnected–three mothers diagnosed in our 30s, with the survival odds stacked against us.

It was a powerful reminder for us–and I hope for you–that statistics and predictions are no match for our God.

I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?
Jeremiah 32:27

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Please enjoy the music video “God of the Impossible” by Lincoln Brewster.