"God, is this the best You can do?"

There I was, 19 years old, thrust into a Christian school in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a thousand students who seemed to know everything about God. I would soon find out that they didn't. Billy Graham had thrown me a rope of hope, sent me to the school where he was President and then disappeared to reach more people with the Gospel than had ever been reached before or since. I rarely saw him after he deposited me in the music department which became my world. I looked around and muttered: "Where are the men with muscles?" ...and the girls? "Little House on the Prairie" would describe the way they looked. I got in trouble the first week with the Dean of Women, Mother Reilly, because I refused to take off my lipstick. I chuckle when I see Patricia sashay into my living room on Wednesdays for Bible study in her skin-tight sequined jeans and five inch wedgie shoes, picturing how Mother Reilly would react. We have to get our giggles where we can!

I fell in love with Ted Stone's muscles when we were both seventeen and he was throwing a baseball from the pitcher's mound that sent batters to the dugout again and again. ...so I prayed fervently that Ted Stone, the man with the muscles, would come to Christ. ...and he did. He had been in the medical corps in the Navy for two years, so naturally he assumed he was to go into the field of medicine and had already applied and been accepted at the University of Kansas to study....then I reentered his life and there went that plan. Never underestimate the influence of a woman!  I knew enough scripture after one semester in Northwestern to know I couldn't marry him. We broke up. That very night, he said to God, "I don't know if you exist or not, but if you do, come on in." ...no "sinners' prayer", no choir singing "Just as I Am". ...just a simple prayer of a young man who desired to know God.  I convinced him that he needed to come to Northwestern for a semester and get some Bible under his belt. He became immediately commited to learning everything he could from scripture and I don't think we ever had a converstion about his going into medicine. Instead he became a physician to people with bruised and broken hearts for the rest of his life.

I miss my teammate so. Pulling this wagon alone isn't as much fun, but I am not really alone. My own family comes around me. Muscle men show up to do what I cannot do.  Many others are in the wings when I need them. My greatest fun is on Wednesdays and Thursdays when God lets me teach His Word. I can feel lower than a snake's belly, but when a half dozen women walk into my living room at 1 o'clock on Wednesdays, I come to life. Pam, a hot-blooded Italian masseuse, said to me yesterday:"We are an eclectic group and I love every one of them." One is the City Hostess, another owns her own cosmetic company in Hollywood and flees to the mountains when she can; another is a fabulous singer/teacher; another, mother of four, prepares gourmet nuts and beautifully canned pickles for markets, one is a mother of seven and opens her home to teenagers who want and need to be there; another is a mother of six who helps her actor/musician husband in his field; this week a Doctor of Psychology will join us, and who knows who else.

On Thursdays, when I walk into Bob and Lynda's kitchen/dining room and ready myself for the teenagers that will begin to flow through the door, my Holy Spirit adrenaline kicks in. More kids are coming now than ever. Today I will go to the Howells for a swimming/food party and there will be dozens of kids there. There are many youth groups in churches around town and they are good ones. ...but there is something outrageously powerful about a couple like the Howells who are taking on the sacrificial responsibility of welcoming all kinds of kids with all kinds of needs into their private home.  Their ministry is very like ours was in Bakersfield when we were at Fruitvale/River Lakes. Our house brimmed with young people. ...and some of you are reading this and remembering, right now. Some of you are in pastorates; some in missions; hopefully all are responsible fathers and mothers, teaching and training your own children and grandchildren about Jesus and how to introduce others to him.

Ezra Howells is here weed-eating. Every spring, everybody who lives in this area scramble around to get this job accomplished. Fires are our great hazard. ...then of course there are possible earthquakes (The rocks and trees on my property have obviously been rearranged a few times over the years), ...no tornadoes or tsunamis or even torrential rains. We are fortunate if we get a sprinkle from May until after Thanksgiving. ...but the snows were abundant this past winter and our wells are brimming.

I have lived here 28 years and yesterday, for the first time, as I was coming home, a doe jumped out in front of my car; I could not have missed her and she is dead. The front end of my truck is a mess, but oh, well, that's life in the mountains. I have at least thirty deer that roam around my property. As I look out my kitchen window in the mornings, it is not unusual to look right into the face of a buck, doe or fawn, standing on the wall by my house.  A mother and her baby will often nap in the bushes on the hill by my front door. I could do without the rattlesnakes, but so far this summer none have shown up to scare me out of my wits. People up higher occasionally see mountain lions and bears. We have had gigantic elk on our property a couple of times...a startling sight!

O.K., now for the hymn that speaks to me and may speak to you as well, my dears.

                        HYMN OF THE WEEK: JESUS, I COME

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into thy freedom, gladness and light, Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health, Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself; Jesus, I come to Thee.

Love, Jo