She said, “I always have a praise for my Lord.”
I met Mrs. Evelyn (the name I knew her by) almost 2 years ago when my wife and a friend were doing Meals on Wheels in our city. My wife told me about her – how encouraging she was – several times. I was finally able to meet her on the day after Thanksgiving. Meals on Wheels did not deliver that day, so several of our friends got together to make meals and deliver them to the people on the Meals on Wheels route. That was the day that I met Mrs. Evelyn and several members of her family.
That day, I also met Evelyn’s husband Donald who was in the final stages of suffering from black lung. Over the next few months, I had several opportunities to speak with Evelyn and Donald. She always had some word of encouragement for me and others, while he usually talked about World War II.
She had not been able to gather with any believers for a long time because she had been taking care of Donald. I had great discussions with Evelyn about many different topics related to God and the church and family and faith… we talked alot about faith. Donald passed away early in the next year, and we were able to encourage and comfort Evelyn through that time of guilt.
Over the next year or so, Evelyn faced many trials in her life – looking for new friends her age, deciding where to live, etc. But, that was nothing new for her. Her life had been very difficult, growing up in the depression, living through World War II, facing difficult relationships, battling cancer.
Any time I talked with Evelyn, intending to encourage her as she worked through some of these trials, it always ended up that I was the one who was encouraged. When we gathered with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and when someone asked if anyone had a passage of Scripture, or a song, or a prayer request, or a praise that they would like to share, Mrs. Evelyn would respond, “I always have a praise for my Lord.” And she did.
She loved teaching people (especially children) through simple stories and object lessons. She loved to sing. She loved to remind people about the love of God and salvation in Jesus Christ.
Last Spring, Mrs. Evelyn found out that her cancer had returned. She was told that she only had six months to live. She was ready, whatever happened. She was in the hospital off and on a few times. Then, she got to the point physically when she could not eat or drink at all. As you can imagine, she became very weak and very frail.
And, she continued encouraging other people. Whenever I talked to her, she would ask me about other people that she had been praying for – my wife who had a persistent cough for a few months – some friends who were having their first baby – a friend who was having back problems.
My wife and I went to her house last Sunday (July 29), and we gathered around her bed with her daughters and a granddaughter (and a couple of dogs). We talked together; we sang together; we held her hands and listened as she told us how she trusted God and was ready whenever he was. She had such peace.
She asked me, “Do you have a Scripture passage to share with me?” To be honest, I had not prepared anything. But, I immediately thought of a passage in 1 Peter:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV)
Mrs. Evelyn passed away early Saturday morning, August 4. I shared that Scripture passage (and some of the stories here) yesterday when I had the privilege of speaking at her funeral, along with a few other people. One of those people was a 19 year old friend of mine who explained how much Mrs. Evelyn had encouraged him to both trust God during some difficult times in his life and also to demonstrate God’s love to others more faithfully.
She was not perfect, of course. But, she faithfully lived out the trust that she had in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She faithfully submitted herself to the Holy Spirit and allowed him to use her in the lives of the people around her. Yesterday, we heard from just a few people whose lives had been impacted by God because of her.
I thank God for the many, many living examples that he has placed in my life… people like Mrs. Evelyn.
Who are you? Who, who, who, who?
About once a year, I like to give my readers a chance to introduce themselves to me and to one another.
You see, one of the great things about my blog is the awesome discussions that take place in the comments of my posts. Oh, there are times when there are fewer comments, and there are times when there are more comments. There are times when the comments get off topic; sometimes I follow the commenters down the rabbit trail, and sometimes I choose not to.
Either way, I always love to hear from the different perspectives of my readers. But, I also love to learn more about you. I think it’s easier for us to understand one another the more we know each other.
Obviously, there are limitations to how much was can know one another online, but anything we can know more about each other helps.
So, what would you like to share about yourself? Where are you from? Where do you live? Are you married? Do you have children? What is your profession? What are passions or concerns? (I do ask that you focus on telling us about yourself and not talking against others.)
