Archive for the Family
Sunday, August 28th, 2011
One of our first real dates
Today when I was skimming through the blogs I subscribe to, I was reminded of one of the first real dates Johnny and I had. Real means we planned ahead and went somewhere, as opposed to the impromptu “Want to go to Dipper Dan’s for an ice cream cone?” after the evening service at Wheaton Bible Church.
One summer Saturday we and two other couples piled into the van that belonged to one of the guys, and we spent the day at “the dunes.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog calls Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore an off-the-beaten-path venue.
There are several reasons for me to remember that day–all embarrassing.
1. Not being very adept at make-up, I wore mascara. When we ventured into the water, it dribbled down my cheeks. Johnny asked, “Why do you wear that stuff?”
2. On the way home, Johnny “casually” eased his arm toward the back of the seat behind me–just to rest his arm, you know–and jabbed his elbow into my eye.
3. The next day my sunburn had fully developed–all on one side. Why? Because I felt it wouldn’t be polite to turn my back on Johnny and so while we were lying on our towels in the sun, I always had my face turned toward him .
Thank God, he’s brought us a long way since those first uncomfortable days.
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Make sure your name is entered at my travel blog, Tell Me When to Pack, for one of the Mystery Prizes from Down Under. So far, you can enter up to 3 times–#1 and #2 and #3.
Friday, August 5th, 2011
Pulling heroes out of hiding
I want you to meet my cousin Rebecca.
Her beauty is not only on her face, but in her heart. Her heart is huge and keeps her looking toward far corners of history and geography, on the lookout for the works of God in people’s lives.
I am thankful that in her books she shares her discoveries with us.
She wrote first about more well-known historical figures– Amy Carmichael, George Mueller, and Fanny Crosby.
Her most recent books are the beginning of her Hidden Heroes series– With Two Hands: Stories of God at Work in Ethiopia and The Good News Must Go Out: Stories of God at Work in the Central African Republic.
Obviously, there’s another book underway. Rebecca tweets teasers, and is posting chapters on her blog.
You go, girl!
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
What do you give a woman who has . . .
Earlier this month the extended Henry family had its reunion at High Falls State Park. It’s been an annual event since about 1986.
Traditions have evolved around the event, and it seems a new one has been added this year. My cousin, Chris, suggested that each year we give, if we wish to, to a charity that is special to someone in the family. Each year the recipient organization would be different. He suggested that this year the gift be to The Gideons International, since several family members are Gideons.
Aunt Rachel followed up a couple of days later with this email:
Chris and I have been talking and thought that since it is Pam’s ninetieth birthday year, it would be good for our Gideon contribution would be in honor of her.
She has worked in the Gideon organization since she and George became members. Since George died, she in her boundless energy, has continued to be faithful distributing Bibles, in the jail ministry, and attending meetings and conferences. She has held offices both locally and statewide, and you do not have to be with her long before she will tell you about the greatness of this Great Commission ministry.
Pam is my mother, George my father. They joined Gideons in 1971–40 years ago this year. After Daddy died, for several years, Mother was The Gideons Auxiliary person responsible for staying connected with Gideon widows. Up until recently, whenever I visited, she was likely to take me to the county jail, to gather with women inmates with Gospel testimony, singing together–and, of course, giving Gideon New Testaments and other Christian literature.
So, what do you give a woman who has 90 years and whose treasure is in heaven? Bibles to give away, of course–$1600 to The Gideons, who will send 320 Bibles in local languages around the world.
Mother emailed the family:
I could not even begin to describe to you how your love impacts me. You have joyously reminded me of my upcoming 90th! However many days the Lord has allotted to me (and He says that our days are numbered), I enjoy every one of them, and so may you–abiding in the center of his will.
Your gift will bless some or many of the well over 190 countries where there are Gideon business or professional men and their Auxiliary wives, many of whom are living near poverty level but with rich hearts.
May our Lord bless you and minister to you in all your needs, as you share his Word where he sends you.
