Ponder

The other evening Mr. Jorie and I were seated at a dinner next to a couple we had never met.  They were very interesting, having lived and worked abroad, having pursued many interests and they were even writing a book together.  We chatted as we shared a meal and we talked about where we were from, the type of work we had been in, our interests and our children and grandchildren.  The other couple did not have children.

I got to thinking. 

If my newest girlfriend had no children, I wondered what she pondered about.

I find myself pondering a lot these days...but most times, I must admit, it is my children I am thinking about.  I have often prided myself on being a mother and mother-in-law who does not give lots of advice.  I am ready and willing to do so when I am asked, but I think long and hard on many things before giving advice to one of these dear people whom I love so greatly.

Instead, I ponder, which is an act of personal discipline for me.  Don't get me wrong.  It's not that I don't have an opinion, for rest assured I do indeed have a lot I could say.  During conversations, I listen and converse and love the chit chit, but ultimately I take it all in and then I ponder. 

According to the dictionary ponder means:  to weigh in the mind, to appraise, to consider something deeply and thoroughly.  And that's what I do when I hear from one of my four children.

In the Bible, in the second chapter of Luke, we are told of the story of the birth of Christ.  Then, after the dramatic birth in a stable after searching for more suitable lodging and visits by a bunch of shepherds and their sheep, Mary ponders.  We are told, "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

I realize that anyone can ponder, and no doubt the new world traveling friends we met at dinner do ponder about many things, however I believe there is a special kind of pondering that only mother's do. 

And so along with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with mothers everywhere, I ponder...and then I pray....and then I try to get on with living and the enjoyment life has to offer.  And in the discipline, I become stronger, perhaps wiser and maybe even a little more approachable.

Belief

I was born into a family of Christians.  At the age of twenty-one days my mother and father took me to their Lutheran church where the minister baptized me and the congregation welcomed me.  At thirteen years of age, after being taught the faith by my parents and by the teachers in the Lutheran day school and church I attended, I claimed my baptism and was confirmed into the Christian faith.  At that tender age I vowed to suffer even death rather than fall away from the truth of God's word.

I was still a child.  What did I know about faith?  I had heard and read many stories from the Bible.  I had gone to church and Sunday School nearly every Sunday.  I had memorized scripture as part of my homework.  I had grown up in a loving family.  I had a teacher who taught me to love the music of "The Messiah".  I was taught the tenets of my faith as presented in Luther's Small Catechism.  I said my prayers at meal time and bedtime.  I attended Vacation Bible School every summer and learned to sing, "Jesus loves me this I know...for the Bible tells me so." 

My parents, just like their parents and grandparents before them, had done everything they knew to do to raise me and my brothers in the Christian faith.  They stood firm in their belief and trusted simply that God was faithful to His word:  Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way that he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.  Thanks to their efforts I have never known a time in my life where God was absent.  Their gift to me means more today than it ever has.  Their faith is by far their most lasting legacy to me and the generations that come after me.

I believe that all my parents did for me was God setting the stage for the time when I would come to a very personal relationship with God. 

When I was a young married woman I met a lady in my church named Lonna.  She asked the question that changed my life and the story of my testimony goes like this:  She greeted me after church and asked me how I was doing.  I think I had a ho-hum expression on my face and was going through a very unsatisfying time of my life.  I was working as a teacher but wanted nothing more than to become a mother.  I believe Lonna sensed my true discontentment because when I told her things weren't going so well, she asked if I had prayed about the problem.  Becoming defensive, I answered that I certainly had, and that is when she asked the question that saved my life.  Lonna asked, "Have you left it with the Lord?"

From that moment on, to make a long story short, I realized I had not been living the faith I had been taught.  I was just going through the motions.  Lonna became my spiritual mentor and taught me daily about "leaving my problems with the Lord", trusting that He would hear, would care, would minister and that I did not need to carry my problems by myself.  She taught me about the work of the Holy Spirit and that work became alive in me as we studied scripture together and prayed together.  Lonna taught me to pray--to really pray--by just talking to the Lord, and she taught me how to leave my problems there, trusting that He would help me through them.

During mid-life, God sent another woman of faith into my life to mentor me through the difficult years of medical crises I was to face. Another long story shortened centers around my friend Edie. She lost her only child, a beautiful daughter, in the prime of life to a deadly car accident. In spite of this extreme loss, she and her husband have remained devout Christians and exemplify what it means to walk each day by faith no matter what comes.  They have become like family to me. 

Edie taught me more about prayer, about God's word and about the Christian walk. She taught me by her kind counsel, but mostly she taught me by doing. She talked the talk and, more importantly, she walked the walk. She taught by her loving wisdom. She is a real person who I can relate to who still cries devastating tears because of how much she misses her daughter. The fact that in spite of those tears, she trusts and loves God shows me that I can trust and love God no matter what comes.

Forty some years have gone by since Lonna asked her question in the church yard, but the truth of what I learned that day makes me the person of faith I am today.   I still attend a Lutheran church when I am home in Illinois.  When I winter in Florida my husband and I attend a non-denominational Christian church.  We have attended and been blessed at many different denominations of Christian churches.  The reason this works for me is that I see God working in every church I attend and He can minister to me through His word in many different places and in many different ways.  I don't think God ever planned for His church to be broken into so many pieces, but I do think the Holy Spirit is working in all the pieces as people seek to know God. 