If you want to learn a little about me, the best place to start is the “About” page on this blog. However, if you have questions about me, I’ll be glad to answer those as well (maybe).
What are they trying to say, and who are they trying to reach?
In the small town that I live in, two church buildings have signs out front – the kind of signs that are usually covered in pithy sayings. One of the signs is used primarily to advertise yard sales (which happens quite regularly) or “gospel singings” (which also happen quite regularly). However, the other sign (the one that is next to a church building very close to the neighborhood where I live) is often used to convey some other kind of message…
When I see the sayings on this sign, they often make me groan, or roll my eyes, or shake my head wondering what they were thinking when they put that message on the sign. However, even when I disagree with the message, I can usually still understand what they are trying to communicate. And, even when I think the message is missing the intended audience, I can still usually figure out to whom the message was intended.
But, lately, the sign closest to our house has a message that has caused me to ask, “What are they trying to say, and who are they trying to reach?”
The message on the sign is this: “You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.”
Now, I know this is not a quote from Scripture. I’ve done a few internet searches, and, while I’ve found this quote several times, I can’t find where it is attributed to anyone in particular.
Even after thinking about it for several days, I still don’t know what the message on the sign means, and I don’t know who they are trying to reach with that message.
What do you think that message means? Who do you think the people are trying to reach by putting that message on the sign?
Back home – resting and catching up
We arrived back home yesterday afternoon (Saturday, June 23, 2012) after a week of working with many teenagers and adults from around the southeast. We were all in Norfolk, VA to serve people in the name of Jesus Christ through various forms of construction and painting. We were not building houses. Instead, we were working on houses that were in bad shape and whose owners could not afford to maintain them.
During the last week, I primarily spent time with two different groups: the people who traveled with me from Youngsville, NC, and the work crew which was made up of people from five different cities in three different states. It was a special time with both groups.
One of the young men in my work crew described it like this on Facebook:
My crew was so encouraging and each and everyone of them was awesome! They were always happy and willing and wanting to work! … Our crew ate together, laughed together, cried together, worked together, bernied together, and loved together. I could not ask for a better crew. It showed that people from around the country that have never met before can work together to spread the Gospel.
I was also very encouraged by the adults and teenagers that I traveled with. I learned so much from them, especially one young lady in particular who stepped outside of her comfort zone in many ways including sharing the gospel with people in the neighbor of the house where she was working.
It was a long week of hard work during hot and humid weather. So, I’m tired, and resting.
I realize that I have many comments on the blog that need a response. I hope to get to them in the next couple of days. Please be patient with me.
Spending the week serving others with the church
My wife organized a week-long service project that we will be taking part in with some friends this week (Monday, June 18, 2012 – Friday, June 22, 2012). We’ll be traveling to a neighboring state to do construction work – primarily painting – for people who live in a low income neighborhood.
Our family will be taking part as well as several other families of believers that we meet with regularly. Also, some friends of friends will be joining us. On top of all that, believers from other churches from other areas will take part as well.
Most of the people who will be taking part in these projects will be teenagers. I’m looking forward to spending time serving people with some friends, and also I’m looking forward to getting to know some other brothers and sisters in Christ.
During this coming week, I will not be publishing new posts. Instead, I’m going to link to the most read post from each year of my blog from 2007 to 2011. Also, I will not be able to interact in the comments as much as normal.
I hope you enjoy these old posts as much as I’m sure I’ll enjoy spending time serving people in the name of our Lord.
Thank you to Ed Stetzer and to Jeopardy
Something strange happened on my blog a couple of days ago.
First, Monday morning, Ed Stetzer linked to an old post that I wrote called “Luther and the non-Christian ‘worship service’.” I wrote that post four years ago, and I don’t think I’ve linked to it in the last few weeks (but I could have on Twitter or Facebook).
I usually don’t get links from big time bloggers like Stetzer, so I really appreciate it.
That night, I decided to check my site’s stats to see how many hits I got from Ed Stetzer’s post. I got a few, but what really surprised me was a big spike around 7:00 p.m. Now, this spike wasn’t huge, and it didn’t swamp my other posts or anything like that. But, it was a spike that I noticed.
After doing some investigation, I realized that the hits were all going to a post that I wrote last year called “The Day of Pentecost in the Upper Room.” Strange… Pentecost was a couple of weeks ago. Plus, these hits did not come from a link on someone else’s site. The hits came from search engines, searching from different locations (48 different states/countries) and different search strings all related to Pentecost.
I did not know why so many people around the world were searching for information about Pentecost a few weeks after the fact. So, I began asking around. And, Jeff had the answer. This is what he said on Facebook:
It was a question on Final Jeopardy…
It occurred last night and depending on what time zone you are on would determine when you were searching. There is controversy on the question and answer; so it sent people searching.
It turns out that the Final Jeopardy question for the episode that aired Monday, June 11, 2012 was this (the category was “Events in the Bible”):
Acts 1:13 says this event occurred in “an upper room.”
The answer that was ruled correct was “The Last Supper”… which is not correct. But, that’s beside the point. (In Acts 1:13, the only event to happen in “an upper room” is some people “stayed.”)
Apparently, the controversy concerning that “correct answer” sent many people scurrying to Google and other search engines in order to determine the correct “correct answer.” And, several of them landed on the post that I wrote last year.
So, I wanted to publicly thank Ed Stetzer and Jeopardy for the intentional and unintentional (respectively) increase in traffic to my blog on Monday.
Knowing who you are and how others identify you
This post is part of the June 2012 Synchroblog on the topic “What’s in Your Invisible Knapsack?” Yes, I know… that’s a strange topic/title. But, when you hear what it means, I hope you understand why I was interested in writing for this synchroblog.
(By the way, if you want to take part also, it’s not too late. You can find the details in the post “June Synchroblog – What’s In Your Invisible Knapsack?“)
The purpose of this synchroblog, is to consider who you are and what privileges you may or may not have in society based on who you are. Here is a longer description:
Whether it is white privilege, heterosexual privilege, male privilege, Christian privilege, able-bodied privilege or any other privilege that we enjoy through no effort of our own, we all have a tendency to be blind to our own position of privilege. We easily recognize the privilege in groups that we don’t belong to and ways in which we ourselves are oppressed, but we don’t tend to recognize our own unearned privilege that saves us from facing certain obstacles, gives us certain guarantees and benefits, and works to the disadvantage and oppression of others. We like to think that our success is something that we have worked for and earned when things may have turned out much differently if we were born with a disability or in a different place, if we were a different race, a different sex or of a different sexual orientation…
Here are some questions to get your creative juices flowing:
Do we take our unearned privileges for granted? How does unearned privileges hurt/harm others? Should we try to dismantle systems built upon unearned privileges? If so, what are some practical solutions to dismantling such systems? Are unearned privileges an obstacle to us putting other people’s interest above our own? Is our position of privilege impairing our ability to love others? How does unearned privilege impact educational systems, faith communities, neighborhoods, work places?
To me, my primary identity is as a child of God. However, I must also admit for most of the people who meet me, they will not identify me primarily as a child of God. Instead, they will identify me through various societal identifiers. And, some of those identifiers will reflect various types of “privilege” as listed above.
For example, I’m male. I’m caucasian. I’m married. I’m a parent. I’m employed. I’m educated. I’m a homeowner.
In many circles (societies), these markers do provide certain kinds of privilege. The society that I live among in North Carolina, USA does recognize these attributes as types of privilege. When I interact with people in this particular culture, they will begin to identify me (even before they know me) by these positive markers (because they generally view these things in a positive light).
In other societies (in even among some subcultures in North Carolina, USA), these same characteristics are not seen positively, but are seen negatively. When people in those societies (or subcultures) first begin to identify me (even before they know me), by these negative markers (because they generally view these things in a negative light).
