The Meandering Mind of a Christian Woman

            Today my brother-in-law, Bo, lost the battle but he won the war. Bo had been hospitalized since the beginning of the year. He had a stroke following heart surgery in January. In the past eight months he and my sister Aimee fought the bravest, hardest fight I have ever witnessed. She fought as his advocate and he fought to recover and get home to her, each because of love for the other. Bo had another stroke yesterday and that was the final straw. He gave up his earthly coil just a couple hours ago.             To the world; we lost. But as Christians, we know that Bo won! Bo now has eternal life, no more ventilator, no more pain, no more tube feedings, none of this earthly hassle. Aimee has some rough road ahead as she adjusts to life without him. She will have to learn what to do with her time now that she won’t be driving to the hospital every day. But Aimee has faith; she knows she will see Bo again. The battle loss is temporary but our victory is eternal. Thanks be

I bet you are familiar with the phenomenon of hearing your own voice in your head and then hearing it on a recording and saying to yourself, ‘I don’t sound like that, do I?’ I had a cassette tape recorder when I was younger and remember recording myself singing a Streisand song, believing I was spot on, Barbara had nothing on me. But then I played the tape back and was horrified by what I heard; good thing I hadn’t quit my paper route already. I find myself looking at the younger generation, or parents of young children and thinking, I didn’t behave like that. I have the tendency to gloss over my own past poor behaviors, do you? Not that I claim to have been the perfect young adult (far from it) or the best parent. However, I’m pretty sure what I remember in my head versus what really took place are in as much contrast as my internal voice and my recorded voice. God has redeemed me. He redeemed my parenting skills or lack thereof as demonstrated by the fact that my daughters

            The story of David and Goliath has been on my mind today. I have been thinking about that small stone that took Goliath down. I imagine David picking that stone back up after the battle and putting it in his pouch, one might think of it as a lucky stone. But David was God’s own heart, he knew the stone was simply the instrument but the victory was God’s. God had Moses give water to the Israelites through a rock too. Water that equaled life; from a rock!             Then I thought about the fact that Jesus is referred to as the “capstone the builders rejected” and also considered how on Palm Sunday the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted the people to cease their singing and Jesus told them it wouldn’t matter if the people were quiet, that “the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing.” God is also likened to a rock, our firm foundation.             We face our own Goliaths each day; illness, financial struggles, low self-esteem, doubts, disappointments, bullies,

There are days I have to remind myself frequently that life is not fair, God never said it would be. How could it be? We live in a sin filled world, certainly not one that evenly distributes pain, joy, wealth and poverty. When I have these days it serves me well to remember that the main reason I typically have such feelings of discontent is that I place certain expectations on other people, a.k.a. sinners. These are expectations I feel I place on myself but do I really? Do you? I also need to remember; I’m a sinner too and have let people down in my life. I don’t intend to be unfair but it happens. It is far too easy to point the finger at others and not look in the mirror as deeply as we ought.   Matthew 7: 3-4 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” I experienced a couple

            There is a documentary series by James Burke called, Connections . Don and I always enjoyed watching it; it was a unique look at how one thing could lead to another. It might begin with a ball point pen then move to the spring within the pen then to the inventor of the spring who invented something else and on it might go until it led to the space shuttle. We were always intrigued and fascinated. I got to thinking about this series and the idea of connections. What is the first thing we do when we meet someone new? We look for a connection, some commonality that connects us, perhaps a common friend, location or hobby. Humans want to connect.             Etiquette has always dictated that we don’t speak of money, politics or religion. Indeed, these topics can become sticky and awkward. But there is one thing every person in the world has in common; we were created by God who loves us. The problem is, not everyone appears to know this wonderful fact. What if those of u

            I am happy to say that I have completed my chemo and radiation and everything is looking good. My hair is starting to grow back and there is enough of it now that I am no longer compelled to wear a scarf all the time. The radiation burns are healing; still a little tender but improving each day.   There is a joy in my heart and a smile on my face.             While I am happy to not be tethered to daily radiation treatments anymore, I think my joy has come from everyone who celebrates with me as we bring this little journey to its close.   In many ways, they made it their journey too. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” It is so true, being surrounded by the love of a great many people truly does keep one strong. No one else could take the chemo for me or go to my radiation appointments for me. However, everyone was with me; God, my kids, my family, my church family, my fri