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
Using her gifts to bless
I am feeling very thankful tonight for our daughter, Talitha. God has given her a sweet gift: she loves to be with young children and they love to be with her. She’s saving up her babysitting money these days so she can use her gifts thousands of miles away next month to bless children and their parents from around the world.
Here are excerpts from a letter she wrote earlier this summer. I hope you will pray for Talitha and her teammates when you think of them.
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Dear Friends and Family,
This August I get the privilege of serving kids in Europe for God’s glory! My team and I will be organizing children’s programs and teaching them at a spiritual life conference. I am incredibly excited to connect with these kids who are coming from all over the world! May Jesus Christ be glorified in the ways we interact and what we teach these kids.
I am going with a team out of Bethlehem, called Club 4th. Club 4th works with Third Culture Kids, with the desire to connect with them and help them grow in their understanding of the 4th Culture, God’s Kingdom Culture.
As I prepare to go this summer, I am fully aware of my neediness. God will supply!
Prayer Needs
- Satan is on the prowl. He will try his hardest to make us doubt the goodness of God. Please pray that we would be armed and that we would fight off the devil with God’s power!
- Working with a team is good and fun, but also humbling. Please pray that we would be united in God and that when we correct each other, we would be kind. Also that when we have wronged someone we would be quick to forgive and forget.
- There are so many families coming from all over the world with all kinds of needs. Please pray that God would work mightily in the lives of these families and give them grace for whatever they need.
- Lastly, pray for the kids. We will be working with ages 4-11, and another group (not out of BBC) is working with ages 12-18. Each has unique needs. Pray that God help us as we connect and build relationships. Also may God help them connect in a powerful way with him.
Your prayer is much appreciated! I want so much for these kids to fall in love with Jesus like I have, maybe for the first time, or maybe again! I also want them to have a solid Christ-honoring relationship with their parents as they work together on the mission field.
Thank you for supporting me! May God bless you! This summer I want to be used by God for his all powerful glory! To God be the glory!
Talitha Piper
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
Saying Goodby
Today we say goodbye to the beautiful mother of one of our beautiful daughters-in-law. Maria Clara discovered cancer near the end of April and now–so quickly–she is gone.
She had moved from Fortaleza, Brazil, to Minneapolis about a year ago, so we’d been able to see more of each other since then. Sometimes I’d have the grandchildren and drop them off with her, their Vovó. Other times she’d drop them off with me, their Grandmama.
We two mothers celebrated together with our shared children and grandchildren this Mothers Day, which was also her beloved daughter’s birthday.
Not long ago, in the hospital, after I had prayed for her, she continued holding my hand, “Noel, I love you.”
“Maria Clara, I love you too. And I love your children and grandchildren very, very much.”
She said through tears, “You and I will raise our grandchildren together.”
Now we see that’s not going to be happening the way she’d hoped. But the love Vovó Maria Clara has poured into her grandchildren is not lost. It will always be part of their memories and of who they are.
No one can take your place, Maria Clara, but I will try to be a better grandmother to them, and remember you with them.
Thursday, July 7th, 2011
One of the things I love about my husband
Last weekend we had some special time with some of our grandchildren. When Johnny gathered them around him the first evening for a Bible story, one said, “Why do we do this every time before we go to bed?” Another said immediately, “Because it’s fun!”
Johnny explained that there’s lots more to it than fun. But I thought, “What more can you ask for than that a 6-year-old love the Bible stories for any reason, including Granddaddy being such a good storyteller?”
Here’s a glimpse of the next evening.
Once there was a very wicked man named Haman. He wanted to kill all the Jews. But there was a very brave girl named Esther. Haman didn’t know she was a Jew . . .
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Memorial Day: Not all our fallen are vets
Southern families whisper memories of brother fighting brother. Maybe that’s why we called it The War Between the States, instead of The Civil War. A fractured family was a symbol of the fractured nation. More recent wars also have splintered families, and not always on the battlefield.
Decoration Day, 1956
We 3rd graders stood on the playground watching the big kids—the 7th graders—line up on the eroding side street. Each held a bunch of flowers that ladies had picked from their gardens that morning. The boys’ fistfuls of daisies and delphiniums dragged limply toward the 4-inch cuffs of their dungarees, and the scrabble of their black Keds hightops scuffed up swirls of red dust.
