A young woman soprano performed in concert at the church I once attended. Her voice was fresh, very pretty and expressive; I thought she showed real promise to be a professional concert singer. Her program was varied and the audience was appreciative. On the back of the printed program she gave a brief autobiography that included her musical history, her family, and finally, her hobby.

I smiled when I saw her “hobby”. It was “Taking naps.” She was a young mother with two small children and I could easily guess that her life was very busy and that a nap must have been a luxury that rose to the level of a hobby.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation; In quietness and trust is your strength.’” (Isaiah 30:15) The Old and New Testaments both emphasize the need for quiet and rest in our lives with God; “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” (Psalm 37:7) and “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and I will give you rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11;28)

In my experience the quiet and rest has to become habit, perhaps even a “hobby”in order to receive the real fulfillment of God’s promise regarding rest. Since God initiates the idea of coming to Him in peace, He also enables this. While we think of our schedules and distractions and obligations, He leads us sometimes to the early mornings, sometimes to another time of day or evening, to carve out a time and place to which we can frequently return for the rest that leads to Him.

The lovely soprano was not embarrassed to say that naps were her hobby. Is it so far fetched to say “Time alone with God is my favorite time”? The Psalmist returns to this theme in Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” That God desires the time of rest with us should be enough to seek Him out in our everyday lives. I think that we can hardly imagine the goodness that would take shape in our lives if we made time alone with God our “Hobby.”

Love in Him,

Prue

The Road Less Traveled , by Scott Peck was a hugely popular best seller in the United States and around the world in the 1980’s and 1990’s. First published in 1978, the opening words of the book are, “Life is difficult.” All of Dr. Peck’s observations and suggestions about life on earth spring from this defining sentence. Its simplicity was admired and often quoted, as it is impossible to imagine a human life that has not encountered at least some difficulties.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy. ” ( 1 Peter 2:9&10)

The difficulties of life are certainly many and varied and real, but the Holy Spirit of God has poured out through Peter a definition that transcends all others: You are redeemed as a person of God. Human beings have received redemption by the death and resurrection of His son Jesus. Human life is redeemed, set right with God, in order to receive the Holy Spirit of God into our own lives. It is God’s desire. It was His plan from before the Fall, and it has worked in the lives of countless Christians for millennium.

The crippling effect of guilt consciousness, and even sub-conscious guilt has been lifted by the redemption that Christ has delivered to us. The power of such a shift in reality can’t even be measured. It conveys a freedom and a strength that is not accessible from any other source. It is celebrated today for forty days of Lent culminating in the great celebration of Easter.

It’s easy today to cast about in our ubiquitous technologies in order to access specialists and communicators to find hundreds of paths to happiness on earth. Most of them overlap one another, but they all claim that changes in our behavior can reap great rewards and “rescue” us from all the things that distress us. But God has done something without even consulting us, in sending His own Person literally to take our place in dying, and in being raised again, so that we, too, could share His supernatural life, and become genuine members of His family. “All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6-7). Life, created by God, is redeemed by God. We are His.

Love in Him,

Prue

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “You are worried about many things, but few are needed—or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen better part, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42)

This exchange unfolded in the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus , who were entertaining Jesus and all twelve of his disciples for dinner. As they waited, Jesus was talking to his friends about God, while Mary sat at his feet listening.

Whenever I have asked a class which sister was most like themselves, the majority have always responded that they identify with Martha. They cannot see how Jesus couldn’t understand that there would be no dinner at all without the work of Martha, and what was Mary doing except enjoying herself?

They are right , I believe, to focus on the dinner, as this incident is all about feeding and being fed; but Jesus draws a different conclusion in responding to Martha’s request. He displays his love for Martha in addressing her as he does, and he’s not unmindful of her generous hospitality. Later in their relationship, at the death of her brother, it was to Martha that Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the life.”

