Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Our kids have been getting sugared up over the last couple of weeks with the many Fall festivals and school parties. Wednesday's "Trunk or Treat" promises to top it all off with enough goodies to last months, and just in time to get them all sweetened up for the holiday season. This morning in Future Church was no different...to get a bag of Skittles tossed in your direction, you only had to conjure up a memory of what had been taught over the past seven weeks.

I really thought I'd give just a few pieces of candy out as we waited for "Big Church" to finish up, but boy was I wrong! Having spoiled their Sunday dinners by feeding them "Lighthouse Celebration" food, now I had managed to spoil dessert as well!

What a SWEET treat to know that all the time of preparation and studying that had been done for the book of Nehemiah did not go to waste. These children managed to come up with over 50 facts from the study in a few short minutes, and were willing to give more had the adults not come in running to save what was left of their child's nutrition for the day. 

While a few wrapped pieces of sugary goodness probably got them through for a few hours before they crashed or turned wild on their siblings, I know the sweetness of God's Word will nourish them much longer. If you get a sweet craving over the next few weeks, find one of our Lighthouse Kids and just ask them to tell you anything they remember about the book of Nehemiah. Your taste buds will never be the same!

Psalm 34:8 (HCSB) 

Taste and see that the Lord is good. 

How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!

~Rebecca Phillips

PUZZLES

PUZZLES

            I love puzzles—word puzzles, brain teasers, jigsaw puzzles.  In fact, recently I have started doing a word puzzle or brain teaser right before I go to sleep.  After all, you have heard it too:  if you want to keep your intelligence and not succumb to age-related memory disorders, you have to keep your mind active!  So I am adding anything I think will help me keep my brain active.  I find that I become obsessive—I have to do one more puzzle, find one more word, answer one more question.

            I don’t love all puzzles though.  I don’t like the puzzling situations in life, the things I cannot explain.  I have trouble letting God be the one with the answers.  I ask “Why, God?  Why did you allow this to happen?  Why didn’t you stop it?  You could have, you know.”  Don’t tell me I shouldn’t ask why!  How am I going to learn the lessons God wants me to learn if I do not ask why?  Sometimes He shows me why.  Sometimes He lets me continue to question.

            I reread an entry in my journal this week from October 16, 2009.  It reads, “God, why?  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  Help me to accept and trust even when I don’t understand.”

            John and Rachel had just been told they would never have children of their own.  I wrote, “John has always loved children and they have always loved him.  When he was young and you asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer was always, ‘A daddy!’  Rachel has always wanted children.  She helped raise her six younger siblings.  She wanted to be a stay-at-home mommy.  So what are you going to do with this, Lord?  I know you will do something, but couldn’t you let me in on it?  Adoption?  Working in an orphanage?  What are the possibilities?  Lord, help me to trust.”

            On September 5, 2011, I wrote, “I woke up at my usual time with one thought—Mikaela!  I even came up with a middle name, though I am sure that John and Rachel will not use it—Mikaela Joy, for the joy that a child is born!  Mikaela Joy will be born very soon.  She is due the end of September.  Her parents looked through profiles of couples on Bethany’s adoption website.  John and Rachel were the third couple they looked at and they looked no further.  Oh, Jesus, a baby!  A precious child on loan from You!”

            And Micaela Jocelyn (not Joy, but happy or joyful) was born September 19, 2011.  God let me see a partial answer to my question.

 But God does not give me answers about everything.  Why did God allow my marriage to fail?  I wanted so desperately to have a marriage that honored Him.  I did everything I could think of to fix it.  I begged God to heal my marriage.  He didn’t hear me; no, He didn’t tell me why it was happening and He didn’t keep my marriage from exploding.  I will forever carry my grief over that unanswered question. 

So how do I respond to the missing pieces of the puzzle?  Here is my answer.  Philippians 1:6 says, “Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  That is the answer.  I must trust God for the end.  There is no assurance that the pieces of the puzzle will fit, that we will see the completed puzzle.  Only God sees the final picture.

                                                            ~~ Faith Himes Lamb

           

Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Greetings from Pittsburgh!  No, I have not come to see the Steelers, the Pirates, or even the Penguins.  My lovely first child lives and works here.  It’s a beautiful city.  Add to that the fact that it’s the childhood home of one of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard, and you have a recipe for a good trip! 

