Category Archives: Sin

What should a mentor ask for?

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Friday’s blog post quoted what a good mentor might say through letters my Aunt Joyce had sent to me. Your response was delightfully enthusiastic, and over the weekend something lovely happened when I met up with her children at a wedding in Washington State. These California cousins handed me a green leather book with Aunt Joyce’s name embossed on the front. “You’ll enjoy looking at this,” they said.

At first I didn’t recognize the book with its pretty gold edges, but inside I saw it was from me, inscribed to Aunt Joyce for her 88th birthday. It was a devotional journal, and after each day’s entry, there was space for her written reflections. Aunt Joyce had written down her thoughts and prayers, giving me a glimpse of how a good mentor talks to God.

During the 4 hour plane ride home tonight, I immersed myself in what she wrote and was impacted by her honesty before her Lord, wondering if you readers might be impacted, too. Below are quotes from this journal, plucked with care so as not to reveal her secrets but to show all of us how a godly woman sees herself in relation to God:

  • Oh God, my trust is in you. I ask for deliverance from my feelings.
  • Lord, order my conduct, and take my burdens.
  • Remove my fear and anxiety. You said you would. I depend on that. Keep my mind stayed on Thee.
  • Rejoice exceedingly, Joyce!
  • God, if it’s not too late, I commit my cause to you. Help me do your way and will.
  • “…that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Wow! Me?
  • Lord, keep my attention on your side, not mine.
  • Lord, I need to be motivated by your love. I ask this by your Spirit. Thank you, right now.
  • Lord, open my eyes to see my enemy, which equals my captivity. Give me your equipment for fighting against captivity to sin. I want to conquer sin in my thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
  • I feel like I’m going through your refiner’s fire to purify my wickedness. I’ve had anger, stress, and frustration when I should have had hope!
  • Thank you for my Edward [husband of 62 years then]. I did not have sense enough myself to choose such quality.
  • God’s grace is like a sandwich. The top of the bun is what I deserve from Him. The filling is God’s grace. The bottom is what I receive from Him… life eternal.
  • I thank God for blessing received with no sorrow added.
  • I need someone greater, wiser, stronger and more powerful than I am. In Him I have everything.
  • Often God’s way up is down, but He’s there with us, too.
  • I became a new being today, started all over – forgiven, cleansed, powered by Him through the Holy Spirit. Praise to the Almighty, over and over! I’m so grateful.
  • To know Him is to love Him. I love you, Lord, and want to know you more.
  • I’m starting to understand what grace is, and what my comfort can be.
  • Stress and suffering shows me so clearly how very much I need Him, how hopeless and helpless I am without Him. I surrender all, dear Jesus, to you.

One of Aunt Joyce’s favorite verses, written out in her journal, is: “The Lord will perfect what concerns me.” (Psalm 138:8)

WALK IN. GET WELL.

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Recently I passed a medical center with an intriguing sign:

BELLVIEW URGENT CARE.

WALK IN. GET WELL.

I guess if you can WALK IN, maybe you can actually GET WELL. Those who are truly ill probably wouldn’t be walking in to that particular facility anyway, although sometimes a minor obvious problem can lead to a greater hidden one.

And that’s the thing about a human body. There’s much that can go wrong. Any of us, if put through a full array of testing, would surely learn something was amiss, despite not feeling any symptoms. But most of us would shun that kind of scrutiny. A more common approach to medicine that works most of the time is to assume good health until a pain forces us to the doctor. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

So often I think of the tiny baby-body growing within Birgitta. Every day I wonder what remarkable things are taking place in that dark, hidden place.

And thanks to the internet, we can find out. During this week, her 20th, our baby’s brain is refining her 5 senses, developing the nerve cells that serve taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch. That means our mini-human is beginning to recognize Birgitta’s voice as well as other repeated sounds occurring outside the womb. She might even “jump” in response to a loud noise.

Also this week, paper-thin, miniscule fingernails and toenails are visible, and the soft body hair of a newborn has started to appear. Although Birgitta’s baby measures only 10” from tip to toe and weighs less than one pound, if she was born today, it’s very possible she would survive.

Recently Birgitta and I were studying an anatomy book, marveling at the variety and number of organs that have been squeezed into each one of our mid-sections. In the unborn, all the same systems are in place in them as in us, except they’re still in miniature. How everything can work out as well as it does, as often as it does, is a wonder. This baby is basically “done” even though Birgitta is only at the half way point in her pregnancy. Now all her tiny daughter has to do is grow.

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This reminds me of the new birth we find in salvation. As we come into God’s family by way of recognizing our need for a Savior (whose name is Jesus), all the necessary parts of our new life in Christ have been put into place. Beyond that, all we have to do is grow. It’s as much of a miracle as Birgitta’s baby is.

There’s just one big difference. It takes 9 months to make a baby. Getting saved is much quicker:

“HE WALKS IN. WE GET WELL.”

“I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.” (Revelation 3:20)

Real Royalty

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We couldn’t believe we were about to see a bona fide princess up close. Lady Diana was making her way out of London’s royal performance of “Romeo and Juliet” when we found ourselves planted ten feet from where she would walk.

Daughters Julia and Linnea, desperate to meet her, were listening carefully to a bobby’s instructions: “If you shout at Her Royal Highness,” he said, “don’t use her name. You must address her as ‘ma’m’. Nothing else is acceptable.”

Wanting to be accepted, the girls were rehearsing their shout-out when Diana suddenly appeared. For an instant they were speechless as hundreds of flashbulbs popped, making her sparkle like the star she was.

As the bobby predicted, she scanned the barricaded crowd, including two adorable little girls within six feet of her. But when her gaze swept toward us, our daughters wildly waved their bouquet like a road crew flagging down traffic. “Ma’m! Ma’m!” they screamed. “Over here! We’re from America! We love you!”

Diana graciously acknowledged the crowd’s applause and then abruptly made a beeline for us. As she arrived in her sparkling black evening gown, our girls reached out to touch her, and she reciprocated. Linnea put a camera directly in Diana’s face (taking this photo) as Julia presented their bouquet.

The princess talked with them for several minutes as if they’d been the only ones waiting for her, after which she wished them well and said goodbye, heading for her Jaguar. She talked to no one else. As she slid into the back seat, she gently placed our wilting flowers next to her.

Mary leaned over and said, “Our humble bouquet is going to Buckingham Palace.”

As soon as the princess had pulled away, the crowd dispersed, and bobbies disassembled the barricades. But though the moment had passed, our girls held tightly to their celebrity high. Literally skipping toward our hotel, Linnea agreed with Julia who said: “If God killed me right now, I’d feel like my life was complete!”

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Another globally-known “celebrity” who even trumps Diana is Jesus. As he performed miracles, his disciples wondered why he shunned recognition by cautioning everyone to keep quiet about him. “Why don’t you pursue fame?” they said. “Show the world what you can do!”

But Jesus refused, saying his time to be famous hadn’t yet come.

He meant that it wasn’t quite time for him to die for mankind’s sins. After his death he would, indeed, become globally famous, and he was eager for that because it would help his plan of salvation become available to everyone.

Occasionally we all brush up against fame as our girls did with Diana. Both Julia and Linnea, now deeply rooted in love for the Lord, look back and laugh at going gaga over the princess. They know, as all of us should, there’s only one Person who deserves such hero-worship, and that’s our Lord. Putting anyone else on a pedestal of adoration only leads to disappointment.

In the long run, Jesus will be the only royalty that really matters.

Jesus said, “It is the one who is least among you all, who is the greatest.” (Luke 9:48)