Marie's Memory

Quotable

     B.J. and I were listening to Ravi (www.rzim.com) this morning when he quoted the “inimitable” C.S. Lewis, on the topic of prayer.  Lewis’s accusers contended that prayer was a monologue, not a dialogue, as Lewis maintained, and that he was only imagining God’s presence.   Lewis pondered their remarks and then responded:

They tell me, Lord, that when I pray only one voice is heard -

that You’re not there, that I’m dreaming,
and this whole thing is absurd.

Maybe they are right, Lord, maybe they are right –
only one voice is heard…

But if they are right – only one voice is heard –

this is where they are wrong –
it’s not my voice that is heard – it’s Yours.

I am not dreaming…

You are the Dreamer…

I am Your dream.

Two Good Lines

1)      The broilers arrived last Friday morning.  All 51 of them.  B.J. was waiting at the post office when it opened at 7:30, ready to rush the chicks home and then race to school.  Joawn, a fellow church member, saw B.J. standing there, his dress shirt and tie peeking out from under his dilapidated cover-all.  Joawn did a double-take.
     "What in the world are you doin', dressed like that?" Joawn asked.
     "Oh," B.J. responded, "Pickin' up chicks."

2)     I was washing dishes this morning when Marie came running into the kitchen, a baby doll in her arms.
     "Look, Mom!" she exclaimed.  "I brought forth my firstborn son!"

Love Never Fails

Human love fails.

Your love does, and mine…and the love of those we love.

Here’s an exercise for you.  I learned this from Elisabeth Elliot – it’s something she would do when she was feeling bitter toward her husband.  Turn to I Corinthians 13.  Put your name in place of “love,” only negatively.  The chapter reads this way when I do that:

Sarah does not suffer long, and is not kind.

Sarah envies;

Sarah vaunts herself,
and is puffed up.

Sarah behaves her herself unseemly;
is arrogant and rude.

Sarah insists on her own way,
and is easily provoked.

Sarah rejoices in sin,
rather than in the truth.

Sarah does not bear all things,
believe all things, hope all things...
endure all things.

Sarah’s love fails.

As naïve as I was when B.J. and I married, by God’s grace I knew our love would face trials.  My proof is engraved in his wedding band.    When I ordered his ring, the jeweler told me he could engrave our names and wedding date on the inside of the band.  I asked him to let me think about it.  And in the end, I had him to engrave something else on the inside of the band:  “Love never fails,” the climatic characteristic of love in I Corinthians 13. 

When he returned to Iowa at the end of the summer, I showed B.J. the ring.  He noticed the engraving on the inside right away, and his eyes filled with tears. “Not,” I told him, "because my love will never fail you, but because God’s love will never fail us.”

And it hasn’t.

And it isn’t.

And it won’t.

There’s a beautiful song, Love Never Fails, that says exactly what I meant to say when I asked the jeweler to engrave B.J.’s ring.  The lyrics are below.  You can listen to it by playing the video.

Love is not proud 

Love does not boast
Love after all 
Matters the most 

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep
Locked inside 

Love is the River that flows through
Love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time 

Love will protect
Love always hopes
Love still believes
When you don’t 

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this 
Greater than this

Love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the Way,
The Truth, the Life

Love is the River that flows through
Love is the arms that are holding you
Love is the place you will fly to
Love never fails you

Abundant Provision

     'Twas a night shortly before November 1st...and B.J. and I were in the middle of our monthly budget date.  Some medical bills that were higher than we anticipated resulted in a debate I try to evade: "How low can we go with the grocery envelope?"  It's a debate that usually ends up with me cruising Fareway's aisles, perspiring, calculator in hand.  (I'm only partly kidding.)

     Fast forward to the week of Thanksgiving, and two remarkable, providential events.

1) Howard gave us a deer.
(The venison, by the way, is delicious.)

2)  A truckload of chickens crashed and burned near Boyden,

scattering stunned birds like snow.

 The sheriff said they were free for the taking, as the company that was coming to clean up the mess was traveling from Nebraska, and with the impending holiday would likely not arrive before most of the birds froze to death.  B.J. and John, a fellow teacher, went to the scene right after school.  B.J. just happened to have a dorky plywood topper on his truck (he'd hauled the billy goat we borrowed in it a few weeks prior), and they filled it with chickens.  The birds spent a couple of days in our barn, and the Friday and Saturday following, they were butchered.

John at the chopping block.

Dunking the bird in boiled water makes plucking easier.

Even Mom joined in on the fun..."For old times' sake," she said.

John, Jerron and Gys.

     Except for Willem, who came crying to the house as soon as the first bird lost its head, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  So much so, in fact, that John and B.J. ordered 50 broiler chicks that are due to arrive in the next few days.  They'll be butchered sometime in late summer.

     You know, about that plywood topper...I said B.J. just happened to have it on his truck.  What I mean to say was that every little detail of the whole experience was providential.  Our Lord has a good sense of humor...and we didn't go over our grocery budget, after all.

     Truly, it was an abundant provision.

Quotable

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, standing in a dictionary - how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one

who knows how to combine them.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne ~