Stones of Remembrance

I heard a preacher this morning mention the passage in the Old Testament in which God instructs the children of Israel to construct an altar of sorts, a memorial made of stones. He tells them, when their children ask what the stones mean, they are to tell the children about the miracle God had worked in that place, thus using the stones as "stones of remembrance".

He went on to say that from time to time, we all should look back at our own "stones of remembrance" and give God praise for the things He has done. This not only brings honor and glory to God, it also strengthens our faith~when we remember what God has done for us in the past, we have greater faith and confidence that He will meet our current needs.

One of my "stones" of remembrance is a potato. Yes, that's right, a potato. I was not physically present when God performed this miracle for my parents, but they have passed this story down to me, and it has sustained me many times.

My parents were very young, and were living with 2 small girls in a tiny garage apartment. The company my Dad had been working for laid him off. They still had a few groceries in the house, and Mom and Daddy were just praying that those groceries would hold out until Daddy got more work.

There came a day when the only food left in the house was one potato, and an onion. That was it. Nothing more. Daddy told Mom to fry the potato and the onion, and he would eat the onion and she could share the potato with 2 year old Holly, and 3 year old Missy.

Mom fried the onion and they potato, and they sat down to eat. While they were eating, there was a knock on the door. Daddy opened the door and saw an elderly lady he had never met before. The lady explained that she was the sister of the woman that my parents rented the garage apartment from. She was in town visiting her sister, and the Lord laid it on her heart to give my Dad some money. She went on to explain that normally, she would send this money to her son who is a missionary, but this time, the Lord told her to go up to that garage apartment and give it to the folks that lived there. She pressed some bills into my Dad's hand, said "God Bless You", and walked away.

My Dad was so stunned, he just stared after the woman. When he looked down, he saw 6 $1 bills. This was not a lot of money by any means, but it would buy more at the grocery store then than it would now. With that $6, my Mom was able to buy bread, balogna, milk, spaghetti, and sauce~enough to last them a few days until my Dad found some work and was paid.

Almost evry time I peel or chop potatoes, I am reminded of the wonderful way the Lord provided for my family, even before I was born.

Hotels are another "stone" of remembrance for me. From the time I was 3 years old until I was almost 18, my parents operated a shelter for homeless women and children. We depended on support from local churches, individuals, and civic groups, much as a missionary would, for support. My father was often asked to travel the US, preaching and presenting our ministry in different churches.

Once, while he was on one of these trips, there had been so many people coming through the shelter that we were running very low on food. We had about 30 people in the shelter at this time, plus our family of 5~well, 4 since Dad was out of town.

We were in Chattanooga, TN. My Dad was in Chicago, Illinois. There was really nothing he could do from there, but Mom had to tell him the situation. She told him over the phone that we had enough food for breakfast and lunch, but nothing for supper, and no money for groceries. Being so far away, all he could do was pray. He instructed us to do the same.

At 12:30 that afternoon, we served lunch as usual, still having no idea where dinner would come from. So, we served lunch, and we prayed.

That afternoon about 2pm, my mother got a phone call. The gentleman on the other end of the line said that he was the manager of a local hotel. He went on to explain that they were closing for a few days to remodel their kitchen, and they had a lot of food that would be thrown out if they couldn't find someone to give it too, and we were welcome to it if we could just come and pick it up.

You never heard such shouting and praising as the praises that went up that day!! We drove to the hotel and PACKED our station wagon with all kinds of food~frozen foods, canned goods, meat, veggies, EVERYTHING.

Supper WAS served at the shelter that night, and thanks to God's perfect timing, it wasn't even late.
Now, nearly every time we check into a hotel, I am reminded of God's miraculous provision.

Now, I have a new "stone" of remembrance. It's a miniature piano.

This past Saturday, I went with my Mom and my sister over to the house that my Aunt shared with my grandmother. Now that my grandmother is in the nursing home, there is a lot of "cleaning out" to be done. My Aunt has been struggling financially for some time now since caring for her mother has only allowed her to work part time. She broke her glasses recently and has not had the money to fix them. Just as we were telling her that we were praying that she would have the $160 she needed to replace her glasses, my Mom reached up on a shelf to remove a miniature piano. Something green had caught her eye. Mom opened the lid on the miniature grand piano, and there, folded up, was some money! She unfolded the bills and counted~$167 dollars!!!

