Thirty-six Things I Admire About...

Stephen and our Rebecca
2004





"...Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit..." (Acts 6:5)

Happy 36th birthday, Stephen! Thirty-six things I admire about you:

1. Your unshakable faith in Jesus, the Savior and Lord.
2. Your love for Jesus.
3. Your love and adoration for your wife (our daughter).
4. Your love for your kids (our grands).
5. Your laugh.
6. Your sense of humor.
7. Your ability to organize.
8. Your intelligence.
9. Your love for children.
10. Your love for families.
11. Your problem solving abilities.
12. Your leadership abilities.
13. The good example you were to our boys in middle school. 
14. The good example you were to our boys in high school.
15. The good example you are to our boys today.
16. Your work ethic.
17. Your ability to clean up a kitchen.
18. Your love of books.
19. Your athletic abilities.
20. Your love of apologetics.
21. Your apologetics skills.
22. Your clear thinking and critical analysis skills.
23. Your parenting skills.
24. Your faithfulness to Christ's church.
25. Your love of extended family.
26. How good you are with babies and toddlers.
27. The way you play.
28. Your love of animals. 
29. Your love of the outdoors.
30. Your love of learning.
31. Your love of flowers and gardening.
32. Your dreams.
33. Your pie-making skills.
34. Your servant's heart.
35. Your encouragement to others.
36. Last but not least, your love for your mother-in-law.

I love you, Stephen. You'll always be my favorite son-in-law!

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Lesson #2: Strengthen Your Core

Our kids, 2004

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit." (Jude 1:20) 

Spring 2004, Ben was at Tusculum College on a new football scholarship, Rebecca was preparing for her wedding day, and Dan was a new recruit in the US Marine Corp. Needless to say, my highly-motivated kids were work-out/strength-training maniacs.

Two lessons I'm learning in lower back rehab:

Lesson #1: Bend the knee (Monday's blog post).

Lesson #2: Strengthen your core.

In the New Testament book of Jude, Jesus' half brother urged believers to contend for the faith and warned of worldly teachers denying the Lordship of Christ that had crept into the unaware church. Jude beseeched true Jesus followers to build up their most holy faith and lift high the cross of Christ.

In this godless world of ungodly acts, ungodly ways, and bold contradictions to the Word of God, I beseech you, true Jesus followers, to bend your knee to Christ, lift high His cross, and strengthen your core faith! 

"For He is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless, and with great joy. To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all times, now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)

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Pushing That Boat

my cousin, Greg, 1960





Jesus said, "Do you believe I am able to do this?" (Matt. 9:28)

Watching his daddy waterski when my cousin was a little kid, Greg bragged, "Wook at my daddy pushin' that boat!"

The Apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy: "I know Him whom I have believed with absolute trust and confidence in Him and in the truth of His deity, and I am persuaded beyond any doubt that He is able..." (2 Tim. 1:12 Amplified Bible)

Are you in Christ, beloved? Then you have a heavenly Father who is able!

"Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think." (Eph. 3:20)

"Able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work." (2 Cor. 9:8)

"Able to aid those who are tempted." (Heb. 2:18)

"Able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since [Jesus] always lives to make intercession for them." (Heb. 7:25)

"Able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." (Jude 1:24)

"Able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day." (2 Tim. 1:12)

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The Lamb's Book

Our grandboy and little lamb
2014ish

"And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire." (Rev. 21:15)

Yesterday's homeschool English assignment:

Answer the question in a complete sentence. Where is the Lamb's Book of Life?

Our seven-year-old grandboy's answer:

"I think the lamb's book is in the barn."

Beloved, do you know the Lamb's Book of Life's location? Better yet, do you know the Lamb, Jesus Christ, and does He know you? The proof is in the pudding of obedience.

