Christmas Cookie Sermon #1

I baked gingerbread men today and frosted them this evening. Tomorrow I will take them to church for my children's sermon. I will tell the story of the old woman who baked a gingerbread man only to have him hop off the baking sheet and run away taunting her with, "Run, run as fast as you can...you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man." The Gingerbread Man encounters other people and animals, and each time he runs away while calling out the same line.

Finally he comes to a river and doesn't know how he will cross it. Along comes a fox who speaks to him kindly and offers to take him to the other side. All the Gingerbread Man has to do is sit on the fox's tail. Once he is in the middle of the river and the water gets higher, the fox suggests that the Gingerbread Man move to his back. A little further on and he suggests that the Gingerbread Man move to his head. With a toss of his head, he flips the Gingerbread Man up into the air and snaps him up in his mouth.

I will use the story to make the point that there is real evil in the world, and sometimes we don't recognize it. Just because a person offers to help us in some way, doesn't mean that they have our best interests in mind. It is easy to get into a really bad situation through a series of small moves that we don't realize are putting us on the brink of disaster. The wise thing to do is not to take the first wrong step.

The Bible says we are to avoid all appearance of evil. (I Thessalonians 5:22) If we enjoy dancing around on the edge of wrong, we will eventually find ourselves on the fox's head.

Near Miss

Yesterday we woke up to a light coating of snow on the ground. This first appearance of snow resulted in a number of accidents around the area. One in particular was of interest to me.

A woman in a pickup truck pulled out to pass, decided she didn't have adequate room, and lost control of the truck when she tried to return to the driving lane. She hit an on-coming car head-on sending the occupant to the hospital. The accident occurred on the stretch of road I travel on my way to work. Yesterday I did not work.

But...

The day before yesterday on my way to work, a person in a pickup truck pulled out to pass and did not have adequate room. The truck was coming straight at me on a section of the road where there is guardrail, and therefore, not enough room for me to move all the way onto the shoulder. I braked to a near standstill, and the truck returned to its own lane just in time.

I wonder if it was the same driver.

A similar scenario happens to me on this stretch of road two or three times a year. In one area where there is dotted line indicating a safe passing area, there is also a curve limiting visibility. I never pass there having seen near misses on more than one occasion on that spot.

Life is, I think, full of near misses. Some of them we are aware of when they occur. I suspect there are others of which we are blissfully ignorant.

I thank God for His protective hand.

I am Thankful-Part 2

Now that Thanksgiving Day is over, I am thankful...

*for the invention of the crockpot which kept the spiced cider warm for all day enjoyment.

*for the backyard raspberry bushes whose fruit produced a most excellent pie.

*for the pumpkin pie brought by Michelle and the pecan pie Bill got at his favorite bakery, so that I didn't have to make ALL the pies.

*for peace in the household...no major fights broke out between siblings or cousins.

*for an adult son to carve the turkey.

*for the same son who cheerfully did everything I asked of him.

*for a gracious new daughter-in-law who tolerates the madness that is our family.

*for a husband who knows the location of the vacuum and how to use it (picture here the condition of the dining room carpet after the meal).

*for weather warm enough that some of the exuberant play by grandkids could occur outside.

*for a sweet little four-year-old granddaughter who was at her other grandma's this year, but called to say she missed me.

*for the oldest granddaughter noticing that the youngest grandson was throwing the tails from his shrimp under the radiator. It would have been most unpleasant to find these at a later date due to the odor.

*for a good night's sleep that restored my energy and made the throbbing in my legs and feet disappear.

*for the goodness of God in every way and all the time.

I am Thankful

Leafless branches silhouette against a gray sky on this cool November day. My house is strangely quiet....it is the lull before the storm of people and noise and general chaos. At this point, the only family members who have begun the gathering are my son and his wife...arrivals from California on the red-eye. She is napping, catching up on sleep she missed on the plane. He is out and about town, catching up with friends he has missed while away.

I know I am teetering on the precipice of frenzied activity, so in this quiet moment, I will be thankful.

I am thankful that last night I had a comfortable bed in which to sleep.

I am thankful that I could roll out and take a warm shower.

I am thankful for a car and gas to get to the airport and back.

I am thankful that two refrigerators are stocked with food to feed the family who will be here over the next few days.

I am thankful that my house is big enough to accommodate the family gathering.

I am thankful that I still have enough physical and mental stamina to cope with the expected level of activity.

I am thankful that God is always good. We may have difficult experiences, but He is good.

