Inheritance

"We're spending your inheritance!" Mama exclaimed with a chuckle. My parents were off on their second journey to Hawaii, planning to trace the route they had taken to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary.

"Good - you deserve it; have a blast!" I replied.

Less than two years later, Mama fell on her head, and even though early on she seemed to be getting well, after two months she began having seizures. Over the next five months, she slowly lost her abilities and finally went into a coma-like state and died December 31, 2001. For eight and a half more years we enjoyed Daddy but lost him in June of this year.

Sadly, Mama and Daddy didn't have nearly enough time to spend all of our inheritance. So checks from their different investments are beginning to come in. My husband and I are having to make decisions - what to do with the money, how to invest it, how not to lose it! In today's economy there are no "sure things." Interest rates are dismal, even on long-term investments. The government will insure only so much in bank accounts. Stocks are iffy.
Well, I made a decision that many of you will appreciate. I decided to invest some of that inheritance in our house. The house is forty years old and the last time anything was updated was long before we moved in eighteen years ago. Well, actually, we have replaced the upstairs carpet and the kitchen flooring. And we've also painted a room or two, but the kitchen and bathrooms had that '80's look going. I figure the new stuff will increase the value and sellability of our house, should we decide to put it on the market in the next few years. At any rate, the money won't be wasted because I am going to enjoy the new countertops, appliances and beautiful, up-to-date paint techniques being applied by an expert (not moi). Thank you, Mama and Daddy!

I am grateful that Daddy was a smart investor and my parents were wise spenders. Though they worked as missionaries and church workers all their lives, they lived on a budget and saved enough money to support themselves in their old age. I'm thankful that they had enough to enjoy their golden years, living in a very nice retirement community and taking trips for pleasure. And of course, I would be lying if I said I'm not appreciative for their financial legacy, that leftover money they bequeathed to us kids.

But I'll be eternally indebted to Mama and Daddy for the other legacy they left us. You see, whereas they used discretion when spending money, they completely blew the budget when it came to spending their lives on people. They lived Jesus' words in Matthew 16:24-25: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." I pray that I will be like that, that my children and friends and even people who don't know me well will be able to say they looked at me and saw Jesus. Thank you, Mama and Daddy, for this inheritance. It is precious. It is eternal. It's why I miss you so much.

"Softens Hands While You Do Dishes"

Remember the old Palmolive dishwashing detergent commercials? Women in beauty salons with their nails dipped in bowls of kelly green Palmolive? The manicurist, Madge, reassuring them, "Relax, it's Palmolive!" (You can see an example on youtube. Just do a search for 70s consumerism - Palmolive.)

Then, about ten years ago, the hot paraffin wax portable spas came along. They advertised that in just one treatment, your hands would be noticeably softer and younger looking. Of course, the model was always closer to twenty years old than forty. Her hands undoubtedly looked pretty fabulous to start with. She had not been asked by her eight-year-old grandson what the red, rough place on the back of her left hand was (eczema) and then been informed that the dark places were liver spots! (You can see an example of the young woman on youtube. Just do a search for Paraffin Wax Spa Hand Treatment at Home. You can see the old woman's liver-spotted hands by coming by my house on any given day.)

Current trends lean towards hand massages with healing oils, pumice stones, intensive care hand lotions, built-in lotion dispensers next to the built-in detergent dispensers next to the latest kitchen faucets, and so on.

Calluses can be a good thing. As in guitar-playing and knee-praying. But no one wants to shake hands with someone whose hands are dry, cracked and rough. No one wants those hands caressing his face. Those hands are disastrous when a woman is trying to put on panty hose.

How do your hands look? Are they dry, callused? Has the wear and tear of life worn and torn them? Is there really no such thing as a dishwashing detergent that softens hands? Do you just not have time to do home hot paraffin wax treatments? Do your pumice stone and intensive healing lotion sit in the drawer unused? Have your loved ones gotten used to the roughness of your hands and you really don't care what strangers think? Well, that's okay. I have to admit that sometimes mine are soft and sometimes they could sand a two by four smooth.

I hate to admit that my heart might be like that, too. Sometimes it is soft towards hurting people, slow people, disrespectul people, boring people. Sometimes it is soft towards God. Sometimes I want to know Him and His plans for my life, no matter what. But at other times, especially those days when I haven't read God's Word or worshiped Him or prayed, my heart feels callused. I care about me. Me and mine only. Oh, how I need Him to smooth away the rough, selfish places in my heart. How about you? Ponder these lyrics by Keith Getty. If you know the tune, sing with me.

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory.