Nevertheless, Jesus is unequivocal when he says “Mary has chosen the better part.” While Martha is feeding the literal body of Christ and his disciples, Mary is being fed spiritually at Jesus’ feet. Jesus draws a distinction between feeding and being fed, and tells us, along with Martha, that receiving supernatural food, the kind that he called “the bread of life” is more important even than satisfying our physical hunger.

Most of us are eager to see relief from hunger in the world, and we want to help those who are experiencing it. We all want to feed our families and provide delicious meals. We know how to feed others, but to be fed requires a willingness to come to Christ and sit at his feet. It’s a willingness that God looks for in His people, a quality Jesus seeks in his followers. It’s hard to be fed when we really want to feed others, but Jesus says clearly , being fed by Him is always the better part.

Love in Him,

Prue

Skaneateles Lake in New York State was the place for our final scuba diving test. Jack and I had finished the test and were sitting on the deck of a friend of our instructor. He told us about the lake in all seasons and then said, “One spring morning I was sitting out here having coffee. There was still some ice along the shore of the lake. I saw a buck and a doe walk up to the water, not far from where we’re sinning now. They didn’t even hesitate to step into the cold water, and just kept walking until it got deep enough to swim.

They both swam steadily until I saw the doe struggling to keep her head above water. It lasted several minutes until the doe disappeared beneath the surface. The buck kept swimming for a short while, then went under. He came back, then went down again. After what I thought was a long time, he rose up again and the doe was on his his back! I could hardly believe it, but I had my binoculars on by then and I saw it. He carried her almost half way across this lake in water that must have been in the 40’s. On the other side she slipped off his back and they both walked into the woods.”

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

Nature is a wonderful resource for people. We cam all appreciate a breath-taking sunset or a walk in a quiet woods, and sometimes God gives us an even closer glimpse of His Spirit through the lives of animals and even plants. God taught Jonah a lesson in humility by raising up a plant and then allowing it to wither. (Jonah 4:6-11)

Our love of nature we share with nature’s Creator. It is a window into the creative and sustaining nature of God Himself, and an important bond with our God.

When our host witnessed the deer swimming across the lake he saw a bond that reflected God’s bond with us. There are countless examples of such bonding in the world, and if we allow ourselves to see our God as creator and sustainer, nature displays many manifestations of Him. St. Paul goes so far as to say that people have no excuse for rejecting the reality of a living God in the midst of all of life on planet Earth. Nature is a reminder in beauty and poignancy, power and strength of our God. Perceiving this is another path to His life.

Love in Him,

Prue

Jack emerged from the bottom of the St. Lawrence River and reached out to hand me a glass goblet he had just found. When I took the goblet I could see that it had a very large chip on one side. “It’s chipped,” I said. “Throw it back!” “Look at the date on it,” he answered, and I found that it was an 1876 commemorative goblet designed to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence a hundred years earlier.

I took the goblet home and cleaned and admired it, regardless of its useless condition. I think that I somehow identified with this broken glass goblet because of its association with the historic event, regardless of how remote, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I knew that it had no monetary value, but still I kept it for its “provenance, ”

the idea that regardless of intrinsic value or lack there of, objects can be measured and seen as valuable simply by their close association with a famous person, place, or time, or by their great age.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:22) I believe that no matter how broken our own lives, how many regrets we harbor, or how much time we believe we have wasted, when God sees in us the image of His son, our “value “ in His kingdom grows. Each tiny act of obedience, or growing in prayer or scripture reading increases our divine provenance, making us “keepers “ in God’s kingdom.

Having the broken goblet made me feel connected to a time of intense patriotism and a formative time for my country. Having us turn to Him gives our God a gratifying reminder of His original creation and His ultimate sacrifice for us. Our turning to Him reunites us with our roots and puts in order and even repairs the cracks and chips and brokenness in our lives.

“Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5). Restoring the fullness and joy of life is a great joy of our Savior’s . In spite of the sea changes in our world, His hand of restoration reaches to large and small and never fails. When I find myself feeling like a cracked goblet, I know where to turn for the wholeness I need.

Love in Him,

Prue

Very firmly my father would say to his three quite young daughters, “Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world.” At four years old I knew that he was right, and none of us ever questioned him at all.

One day my oldest sister,hanging from the banister in the front hallway, said,”There’s going to be a contest in Atlantic City for the most beautiful girls in America, and one of them will be crowned “Miss America!”

This was really disturbing news to me, as I was sure that America was not as large as the world, and so my mother would certainly have to travel to Atlantic City, and then who knew where else she would have to go?

On a rare occasion when I found Mom alone in the kitchen I looked up at her and said, “When do you have to go to be Miss America?” After a pause she said, “What?” I repeated the question. Again she paused, then said, “I’m not going to be Miss America. Even if I Wanted to be Miss America, I couldn’t, because I’m a married woman, I’m married to your father and you kids. I’m not going away to be Miss America.” “Oh”, I said, and turned around, out the back door, across the porch, and across the back yard. I experienced a great euphoria at the thought that the most beautiful woman in the world lived in my home, and she wouldn’t leave because she is married.

Strange as it may seem, I believe that every Christian has this experience. Christians believe that their God is omnipotent, omniscient, beautiful beyond description, all loving, and all creative. But every Christian sometimes fears that, with a world full of strife and disasters, God could not possibly concern Himself with the minutia of an individual’s life. I believe that God answers us as my mother did: I cannot leave you or forsake you, because I am married to you.”

The ladder that Jacob saw in the wilderness with angels ascending and descending was really a wedding ring. The tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain were really a wedding ring, and the rock that was rolled in front to the tomb that briefly held Jesus’ body, was really a wedding ring that was engraved with his blood. I did nothing to deserve my mother’s constancy in our home. It was a gift.

On this Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, we have the chance to experience the euphoria of kinship with Him.

Love in Him,

Prue P.S. My mother never said “I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world.”

At a time when my brother-in-law was having serious health problems , his wife, my sister Jane, was called for jury duty. She protested, and asked to be excused, but was refused, and so she showed up at the appointed time and date. At the questioning of the potential jurors, she gave her name and the judge responded, “You aren’t Randall Christie’s mother, are you?” Jane answered, “Yes, I am.” Randall Christie is her son , who was the defense attorney in the case before the court. Needless to say, Jane was excused. There are few human bonds closer than the bonds among family members. The likelihood of a family member remaining entirely impartial in a trial is just about non-existent.

This partiality is the very quality God seeks in His own children. At the Last Supper Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. . . I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:9-15) Jesus is including the disciples in the family of God Himself. After the resurrection, Jesus called them “brothers” to Mary Magdalene: “Go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 21;17&18)

Jesus ushers us all into a new relationship with God—the relationship of family, the intimacy of a family, and the partiality of a family. Jesus is the delight of his Father God when he brings “home” another brother or sister to our Father. He does this through the Holy Spirit of God working in the lives of ordinary people, enabling them to believe and accept our brother Jesus.

Jane told Randall about her experience and he quickly arranged for her not to receive any more jury summonses. She had thought that her need alone would excuse her, but it took a family member connected to the court to achieve her goal for her.

Jesus is our family member connected to the Father’s life, who works for us to forgive us and help us re-unite with our Father. Daily reading His book can open the way to draw close to God and take our places at his side.

We, like Jane, need the intersession of Christ to join the family of God, and receive

the blessings that are revealed in the Bible. I believe that his hand is reaching out to everyone who has ever wondered, “Is He real?” “Seek,” he said, “and you will find.” Open the book and read the Bible at home.

Love in Him,

Prue

John Kennedy Jr., President Kennedy’s son, was killed in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard in July of 1999. He had taken pilot lessons and was flying a small plane from New York on a very foggy day. It was a shocking disaster, as his wife and sister-in-law were on board and all three perished. The whole nation felt the loss and the tragedy of the event.

