Simple Things Make a Difference

Hello and welcome to all my new subscribers.  Thanks for sticking around as I took an extended break from blogging.  This little story has been stuck in my head for over a month now:

In early June my husband and I took a wonderful vacation to Colorado.  On our way there we stopped and visited a few days with dear friends in Kansas City.  They have been our friends for a long time and each time this military family of six moves we try to go visit them at their new home.  Whether we go there, or they come here, we manage to see each other at least once a year.  Social networking helps a lot.  Facebook allows us to “see” each other.

I’m almost to my point…I promise!

One early June evening as we sat visiting with our friends in their living room, she got out a box of photos.  You see, their oldest son had just graduated from high school and we did some reminiscing.  This story is based on one photo.

It is a picture of a little boy, maybe a year old, sitting on the floor with a big bunch of fallen balloons around him.  Got a visual?  Good.  Now, here’s why this is so special…

When this young family (of only three at the time) moved to my town they didn’t know anyone.  She was scared and away from “home” and her family.  She was sad and felt alone.  The church secretary from her home town knew this and called the church with the same name in our town.  (Good ol’ First Baptists!)  After that secretary talked to our secretary, our secretary ordered a bunch of “welcome” balloons and sent them to the little family of strangers on behalf of our church.  (Are you following me?)

Because of that simple gesture, that this now retired secretary of our church doesn’t even remember, this little family came to the new town’s First Baptist Church.  And, as God had planned all along, bonded and became an instant and forever part of our family!

There we sat, 17 years later, looking at this photo of a little boy surrounded by fallen balloons.  Deep sighs and hugs to express our love for each other and our gratitude to God for working His will through two church secretaries.  These ladies never hesitated to do a simple thing that made all the difference in many lives.  One made a phone call to a stranger.  The other sent balloons to strangers.

What simple thing can YOU do to make a difference?  You may never know if you have been a part of a long-term blessing.  Just knowing you’ve touched a life and done what God is telling you to do is your reward.

P.S.  I am now the secretary at our church.  My prayer is that when (not “if”) God tells me to do a simple thing, I will hear Him and do it!

Hello & Thank You!

Just a quick note to those who have recently subscribed to my blog.

First of all…THANK YOU!  It’s an honor to know you’re visiting.

Secondly, life has been crazy and I haven’t written for ages.  But I have a few things rolling around in the ol’ brain that need to be written.  Stay tuned!  :)

Have a blessed and save Independence Day weekend.

Laurie

I Received a Gift Today

I do not have a good relationship with my mother.  Never have, probably never will.  She’s said a lot of painful things to me since I was 17 years old.  She literally disowned me, “as far as I’m concerned I no longer have a daughter.”  She disapproved of every decision (whether right or wrong) I’ve made as an adult.  She told me that my children’s mistakes would be judged by others by saying “what do you expect with a mom like that”?  She refused to hold my newborn baby girl over 30 years ago.  In my eyes, she withdrew.  She made the choice.  I do not talk to my mom much. Nor do I go visit.  She lives only one hour away in my hometown.

I have been trying to reach her by phone for a week and finally left a message for my aunt or uncle to call me and let me know what’s going on.  Turns out mom has been in and out of the hospital and a nursing home for SIX WEEKS!  Her lungs were so full of fluids that she was in ICU and almost died.  No one called me.  Perhaps it was her choice, perhaps theirs.

So today I went to visit her in the nursing home, even though she’s supposed to go home tomorrow.  I dreaded the visit!  Figured I’d have the finger pointed and be questioned.  Feared confrontation. Feared judgement.  As I drove through my hometown, passed the old house, the high school, the hangouts,  I felt myself slip into a surreal place.  It’s changed so much and then suddenly it’s so familiar!  I felt God holding my hand, guiding my emotions even as my heart pounded.

And then, God gave me a very personal gift.  While visiting with mom I was reminded NOT of the judgemental conditional-love I’d remembered, but of a time when I was much younger.  When I had a stay-at-home mom who cooked, cleaned, sewed my clothes, baked cookies, lead my Camp Fire Girls group for several years. And ENJOYED doing these things!  She talked endlessly about leading the girls and  how she loved it and what a good job she had done.  And she had!  She talked a few times about how “we may not have had much financially”, but that she managed to have a well balanced, good home-cooked meal on the table every nice when my dad came home from work.  Not easy on a tight budget. And how when she’d have vegetable soup waiting for him he’d say, “How did you know I needed that?”  (Why didn’t I ever hear that?)

She talked about a trip they took before I was born.  They went with dad’s parents and his brother and wife to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.  She hated that trip!  I’d heard the story before, but that’s OK.

The gift I received?  Truth.  Memories.  Light.  Relief.  Not the adult memories that I carry daily and have passed on.  But the memories of a very normal, pleasant midwest childhood.  Why is it that I take with me the garbage and not the good?  Does anyone else do that or is it just me?  I left home at 17 and never looked back.  And can only seem to remember the garbage that followed.  Granted, it was BIG STINKY ROTTEN GARBAGE!  But why can’t I focus on the pre-garbage era of my life?  

After I left her I drove by the three houses where I’d lived in town. Proud to say I didn’t get lost once!  :)  That was very surreal! (I hate that word, but there’s none other to describe the feeling).  The old houses are all much smaller than I’d remembered.  Especially the first one.  The street was so narrow, room for only one way traffic. Drove by my first elementary school, middle school and high school.  If you haven’t seen where you grew up lately, I highly recommend it.  Humbling and eye opening.

