Onyx is the name of a “teacup” poodle puppy who just moved in next door. He is all black and probably does fit inside a tea cup. He’s a sensation with neighbors, and my daughter and granddaughter. They have viced a willingness to part wit their three cats, on gerbil, one hermit crab and a number of fish in order to obtain a teacup poodle like Onyx. I admit that the thought of owning such an appealing little creature crossed my mind as well.

The breeders of teacup poodles suggest that it is the dogs’ tiny faces that are the real and irresistible charm . Their large bright eyes seek the eyes of their owner and, like the face of a human infant , make us respond with “awww.” The face of a child or the face of a puppy can bring a smile and even soften a heart at least for a moment.

Many of the Bible writers have written about seeing or just the desire to see the face of God. It is the irresistible sight that brings peace to the one who sees Him: “How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?. . .?” (Psalm 13:1), and , “They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their savior. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek your face, God of Jacob.” ( Psalm 24:6)

While his face is sweet and winsome, Onyx is also appealing because of his very evident vulnerability. His size makes him potential prey for hawks, coyotes, bobcats, and dog nappers. Just witnessing his bright eyes following our own and knowing how very vulnerable he is produces all the parental emotions that recall sweet times and protective inclinations.

When God sent Jesus as an infant into the family of man, He gave us a face to see and recognize as a source of blessing and vindication: Jesus said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, (children), for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 18:10)

The eyes of little Onyx bring delight and even peace to his owners. The eyes of each of us, when trustfully seeking the face of God, bring joy to Him, and peace and restoration to us. Onyx is a good neighbor. Whenever I see him I marvel at his charm and at our Savior who is reflected in Onyx’ tiny being. “Look to the Lord, . . . and seek His face always.” (Psalm 105:4)

Love in Him,

Prue

To what part of us does God actually talk? Every part is His creation and so it must be that all of who we are is available to Him to communicate with us. St. Paul, though, separates the parts, and claims that each part is distinct: “Just as the body, though one, has many parts, but all its any parts form one body, so it is with Christ. . . God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be.” (1 Corinthians 12:12&18)

In giving us bodies, each part with a purpose, God also gives us spirits with each part having a purpose. In our conscience we receive the truth of our own relationship with God: “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ ‘I tell you that this man. . . went home justified before God.’” (Luke 18:13,14) There are other examples in both the old and New Testaments that of the power of a God-given conscience.

In the intuition that God has given us we discern truth from falsehood, and which to believe. Moses knew intuitively that the voice from the burning bush, strange as it may seem, was in truth the voice of the God of his ancestors.

Intuition tipped me off when my three year old grandson told me that “Grandpa needed” me, and that I should leave the room where he was jumping on the bed, and find Grandpa. God given intuition enables us to discern God’s voice from the other voices around us.

Our wills are gifts from God that He finds as a means of uniting with Him: This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses. . . Now choose life, so that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Our conscience, our intuition, and our will make up our human spirit that engages with God in talk. It’s these three working together that receive God’s word and His Spirit. It is well to note that, while we desire a balanced spirit that is accessible and responsive to God, He Himself wants it in us even more. As we want time alone with Him, He desires it with us even more. If this were not true, there would be little hope of our having a free and open relationship with our God. When our conscience is sensitive, our intuition is receptive, and our will is strong for Him, we join the fellowship and the communion of the saints. We are not alone.

Love in Him,

Prue

Mrs. Hanover, my violin teacher, was very popular, had taught for many years, with a waiting list for students, and had many students who had gone on to music careers. I was one of her few adult students. One day she met me at the door , upset and fuming. She had just received a call from the high school orchestra director, complaining that her students didn’t know how to sit in orchestra. He claimed that, though they were all good violinists, none of them were familiar with playing from a sitting position, and that it was all her fault.

It was true that I always stood for my lesson, and I assumed that all her other students did also. I agreed that the orchestra director might consider that it was his job to teach the sitting skills of his orchestra, but my teacher’s feelings were hurt and she felt that her stature as a qualified instructor was being challenged.

“You know , Prue, that I don’t teach ‘sitting’. I teach the violin!” she said. I agreed entirely, and thought there must be more to the director’s complaint, as he had had her students in his orchestra before this. I wondered if we would all be taking our lessons sitting down from then on.

I was wrong to wonder. My teacher never changed her style. She never wavered, and eventually the director stopped contacting her about the need for her to teach “sitting posture”.

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.” (Luke 14:34, 35)

Mrs. Hanover may have had “tunnel vision”, but her “tunnel” was full of pure, effective instruction. She understood her students and consistently went the extra mile to help them in their progress. If she had allowed another “voice” into her teaching, she knew that it would dilute her lessons. She was unwilling to lose her saltiness to something outside the lesson.

“And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”(Luke 14:27)

My teacher’s discipline was strict, but I and many others were enriched by her teaching. She knew that the rewards of the discipline far outstripped the disadvantages. She knew, too, that not everyone would master the violin, but some would, and many did. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Love in Him,

Prue

When we moved to Fort Worth, we bought a house with a swimming pool in the back yard. We bought it both because we like to swim, and because we knew that our grandchildren would really like to swim. We called it “grandchildren bait”. It is not deep enough for diving, but just right for cooling off.

Eventually we needed to have the pool re-plastered and re-tiled. The crew that arrived to do the work was friendly and efficient. One day I asked Peter, one of the crew leaders, if he had a pool at his home. “No,” he said. “I’d love to have one, but I could never afford a pool like this.”

I was hit with regret. Peter was highly skilled and very conscientious. He was good with his people and the project went smoothly. I thought that if anyone deserved a pool, it was Peter and his family; and I recalled how much the pool had meant to us for the years of our daughter’s growing up.

Peter did not appear bitter, and maybe he was saving up to install a pool eventually, but I knew that a window had been opened to my own life in contrast to his. We can never really measure the blessings, material and spiritual, that have entered and even abide in our lives, until a stark comparison to the lives of others, who have not shared those blessings, brings home to us the simple reality.

The Bible addresses wealth in both the Old and New Testaments: “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust in your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.” (Proverbs 23:45)

Jesus says it this way: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36) I don’t believe that owning a swimming pool will have to cost me my soul, but I’m happy that I met Peter the pool man, who put into perspective the privilege and the blessing that it is and has been for our family; and I was reminded by him not to envy others whose resources are greater than my own.

Thousands of years ago God knew that these pressures would challenge us. In the Tenth Commandment He says, “You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land . . . or anything that belongs to him.” Peter was a person who brought those words to life for me.

Love in Him,

Prue

A young woman once gave this testimony about her faith journey: “When I read in the Bible that God told Moses to pick up the snake by its tail, and that Moses actually did it, I knew that the story was true, that God was really testing Moses, and Moses passed the test.” It was the staff turned into a snake and back into a staff, that was to prove that Moses was really from God, and that it was God Himself requiring Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. ( Exodus 4: 1-4)

“I’m from West Texas”, she said, “and if there’s one thing every kid growing up in West Texas knows, it’s that you never, never pick up a snake by its tail!”

Curiously, that story carried the force of conviction in this young woman’s life experience, and resonated with truth that triggered her faith in the God of Moses, the God of Christ.

“This, said the Lord,” is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of heir fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you, Moses.” (Exodus 4:1-5). More than three thousand years later that sign, given to Moses, brought belief to a young woman in another part of the world, entirely unknown to Moses.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word That goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10)

The words of God are priceless. That we have a book full of His words is an awesome gift that has helped shape Civilization for millennia. It has inspired great and least, strong and weak, and continues to this very day to send out His “word that goes out from His mouth and does not return empty.”

Everyone’s relationship to God is unique. Whether we’re from West Texas or Paris , France, God knows us and reaches us wherever we are. His Bible holds meaning for everyone, regardless of how distant our circumstances might seem. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “All scripture is God breathed.” (2Timothy 3:16) For the young woman who gave her testimony, the snake told her all she needed to accept the reality of God. God has a meeting place for everyone.

Love in Him,

Prue

Six Measures of Barley

On good Friday I made a soup of chicken and barley from a recipe I had found in the newspaper. At the time, I didn’ t think about the Scripture, but later I remembered the story of Ruth: And Boaz said, ‘Bring the mantle you are wearing and hold it out.’ So she held it out, and he measured out six measures of barley, and laid it upon her; then she went into the city.” Ruth told Naomi, her mother-in-law, “These six measures of barley he gave me, for he said, ‘You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.”’ (Ruth 3:15 &17)

The gift of the barley was more than a simple kindness. Boaz had agreed to be a “kinsman redeemer”: for the widowed Ruth, by becoming her husband. Ruth had been gleaning in his fields for days and had been able to secure a generous amount of barley, but this gift was a sign of commitment to Naomi that Boaz would keep faith and marry Ruth. Neither Ruth nor Naomi asked for this barley; it was Boaz’ initiative alone.

