Japan

The world is watching sadly as the tragedy in Japan continues to worsen. First the 9.0 earthquake, then the Tsunami and now the nuclear disaster. We see the total devastation of what once was thriving towns and cities. We see the horror and sadness on the faces of the survivors as they search for their homes, their possessions and, most tragically, their families. There are thousands missing, thousands dead and the lingering questions of when will help arrive, when will we have food, water, warmth and shelter? In so many eyes we see the blank stare of shock, tears of a broken heart.

When the pictures first starting coming on the news I couldn't help but think of the last time there was this kind of devastation in Japan. No, I wasn't even born when the American bombs exploded and thousands died in one moment. Still, I was all too familiar with the event. My Father had been a Japenese prisoner of war in World War II for three and a half years. He had been a part of the infamous Bantan Death March. He had been tortured and starved and left for dead. When the atomic bomb killed so many Japenese it had also set my Father free. He returned to America weighing 89 pounds with the after effects of malaria, severe frost bite, toes amputated (without sedation), and ravages to his body that he never recovered from.

We were not allowed to eat rice or any other Japenese food, never allowed to purchase a product made in Japan (which was very difficult to avoid in the 60's and 70's), never allowed to discuss his experiences but always having to live the results of his nightmare with him. When he spoke of the people of Japan he used racial slurs and he meant them and who could really blame him? My Father had paid with his blood and physical and mental health for the right to hate the people of Japan.

I never really had to question my position on the people of Japan. From time to time I would hear something about the war and I would feel anger rise up. I knew I had taken on my Father's battles because I loved him so much and respected him. He was a genuine American hero. A few years ago my husband confronted me about my bitterness towards the Japenese. I am a Christian and as such I know that I am to forgive and release my bitterness to the Lord. At first I was defensive and once again told him of what "they" had done to my Dad. He listened lovingly and did not condemn me but asked me to pray about it. I did. God began to show me that I had no right to hate them. Yes, to hate what his captors had done to him but to see them as God sees them. Yes, they were America's enemy in the war but they had also been an enemy of God's--just as I was before I was saved--no difference! They had committed un-thinkable sins against my Father and countless others but then again, I had committed un-thinkable sins against my Father God and others before I surrendered to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. By man's measurements they had done so many worst deeds then me but by God's measurements we were the same--sin is sin. The Lord reminded me that He has called all of His children to preach the Gospel, to go out and tell His story, to make disciples for Christ to teach others of His love and sacrifice for our sins. How could I hope to ever even pray for their salvation much less go and tell them about Him if I harbored hate, unforgiveness and bitterness against them? God's vision of the people who tormented my Father was one of love. He loved them exactly the way He loved me and He did not desire that they perish without becoming His children. His word says so. His character and attributes say so. If there was punishment to be dealt out it was His and only His right to punish--not mine.

Now years later, long after I repented, I see the images on the t.v. I see old men wandering aimlessly among the skeletons of the buildings and I think they certainly would have been old enough to have been in the war. It is not out of the realm of possibility that one of them could have been one of my Father's jailers and all I can feel is great compassion and pity. My eyes fill with tears as my heart feels their pain and loss. I fall to my knees and I ask my heavenly Father to please help them. If I could get on a plane and go to them I would--I long to help them. To give them the food they would not give my Father, to bind the wounds they left to fester, to give them shelter from the horror to give them clean water when they thirst and the warmth of a blanket. I am loved by God and I know Him personally because of Jesus. I want them to hear of Jesus, to be saved and to spend eternity as my brother--as my Father's brother.

Matthew 25:34-46

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
   ³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
   ⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
   ⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
   ⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
   ⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
   ⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Please join me in praying for the people of Japan!