My aunt KNOWS that she didn't put the money there herself. My grandmother doesn't remember doing it. All I can tell you is that Lila needed $160, and the Lord provided it by way of a miniature grand piano!! The Lord does work in mysterious ways!!!

I would urge you, when you have a chance, sit down and think about some of your "stones of remembrance", and then share them with your children. Stones of remembrance in your life can serve as building blocks of faith in the lives of your children.

Blessings,
Vicki

Take a look....

I have added Beth Moore's blog from Living Proof Ministries to my Friends list. I encourage you to take a look at it. I never fail to be blessed and encouraged by this blog, written by Beth and her daughter Amanda Jones. In particular, take a quick look at the photos of Beth with her ADORABLE grandson Jackson, scroll past those, and go down to the post titled "Self Condemnation of a Red Bird". You will be blessed!!!

Blessings,
Vicki

Still Thinking

My Dad, who is a preacher and a retired pastor, told me once that every so often in the Christian life, you'll have a "spiritual epiphany". You will see something in Scripture that, obviously, has always been there, but you never REALLY saw it before. Maybe you even read it a thousand times, but it never "clicked" for you, then suddenly, one day, it does.



I can look back over the last several years of my life and see where that has happened to me a few times. I love it when it happens, because it is the Holy Spirit speaking to me, and I am just in awe that He would take time to talk to ME, you know? I love it, even though sometimes what He has to say is painful.



I've had such a time recently. The Lord has REALLY been dealing with me about "offending" other people. What I am finally seeing is this. Generally speaking, I do not set out to offend people. If I were visiting a church that I knew did not approve of ladies wearing pants, I wouldn't wear pants there. I have no problem having a *very* occasional glass of wine with dinner, but I would never have a drink if I were dining with people who might be offended by it



BUT, the Holy Spirit has revealed to me that I AM often offensive ON PURPOSE to people who have offended me in the past. For example, my inlaws do not attend the same church we do, but they have been there a few times to see our children in Christmas plays and such. EVERY time they have been to our church, I have made a point to wear pants because I know they don't like it!

I know, how childish, right? But I did it.

What I am finally realizing and admitting now is that it wasn't "wrong" for me to wear pants to our church. It is a common and accepted thing there. But, on those times when my inlaws have been at church, I wasn't just exercising the freedom I have in Christ. I was rubbing their faces in it. That's not right. And, that's not the only time I've done it. I've done other things in their presence, things that I have a "right" to do, but I did them simply to annoy my inlaws. That's wrong.

My inlaws are extremely difficult people. But that doesn't justify offending them when I have the choice NOT to offend them.

I wonder how much better our relationship with them would be now if I hadn't been doing things like for so long?

Hmmm.....

Blessings,
Vicki

Seek and Ye Shall Find

My thoughts keep going back to what I posted earlier about being either a stumbling block or a stepping stone. I wasn't sure why, I just felt like maybe the Lord wasn't done showing me what He wanted to show me about this.

Then, this evening when I sat down to read my Bible, I read Proverbs chapter 18. One of the verses in this chapter ( sorry, not sure which verse, and I can't get my Bible right now without waking my 7yo who's sick and needs to sleep) says that "an offended brother is harder to be won than a strong city".

So that's when it hit me. The Lord is dealing with me about being careful not to offend others with my "freedoms" or my "rights" because it's much harder to win an offended person to Christ!

I fully realize that God can use His Holy Spirit at any time to draw anyone unto Himself regardless of the circumstances, but He saw fit to put this in His Word, so it MUST be important. It MUST matter to Him whether I'm a stumbling block or a stepping stone.

Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
Blessings,
Vicki

Stumbling Block or Stepping Stone?

When I was a child, I was not allowed to wear pants. My father had been taught that it was "sinful" for a female to wear pants. When I was still in elementary school, my Dad went one day to the home of a christian man that he really looked up to and trusted. This man's wife AND daughter were wearing pants. So, my Dad decided to talk to this man about it. They sat down together with their Bibles, and this man showed my Dad that there is nothing in Scripture that says a woman should not wear pants. It DOES say that she should not wear clothing pertaining to a man, but it is man's tradition, NOT God's law, that says that pants pertain to men.

Anyway, after more study of Scripture and much prayer, my sisters and I were allowed to wear pants at certain times, to certain places. I still remember getting my first pair of jeans when I was 9 years old. As time went on, we wore them more and more often until, eventually, it was no longer an issue.