They did marry, and their son Obed grew up to be the grandfather of David. The story of Ruth has delighted readers for thousands of years. It is a story illuminated by grace and reflecting the Spirit of God . It also reflects the Spirit of Jesus, another descendant of Ruth and Boaz.

The grace that comes to us through Jesus is like the barley poured out for Ruth, for just as that barley meant commitment from Boaz, Jesus’ trip to the cross, where his very blood was poured out, meant the commitment of his life to every person for his Father’s sake. On Easter Morning God offered His eternity to each one who believes. In the resurrection, God opened the door of His life to humanity, something He had wanted since the Fall. The “barley” Jesus poured out for us is the Holy Spirit he promised to send. Life on Earth has never been the same since that first Easter.

When Ruth came to Boaz at the threshing floor, she was received warmly with a blessing: “May you be blessed by the Lord. . . Do not fear, I will do for you all that you ask.” ( Ruth 3:10&11)

Today we are told by Paul, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ, and so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” (2Corinthians 1:20)

The barley soup reminded me of His Word, where I recalled that He Is risen!

Hallelujah!! Happy, Happy Easter!!

Love in Him,

Prue

Love and Fear

Sometimes you may know that, all unsolicited, you are accompanied by

Someone who is better than you, and is with you. The “Someone” is not

obtrusive, but conveys grace and peace. If the “Someone” were to speak, you

would hear, “Don’t be afraid.” Through the Bible, God the Holy Spirit speaks

these words to individuals who,in some cases, passed the words on to large

groups of the Hebrew people; and also found in these words much needed

courage themselves.

When I first understood the story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), I became

afraid at the thought of their punishment for having told a lie to the Holy Spirit. I

couldn’t connect to such an extreme, and wondered where I would be in the

kingdom of such a God. The Scriptures answered my fears.

“The angel said to her,’Don’t be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with

God.’”(Luke 1:30) Mary’s “Don’t be afraid” came when she had apparently not

asked for anything of God. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and Gideon all listened

to these words; and in all, 365 times God delivered this admonition in the Bible,

for the possibility of being unafraid comes with a promise: “Perfect love drives

out fear.” (John 4:18)

When John wrote those words he was not naive enough to believe that human

beings could produce perfect love. He knew that “We love because He first loved

us.”

“Don’t be afraid,” says the Lord, because I have loved you with an everlasting

love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

For thousands of years God has spoken to His people about His love for them,

and reminded them not to be afraid. He was preparing for the great,

indisputable proof of His love in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of His

own Son.

God’s love is personal. It comes to us from the person of Jesus, and is displayed in

all His fabulous richness; “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. . .

Greater love has no man than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John

15:9&13)

The greatness of His love gave us the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, who may say with

love when we face puzzling changes, “Don’t be afraid, for “Someone” loves us

with an everlasting love, and He has shown us the limitlessness of that love in His

Easter morning. In spite of the cataclysmic events of Holy Week, nothing could

be greater than the promise if resurrection life. Don’t be afraid.

Love in Him,

Prue

Going to parties, taking expensive trips, buying lots of clothes and jewelry were not high on my mother’s list of desirable things to do. When she went out or entertained friends at home, her one criteria for a good time was whether or not she had been able to share a good laugh. “Laugh! I thought I’d die!” was one of her favorite expressions, and she might say it coming home from the grocery store or during a picnic, or after talking with her cousins. Whenever she said “Laugh! I thought I’d die!”, we knew she had had a good time.

“Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:5)

God’s movement toward redeeming the world of mankind began with the unlikely birth of a baby named “laughter.” The laughter of Sarah echoes even today in every soul who experiences the unlikely but real presence of the living God in his or her life.