But…

Can you go back?  I don’t know the answer to that.  Can you erase years of bitterness you’ve carried?  I don’t know that either, but I do know that my God is bigger than the pain and those scars and can make me whole again!

I am the thorn in Your crown
But You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow
But You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist
But You love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss
But You love me anyway
(You Love Me Anyway by Sidewalk Prophets)

Comedy or Tragedy?

For the record, I've always disliked these masks. They're creepy and scary and these are the "nicest" I could find.

This week in our world we had a great celebration.  A beautiful young couple was married this morning with much pomp and circumstance.

This week in our world we had great tragedy.  Multiple storms and tornadoes ripped through the southern United States and took over 300 lives and destroyed countless homes and businesses.

I respectfully request that we all stop bashing those in celebration, including the media, while the tragedy continues.  Celebration and sadness go hand-in-hand in this world.  We will never all focus on the same thing until our Christ returns.

That young couple deserve to have the biggest party their birth rights allow.  Why not?  If their country didn’t want it, or want to pay for it, then they wouldn’t!  They’d go start a NEW COUNTRY… oh wait… they did.  So now let those of us in the “new country” just hush.  Either embrace the joy and the fairytale or turn off your TV.

As for the on-going tragedy in our own country, please pick up the phone or go online or text on your cell phone a donation to any of the worthy charities who are already there helping.  Or, head up a mission team and GO HELP!

Please stop complaining.  We’ve all got enough gloom and doom in a day’s time without that.  It isn’t the media’s attention to a Royal Wedding that takes our focus from the great need in the South, it’s OUR constant yipping and complaints.  Make the choice.  Choose your focus.

Thank you and be blessed.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Unconditionally

You’ll remember her because I’ve blogged about her before.  (Being Used and HE Did it Again)

We will remember her for the never-failing smiles, hugs, kind words and unconditional love.

This week our church family and community let go of a dear woman.  ”Grandma” Ruth loved us like Jesus and went to be with Him on Saturday.  Thursday, April 21st would be her 96th birthday.  Instead, we will gather together without her physical presence to honor her memory and legacy.

There are so few words to express the amazing warmth and love this woman gave so freely to EVERYONE she met.  Little children, middle-agers like me and other older folks.  The little children would literally line up at her side on Sunday mornings for their “Grandma hug”!  So would we for that matter.

"Remember, God loves you unconditionally and so do I."

One of the things she was known for was the birthday and anniversary phone calls.  She’d call bright and early in the morning and usually wake you.  But what an awesome way to start a day!  Once in a while she’d call a wrong number.  Whether it was local or across the country, that person would be blessed like the rest of us and receive her signature “Remember, God loves you unconditionally, and so do I”.

“Grandma” Ruth will be missed like no other because she lived and loved like no other.  Today, I urge you to tell at least one person you meet that GOD LOVES THEM UNCONDITIONALLY!  Whether they be friend, family or stranger.  Then come back here and tell us about your experience.

Thank you “Grandma”, for loving us like Jesus…unconditionally.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Read a little more about RUTH L. WOODARD

If We ARE The Body

The Body of Christ… the Church as God designed it:

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.
1 Corinthians 12: 24b-28.

As many of you know, it’s been a very very stressful couple of years in our family.  (How many blogs have I prefaced that way?!  Sorry.)  This, and other physical issues, have taken a toll on me.  Tomorrow I have to go for a rather nerve-racking medical test. Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing!

You may also know that I work at my home church.  On Wednesday mornings the older crowd gathers for prayer and Bible study with the pastor.  Today he came to the office and told me that my “presence was requested” by the Bible study group.  I figured they needed something so off I went with pen and paper in hand.

However, when I got there the pastor sat me down and the entire group got up and gathered around me to pray!

Time out for tears, BRB, hard to type.  OK, composure regained…maybe.

I’m trying to think of how many people are in the group this morning.  Enough to fill a rectangle of six long tables.  Pretty good size group for us.  The sight of all those older church members getting up and gathering around me was so amazing!  As the pastor anointed me with oil and began to pray I cried.  God’s presence was so comforting and my emotions overwhelmed me.  Can you say “ugly cry”?

So let me ask you folks, if we ARE the Body of Christ, then what are we all doing with that gift?!  Let me give you this challenge:  The next time you find yourself telling someone “I’ll be praying for you”, stop and say instead “can I pray with you about this right now?” and then do it!  That’s a win-win!  The person receiving prayer is abundantly blessed and you have done what you said you’d do on the spot.  No thinking two days later “gee, I forgot to pray for so-and-so the other day”.  You know you’ve all done that!

Now, go out and BE THE BODY this week!  Then come back and let us know about your experience.

But if we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching?
Why aren’t His hands healing?
Why aren’t His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren’t His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way
- Casting Crowns

Happy Monday

One of those typical Mondays.  Daylight Savings Time.  Hurting body.  Headache.  No make up.  Seeing many more than the NO PEOPLE I thought I’d see at work.  And then it happened.

An anonymous friend sent me amazingly lovely flowers!

Yes I'm Smiling! Thank you for this blessing.

THANK YOU DEAR FRIEND!  For thinking of me on this typical Monday.  What a blessing you were to me today.