But, there was one place we NEVER wore pants~when we went to visit our dear friend Mr Allen~or whenever we were going anywhere that we knew Mr Allen would be. He did not like women wearing pants, he believed it was wrong, and he was offended by it. I loved Mr Allen dearly, and would NEVER have done anything to offend him, so I never even WANTED to wear pants around him.

Then, when I was a teenager, my Dad pastored a small church. We wore pants to church, but usually only on Sunday night and Wednesday night~generally not on Sunday mornings. There was one man in the church who was REALLY bothered by this. But, it never bothered me to wear pants around this man even though I knew he didn't like it. So what was the difference?

The difference was that I loved Mr Allen. I did not like this man in our church. He was very pushy, and I found him obnoxious and hard to get along with, so I actually took PLEASURE in wearing pants to church because I knew it bugged him.

You know what? I was wrong to do that.

Even though I had a "right" to wear pants to church if I wanted to, I was wrong to do it. Even though I had permission from the man who is both my father and my pastor to wear pants to church, I didn't NEED to wear pants to church. I could have worn dresses and not offended that man. So, why didn't I?

Because I was a kid, both literally and spiritually.

I"m not saying we should ALWAYS forgo our rights for the benefit of someone else. I'm not going to give up my right to homeschool our children just because I have some extended family members who don't like it.

However, I DO think there are times when we need to "be the grown up" and forfeit our rights for the benefit of someone who is not as far along in their christian walk as we are, and may not yet understand many of the freedoms we have.

We have a dear friend who is Jewish. He accepted Christ as his Savior just a few years ago. I love having him here to visit with us, especially at Easter and Christmas. This man does not eat pork. Now, I love ham, and I love pork chops and bacon, but I will NOT serve any of those things in my home when he is here. I have a RIGHT to serve those things if I want to, but I choose not to offend our friend. I can eat other things. I don't NEED to eat in front of him the things that are offensive to him.

I used to tell my self that that man in our church SHOULDN'T be offended bv my wearing pants, and that he needed to "get over it". Maybe my Jewish friend, especially now that he is a christian, SHOULDN'T be offended by our eating ham at Easter.

But that won't change the fact that this man WAS offended by my pants, and my friend IS offended when he is served pork, so the question then becomes, What am I going to do with that?

I Corinthians 8:8~13 speaks of this . Verse 9 says, in the KJV, "But take heed, lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak".

I find myself wondering this morning how many "young in the faith" christians I have caused to stumble because I did something in their presence that I knew they were offened by.

With just about anything that you do, there is always going to be the possiblity that someone is going to be offended by it. We cannot live in constant fear of offending someone~I don't believe God intends for us to live that way at all. But, if we are in a situation in which we KNOW that someone could be offended by our actions or words, then we have a choice to make. We can be a stumbling block, or a stepping stone.

I went to school with a lot of kids who were never allowed to go to movies or listen to secular music. I wonder how many of them I offended by coming to school talking about the movies I had seen, or walking down the halls humming secular songs?

I am sure that I am often still a stumbling block to some folks, but with the Lord's help, I am striving to grow from a stumbling block to a stepping stone.

Blessings,
Vicki

We are SO done with this!!!

You know what I learned today? I learned that~

Enough is ENOUGH all ready!!!!!

I have blogged before about how the "baby baseball" thing is okay and all that, but that we were really beginning to be ticked because we weren't getting phone calls about schedule changes, and none of the parents on this team speak to each other and all that jazz.

Well, guess what?! We were going along today, minding our own business, having a pretty decent afternoon, which was nice since it had been a somewhat trying morning, what with 9year old raging hormonal attitudes run amok and such.

So, the kids are FINALLY playing together and behaving reasonably. and I'm having a perfectly nice conversation with my friend on my phone that FINALLY works, but we have to stop because Noah's baseball team's "end of the season tournament" started today. Roger comes home and tells me that he tried to call Noah's coach twice today to confirm the game time/location, and he was sent immediately to voice mail, and his calls were not returned.

So, we load up in the van and head out so that we can make to the "old" ball fields here in our community, which is where we were told to be, and we rushed to get there at the time we had been told to be there. So, we get there at 5pm, as we were told. NOT A SOUL is there!! GRRR!!!!

So, we give them the benefit of the doubt, assume that possibly we had made a mistake, and we head over to the NEW ball fields in our community where most of the regular season games were played. NOT A SOUL is there either!!!