Sisters

"The Christian faith is meant to be lived moment by moment. It isn't some broad, general outline--it's a long walk with a real Person. Details count: passing thoughts, small sacrifices, a few encouraging words, little acts of kindness, brief victories over nagging sins." Joni Eaeckson Tada

I started this blog as an outlet. I was, and am, going through a transition time in my life and I needed to express my feelings about it and so many other things that I prayed the Lord would use in other women's lives. I have had the feeling for a long time now that we, as Christian women, do not fully follow the teachings of Titus 2:3-5.

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

I prayed that the Lord would give me the words in this blog for that purpose.

As I began writing this blog it became apparent to me that He had a different purpose for calling me to write again. Hopefully you will be able to find somewhere in my ramblings encouragement to adhere to Titus 2:3-5, but I think, more importantly, we can discover together that it is a journey to Titus 2:3-5. Yours' will be different then mine but we can travel together towards it. We don't have to chart new territory constantly, we can pick each other up when we stumble and fall, we can encourage during those dark times of discouragement, we can pray for each other when there is doubt or fear or anger or remorse. We are called to be sisters--we need to start acting like sisters.

I'm probably the last person in the world who should be writing about being a sister. I'm an only child, I had only one daughter--I could write a book on what it's like to be an only child, but how do I know anything about sisters? What I have learned through the years has come mostly from observing. My mother had five sisters, three are still living. Not one of them had the same personality. They shared few of the same attributes, some had brown eyes, some blue, one green. They were brunette, blond and red headed. They were short and tall, small and medium framed. They lived different lives. One married to one man until his death, the others married and divorced. Some lived in near-affluence, others in near-poverty. Yet from these women I learned what it meant to be strong, to be generous, to be loving, to close ranks and defend your sister against anything or anyone. I learned to trade recipes and cleaning solutions. I learned how to manage money and mis-manage money. I learned how to dress, how to put on make-up, how to attract a man. I learned that people respond to honey more then vinegar and that everyone loves to be really listened too (although that was not a strong attribute in our family), that gossip was fun and that family sticks together no matter how mad you get with them. Without ever saying a word they taught me what a woman should do and be--in our family.

Then I got saved and a whole new group of sisters came into my life. Not born of the same mother, but born again of the same Heavenly Father. I was very timid about joining in with these women. They seemed so sweet and so good. I thought they couldn't be true. I feared that when I left the room they would begin to talk about me. They prayed so earnestly and knew so much scripture. Maybe I wasn't good enough for this sisterhood. I stayed to myself most of the time. I was a divorced single mother of three. It appeared these women had been married and loving their husbands forever. I felt more like a step-sister (in the fairy tale meaning) then a real sister. Little by little the Lord began to draw me into this group of sisters. First by listening to Christian women speakers on the radio, then going to a women's group to hear a study I was interested in. Then He did the most amazing thing. He put a ministry on my heart for abuse victims--women abuse victims! I tried to just hand it off to the women's ministry at my church. I told the leader there that I would help organize it and get the material for it but she said only if God was calling me to teach it. I couldn't say no.

As Corrie ten Boom said, "Peter said, "No, Lord!" But he had to learn that one cannot say "No" while saying "Lord" and that one cannot say "Lord" while saying "No".

When I said yes to Jesus, to the ministry for abuse victims that He gave me, I began to finally be in a sisterhood of God. Week after week as I sat in a classroom with injured survivors and watched the Lord walk among us and heal us, I began to understand. He used all of the things that I had learned growing up with my amazing Aunts and He fine tuned it with His truths of what a Godly woman looks like. She is not a robotic super woman with a bow on her head. She is one of many beautiful Princesses of God. She might have brown or blue or green or grey or speckled eyes. She might be tiny or fluffy; tall or short; a beauty queen on the outside or gorgeous on the inside. She could be rich or poor or anywhere in-between. She might be the one who prayed amazing prayers or she might be the one who could only manage to say "please help me Lord". She could have memorized every scripture and read her Bible through and through every year since she was 17 or she just might be the one who jumped for joy because some caring woman just donated a brand new Bible to her or she might even be the one who after thirty years of shame finally admitted that she never learned to read and had never been able to read one word of scripture but still knew that she loved His word. A Christian sister may not start off dressing a certain way, talking a certain way or acting a certain way. A Christian sister starts with the act of giving up her life to Jesus. She doesn't have to understand it all, she just has to understand that she's been one way--a sinner--and when she surrenders to Jesus--He will forgive those sins and start to teach her another way, His way; and while He's lovingly teaching her, He brings these amazing women into her life that He has already taught some of those same lessons to. He doesn't want us to be observers the way I observed my Aunts and Christian sisters right after my salvation. He wants us to be participators in each other's lives.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