I am thankful for the gracious hand of God on my life....guiding, protecting, propelling in the direction He chooses.

I am thankful for this breath and the next one.

I am thankful that God's love for us is beyond our ability to understand.

I am thankful.

Who is in Control?

This week I attended a lecture by a physician who is a specialist in a particular type of cancer. A woman in the audience who has this type of cancer commented during the doctor's presentation on clinical trials, that she is part of a clinical trial and was chosen for the control group which receives no treatment. She said that, since she had prayed about this, she was taking it as God's plan. The doctor replied, “Actually you were randomly selected by a computer, so unless you believe God is a big computer.......” and she just let the statement trail off.

Now, I totally understand the concept of random selection by a computer. Part of my job, in fact, is to coordinate a research project on a different type of cancer than the one that was under discussion. When I first enrolled patients in that study, a computer somewhere in the country told me what to do with each person. But the doctor was wrong when she implied that God could not be operating in this situation, because an impartial machine is in control.

True,which arm of the study a person ends up in is dependent on what the computer generates. But, suppose the person who entered this woman's data stopped to have a cup of coffee or use the bathroom or took a phone call, and the data entry was delayed by a minute or two, causing someone elsewhere to enter the data on another patient first. The computer is not in control of that. There is plenty of room for God to operate in our world in ways we never consider.

This brings me to something else I encountered this week, which may, at first, not seem to be related. There is a message floating around on the internet that we should pray for President Obama according to Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office. It is very distressing to me that anyone who believes in prayer would consider saying such a thing. If this is a joke, it isn't the least bit funny. If the originator is serious, he/she is terribly misusing God's word by taking it out of context.

The apostle Paul, writing in I Timothy, says: I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone....for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

If we love God and want to honor Him, we need to be praying for President Obama, the Congress and all of the leadership of our country. We don't have to agree with them, and it is perfectly legitimate to state our opposition to policies, but personal attack is wrong. We should never get caught hoping or praying for bad things to befall anyone.

If you don't agree with someone and maybe even dislike them, you can still pray for them in a way that honors God. Here is my prayer: “I pray for President Obama and the Congress. Lord, please use them to accomplish Your purposes in this world and to bring glory to Yourself.”

I think God can and will honor this prayer. I believe that He is in control. It doesn't matter what party is in office or whether the resultant policies are to our liking. I think of the world as an enormous Rubik's cube. Only God has the wisdom and knowledge to solve it and align the pieces to bring about His plan for human history. No matter how it appears to us, He is moving the pieces into position. At some points, it will look like everything is wrong, but that is only a temporary state caused by our imperfect perspective.

When God makes the last move, all mankind will be in awe, and no one will have any choice except to acknowledge that He is in control and has been right along.

Please stay out of the ditch!

Eight weeks ago today, my brother Bud arrived at our home in a terrible state. He had no money and no ID. His wallet and all of his documents had been lost. He looked and smelled like a street person. His home was about to be condemned. We learned that he had been living in it two years without heat and a year and a half without water. My other brother and I knew he had been drinking, and that his life had been in a terrible downward spiral since his wife had left him 5 years ago. Among other things, he had lost the job he had held for over 30 years, when his drinking caused him to do something incredibly foolish. We had no idea how bad things were though, because every time we tried to offer help, he insisted he didn't need it.

When his phone was disconnected last spring, I began stopping at his house every week or two to check on him. I would pound on the door to no avail, and finally go to the side of the house and scream under the window where I could hear him playing a computer game. When he came to the front door, he would never let me in the house, but the stench wafted out and was overpowering.

So when he arrived here eight weeks ago, I was relieved that he was finally ready to accept some help. He moved in with us, and we began our attempts to clean him and his life up. My husband and I have expended enormous effort trying to help him get his life back on track. My dear husband removed from the house: 50 large plastic garbage bags of trash, 20 bags of bottles and cans and 12 bags of filthy clothing, which I sorted through trying to find something salvageable for Bud to wear. Removal of these 82 large bags accomplished nothing more that a pathway through the house, but it was an obvious beginning. When the code enforcement officer came to inspect the house, we had a plan in place for the cleanup and essential repairs, so he did not go forward with the paperwork. He agreed not to actually condemn it, as long as Bud didn't live in it, and we did what we promised to do.

During the first two weeks, we helped Bud determine what in the house could be cleaned up well enough to be used. A huge problem was that the cat had urinated and defecated all over everything which Bud had strewn around in his drunken stupors, depression and apathy. The house was knee deep in "stuff" of all types. We rented a storage locker. My other brother helped my husband clean the items which could be saved, and they were moved out. We hired a professional cleaning company to haul out the rest of the debris and scrub the walls, floors, etc. We got a plumber in to repair the water lines, and a heating company to repair the furnace and hot water heater.

