Grace greater than our sin

I don't get David.  Talk about mood swings! If he'd been a woman we could blame it on PMS.  He, like Eli and Samuel before him, was a lousy father. He knew better than to multiply horses, but he sure broke God's rules when it came to women. What a mess he created for himself.  ...and he paid. ...and so did his kids...and grandkids... and the generations after. We always pay when we disobey God.  We who have believed and received God's requirement for payment of our past, present and future sin also know that there are consequences when we "know to do right and don't do it". I love my Reality Wednesday Bible study women. Honesty is a requirement. ...so is repentance. ...so is commitment to love and pray for one another when we know we have messed up. I could
probably take a stab at phoneying perfection.    ...but they all know me too well.

...which reminds me of a joke: It was Sunday morning. An irritated mom went to her son's room and yelled at him: "Get outta bed! You'll be late for church!"  "No,  Mom! Those people don't like me and I don't like them either. ...so why do I have to go?"  Exasperated Mom: "O.K., here are two reasons: You're 47 years old and you're the pastor of the church!"

My kids' dad was the pastor of several churches.  My kids have long since flown the coop: one, as you know, flew all the way to Heaven. Ted and I were twenty-one when we married. Doug was born when we were twenty-two. What were we thinking? That little guy was subjected to our inexperience as people, married people and we certainly knew nothing about parenting.  When Doug was about eleven years old, his daddy was reading him the story of Abraham and Isaac. In a quiet little voice, Doug said, "Daddy, I feel like Isaac." Ted's heart broke. No wonder Doug followed us to Houston, and then to Bear Valley.  In the last several years of both their lives, they shared an office in the hangar they owned together. Doug was still longing to have access to his dad without having to plow through a bunch of people to get to him. He wasn't a whiner. He covered up the pain he was enduring by being the "entertainer" wherever he went.  He screwed up plenty of times. ...just like David and he, like the rest of us,  paid for his wrong choices. Ted's death was terrible for us all, but for Doug? He was with his dad when Ted opened his eyes for the first time in weeks, saw Jesus, took two big breaths and left this earth. Doug wouldn't come to our home after his Dad went to Heaven. ... except for one time. He came through the garage door, walked all the way back to our bedroom where Ted had been confined to a hospital bed for eleven months, and marched back out the door with nary a word spoken. Eleven months later he followed his dad to Heaven.

If I couldn't experience God's grace about all of our screw-ups as parents, I would shoot myself. A few months ago son Jeff asked me what I would do different about my life? I replied: "I would never agree to going into the pastorate. The sacrifice was too great for our marriage and the family". ...then  the next Sunday I ate my words as I sat midst thousands of people from River Lakes Church, the church we pioneered in the 60's and early 70's. One by one, those who came to Christ during our years in that ministry are slipping away into Heaven. On Sundays I attend a class at Bear Valley Church where Ted pastored in the 80's. I look around in wonder at the fruit that continues to ripen and reproduce there.  In October I will return to Texas, our ministry from 1975 to 1984,  and be freshly astonished at the fruit that continues to produce new fruit. ..so, if given the choice again, would I willingly go into the ministry? I try in vain to figure it all out. I think David was trying to make sense out of everything that puzzled him as he wrote the Psalms. Now, there's a conundrum for you: a warrior who killed thousands with no conscience and yet wrote and sweetly sang like a little boy.

Last night I played at the Apple Shed. One elderly couple were the only ones having dinner when I started to entertain at 5 P.M.. When I asked them what they would like me to play for them, the gentleman, almost apologetically asked: "Do you know any Christian songs?" I chuckled to myself, and for the next thirty minutes went from old favorite hymns to foot stomping gospel.  I had a wonderful time all evening. The requests ranged from Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line",  to show tunes to, of all things a little boy asking if I knew "Nearer my God to Thee". Like many others in our little community,  this boy is taking violin lessons from Gayel Pitchford, learning to play that old hymn.  Gayel gets her beloved God-music into her students.   I'll wager that hundreds of  Tehachapi string-playing kids know "Amazing Grace". Gayel is a tough but tender Christian woman who came here after retirement as HR head over thousands of people, as well as serving as Captain on a naval ship. She started the Symphony Orchestra and continues to be Concertmaster all these years later. Gayel also plays a mean fiddle, and as I write I am determining to reconnect with Guy, Maria and her and play some old time fiddle ditties. I miss 'em.

Well, I'm done. Two of my Thursday Bible study boys are cutting my grass and yanking out some sprawling bushes for me today.  It's fun having two boys working side by side again, stopping to laugh and talk, which is what they are doing down below my window right now,  and it's fun cooking for two boys with huge appetites. ...for one day, anyway.

Granddaughter Lexi just called to say she will be by soon with her escort for the Senior Prom tonight. She will be drop-dead gorgeous and I will do what I always do: cry after she leaves. She will be a college student in the fall. Heaven will be wonderful for reasons we cannot imagine. ...but one thing we know: Our loved ones will stay put!
                                                
                                     HYMN SUNG WHILE THE TITANIC SANK

Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee
E'en though it be a Cross that raiseth me
Still all my song shall be
Nearer, my God, to Thee
NEARER, MY GOD TO THEE
NEARER TO THEE

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky
Sun, moon and stars forgot
Upward I fly
Still all my song shall be
Nearer, my God, to Thee
NEARER, MY GOD TO THEE
NEARER TO THEE!

Love, Jo