Teach us, Lord, full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of pow'r that can never fail -
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds;
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us -
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we'll stand on Your promises,
And by faith we'll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, till Your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory.

Just One Thing

My friend Sherrie is the director of our church's weekday preschool program. We were in Cracker Barrel yesterday when she asked me what I thought she should give the teachers for their Christmas gifts. We looked around a bit, but no inspiration came. After more discussion, however, I had an idea she jumped on. So, after we had eaten lunch, we went to a large store that sells just about everything you can imagine.

As we began looking through all the giftware, I was reminded of a time a few years back when I went to that store looking for teapots. I was the Preschool Minister of our church, and I had decided to have a tea party for young girls and their mothers. I wanted each table to have a different teapot as a centerpiece, so for several months I hunted for teapots. It got to the point where I could walk in a store and see only those small things that had handles sticking out of one side. All the other paraphernalia in the store would fade to the background, and all I had to do was check the item to determine if it was a teapot, pitcher, or mug.

After several more weeks of searching, my mind had learned to notice only those items that had a handle on one side and a spout on the other, thereby eliminating mugs from my view. Then, finally, after a couple more weeks, I could scan the shelves of a store and see only those things with a handle on one side, a spout on the other and a lid on the top. I was looking for and looking at just one thing - teapots! My search became so simple that I began seeing teapots practically everywhere I went, and I had to stop buying!!!

There's such a wonderful spiritual lesson in this, friends. We can get overwhelmed living in this world where we're bombarded with all kinds of "stuff." Finding God's will for our lives should be easier than it is, and I want to challenge you to start today by narrowing your search. Jesus said to Martha of Bethany, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." That one thing was modeled by Martha's sister, Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to Him.

We need to get to know Jesus by reading the gospels over and over. Then we will learn the shape of Him. Finally, as we walk through this crowded, busy, hurried, sinful world, we will begin to see where He is, what He is doing, how we can join in on what He is about. The world will fade from view, and just the one thing - Jesus - will fill our thoughts and hearts. And that is His will for our lives, His good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom. 12:2b).

Not Good; Not Good at All

My righteousness was certainly filthy rags today. The real pain of it is that I knew it was going to be. I put off calling the credit card company because something just told me I was going to get mad. And even though I prayed that the Holy Spirit would guard my tongue and keep me calm, I lost it.

I knew they would argue with me about cancelling because I tried to cancel last year, and I had allowed that woman to talk me into keeping the card. This year I was prepared! I called August 25 and asked that the card be cancelled on August 30, the day before the annual fee would be charged. The guy tried to stop me. He gave me all kinds of reasons not to cancel (just like the woman last year did), but I stood firm. Finally, he said okay. My new card had already come in the mail, but I hadn't activated it. So when August finished, I dusted my hands off and said, "There. That takes care of that!"

But it didn't. I got my last statement, and on it was the annual fee. Also on it was a charge on Sept. 2. I knew I hadn't charged anything on that date because I thought the card was cancelled. So I looked back in my email records and found I had charged to that online store on August 23. Aha! They were trying to trick me, but they didn't know who they were dealing with!!!

The long and short of it is, the man called me a liar on the phone today; said their records showed no phone call from me since 12/09 and therefore, I would have to pay the fee. Well, I didn't yell exactly, but my voice rose a little bit. After all, I wanted to be sure he heard me say I didn't appreciate being called a liar and that I had indeed talked to a young man six weeks ago, and I had thought my card was cancelled and he could just check his records and see that I hadn't charged anything in six weeks and that was not normal activity for me!

I got nowhere with him. And I ended up feeling so raunchy about the way I had handled my feelings. Why did I think the world would act in a Christian manner if I couldn't? Isaiah 64:6 says, "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." Filthy rags. The Bible is talking about the unclean rags that have menstrual blood all over them. Yeah, that's what my so-called righteousness looks like.

Oh Jesus, thank you for pouring Your blood over me and making me to become righteous in God's eyes. "God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). I'm just a sinner, saved by grace. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Puzzles

Puzzles are fun. Word puzzles. Number puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. I like to be able to figure them out. The process, to me, is invigorating. The more challenging the better. Like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. My daddy had a book of 200 of them, and he'd only done through #91 before he died, so I am attempting to do the rest. So far, I've totally completed only four out of the twenty-four I've attempted. They're difficult, sometimes grueling, but oh, the sheer satisfaction of figuring them out and checking them off! And I'll keep going back to the ones I haven't finished because sometimes I'll have an AHA moment the second or third or fourth time around. Something will finally click, and then I'll be able to get another word and another.

