Category Archives: Submitting to God

A Reason to Cry?

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LunchI’ve never cried over spilt milk, though recently I groaned a little. My 12 grandchildren had just enjoyed a lunch of leftovers and were obediently bringing their dirty dishes from the deck tables to the kitchen. That was when one of them stumbled, spilling half a glass of milk into the open silverware drawer.

And I groaned.

If he’d have tripped one short step further, the spill would have been a simple floor puddle, easily cleaned. Several of us watched the milk drizzle through the silverware, recognizing the set-back, but as with most of the messes children make, it wasn’t worth crying over.

Spilt milkThe old adage that advises us not to cry over spilt milk has a non-Christian origin from the mid-1600’s when a group of English people strongly believed in fairies. They would leave small offerings of food and drink, especially milk (the fairies’ favorite). If a little was spilled in the process, the idea was to quickly mop it up and not stress over what no one could go back and do differently.

Though we don’t believe in fairies today (except the tooth fairy, of course), the thought behind the old spilt milk axiom has a parallel in Scripture. God advises us not to worry about the past, which can’t be rearranged, but to keep pressing forward. It’s one of Satan’s most insidious lies that the Lord won’t love someone who has some “spilt milk” in their background.

Thankfully, God debunks that throughout the Bible, reassuring us of his unconditional love again and again. Our part is to believe what he says, that he’ll continue to love us, no matter what.

Doused silverwareAnd concerning the grandson whose milk flowed through the silverware? I love him just as much today as I did the day before his stumble. But, in a far grander way, we can all be thankful that God will always love us, no matter what spills are in our past.

 

“Love…. binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14)

The Way to a Wedding

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At my house we’re putting the finishing touches on plans for a wedding that will take place this August, when Louisa marries Teddy – our third family wedding in 12 months.

Nelson and Ann Sophie, wedding dayNelson married Ann Sophie last August in Hawaii (right), and Birgitta married Spencer last November in Iowa (below), which adds up to three.

If I count my brother’s son Charlie and his bride Larissa (married in May), my nephew Karl and his Cecilia (also in May), and Tom’s son Ben with his Amy (this July), the family wedding count rises to six – one every other month.

 

Iowa Bettis family.Weddings can be expensive, and it’s a pleasure to watch these “kids” make economical wedding decisions. But there’s one family wedding that takes the cake in the budgeting department.

Our daughter Linnea met Adam (below) when both were serving in Youth With A Mission. Love blossomed, and he presented her with a ring on a snowy winter afternoon in Montana, in 2003.

 

 

Linnea aand AdamBoth were students there at an intensive YWAM Bible school when Linnea called us to share their big news. We were thrilled, already loving Adam, but we wondered how in the world we’d ever pay for a wedding.

Our family was in the midst of a rapid financial downturn due to some governmental tax law changes that destroyed Nate’s once-thriving business. By then we were struggling to pay our own bills, much less those of a wedding.

On the phone that night when Linnea asked how much we had in our “wedding account,” Nate looked at me and held up his finger and thumb in the sign of a zero.

We told Linnea the truth, that there was no wedding account, and when the conversation ended, both she and I were in tears. I pictured Adam standing with his arm around her, whispering comfort into her misery… and I felt awful.

Our daughter was suffering, too, and we longed to do something about it. She closed that conversation with, “Can we talk about this again tomorrow?”

Wedding aisleAs soon as we hung up, we began asking God to rescue us. Almost right away he reminded us of a song that says, “God will make a way, when there seems to be no way.” In this case, there really was no way. Though we wanted to believe he could and maybe even would make a way, we sure couldn’t imagine how. But if Linnea was going to have a wedding, it would have to be his doing.

“The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.” (Psalm 32:10)

(…to be continued)

These boots are made for walkin’ .

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Our son Hans, living in England with his British wife Katy, has a big family — eight in all. This gives me cause for great joy, because six of them are my grandchildren.

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Having all these youngsters, ages nine and under, demands tremendous organization. I’ve been repeatedly thankful that Katy has a knack for keeping their lives in order. That goes for shoes and boots, too.

BootsSince this family lives in north England, rain is plentiful, along with a steady need for boots. They call them “wellies” after Britain’s Wellington boots, popular in the UK since the early 1800’s — for farming, hunting, and, in this case, puddle-jumping. Of course as the children grow, there’s a need for wellies in virtually every size.

Little Jonathan, 15 months old, had just come into his first pair of wellies when I was there recently. Though the boots were still a bit big on him, he wanted to be like his older siblings and wear them out to play.

Every so often, though, his foot would slip half way out of a boot, causing his next step to be a big stumble. An ankle-fold-over was the inevitable result, along with a plunge to the pavement, accompanied by some level of damage – skinned forehead, chin, cheek, or nose, and sometimes all of them. This was especially true when he was trying to walk his wellies on bumpy pavement.

His wobbly walking reminded me of the Bible verse that says if we fully trust in God’s wisdom rather than our own, he’ll make our paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) But it also reminded me of another verse that says the Lord can keep us from stumbling.

JonathanBeing new on his feet and new in his wellies, Jonathan sometimes did more stumbling than walking, suffering injuries and the tears that went with them.

How nice for us to know that if we do things God’s way, we won’t have to stumble through life but can walk on the straight path he promises to make for us. That’s not to say we won’t experience hardship, but we won’t have to suffer self-inflicted injuries or the tears that accompany them when we stumble spiritually, falling away from God’s straight path.

It won’t take long for Jonathan to grow into his wellies, and if we’re smart, we’ll waste no time letting God have his way in our lives. After that, our stumbling and the tears that come with it will be kept to a minimum.

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy… be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord…” (Jude 1:24-25)