It was Abraham’s choice to name his son Isaac, but It was God’s angel who prompted it when he asked , “Why did Sarah laugh?” When she denied it, he answered firmly, “You did laugh”. (Genesis 18:15) Thousands of years later a young woman, descendant of Sara and Abraham, was pregnant with an unlikely child, and her joy recalled Sarah’s: “And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,for the mighty one has done great things for me—holy is His name.’” (Luke 1:46-49)

The incongruous, sometimes silly things that people say and do brought laughter to my mother. The most unlikely birth of a baby, the gift of a new life itself, brought laughter to Sarah, and exultant joy to Mary. To think that our very relationship with our Maker began with a laugh, first of disbelief, and then of joy, opens our minds to the limitless goodness of our God, and His exquisite knowledge of our characters. He knows how to make us laugh! And He knows how good it will be for us. The Psalmist wrote, “Our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.”(Psalm 126:2)

“Laugh! I thought I’d die!” My mother never died of laughter, but she passed her gift of laughter to her children. They all cherish a good laugh. In this Easter season, I look forward to even more joyful laughter.

Love in Him,

Prue

Standing in front of the back wall of a cave in Seminole Canyon and viewing the ancient rock paintings, knowing that they are as old or older than the Biblical Abraham, gave me a curious sensation of timelessness and mystery. The pictures include recognizable figures of animals and human–like beings; and one group in particular of such figures standing in a circle looked to me as if it was depicting a ritual of some kind. “Are these figures religious in some way?” I asked our guide. “Honey, those figures can be anything you want them to be,” she answered, “No one has any idea what any of them means. No present day tribe acknowledges the people of these artists as their ancestors. There is no record except these pictures, so it’s up to you what you think they mean.”

Besides the pictures there were other artifacts: partial sandals, baskets, and some spear-

like weapons. As I left the canyon I felt as if time had been telescoped and I had seen some things, but understood very little of the character of the people who once lived there.

By contrast, I felt that I could almost have a conversation with Abraham himself, and we would understand each other. Nothing is left to be seen or touched of that bronze age Biblical man or his family, but his very character is literally an open book to which we can turn at any time.: “Then the word of the Lord came to him (Abraham): “A son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir. . . Look up at the sky and count the stars , if, indeed you can count them. . . So shall your offspring be.’ Abraham believed the Lord and He credited it to him as righteousness.’” (Genesis 15:4-6)

The God of Abraham was the God of Jesus of Nazareth as well. He is the God of all Christians today. The angel who spoke to the women who came to Jesus’ empty tomb said, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is Risen!” (Luke 24:6) The God who gave Abraham a son in his old age and the God who raised Jesus to new life after his death on the cross is the God who lives in our homes and in our lives today. He is no less powerful now than He was in Abraham’s day, or in the very day of resurrection, or in the day of our own answered prayers. The material substances of the lives of Abraham and Jesus have disappeared, but the reality of their Spirits works profoundly in ours.

I enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the cave drawings at Seminole Canyon, and imagining the lives of the people, but I love more the renewal and joy I experience in relating to the living Christ and his ancestor, Abraham.

Love in Him,

Prue

Early spring is the time I crave to renew the flower pots and yard beds. I spend the summer exulting in the display of beauty they bring to front and back yards. They’re no real carpets of color, but only accents that nevertheless delight the eye after a winter of brown grass and empty flower beds.

This year I debated between planting dianthus or vinca, which I usually plant. The difference is that dianthus is a perennial, while the vinca dies in the first frost and doesn’t return. Both are bright bloomers with vinca being most reliable, all summer and fall, and dianthus taking breaks from blooming from time to time; but dianthus also spreads and fills in to a greater degree. One advantage of the perennial is that I don’t have to replace so many of them every year. Once I asked my nephew, “When you’re planting your garden in the spring, are you thinking about what you will plant next year?” “Always! I’m always thinking about next year’s garden,” he answered.

On the very night before he died, Jesus knew that every word he said must last forever in the minds of his disciples, and for numberless others to come. He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He prunes every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will bear even more fruit. . . No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.” (John 15: 1&4)

Gardening, planting and agriculture mark the beginning of civilization. They also mark a spiritual beginning of hope and anticipation. Jesus told his disciples that remaining in touch with his Father was mirrored by the joy and anticipation of a rich harvest. The goodness he offers is the joy of union with God in our lives. It is a close union, as the vines are actually part of the plant itself. Jesus also said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” ( John 15:11)

It’s a joy to be deciding which beauties to lavish on my yard, but a deeper and higher joy to know that I’m sharing this with the Creator behind all joy.

I decided on the dianthus.

Love in Him,

Prue