We got on the internet and ordered a birth certificate for Bud. We arranged for him to get to the DMV for a replacement license and to Social Security for replacement of his card. We arranged for a friend to take him shopping for some new clothes, and had a hairdresser work on his long matted hair and unkempt beard and mustache. We got him to the Adult Protective Unit at Social Services and set things in motion for financial help and a place to live. We helped him figure out what insurance policies he had that he could cash in for some money to work with. When the house was cleaned out, we got a real estate agent to come and arrange for its sale.

When it became clear that it would take a period of months for him to get into senior housing, we helped him find an apartment, got his belongings out of storage, helped him shop to purchase what was necessary to function on his own, and moved him in six days ago.

Four days ago, I stopped in to see how he was doing. He had nearly everything unpacked and settled. The aroma of a delicious meal he had cooked for himself wafted through the apartment. He seemed happy, and declared that he and the cat were "at home" here. I was thrilled and so excited that he seemed to be taking hold of his life. He had already made some phone calls that I planned to remind him were necessary.

Last night he called me and was clearly drunk. His speech was slurred, he couldn't remember what he wanted to say, he started to tell me something he had already told me that afternoon when we had happened to meet on the street. When I confronted him, he admitted he had been drinking, but insisted he wasn't drunk.

He had been sober (according to him) for four weeks prior to coming for our help, and during the seven weeks he had lived with us. But, five days on his own and he was right back at it. My heart sunk. I can't really begin to describe my feelings. I slept last night, but thought of him every time I stirred during the night.

After church and lunch today, I wrote down the number of Alcoholics Anonymous and headed for his apartment. He was just leaving to go out for a walk. He wasn't drunk, but wasn't looking any too well. I asked him if he remembered talking to me last night. He said that he did. I gave him the phone number and then reminded him about something that happened when we were kids. He was probably about 7, and I would have been 10.

We lived out in the country and went to school on the bus. We waited for the bus on the opposite side of the road from our house where there was a large open field along which an unusually deep ditch had been dug. It was much deeper that the ditch on our side of the road. For reasons I never did comprehend, Bud loved to crawl down in that deep ditch. I cannot count the number of mornings that he did this while waiting for the bus. He inevitable slipped in the slime in the bottom of the ditch and got his slacks all muddy. My mother would come running out of the house, haul him back in to change his slacks, and hurry him back out as the bus pulled up in front of our house. On some occasions the bus driver waited as Bud came running back out the driveway.

One morning I distinctly remember, Bud announced to me that he was going to crawl down into the ditch. I said, "Bud, don't do that. You know you will slip in the mud and get all dirty."

"No, I won't slip this time."

"Yes, you will....you always do."

Of course, he went ahead and crawled in the ditch, and there was a rerun of numerous other mornings.

So today, I reminded Bud of this story, and concluded with, "Bud, please don't crawl back into the ditch!"

He smiled and said he knew what I meant.

We talked for a bit longer. He tried to deny that he had a problem. We parted as he was saying, "Yes, I do know that "de-nial" isn't just a river in Egypt."

Oh, how I hope that this time, he stays out of the ditch.

Cleaning the House

One of the hazards of cleaning for me is that it leaves me with lots of time to think. It's not like vacuuming or dusting or mopping the kitchen floor requires a significant percentage of my brain's capacity. So, my brain gets busy on other topics.

I have a really big old Victorian house with 11 rooms and four full bathrooms. Since my husband and I now rattle around in here with some rooms rarely being used, I don't clean every room every week. But, yesterday and today, I did clean everything on the first and second floors. The third floor is a guest area, and gets cleaned when guests are coming.

If I manage to discipline my mind, I can use cleaning time productively to think about and plan out new projects. I can spend the time praying for family and friends. I can make a mental "to-do" list and hope I don't forget the items on it before I get a chance to write them down. All of that does require the input of positive mental effort...otherwise, I ruminate.

I struggle against this tendency, because it isn't productive to worry about things I can't change, to try to figure out the unexplainable, to puzzle over what seems to me to be a foolish decision by someone I know, or to wallow in self-pity over someones past offenses against me. All of these scenarios are really a reason for me to pray. The trick is in disciplining my mind to focus on my concerns in a positive way rather than a negative way.

And (she sighed) this is a lesson I have to keep relearning.