All the way up from Chattanooga, I observed a quick-change of the seasons.  I’ve noticed this phenomenon before driving north.  Sometimes it’s spring all over again; this time it’s an earlier fall. I never ever get over the fall leaves.  The Psalmist reminds us that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” and that they do. But so does the earth sometimes. Canadian poet Bliss Carmen wrote, “The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry/ of bugles going by.”  I saw some of those scarlet maples on the drive up.  They are truly stunning! 

Yesterday we visited Clayton, the home of industrialist Henry Clay Frick.  (I first read about this home in Dillard’s book, so I was very excited to see it!) By hard work and some good connections, Frick made a lot of money that he used to furnish his impressive home in a grand fashion.  It was fun to see, but even with all his money and influence, Mr. Frick’s beautiful things are only copies of the beauty that is outside the doors of his house.

Today we walked in Frick Park and passed mounds and waves of purple asters, backed by yellow and orange leaves. It just doesn’t get much better. Truly God is a God of beauty and creativity.  Just imagine the magnificent mind and heart behind such loveliness.

I am so grateful for a God who gave the beauties of his creation to everyone, rich and poor alike.  Paul reminds Timothy of this concept in I Timothy 6:17: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”

I hope you are finding time to enjoy the richness of this lovely season!

 --Sherry Poff

A Penny for Your Thoughts

If I had a penny for every thought I had today, I'd be rich!! I recently read that the human brain has an average of 70,000 thoughts in one day. Since there are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour period, I tend to think I'm at the higher end of the range. In fact, I think I pretty much meet that quota in just a few minutes. At any given moment, I could be excited about my new furniture, anxious about a deadline, frustrated with a plan that went awry, curious about a friend's Facebook comment, nervous about a confrontation, heartbroken for a friend who has turned from the Lord, giddy that I'll have a new nephew in a month and another niece or nephew in two months, sad for a friend who's grieving loss, and wondering what I have to eat in my fridge. And those thoughts lead to the next few moments of planning how I'll arrange my furniture, wishing my deadline would go away, agonizing over how I should have done something differently, forming my response to a Facebook comment, practicing in my head what I'll say in a confrontational situation, praying for a friend, planning what I'll pack to see my family for the holidays, wondering if I'll ever have cousins to take to play with my niece and nephews, making a mental note to write a card and wondering if I have all the ingredients for a new recipe I saw on Pinterest. Whew...it's exhausting!
Thank goodness for Psalm 46:10 which says, "Be still, and know that I am God..." The HCSB version reads, "Stop your fighting-and know that I am God..." In the midst of the chaos in my head, He is God. There are many thoughts fighting for priority in my mind. God just wants me to be still and know that He is God!
So how do I do this? Well, I don't have a magic answer or a formula for being still, but as I turn off the TV, log off of Facebook, sit in the quietness of the room and place my thoughts on my God, my scattered thoughts are pulling together, my burden is lifting, my headache is subsiding, and my tired body is giving up the fight.

~Rebecca Phillips

A Grandbaby!

A Grandbaby!

Just one year ago today I took my mother, Mary Lloys Himes, to my son’s house because John and Rachel had a surprise to share with her.  The surprise was Mikaela Jocelyn Lamb. My first grandbaby had been born September 19.

            Mother sat in a rocking chair holding Mikaela and talking to her.  We videoed her, we took pictures, including the four generation picture of Mikaela, John, me, and Mom.

            I took Mom back to the assisted living and it was the very last time she left the building.  A little more than a week later, Mom left her home again, this time for a heavenly home.  But she got to see her great-granddaughter first.

            I was very close to my grandmother, Lloys Rice, but she has been gone for more than twenty years.  My children have no grandmother, as of a year ago.  But now I have a chance to be a grandmother, one like my grandmother, a major influence in my life.  I have the chance to  influence Mikaela.

            I was reading this morning from II Timothy 1 where Paul says to Timothy,

            “I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.  For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.”

            What did I learn from my grandmother that I want to pass on to Mikaela?  The first thing is I knew Gram loved God supremely and she told me I needed to view every individual as someone Jesus loved.  And because Jesus loved them, I should love them.  I knew Gram loved the Bible.  She is the one who taught me how to use a Strong’s Concordance and find verses on a particular topic.  She was memorizing Scripture when she was in her nineties and taught me to value Scripture.