I think that's the thrill. Finally getting something I didn't think I knew.

Life is a puzzle, full of situations that are puzzling and people who I don't get because they are so different from me and my little world. Why don't I get as excited about life puzzles as I do about Sudoku or Crytoquote or the New York Times Sunday crossword? Maybe because the stakes are so much higher. If I don't figure out the Crytoquote today, then oh well. But if I can't solve the puzzles of poverty and wealth, giving and saving, putting my neck out there and protecting my soul, being risky and being daring, etcetera, etcetera, then what does my life mean?

Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself " (Matthew 22:37-39). Paul said, "Love never fails! Everyone who prophesies will stop, and unknown languages will no longer be spoken. All that we know will be forgotten. We don't know everything, and our prophcies are not complete. But what is perfect will someday appear, and what isn't perfect will then disappear...Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don't know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. For now there are faith, hope and love. But of these three, the greatest is love" (1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12-13).

I guess the answer to my dilemma is to get excited about pursuing love. Not the thrill of answers and complete solution of the myriad of earthly puzzles, but the joy of loving as Christ loved me and gave himself up for me as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2).

It's a Boy!

Our daughter Heather and her husband Josh found out today that they are having a boy. Heather and I had been secretly rooting for a girl, each for our own reasons, but we were both really happy to find out that the baby is doing well, progressing perfectly, and already knows how to sit "Indian style." In other words, the technician found it pretty easy to determine the sex!

I hate to admit the reason I wanted a girl is the clothes. When I was looking for a cute Christmas outfit for Tyler, my almost 3-year-old grandson, I found one choice. In the same store were forty Christmas outfits for little girls. And bows and purses and tights and cute little shoes. And for later on, tiaras.

Which reminds me of something. May I start at the beginning?
Jesus became my personal Savior in 1961. Though only seven years old, I truly and tremblingly gave myself to Him and asked Him to live in my heart forever. In the years since I've heard many an outstanding testimony and sometimes have regretted making my profession of faith so early, before I committed some bad sins that could have really "beefed up" my testimony. I'm just kidding (sort of). But you know what I mean. I would sit there thinking, How bad could I have been at seven years old that Jesus would need to come in and completely change my life?

In all seriousness, though, every person, no matter his or her age, is just as "bad" as the next. Every person is born with a sin nature. Genesis 8:21 says, "The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, 'Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.'" From childhood. If you've ever been around infants or toddlers, you've seen the sin nature in its early stages. The moment a child realizes there are choices in life, he begins to assert his preferences. He fusses at not being able to do what he wants, when he wants. Or she gravitates towards the "no no's." The Toddler's Creed humorously illustrates another of the ugly truths in man's sin nature:
If I want it, it's mine.
If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine.
If I can take it away from you, it's mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
If it's mine, it will never belong to anybody else, no matter what.
If we are building something together, all the pieces are mine.
If it looks just like mine, it's mine.

Sounds a bit like covetousness, doesn't it? Let me edit my earlier testimony just a bit. Jesus became my personal Savior in 1961 when I was just seven years old, and oh, how I needed a Savior. Selfishness, egotism and covetousness ruled my heart. I wanted all the pretties I saw: that girl's boxy red purse with the brass buckle, that friend's shiny black shoes, that boy's really sweet mama, that candy store's malted milk balls, that acquaintance's nifty bicycle horn, that neighbor's gleaming swingset with super slippery slide, that teacher's colored chalk, that library's date stamper, that... I think you get the picture. If mere desire could've made them mine, they would have been MINE.

I never felt that desire more profoundly, however, than when I first laid eyes on a tiara. I believe the occasion was a Girl's Auxiliary coronation service at my church. In those days, many Southern Baptist girls took part in GA's (Girl's Auxiliary), an organization with the purpose of teaching about missions work around the world. In view of earning badges and other symbols of accomplishment, each girl in GA's would work on memorizing scripture, participating in mission action projects and creating artistic expressions and symbols of the Christian life. Step by step and year by year a girl worked to become a Maiden, Lady-in-Waiting, Princess, Queen, Queen with a Scepter and Queen Regent. All the hard work culminated in a coronation service at the end of each school year. Well, before I was even old enough to be a GA, my older sister Anne became a Queen and was ready to be crowned at the coronation service. She and two other girls, dressed in long white dresses, hair styled into updo's, stood on the platform, and one by one their mothers placed tiaras on their heads, signifying they had reached the rank of Queen.