He wants to use us to instruct each other, encourage each other, love each other. He cannot use Christian men for this particular part of our growth so we as Christian women must make ourselves available to Him for this work. Chronological age has nothing really to do with our Titus journey. A fifty year old new Christian woman can be taught much from a loving twenty-three year old sister who has walked with Jesus for years. Because Jesus valued women and thought of them as equal in the kingdom of Heaven, He has given us roles and the means to accomplish those roles. He needs us to be sisters involved in each other's lives. He needs us to say yes when He calls us to speak a word of encouragement or challenge or just to relate to another sister's suffering. I encourage you to use this blog for that purpose. You don't have to know all there is to know about being a Christian, you don't have to be considered a prayer warrior or an authority on scripture. Come as you are, just as you came to the cross. The Lord will make sure that you are coming with a gift and a purpose that someone else needs to share.

Only Children

"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." St. Augustine

I've often laughed that I raised three only children. I am an only child. It's been easy at times to understand the concept that God loves each of us as if we were His only child. Possibly a little self-absorbed, but easy. When I pray I just know He is listening intently to what I am saying and really caring about the answer to my prayers. That "feeling" has made it much easier to go to Him in prayer, to expect to see the answers to those prayers. If I step back from that easy relationship and look at the complexity of it all it really is too much for me to comprehend.

There are so many of us, there are so many problems and concerns and cares--how can He hear my singular prayer about my minuscule problem? That's when I think of my own children. They are all so different. They lead very, very different lives and have their own unique problems and concerns. Some they share, some I can only imagine or discern. Yet each of my children's lives are of utmost importance to me. I want to know if they are happy or sad, if they are getting enough rest and food, if their relationships are fulfilling or stressful. I want to know that every step they are taking in their lives is leading them on a journey that will be satisfying as they look back. I want to see them become caring people to the less fortunate, sensitive to the hurting and loving to the unlovable. I want them to freely communicate their cares to me. I desperately want to see them in a relationship with the Lord that will sustain them for all of eternity. When I think on these things I realize how God thinks of each of us. If I, a mere mortal mother, have these feelings for my own children how much more the eternal God must have for His children!

"He is always thinking about us. We are before His eyes. The Lord's eye never sleeps, but is always watching out for our welfare. We are continually on His heart." C.H. Spurgeon

"Even before God created the heavens and the earth, He knew you and me, and He chose us! You and I were born because it was God's good pleasure." Kay Arthur

Can you imagine that? I can on a finite level, but only because He so graciously put those same feelings on a smaller scale in me for my own children. Have you known that kind of love? Did your parents listen and love and care? Did you know that when you talked they really, really listened? Or, maybe you can relate as I do, because you know the depths of love you have for your children. No matter what your experiences, no matter what your past, I hope this new year brings you to a place with God that you want to draw closer then you ever have dared before. If you have had no relationship, I hope you will begin. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." We draw near to God when we understand and accept John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." God made the way for those of us who are so imperfect to draw near to Him in all of His perfection through Jesus Christ, His Son.

If you have accepted Christ as your Savior but you still don't feel the closeness, you still don't feel like an only child in His kingdom of so many children; I pray you will continue that drawing near by reading His word, the Bible. No matter how inferior you feel today or how many doubts you have that God could care about you in so personal a way, I pray that you step out in faith by praying--casting all of your cares and concerns upon Him. Talk to Him! Start a prayer journal, write down the prayers AND the answers to your prayers that He provides you. I think you will be astonished by the depths of His caring, the abundance of His love. Then I hope you will share with us your journey.