“Line up straight. Hold your flowers in front of you. Follow me,” fluted their teacher. The procession wormed its way to a nearby cemetery, where the children laid their bouquets on the graves of some of the South’s fallen heroes.
Fall, 1964
I waited in the concessions line for my usual—a bag of Tom’s peanuts and a green-bottled Coke to dump them into. “Can I watch the game with you?” came a voice from behind me. I’d seen him before. He went to the “town” school and bagged groceries in the afternoon.
After that, I always did the groceries for Mother. The other bagboys knew he’d take my stuff out to the goldish green ’60 VW bus.
There wasn’t much happening in our town. We’d drive fifteen miles to the nearest movie theater or cruise in his ’57 Ford to see who was hanging out at the Burger Palace or the Rec Center.
The next school year, I went north to college. He went further south. We saw each other that first Christmas holiday, but not at Easter.
Christmas Vacation, 1968
Back home during Christmas break, I looked up from counting oranges in the produce aisle and saw him where I’d seen him so often a few years earlier. “Hi,” he said.
“Oh, hi.”
“I hear you’re getting married.”
“Mm-hm. Next week,” I answered.
“Yeah, well, good luck.”
Spring, 1970
Mother’s letter ended, “You remember him? Well, he died in Vietnam. We went to the memorial service last week out at his mother’s church.”
Far away in my new home, I sobbed. I had never gotten as far as loving him. But he had been a steady friend through my last year at home.
By now the South had conceded; Decoration Day had become Memorial Day, a day for a whole nation to remember together all who have fallen in all its wars.
Summer, 1984
The blue-and-white trolley stopped at the Lincoln Monument. I stepped down and walked toward the Vietnam Memorial. I found his name among 58,228 others—lines of emptiness chiseled from black granite.
Summer, 1992
Vacation biking was reacquainting me with my childhood countryside. From one vaguely familiar crossroad, I pedaled onward several miles between grassy hills. Suddenly I recognized where I was. There was the farmhouse that had been in his mother’s family since before the Civil War. I rolled my bike to the door and knocked.
His brother greeted me. “Come in! Come in! You’ll want to see this! These are his things.” We stepped into the entry hall and faced a wall of certificates, souvenirs from his travels, letters, pictures of him, a rubbing of his name from the Wall, and more—too much to remember. His brother eagerly pointed out each thing. I wondered, did this living brother have to run the gauntlet of dead-brother memories every time he entered the house?
But the dead brother was in the living room too—a life-sized portrait sat on the TV alongside a vase of roses. “Mama keeps fresh flowers by his picture.” Anyone reclining in the Lazy Boy for the 6 O’clock News would be peering into his smiling, forever 23-year-old face.
But we were living people in the living room. I turned to his brother, “What’s happening with you?”
“Well, I was married, but . . . and I’m out of work, so I’m here with Mama a while. It’s not what we expected. It would’ve been different with him. I couldn’t hardly finish school, but he was always on the dean’s list. He had great ideas of what he’d do. He never got the chance. Sure wouldn’t’ve been like this. Mama thought he’d have children as smart as him. But now . . . life’s so different than . . . maybe the wrong one . . . .” His voice slipped to nothing.
“Uh, well,” I broke the silence, “it’s getting to be suppertime. I better go.”
“But Mama’ll be back soon. She’ll want to see you. Can’t you stay a little longer?”
“No. I have to go now.”
“Well, watch for her—’76 Cordoba, burgundy—big old thing.”
I hugged the right shoulder and glared at hayfields and heifers on my right as I pumped my pedals. I didn’t see a car.
2005
Mother’s email ended, “Remember? There was a brother who died in Vietnam. Well, this other brother still lived at home and was killed in a farm accident. There was a memorial service last week out at his mother’s church.”
Memorial Day, 2011
As we honor our war dead today, I’m remembering that not all of our fallen were front-line veterans.