Immediately a burning desire came over me that was so great I can hardly describe it. I wanted to be up there in flowing white dress, but more than that, I wanted that tiara. Its glitz outsparkled anything I had ever owned, and the shape of it was divine, so triangularly did it point toward heaven. I knew for certain that if I had that tiara my life would never be the same.

Now here's the really cool spiritual lesson. No tiara could actually ever change my life, but when Jesus came into my heart, as the song says, "He changed me completely and a new life is mine." And, when you are saved, you become a tiara of sorts - a crown. Listen to Philippians 4:1 - "I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work" (New Living Translation). Paul was saying that when someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a crown for the one who lead him to Christ. Here's a special note: That tiara my sister got for becoming Queen is long gone, but she led me to Christ so I am her living crown (tiara), and have been for 49 years. Thank you, Anne, for loving me that much.
Now, readers, let's go get some living tiaras.

Fishing

The lake was gorgeous after the cool of the early spring morning. Norma Jean and I stirred up lemonade and fixed a large thermos of coffee while the men retrieved the fishing rods from under the deck. When we women walked down to the beach area, I could hear Wally and his father mumbling a foreign language of crappie plugs, long jig shanks and minnows. Norma Jean, Wally's mother, set the drinks on a tiny garden table in the sand and motioned for me to follow her up under the deck. We found four ratty lawn chairs and soon were lining them up parallel to the water's edge. She sat in the far left chair, right beside the drinks table, and as I sank down beside her, she handed me a glass of lemonade, my preferred poison when I was that age, one month past twenty-one.

I sipped absentmindedly on the tart treat while watching Wally with my full infatuation. He baited a hook with a minnow, something I thought extremely cruel and yukky in principle, but when done by him seemed almost heroic. Then he walked towards me with the fishing rod. "Stand up and I'll teach you to cast," he said.
"Cast?" I was new at this fishing thing and not at all sure I wanted to learn to cast. After all, baiting the hook had been pretty disgusting.
"Yeah, silly, cast. You don't have to look so petrified - it's easy."
So I stood up and walked nearer to the water. I wondered if he would do the stand behind my back and put his arms around me to teach me kind of thing. I almost swooned thinking about it and then remembered his parents and said loudly, "I'm not scared. Of course it's easy."
"Shhh," the men rebuked. "You'll scare the fish away."
"And that would be bad?" I grinned just a little, tilting my head to see if his mother would grin, too. She did.
"Joy." Wally wasn't grinning. "Do you want to learn to fish, or not?" Of course, I knew what he really meant was I want you to learn to fish because I like fishing and fishing is fun and later you women can clean this fish and cook it for us.
"Yes, yes, I do," I fibbed.
So began the lesson on casting, and after about fifteen tries, I finally cast far enough out to leave the line in. Then I sat down in my chair like Mr. Irwin had done long before, right after his first cast landed way out there. As soon as I was settled, Wally threw his minnow-weighted line way out there, too, and slowly sat. I handed him a glass of lemonade and asked, "What do we do now?"
"Wait."
"For what?"
"For a fish to bite."
"How long do we wait?"
"Well, as long as it takes."
"How long is that? What do we do while we wait?"
"What do you mean, 'do while we wait'?"
"Well, I don't know. You're the one who fishes, not me."
"We just wait, quietly."
"Oh."
At this, I turned to Norma Jean who was staring into her coffee as if there might be some message from God in the bottom of the cup. She wouldn't look me in the eye, so I knew she had known all along I was going to hate fishing. She just hadn't had the nerve or the heart to tell me.

Just about that time, I felt a gentle tug on my fishing pole. "I - I think I got a fish," I stammered.
"Really?" Wally was incredulous. "You?"
"Yeah, look, it's pulling on my line!" My voice was rising even as I was rising out of my chair.
Wally hopped up beside me, softly barking instructions. "Give the rod a sharp jerk, and then reel the baby in."
I jerked on the line a little less than sharply so as not to hurt the fish too much Then I deftly turned about face while placing the rod over my shoulder like an infantryman's rifle. I marched up the beach towards the house, keeping my eye over my shoulder so I could see when the fish cleared land. When I had him up even with the chairs, I dropped the rod and raced back towards the others, yelling, "I caught a fish, I caught a fish!"
Norma Jean just stared at me with mouth agape, but the guys whooped and guffawed, slapped their knees and shouted.
"Shhh," I warned, "you'll scare the other fish away." Then I leaned down to take a look at my first fish ever. It was covered in sand but beautiful all the same.

Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." We don't have to know how to do everything just right in order to tell someone about Jesus. We just need to do it because every soul is beautiful to Christ, even the sand-covered ones.