Jesus said, "Not everyone who calls out to Me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to Me. 'Lord! Lord! We prophesied in Your name.' But I will reply, 'I never knew you. Get away from Me, you who break God's laws.'" (Matt. 7:21-13)

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Bend the Knee

Our Rebecca as an "Old Lady"
1999

"You must have this same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though He was God...He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position as a slave and was born as a man...He humbled Himself in obedience to God..." (Phil. 2:5-8)

Because I'm down in my back for the second time in a month, I'm stiffer than a Capita snowboard and slower than molasses in January. I can't bend the back, so I bend the knee.

Bent knee. Good life posture, beloved - humbled before Jesus in surrender, submission, and obedience in every daily circumstance.

"...at the name of Jesus every knee should bow." (Phil. 2:10) 

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Whose Idea Is This?

My Phillip and me
(Grad school, '78)

"The Lord says, 'I will guide you along the best pathway for you life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control." (Psalm 32:8-9)

Majoring in speech pathology at Auburn U: a Jill idea.

Marrying my Phillip: a God idea

Masters at USM: the world's idea

Stay-at-home-mom for 23 years:  a God idea

Writing Christian children's books: a God idea

Paying a publicist bookoodles of "mula": the world's idea

Sheep-feeding through a blog, books, & Bible studies: a God idea

Ideas randomly pop around my brain like Jiffy-Pop Popcorn on a hot, GE stove. How can I know if a notion is from God, the world, or me, myself, and I?

To paraphrase Oswald Chambers, as long as a man daily walks with God, the only time a man will wonder where God's path lies is when he's actually off God's path. 

In Exodus 33, when the Lord told Moses to get going to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses replied, "If You, LORD, don't personally go with us, please don't make us leave this place. For Your Presence among us sets your people apart from all the people on the earth."

Walk with God along His Bible path, beloved. His word is a lamp unto your feet and light for your path.

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Forgotten Treasure

L-R my Ben, me, my Dan, my grandmother, my niece, my Rebecca
1986

"I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and our mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you." (2 Tim. 1:5)

When I asked the kids and grands their recommendation for good book to read, our Rebecca reminded me that we had an old copy of Strawberry Girl - a 1945 Newbery Award Novel by Lois Lenski.

After digging through the playroom bookcase, I finally found it!

And when I opened the yellowed pages, I discovered a forgotten treasure - a note from my grandmother!

I'd forgotten that Strawberry Girl was a 1969 Christmas gift to me from my Grandmother Nance - a schoolteacher to third and fourth graders simultaneously at Fischer Elementary School on Lookout Mountain in DeKalb County, Alabama.

Grandmother, 1945

In his epistle to Timothy, the Apostle Paul reminded the young pastor of the strong faith in Christ handed down from his grandmother to his mother to him. 

Let your treasured faith in Jesus Christ never be forgotten, beloved. Pass it on to your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come. 

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Dangerous Love

My love and me in '73

"Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God." (Eph. 5:2)

Monday, when I came down with a nasty ol' stomach bug, my Phillip brought home ginger ale and saltine crackers. 

"Just set 'em by the door and run," I urged.

But he came on inside.

That night, I said, "Don't you think you better sleep upstairs away from the germs?"

But he slept beside me. Now that's dangerous love!

Over 2,000 years ago, God showed how much He loved you and me by sending His one and only Son, Jesus, into the world as a sacrifice to take away our sins so that we might have eternal life through Him. God's love is real love. Dangerous love. Sacrificial love. A love to die for.

Love others dangerously, beloved, because God first loved you (1 John 4:19).

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He's Coming Back!

Gabe, the granddog

"Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise Him again - my Savior and my God.! (Psalm 43:5)

My Phillip and I just finished reading aloud the Newberry Honor children's novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo about 10-year-old India Opal Bologna, her dad, The Preacher, and a scruffy stray dog that Opal rescues at a Winn Dixie supermarket. (Great read, by the way.) 

At the point in the book when Winn-Dixie disappears and Opal and The Preacher can't find him, I choked out the words through tears. Crying and laughing at the same time, I told Phillip, "Why am I crying? (Spoil alert!!!) I know he comes back!"

Why are you discouraged, beloved? Why is your heart so sad? Jesus is coming back!

So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, "Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?"

[Jesus] replied, "The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses..."