Even with my involvement with churches and the wonderful mentorship of Lonna and Edie, the truth of God's love comes to me in additional ways.  I have felt it standing on a beach, driving through the desert, gazing at a mountain, looking into a newborn's face, holding hands with the man I married, watching a friend's teardrops in moments of intense joy or devastating sadness.  I hear God speaking to me in many ways--in that still small voice as I pray, when reading the Bible, in incredible pain and in sublime contentment.

All that I learned as a child and all that I have learned since helps make me the Christian I am today.  I believe that God created the world.  I believe that in my humanness, I have fallen short and am a sinner.  I believe that Jesus Christ is the true son of God and was born into this world to die upon the cross to rescue me and all who come to Him in faith.  I believe that He rose from the dead on the third day and that I will be with Him in Heaven when I die.  I believe His grace is freely given and available to any who would call upon Him for salvation.  Since He has done so much for me, I believe He has called me to love and serve others. I believe His Holy Spirit lives in me and that He works in my life daily casuing faith and opening my heart to the truths God would have me know. 

I try to base my life and my Christian walk on the commandments Jesus spoke of in Matthew 22:36-40 Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." 

I know I am not perfect in living the Christian life.  In fact, I don't believe any of us can be.  But day by day, by God's grace I keep working at it.  Day by day, I keep loving and living and trusting that God is true to His word.  I try to make the choices that are pleasing to Him.  I find profound peace in trusting God and I have witnessed in my life, especially in my physical and emotional trials, that God remains faithful to me even in those times when I have been angry at Him or doubted Him.  Through the hard times, I have realized that He has carried me.

So to my dear Dad, who carried a copy of the Apostle's Creed with him throughout his service during WWII; to my sweet Mother who has walked through fires and kept the faith for 89+ years; to my Grandma Witter who always prayed the Lord's Prayer before she went to sleep each night; to my Grandpa Beezy who sang "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" in the church choir; to my Aunt Ginny who spoke for me at my baptism and then carried me in her heart forever after; to all my forefathers who brought the faith with them to this country; to all my Sunday School and Christian day school teachers who taught with love the stories from the Bible and monitored my memory work; to every pastor I have heard that has preached the Gospel of Christ and counseled me along the way--and to the two who baptized and confirmed my children; to my husband who pledged his commitment to me in front of God forty-one years ago;  to Lonna who taught me how to pray and so much more; to Edie who taught me how to walk with God when I couldn't even walk at all; and to all fellow Christians I have met along the way who have taught and encouraged me, and to all of you who have ever prayed for me--I say a profound THANK YOU.  I love you for changing my life and making me who I am today.

In all humility I thank God for God and with Handel and Mr. Bergt who taught me to love "The Messiah", I say Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth.....And He shall reign forever and ever!


May you be blessed to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior if you don't know Him already.  If you want to know Him--or know Him more, just start talking to Him.  He is waiting to take your hand and walk through life with you.

Forwards

(Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico)

All of my friends know that I do not like to clutter my inbox with forwarded emails. 

In the early days of the Internet, the novelty of sending cute little poems, thoughtful ideas, information of the many things you can do with Coke or how to stay safe when attacked were flourishing in my inbox.  At first they were interesting and even informative and in fact, I felt the need to print some of them and file away a hard copy for future reference.  However after a couple years of the same things floating around in cyberspace I got tired of them arriving back to me whether in the same form or in variations.  They became redundant.

Also, never having been fond of chain letters in the pre-PC world, I became even less fond of the emails that came with a threat or a promise.  I actually became angry when these forwarded emails told me I "had to forward within ten minutes" or else! 

Thus, after a couple of years, I began informing everyone on my contact list that I did not wish to receive forwarded emails anymore.  My husband, getting into the whole cyberspace fun a few years after me, was one who was hurt the most by my edict.  He was fresh into enjoying the novelty of all of this information flooding his inbox and he wanted to share it all with me.

I held my ground and even hurt a few feelings along the way, but eventually people got the picture and I did not need to use my delete button nearly as often.  I stopped receiving emails that had been forwarded to a bunch of people at the click of a friend's button.

As time passed however, I began to get an occasional forward in my inbox again, often with a little expression typed at the top from the sender, "I think you might like this one".  Then I felt compelled to take a look because someone near to me thought that I would like what they had taken the time to send me.  I found a newer breed of forwards now with music, colored graphics and animations.  Pictures of babies and puppies with cute little captions flowed from my laptop. 

I realized that I had now created a monster.  People were still thinking about me, and maybe even more so.  When they looked at a forward they were prompted to think, "I bet Linda would like this one!" and with the push of a button they sent their love to me.

Now you ask, how do you get love out of that?  And I say, I know that every forward I now receive is handpicked just for me.  Someone who knows me read it and thought of me, and because they think I will enjoy or benefit from it in some way, they boldly send me a forward knowing my thoughts on the whole forwarding game.  And I think that takes some love.

Today I received a forward from my dear Aunt Jolene.  It was in the category of sugary sweet thoughts on friendship and it even carried one of those "if you are a real friend, send this to everyone on your list, even the person who sent it to you". 

I had to read it--and you know why.  Aunt Jolene was sending her love and I did not want to miss it.  A couple of the points in the list included:  4.  A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you.  8.  Someone that you don't even know exists, loves you.  And the one that really touched me the most was:  5.  Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.

I suppose I did not create a monster at all.  I did change something that was a bother and made it into something good.  It works for me and I must say I smile at most of the forwards I get now and I take a moment to look them over. 

Please don't get me wrong.  DO NOT INCREASE THE NUMBER OF FORWARDS YOU SEND MY WAY.  Do know that I love the special attention you give to the ones you do send me.

Tonight, when I fall asleep Aunt Jolene, I will be thinking about you!