Dreams

"We spend our lives dreaming of the future, not realizing that a little of it slips away every day." Barbara Johnson

When I was young I was such a dreamer! Our family was part of the great middle class that came to be after World War II. My father was one of the young soldiers that enlisted right out of high school. He left the family farm where he had known poverty and saw people and places he had only read about in his small town library. When he did return he quickly married a very young girl from a tiny, tiny Texas town and together they began a life of travel and parties and upward mobility. I never lived the life they had grown up in. I grew up neither rich nor poor--in the middle. I loved to read books about other lands and other lifestyles. Television was a huge part of my home life. I grew up in America; the land of opportunity, the land where dreams could come true if you worked hard enough for them. So I dreamed.

As a little girl I dreamed of being Miss America, of being a movie star, of living a life of glamor in New York City. In my angst filled teenage years I dreamed of boys, marriage, babies but also of being a hippie and living in a commune, of protesting in Washington D.C. and making a difference in the world. I dreamed of singing like Joanie Mitchell, dancing Swan Lake and winning an Academy Award--the world was exciting and filled with promise.

Somewhere along the years the dreams got smaller and smaller until one day in my forties I realized they had disappeared. I no longer dreamed of my future and what I might be able to achieve if I just worked hard enough. Had I gotten to a place of contentment or complacency--or defeat? I looked backwards alot now and in the dark times I was looking back at all of the dreams that had not come true. I hadn't done any of the great things I had dreamed of in my youth. I had married and raised children. At the time that seemed to be all I could handle.

Now, the children I raised are gone. They are in that period of life where they are trying to achieve their own dreams. I see it in the way they live their lives. They are very busy people. I tried the other day to think about dreams I might want to revive for the balance of my life. I had a hard time thinking of any. Then I read the quote by Barbara Johnson and it made the light bulb go off. I really don't want to spend the remainder of my days dreaming. So much time has already slipped away. For the time left I want to just trust. Trust that my Heavenly Father will achieve those things in me that He planned before I was even born. Trust that I'm not going to miss anything that He has for me. Trust that, if I'll just surrender my plans and dreams to Him, He will guide my life and give me the desires of my heart. I want to build my future on trust not dreams because in that trust are the promises.

"For I know the plans I have for you--declares the Lord. Plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

He always knew His plans for me--and for you. He always knew that I wasn't going to live an amazing life in New York City, but He knew that two of my children would. He knew I wasn't ever going to be a hippie and work to change the world, but He knew that my oldest son would. He knew I wasn't going to ever win the Academy Award, but He knew that my daughter would be an amazing actress who might. He knew His plans for me were to raise children who would be so much braver and brighter and that they would do amazing things that I could only dream of. He knew He would give me spiritual children to nurture and love and one day those spiritual kids would do so much more then anything I could dream of accomplishing. He knew that these things would bring me more joy and fulfillment then any of the silly dreams I had dreamed on my own.

I'm in this new stage of my life--not wasting an instant dreaming of what I'll be one day, but trusting the Lord for each day, for each moment. I want the balance of my life to be exactly what He wants it to be. I want to accomplish all that He has for me to do. I want to be the "good and faithful servant" and to trust Him for the results.

I know there are some of you who are reading this who have had your dreams crushed and destroyed--maybe even today. I know how badly that hurts and I'm sorry that you are going through that pain, but I want you to know that you aren't going to miss "it". "It" may not look like the dream you have been dreaming--mine certainly didn't--but "it" will look exactly like God's plan for your life from the beginning. His good and loving plan for you. If you've been struggling and trying so hard to be or to earn or to achieve and you just can't get there, please know that there is another way--a better way--God's way. Trust His word, hold on tight to His promises. What does He promise you? If you are His child--you've prayed and asked Him to forgive your sins and to be your Savior--He promises you Jeremiah 29:11 and so much more!