I remember over-hearing someone say, “How could he have felt that he could make that flight in such a dense fog? He wasn’t even experienced enough for such a flight.” Someone else answered, “You don’t understand. The rich don’t really believe that they will die.”

When I heard that, I was surprised, but I remembered Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God . It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25).

Jesus was responding to a rich young man who had asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” ‘One thing you lack, he said, go, sell everything you have and give it o the poor, then come and follow me.’” He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:22)

In spite of all the evidence that wealth impedes our progress toward God and eternal life, Jesus offers another picture of a rich man of whom Jesus said, “Salvation has come to this house .” It’s the incident of Jesus’ encounter with the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus’ joyful acknowledgment: “If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:1-10)

Clearly it is not the wealth itself that Jesus condemns, but the attachments we have to our wealth. Zacchaeus didn’t have to be told to divest himself of his wealth, or reminded that he, too would some day die. Instead, he needed the presence of the God Man, the Christ, in his home accepting him and receiving hospitality from his hands. Jesus responded to him and to the other guests, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 10:10)

It’s impossible to gauge the spiritual condition of John Kennedy Jr., but it is possible to see in Jesus’ words and actions that he is interested not in our material worth, but in our spiritual willingness to receive him. Paul reminds us “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(Romans 8:39)

Love in Him,

Prue

For two and a half weeks the contents of my kitchen have been stacked in piles around the rest of the house while we had the cabinets and drawers painted. It wouldn’t have taken so long except for the three day freeze and the two days of Jack not feeling well so the painter didn’t come.

Ben, the painter, is a remarkable craftsman. He is multi talented and meticulous , hand painting all the cabinets and drawers with a small brush and applying two coats. I was fascinated to see him rinse his brush, shake off the water, wipe the brush on his jeans; and there wasn’t the slightest streak of paint on his clothes. I stared, probably rudely, whenever he performed that ritual.

Ben reminded me of Bezalel in the Old Testament; God had “filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 35:31)

Ben is a native Texan, and a gold mime of information and stories about North Texas, going back as far as the post Civil War time. We appreciated his skill in transforming our kitchen, and even more his honest and conscientious character. It was easy to see that the Spirit of God had done some work in Ben.

When David, skilled only in the sling-shot, reported to King Saul, he said, “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has denied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” ( 1 Samuel 17:37)

The secret of David and Bezalel lies in their knowing and remembering the source of their successes. When that happens we witness our most remarkable achievements. Through all his struggles, David never forgot the source of his victory over Goliath. “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:21-22) And this is true for everyone who believes.” It is true today of Ben, the painter.

Love in Him,

Prue

The process of making silk fabric requires only a temperate climate, an abundance of mulberry trees, and a small white moth, the “silk moth”, to lay eggs that produce silkworms who make cocoons after devouring the mulberry leaves. The cocoons themselves are made into silk after processing, as a “thread” is unwound from each cocoon and can be woven into silk fabric

The Chinese have produced silk for literally thousands of yeas, some of those years with a total monopoly on the “secret” of the silk worm and the process of producing silk. What appears to be a simple process is really very labor intensive for the workers; timing is crucial, and drought, excessive rain, early or late frost, all impact the process. It is largely perseverance that makes a silk industry successful.

“Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

During the building of the Great Wall of China, silk was sometimes used as currency to pay the builders. Silk became vital in uniting the many provinces of China and establishing a profitable trade with the rest of the known world for many centuries. Silk is versatile and luxurious, a highly desirable textile with multiple uses and genuine beauty.

The promises of God are rich and linked to eternity. The gifts He extends supply our needs and His words echo with reassurance: “As for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” (2 Chronicles 15:7) “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” (Hebrews 12:1, 2)

The Chinese enjoyed the profit from their knowledge of silk, a product desired across the world. Christians of all kinds hear the call of the promise of eternal life, and respond in perseverance. The word of God comes to us like silk, full of promise and hope, beauty and fulfillment. God looks for perseverance in us.

Love in Him,

Prue