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
When Mothers Day isn’t a celebration
(Update: I have added to the lists below as God has brought more of you to mind during the day. And I hope you will read Julie’s blog which I added later.)
God knows, Mothers Day is the hardest day in the year for some of you.
Large bouquets of white roses are at the front of our church. If you were with us this weekend, one of those roses would have been for you.
Your sadness may be related to your mother:
- Your mother is not alive.
- Life with your mother was too difficult to celebrate.
- Your mother wasn’t part of your life.
- You can celebrate with your mother because she lives too far away.
- Your mother is ill or suffering dementia.
It may be grief related to your own mothering:
You have longed for children but have never been able to be pregnant.- You have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth and never had even one sweet moment of looking into your baby’s eyes.
- After that loss, you fear it might happen again.
- You laid your baby down to sleep one afternoon or evening, and your little one never woke again.
- After losing that child, you feel fear when you look at your other children or think of having another.
- You were so close to adopting the child you already loved from a distance, and then the plans fell through.
- Your child–whether a child or adult–lost the battle to a disease, or died accidentally, or was murdered, or took his or her own life.
- Your child was placed for adoption and has another mother now.(If this is you, I hope you will read Julie’s blessing and thanks to you.)
- You grieve over a pregnancy you chose to end.
- Your child is alienated from you.
- You’ve always dreamed you’d be married by now, with children, and that hasn’t happened.
- Your child has a disability that doesn’t permit you ever to hear “I love you” from him or her. (If this is true, I hope you will be comforted today by John Knight’s post about his wife and son)
God knows. That wasn’t a throw-away phrase I used at the beginning. God does know. He knows your fear, grief, anger, anxiety, love–the welter of emotions today that you hardly know how to name. He knows that even though you may be mostly composed most days, this day stirs it all up.
I pray that your church and others close to you will be Christ’s hands and heart for you today.
Even if other people aren’t aware or sensitive, I pray for you today that you can feel deeply the com-passion (together-suffering) of Jesus who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows.
Friday, May 6th, 2011
The beauty of my mother
It’s true that “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field” (Isaiah 40:6). But still, God does create beauty for us to enjoy short-term. Sometimes short-term is quite a few years.
This week, I’ve been organizing some old photos of my mother from the years before I knew her.
Of course, there’s a beauty that’s much deeper than what a photo can show. “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).
Thank you, Lord, for a mother who fears the Lord.
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
Virtues of a weed
I’ve heard tell that old-fashioned mint plants are a nuisance–plant them and they’ll take over your garden and you can’t get rid of them. I guess that makes them a weed–a plant no normal person would want in her border.
They’re one of the first things thriving in my border this cold spring, so I guess Shakespeare might agree they’re weeds: “Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.”
But wait. “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). So no way is my mint a weed. I know its virtues.
- It’s hardy, growing where nothing else has survived all these years.
- It’s handy, right by my back steps, so when my hands are free, I tear off a leaf on my way into the house.
- It smells wonderful when I brush against it or hold that torn-off leaf to my nose until I need my hand for something else.
- It brings to mind my sister who planted its great-grandparents there soon after we moved into this house 28 years ago.
- It’s a bit of nostalgia, because she brought those ancestral sprigs from our home in Georgia.
So I’m going to have to disagree with Francis Bacon who said, “A man’s nature runs either to herbs, or to weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.” Wrong on both counts, Francis. My hardy, minty herbs don’t need me to water them, and I’m certainly not destroying these valuable “weeds.”
Oh yes, one more virtue of my mint–it reminds me not to be a hypocrite, but to love justice and mercy and faithfulness.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”
Saturday, April 30th, 2011
Like mother, like daughter
Our small group women met at Caryn’s house recently. Here’s what I saw on a handy shelf in Caryn’s kitchen.
Guess what was on Carysse’s kitchen shelf?
That little green book is a New Testament.
My mother used to tell me that actions speak louder than words. That may be an overstatement, but actions–examples–do indeed shout.
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Easter Mountain
Several years ago, our son Abraham gave instructions for making an Easter Mountain to use with his family during Holy Week.