After saying this, He was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. As they strained to see Him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven but someday He will return from heaven in the same way you saw Him go!" (Acts 1:6-11)

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A Friend Who Sticks

My daddy (L) and a huntin' buddy, 1980s

"There are 'friends' who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)

A 1960-something conversation between my daddy and a Radio Shack clerk in Florence, Alabama is forever imprinted on my mind and heart. When the clerk learned we lived in Fort Payne, he started bad-mouthing a businessman from our hometown. 

My daddy raised his hand. "Before you say another word," he said, "I just want you to know that you're talking about my neighbor and my friend." 

That day, I learned the meaning of true-blue friend.

Are you a truehearted friend, beloved?

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Seedtime and Harvest

strawberry plants at the farm
(photo snapped yesterday)

"Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest." (Psalm 126:5-6)

Lots and lots of tilling and weeding and planting and mulching and fertilizing and weeding and watering and weeding and waiting and weeding and watering and waiting and did I mention weeding and at long last picking precedes eating luscious, sweet, red-ripe strawberries.

And so it is with the Word of God. Christ's simple truths may be sown into a hard heart for years and years and years before the seed penetrates, sprouts, and blossoms to fruition. 

Keep sowing, beloved.

"The things we do today - sowing seeds or sharing simple truths of Christ - people will someday refer to as the first things that prompted them to think of Him." ~ George Matheson

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Best Phone Call Ever

Our Dan, infantry training 2008
Salt Lake City, UT

"For the LORD your God...will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs." (Zeph. 3:12)

At Marine Corps bootcamp, a recruit's only contact with family and friends is letters. One morning when our son was at Parris Island, our phone rang about 6 a.m.. It was Dan. The drill instructors had rewarded him with a call home because he was aggressive (he knocked out 2 or 3 opponents' mouth guards) and undefeated in the pugil stick fights. Best phone call ever for his overjoyed mama!

You have a heavenly Father, beloved Christian, that delights in you with gladness and rejoices over you with joyful songs. Talk to Him everyday.

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Shake, Rattle, Roll, and Persevere

grands, son-in-law, and 1000 piece puzzle

"And we are confident in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we commanded you." (2 Thess. 3:4)



By perseverance, the midwest kids and grands recently completed a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Good job, guys!

The will to persevere in my storybooks without exception comes from God's instructions. When Jesus whispers a mandate for a book, I know without question that book is His. Confidence soars like a bald eagle, and I'm rekindled to continue doing the things He's commanded me. 

Feeling stuck in a rut with little motivation to put one sluggish foot in front of the other? Beseech the Lord Jesus. Hear and heed His voice that makes Lebanon's mountains skip like a calf. Shake, rattle, roll, and persevere, beloved!

The voice of the LORD echoes above the sea.

The God of glory thunders.

The LORD thunders over the mighty sea.

The voice of the LORD is powerful;

the voice of the LORD is majestic.

The voice of he LORD splits the mighty cedars;

the LORD shatters the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon's mountains skip like a calf;

He makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.

The voice of the LORD strikes with bolts of lighting.

The voice of the LORD makes the barren wilderness quake;

the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the LORD twists mighty oaks

and strips the forests bare.

In His temple everyone shouts, "Glory!"

The LORD rules over the floodwaters.

The LORD reigns as King forever.

The LORD gives His people strength.

The LORD blesses them with peace.

(Psalm 29)

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Deja Vu

our grands yesterday

"Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

I had a "deja vu" moment today when I opened Instagram and saw the picture above of our grands.

our kids, 1993, just a blink ago

Time flies like a peregrine falcon, beloved. Don't waste a blink of it!

"LORD, through all generations

You have been our home!

Before the mountains were born,

Before you gave birth to the earth and the world,

from the beginning to the end, You are God...

For You, a thousand years are a passing day,

as brief as a few night hours...

Seventy years are given to us!

Some even live to eighty...

Teach us to realize the brevity of life,

so that we will grow in wisdom...

Satisfy us each morning with Your unfailing love,

so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives."

(Psalm 90)

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