            I want to treat people the way Gram treated people and I want to teach Mikaela to do the same.  Gram listened to everyone with every fiber of her being.  She was riveted on my Stephen when he told her the story of “The Three Little Pigs,” just as she was riveted on me when I talked about the heartache of being rejected by the one I loved.  (She gave me a ring to replace the one I no longer had and told me he just didn’t know what he was missing!)  She was my biggest cheerleader, believing, and almost convincing me, that I could do anything.  I never felt I had to perform to earn her love or that if I failed in any way, she would reject me.  I learned unconditional love from her.

            I know that the years ahead will bring great joy, tears, and fears as I watch Mikaela grow.  Just after the verses I quoted come the words, “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”  I am not sure why Paul put those words together in the same paragraph, but I can apply it to myself and my relationship with Mikaela and any future grandchildren.  I will be tempted to fear the heartaches and trials  Mikaela will encounter and even the choices she may make, but I will love her unconditionally, encourage her, and try to be an example for her the way my grandmother was for me.

                                                                        ~~Faith Himes Lamb

REGRET

This time of year was once my very favorite...the colors, the cooler weather, pumpkins and all the beauty that comes with autumn.  I loved it and still do to a point.    However, it is now also the time of year that my husband’s once strong body began to give way to the wretched cancer that had engulfed every moment of our lives for the past two years.  When the beautiful season of autumn should bring excitement for the expectation of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it now leaves my heart in fear of the approaching “anniversary” and what might wash over me from that great loss we have endured.  And in the midst of this survival mode and sadness, I long for what was good.  And I regret....

 

Regret is a terrible thing to endure and it needles into spaces of your mind that are worn out from grief.  I should have, I could have and why didn’t I?  I’m not talking about the skinny girl “I ate a doughnut and now I’m puffy” regret, (that’s not a regret for us healthier girls) or the “Why didn’t I pick the black Mercedes instead of the blue one” (not a particular worry for me either).  I’m talking about the life regrets...the regrets that tell you that you could have made a difference had you chosen well.

I don’t have too many from my life with Dan. He and I lived our lives with short accounts, but the little ones plague me...I should have read Scripture to him when he could no longer hold his Bible, or stayed more in his “world” at the end instead of trying to make people feel comfortable, or just laying next to him a little longer and listening to every precious heart beat...if only. 

But regret is useless.  It is simply another way to allow Satan to turn our focus onto our pitiful selves and away from the Lord who knows how human we are and that sometimes we do all that we know to do, and despite our human-ness still chooses to give us grace to learn and move on. I know that in my head but it’s difficult to accept.

That being said, I would like to reach the end of my life with no regret....better looking, but with no regret.  And from what I can figure, we do that by living every day as if it were our last, not just living but living intentionally, living for a future we will have after we draw our last breath, living to hear the words, “well done” from the Lord.  I want to hear that.  Who wouldn’t? 

So...... just in case this is my last day, custard filled or glazed?

Joy Dilts

II Timothy 4: 7 & 8: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Surrounded by Love

I stood next to Renee Haston on Sunday morning, blending my voice with hers and a few hundred others as we sang this familiar song:

                Hold me close,
                Let your love surround me.
                Bring me near;
                Draw me to your side.

As we sang, I felt myself surrounded by love. I looked around at the dear faces of people I see week after week—many of whom I rarely talk to.  Yet I know if I am in trouble, these people will help me.  If I were in a foreign land—or stuck at the side of the road—it would be a joy and comfort to see Mike McDonald or Judi Summers, Becky Gorsline or Don Sandberg come around the corner.

It is so easy to take people for granted, but in some ways, it’s a compliment. It’s not a bad thing to be considered faithful. I want people to know that I will help them if I can. It would hurt my feelings more to think that someone wouldn’t ask for help because they’d think me too indifferent. To be always available is to be like God.

We had this verse on our bulletin Sunday: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”  (Lamentations 3:22-23).  Because God is faithful to keep the big world turning and our puny hearts beating, we may forget what a wonder it all is. But when we have a scare—a health problem or a car problem—we know we can call on him, and he will help because he loves us.    

I want to be that dependable, you-can-count-on-me kind of person. And I am so glad to worship with a whole slew of folks who I believe are also loving and trustworthy enough to be there when it matters.

Let his Spirit lead us on---In the power of his love!

--Sherry Poff