My husband has now had enough, and then some. We tell Noah that there was a mistake of some kind and that there is no game today. Roger then tells him that the last game he played, last Thursday, was in fact his LAST game for this year. We asked him if he was okay with that. He said yes, and can we please go eat at McDonald's?

So, we spent the evening eating at McDonald's, including dessert for everyone, and letting the kids play on the playground. The kids had a fantastic time, Roger and I got to have uninterrupted conversation while they played, and everyone had a nice evening. Much niceer than sitting at the ball field, sweating, listening to parents scream at their kids to "Be ready" and "run hard" and "swing level" and all that other nonsense that the vast majority of 5 and 6 year olds dont care about.

Even though we had settled the issue and decided that Noah is done playing baseball for the year, I was still sort of hoping that when we got home, the message light on our phone would be flashing, with a message from the coach about a time/location change, and/or an apology for not getting the message to us sooner.

When we got home, the house looked nice because I spent a lot of time cleaning it today. We had remembered to leave the air on, so it felt good in here. My kids were all giggling, which is a sound I love.

But there was NO flashing message light.

We are SO done with this!
Blessings,
Vicki

Love/hate relationships

I love my computer. I love that my computer allows me to find answers to questions, catch up on the day's news, follow all the scores from all the baseball games each day, and keep in touch with friends.



I hate my computer! My computer doesn't like me. It allows me to freely see all of the emails from one email account while holding hostage every single post in another account! Do you know how frustrating it is to have 40+ emails in your inbox and NOT be able to read them?!!!

I love my phone. It allows me to keep in touch with family and friends, and to get help if I should need it, and to ask my Mom a zillion questions every day.

I hate my phone.
For many days now, I have wanted nothing more than to take my cordless phone and hurl it violently out the back door. It has begun this vastly annoying habit of beeping to tell me that it's battery is low. Ordinarily, I would be grateful for such a warning. But, this mutant phone that has a mind of it's own WILL NOT STAY CHARGED!!!! We let it charge for HOURS, and still, after 2 minutes on the phone.....beep!.....beep!.....beep! UGH!!! So, we bought a new battery. IT WON'T FIT in this phone!!!! AAARRGH!!!

So, we have now decided that it's time to buy a new phone, but since I can't drive to go get one, it will most likely have to wait until the weekend when Roger is off from work. There simply isn't time during the week to take care of it~at least not this week.

I also love being up late at night when the house is mostly dark, and almost completely quiet. But....
I hate waking up tired, and feeling like I"m all ready behind in my day.

So, I'll stop complaining and go to bed.

Oh, one more....I just discovered that my refrigerator( which I love) has sprung a lovely leak ( which I hate!)
Oops, I said I was going to stop complaining didn't I? Don'tcha just hate that?! :)

Blessings,

Vicki

Nostalgia....and bragging

It has been a nostalgic couple of days for me. I've blogged here some of my thoughts and feelings about the passing of Dr Roberson, who founded the high school I attended, as well as a university.

The university operates a radio station. I confess, I haven't regularly listened to this station for years, but the last couple of days I haven't been able to resist listening to other preachers share their memories of Dr Roberson, as well as some recordings of Dr Roberson's messages, and messages by some of the preachers Dr Roberson loved to listen to, like Dr Lester Roloff. The sermons and music I"ve heard over the last couple of days are STRAIGHT out of the church services of my early childhood.

It was nice to listen to that, but then sort of shocking to realize how far removed I am from that now. I haven't been to a church in years that uses the kind of style of music that was used at the church we attended in my early childhood. Not that either style of music is bad,it's just SO different. And, preachers who preach like the men I"ve been listening too for the last couple of days are VERY rare now.

It left me thinking that I must be getting old! LOL! Then, just as I had that thought, my daughter shouted from the other room, where the children were watching some Mickey Mouse cartoons~"Mom, what IS this thing?"

I went to see what they were looking at, only to find that my children had NO idea what the "thing" was that Mickey Mouse was using~imagine how old I felt when I saw that it was a ROTARY DIAL TELEPHONE and my kids had NO clue what "that thing"( as they kept calling it) was!!! MAN, I feel so old!! LOL!

Now, on to the bragging part~I was told last Sunday that at next Sunday's AWANA award ceremony, our daughter Alex is being named Awana Clubber of the Year!!! VERY cool!!

Blessings,
Vicki