Messages

I have become a Lay Speaker for the Methodist church. This is both terrifying and exhilarating. I am now certified to be able to give messages to groups of people on matters of faith and Scripture. I have spoken to groups of nursing home residents and once to members of my own church, at the Sunday afternoon service.

I say messages, because it seems presumptuous to say sermons. I have not been to seminary. But the Lord in His wisdom seems to think that since I love to write and talk, He can use me for good. At least that's how I choose to look at it. I can't see being all proud of myself and boasting that I know so much. That would be, as one of my favorite authors, Judy Connor, says in her book, Southern Fried Divorce, "biggetyspeckled". You just know what that word means.

Along with giving messages, I am trying to listen and watch for them as well. I finally concluded that God reaches us in as many different ways as He made different people. Since He made us, He knows each of us intimately. He knows how we learn, how we "get it".

My degree is in Occupational Education, and I had to take quite a few classes on how people learn. Some are auditory learners, and get it when they hear the teacher say it. Others are visual - they'd better write it down or draw themselves a picture or a map. Still others learn by kinesthetics - by the feeling, hands-on doing of a task.

I used to read about some people's experiences with God. Some said they heard the voice of God. Some had beautiful visions, angel visitations. Some had awful accidents and woke up in a hospital with a realization about God. I was envious. (Well, not of the accident victim...) God had revealed himself to these folks in an unmistakable way. After that, they had no doubt He existed.

How neat, I thought. I wanted my very own vision, voice of God experience. Having grown up in the Presbyterian Church, I never heard of anyone I actually knew that had had that "born again" type experience.

In high school, I talked with a girl who was of a more fundamental faith. I told her, when she asked if I was saved, that I really wasn't sure. I asked her how to get saved. I wanted that rock-bound certainty about God. She gave me the basic formula. "Get down on your knees and ask Jesus Christ to come into your life and be your personal Savior."

I couldn't wait to get home and lock myself into my room and do this.

I prayed to be saved. I didn't feel anything right away, so I prayed harder. Still no feeling, no voice, no hand patting my shoulder, no certainty. After a while, I had tears streaming down my face and I was begging. Still. No. Feeling.

I finally had to get up and go to supper. The next day I found the girl I had talked to and told her I wasn't sure it had worked, I didn't FEEL saved. Without missing a beat, she looked at me and said, "You must not have been sincere enough."

Well. I left her, feeling very upset and more confused than ever. I was sure I had been sincere. Why had I not gotten the certainty of salvation, the feeling I wanted so badly. After a while, a thought occurred to me. It was, "She's only sixteen, too - what did she know?"

Gradually over the years of my life, I have come to realize that God knew me very well, and knew that had I gotten a huge feeling, I probably would have thought I was losing my mind. He knew that was not the way I understood.

Instead, He has reached me through experiences with people and things I read. He has put people in my life to help me understand; He has shown me things to read that further my understanding. I talk, I read - and I have learned to listen for God.

God loves me. He knows me. He does speak to me. In His own way and in mine.

I think that is why He allows all the different faiths. So that maybe, if we listen, we can all "get God".

My prayer for you is that you will get Him, too.

Pastor John's Journal: God Loves Even the Wicked

Pastor John's Journal: God Loves Even the Wicked

I like this. God wants us all to come to Him. He is a most loving and gracious Father. And when we finally realize just how much we are loved by our Creator, it is so much easier to love our brothers and sisters. Grace and compassion, not judgment and disapproval.

Busted

Ok, Jules, you busted me! It has been way too long since I posted - I evidently immediately forgot my resolve to post at least once a week, which is what happens when I try to discipline myself. Stubborn as I am, I don't even like ME telling me what to do.

So - new tactic is to write first, play later. Before I get on the "Innertubes" as my son calls it, I go immediately to my novel that I am writing. Once I start writing or revising, I am hooked. It's the getting started that I have problems with.

A wise woman with a very happy husband once told me, " I used to never want to have sex with my darling husband because I was tired, thinking about the kids, interested in something I was reading, etcetera. But I noticed that once he convinced me to turn everything off and go to bed with him, I had a wonderful time. It was just getting started that did not seem to appeal to me. So I very wisely told him to just start with me and I'd catch up!"

Writing seems to work that way. Just start and your Muse will run to catch up.

Yes!!

I can post on this blog from my I phone. Yay! This will be short till I figure it all out.

Daydreaming, not Blogging!

It has been too long a while since I posted. As any inveterate daydreamer can understand, I got caught up on Facebook and its Farm Town, and posting on CoachCreativeSpace. Then my laptop crashed - serious withdrawal!
We had also been driving all over the country with little time to write. Our dedicated run from Atlanta to Chicago and back, twice a week, died last fall when the economy tanked.
We are back on that run now, so maybe I can discipline myself to blog more often - I am setting a goal of once a week. That I can do.
As to Facebook and Farm Town - I think the new will wear off eventually

Easter Dreams

When I was about ten, and far too old for the Easter Bunny legend, my parents still went through the whole Easter egg hunt thing for my younger brother and I. My mother would boil and color the eggs - I remember once she dipped them in such a way that they were plaid - and Daddy got the job of Easter bunny.
To this day, I can't bring myself to cut the grass before Easter Sunday. You have to have longish grass to hide the eggs in. And, of course, the tiny new spring flowers, the violets and the jack-in-the-pulpits and the little white and gold flowers have to be left, just for pretty.
There is this magical moment when you are little and rush out onto dewy grass, basket in hand, and gasp as you see the first egg, just barely visible in a tuft of grass. You scoop it up and scan the yard for the next one, run toward it stumbling with glee. There is finally a moment when you just can't find any more. Someone has to come and gently lead you back to the house, distracting you from the fever of the hunt with the promise of chocolate.
Like Christmas, even the secular part of Easter is still about love - love that parents have for their children, when they create those magical moments. And the spiritual side of Easter is about the greatest love imaginable.
I learned about a Father's love the Easter I was ten and awoke that Sunday morning, looked out into the back yard from my bedroom. I saw my Dad in his bathrobe and bare feet, loaded basket hung over his arm, gingerly making his way from tuft to tree root, carefully placing each egg in its hiding place. Hiding treasures for us to find, if we searched hard enough.
My earthly father is gone now. I have carried on his tradition with my own children, and soon will share it with grandchildren.
My Heavenly Father is, I believe, still hiding treasures for me to find, if I just look carefully enough.

"Disabled" Dreams

I collect stories of people who refuse to stay as small as other people's definitions of them. Of people who dream bigger than they "should". Who defy the odds, refuse to stay defined by a disability. I'd like to do a book about them. Not just the spectacular ones who go surfing with no arms, but the quiet ones who become ministers despite severe dyslexia, who start their own business because others would not hire them, who battle depression daily, yet soldier on. My heroes are the people who get out of bed each day, lift their chins and say, "What can I do today?" Not, "Who has to help me?" or, "I can't do anything, I have_______."
They come up with creative solutions to get around their disabilities. They refuse to be victims, don't need pity, and usually can be found uplifting someone else.

If anyone has a story I can use for my book, please contact me at:
junebugnbulldog@yahoo.com
These folks need to be celebrated.