In many ways, in order to rightly relate to other people, it’s important to both understand how others identify you (by those markers or characteristics or privileges) and also what those markers mean within those societies. At times, it may be necessary to work to demonstrate that you are not the same as they may think (based on those markers).
Of course, Paul said this better than I could ever say it:
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV)
While Paul wrote this in the context of proclaiming the gospel to unbelievers, it is just as applicable in the context of discipling and fellowshiping with other believers. The one who is “free from all” in Christ both recognizes the privileges offered to him/her by society and also gladly gives up those rights for the benefit of others.
This is life walking in the Spirit. This is following Jesus Christ, who is the epitome of giving up his rights for the benefit of others.
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June 2012 Synchroblog “What’s in Your Invisible Knapsack?”
Here is a list of bloggers taking part in this synchroblog:
Rebecca Trotter at The Upside Down World – The Real Reason the Term “White Privilege” Needs to Die
Carol Kuniholm at Words Half Heard – What Do You Have That You Didn’t Receive
Glenn Hager at Glenn Hager – Unjust Justice
K.W. Leslie at More Christ – Sharing From The Invisible Knapsack
Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – My Black Privilege
Alan Knox at The Assembling Of the Church – Knowing Who You Are and How Others Identify You
Leah Sophia at desert spirit’s fire – backpack cargo
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – Christian Privilege
One of my new projects: Online classes for homeschoolers
A couple of weeks ago, I told you that I had been slow to respond to comments because of a couple of new projects that I’m working on. At that time, I could not tell you too much about either project. But, now, I can tell you about one of those projects.
My wife and I are working with some friends of ours to offer online and in person classes for homeschoolers. The project is called “Engaging Education.” Currently, we are offering classes in Literature, Grammar, and Latin for middle school and high school students.
Eventually, we also hope to offer classes for adults as well as for elementary school students. These are not accredited type classes. Instead, they are simply helps for parents or adults who enjoy independent study but want a little help when it comes to planning, accountability, assessment, etc.
One of my long range goals is to include online classes in NT (Koine) Greek for high school students and adults. If I’m able to do this, I’ll post more information here.
If you homeschool your children, and if you’re still looking for curriculum content for next year, please look through our site at EngagingEd.com.
My son graduates from high school today
Today, my son Jeremy graduates from high school. We started homeschooling Jeremy when he was in the third grade, and we continued to homeschool him through this year, his senior year. (Here is an interview that my wife did explaining why we started homeschooling our children: “Part of our family’s homeschool story.”)
We’re part of a homeschool co-op that puts together a graduation ceremony for the seniors each year. This year’s ceremony takes place at 2:00 p.m. today. Many of our family members are in town, and we’re making this a special time for Jeremy.
But, in reality (and as I’ll say to him when I present his high school diploma to him), this is really just another step in a journey he started many years ago. Over the last few years especially, he has started growing into a young man, taking on more responsibilities and making more of the decisions related to his life.
Today, in my presentation, I plan to remind him of three things: 1) we love him, 2) we’re proud of him, and 3) he can trust God through anything.
We’re excited for Jeremy and for the plans that he has in mind.
I’ve been slow in replying to comments
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, then you know that I love comments and I love replying to comments. In fact, I’ve always said that the discussions that take place in the comments of this blog are much better than the blog posts themselves.
Also, if you’ve followed my blog for a while, then you may have noticed that I’ve been much slower to reply to comments during the last week or so. I don’t like that my replies have been slower, but that’s the way it will be for now.
I’m involved in two big projects that are taking more of my time. Hopefully, as these projects get off the ground, I’ll be able to interact more here.
I want you to know that I appreciate your comments, and I wish that I could reply to them quicker. But, for now, I will probably continue to reply slower than usual.
Thank you for your patience, and thank you for continuing to read and comment on my posts!