Friday, January 26, 2018

Grace and Truth, John5:16-30



This is an amazing passage of the truth of who Jesus is.

The leaders of the time knew exactly who Jesus claimed to be. They wanted to kill him because he described himself as equal with God.

Jesus made clear, bold statements about his relationship with God. God loved Jesus and gave him authority, so that Jesus would receive honor.

Jesus said he only did what God did and what pleased God; if people did not honor him, they did not honor God.

And what grace! Those of us who listen to Jesus and believe have already crossed over into a new life.

Verse 24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Sweet Memories; They Make Me Laugh and Cry and Shake My Head



 April 13, 1995: The other day the kids were singing "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart," and Caleb said, "But when I'm sad, the joy goes out."   

Sometimes we've talked about how God even loved the bad people in the Bible and people who are bad today. Yesterday the kids were talking about who they loved and who they didn't love. Rebecca said,"I love all the people God loves."

April 14, 1995: We were praying at bedtime and thanking God for everything. Rebecca said that Jesus is a light. I said yes, that Heshows us how to get to God. Sarah said, "He IS God, Mommy!"

April 20, 1995: I heard Rebecca counting this afternoon, saying 900and other big numbers. Then she told me, "Mommy, I just counted to nine thousand. I can count to anything!" Then she counted to nine million saying, "1 million, 2 million, 3 million," etc., up to 9million.

The other day some neighbors came to visit, a little girl namedAngelina and her Mom. Later that day Rebecca said to me, "Mommy, Angelina loves Jesus." I asked, "How do you know? Did you ask her?"She said, "Yes."

April 23, 1995: At breakfast this morning, Caleb asked me, "Mommy,when we close our eyes, are the lights still turned on?"

June 9, 1995: One day Sarah was talking about how she went with Murray last fall to get Renato the first day from the airport. She said she went to Brazil to get him. Today we went to the airport to get his parents, and she was talking with us about going to Brazil again. When we got inside the airport, she asked Renato, "Renato, isthis your house?"

Renato decided to make tuna pizza the other night, a Brazilian specialty. We were talking to the kids about the tuna, and Sarah said seriously, "It's not people food." (Oh, what a smart girl! Fish is cat food.)

June 13, 1995: A little while ago, the kids were pretending they had babies in their tummies. Rebecca said, "We're so tired." I guess that showswhat I've told them about mommies having babies in their tummies.

June 16, 1995: This morning when Sarah woke up, she asked me whereDaddy was. I told her that he was gone on his trip with the men to sing and talk about Jesus. (Probably a Promise Keepers meeting) She wanted to know how long till Daddy would be back and then when I told her, she asked, "Who will protectus at here?"

I was teasing the kids earlier, calling them goofy and silly. Rebecca said, "Mommy, if you don't quit saying that, you're gonna geta mustache."

June 17, 1995: When Rebecca wanted to know what people's middlenames were, she used to ask, "What's their Naomi name?" (Naomi is, of course, Rebecca’s middle name.)

A couple weeks ago, the kids had marshmallows at church. WhenCaleb told us about it, he said, "We had cylinder marshmallows."

Friday, January 12, 2018

What Else Happened While I was Gone?



Have you seen the movie “While You Were Sleeping?” I have. I was reminded of it recently.

In the movie, while a man is in a coma, his family and friends undergo many life changes.

We were in the car one day when Murray and Sarah were talking about the time when Sarah put her hand on one of the posts in our basement, and it fell.

Whoa. Back up. What?

“It was when you were in the hospital,” Sarah said.

Five and a half years ago, I was in the hospital for six weeks after a fall which caused a brain injury. I don’t remember much about that time, and apparently, I don’t know some big things that went on with the family then either.

So the post in the basement fell?

Murray said they called his brother Myles, who’s done a lot of home repair, and Myles said the house wasn’t going to fall, if it hadn’t already. He said just to be safe, Ping-Hwei probably shouldn’t sleep in the basement.

“What!”

Ping-Hwei always sleeps in the basement.

“Until we got it fixed,” Murray said quickly to plow over what other crazy things I was going to spout.

They had it fixed right away.

And I’m just finding out about it five years later.

What else happened that summer?

Ping-Hwei went to work at Metal Fab every day like always. All I know about Benjamin for that summer is he had band practice. That’s where they had to get him the night I fell.

Caleb, Rebecca, and Sarah were between college years, working, busy.

Besides getting repairs done on the house and taking care of whatever else the family needed him to do, Murray spent much of every day with me. I know that made a big difference in my hospital experience.

But there were six weeks of my family’s lives, in the lives of my five almost grown children, that I missed out on, that I wasn’t a part of. Thinking of this can make that missing block of my life seem even larger.