Persevere

"Failure is one of life's most powerful teachers. How we handle our failures determines whether we're going to simply 'get by' in life or 'press on'." Beth Moore

I have had way too many failures to count--how about you? When I was in my twenties someone I really loved and respected called me a "quitter".  It was a cruel thing to say, but looking back now, I understand why he thought that of me. I was a quitter. I didn't want to deal with problems, emotions, difficult situations. I thought that starting over was easier then "dealing". I was in the middle of one of those starting overs when I met Jesus.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

Music to my ears--I thought! Little did I know that meeting Him meant that my days of choosing to start over in difficult situations were over. The old that the scripture is talking about is the old way I handled things. The new creation that had come was the Holy Spirit in me who would show me how to "deal" in a different way. My "old" nature still chooses what seems to be the easy path--quit, start over--but the new in me shows me a different path. I can still choose the path, and many times I still choose the wrong path; but if I follow His leading my choice is to persevere in any circumstances trusting Him to somehow work them out for my good.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

I know that I love Him. I know that He called me and that He has a purpose for my life that goes beyond the dreams and hopes I might be able to conceive and I know from this scripture that He says "ALL things". What I don't know sometimes when I'm in the middle of a difficult situation is how in the world He is going to work it out for my good. That's when I get tempted to run, to hide, to manipulate. When my flesh starts getting anxious and I don't feel comfortable in my circumstances or if those circumstances have been going on for so long and I don't see Him doing anything about them--when it just isn't fair, when it feels like I'm going to break...what do I do Lord?

"Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." Luke 22:42

O.K., so maybe I really do want my will at first. Then I start to remember all of the times in my past when I got my will; times when it didn't line up with God's will at all. Those were the times that do not bless me or anyone I love--those are the times I regret, times I grieve, times I am ashamed. When I recall those times I can then come humbly before the Lord and really mean Luke 22:42--I can really trust Him to bring about the good in even the worst situations.

I don't want to be that quitter I was. God gave me the last completely new start I really needed the day He came into my heart. He gave me the only example I'll ever need of completing the job despite it's difficulties when He died on that cross. Our Savior finished what he began! Despite His suffering and despite His shame on the cross, Jesus was faithful. His Spirit in me gives me the power to stay the course, to finish the race, to persevere!

^"But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." 1 Corinthians 15:57-58

Welcome!

My first posting! There are a few things you should know about this blog. First, the title...my oldest son calls me Ma, the other two call me Mom, my daughters-in-love and my husband's daughter that I will not call "step" call me Susan (so far) and, of course, my grandchildren who can speak call me Grandma. I sign all my correspondence to them this way so I thought that it would be an appropriate title to identify me on a blog. I am married and totally in love with my husband of twenty-one years who is hardly ever home because he travels with his job. He is the most "Godly" man I have ever known and he accepts and loves me unconditionally. Which brings me to another thing you should know--I am a born again Christian which will become very apparent in my writing. I love Jesus. I have experienced so much that I hope will help you to relate to me and the things I will be writing about. I attended but did not complete college in my teens. In my twenties I was a career woman and a mother of three--two boys and a girl, a divorcee in my thirties, a single mom for a few years, a wife and mother in a blended family and ministry leader throughout my forties and now a woman in her fifties who stuggles with being an empty-nester. I hope that through this blog I will make some new relationships with other women who are living in any of those ages. I hope we can encourage each other and "mentor" each other through our experiences. I've learned a lot through the years that I would love to share and I need to learn a lot for the next years that I am sure some of you would love to teach. I really hope that you will join me--ask all sorts of questions, leave random remarks, encourage each other, pray for each other.

I mentioned before that I was struggling with being an empty-nester. I'll probably write more about this tomorrow, but maybe that's a good way for us to get started--a way for us to begin seeing into each other's worlds and hearts--what are you struggling with?