God is economical

Summer vacations from school were four months long when I was a little girl growing up.  We farm kids were needed for the work that would supply food for the table in the other seasons.  I don't know what town kids did in the summer;  our lives didn't intersect until school started again after Labor Day.  I had no way of knowing then that the solitary life I led after my brothers left the farm when I was seven years old was preparing me for the life God had designed for me.

I had questions but did not know who to ask.  How did the corn kernels and wheat seeds that looked dead as a doornail when planted, pop up through the topsoil in a few days, alive and reaching for the sun?  Years later I read in John 12:24 and 25: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

How did most newborn animals instinctively know, with a minimum of nudging,  where to find their mother's milk faucet as soon as they were born?  Later, after coming to know Christ, I read in II Peter 2:2 and 3: "Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."  Human babies cannot find that "faucet" without help from an adult. It's called "discipleship".

Sometimes when Grandma and Mother didn't need me to snap beans or peel vegetables and fruit for canning,  I would wrestle a bridle, bit  and saddle onto our mare Patsy,  and away we would trot down a dusty road to visit people.  One family of five I loved consisted of a married couple, Clair and Julie, who cared for their deaf, dumb (unable to speak)  and blind aunt and father, and their mother who was deaf, dumb, but not totally blind, and could read and write.  This family communicated by making words at lightening speed with their fingers,  "feeling" those words on another's arms and hands. This family had no phone, so always my visit came as a surprise.  As I walked up to the screen door,  the Mother recognized me, threw her hands in the air with excitement,  drew in her breath in  gulps, ran to open the door,  took down a slate and chalk that always hung on a nail by the kitchen door and began to write  ...furiously. ...and I wrote back. We were friends.

Another family, the Smiths,  had a daughter, Patty, who was unable to walk, control her hands or body or speak words. When I came through their kitchen door, she too made happy, gasping sounds. She was a lonely little girl, but could not help herself out of her loneliness. Her parents carried her by throwing her over their shoulder for they could not afford a wheelchair. I played on the floor with Patty, making up stories about her few toys. Patty died when she was in her teens.

Why are these memories so vivid in my mind?  God, even then, was breaking my heart for the helpless.  My Ted and I were going to be in many countries besides our own throughout our sixty years in ministry. Our last trip to poverty-stricken countries in Southeast Asia tore at my heart so deeply that I determined never to invest in the lives of people who are drowning in doctrine, but still want more with no intention of sharing their riches with the poor in spirit.

As I write,  my own family is scattered all the way from Haiti on a mission trip,  to the Eastern slopes of the Sierras,  camping, fishing and hiking and the rest of them are on a high mountain trek on the western side of the Sierras. Who knows what Ted and Doug are doing in Heaven? A friend of mine asked me yesterday if I feel "left out".  Absolutely not! We introduced our three children to the wonders of the mountains from the time they were young. They watched their dad and me head off to foreign mission fields more than once. Now I can enjoy the fact that all are on the move and I can live here midst the nature I love, study, read, teach and write. I am not unable to speak; I am not crippled; I am aging but I am not helpless. Others around me are, and that's where my heart is. It all began with Clair, Julie, their "handicapped" relatives and Patty Smith.

I have been immersed in Isaiah and other prophets for weeks now. ... searching for answers to questions that have divided evangelicals since the church began at Pentecost.  God's best days are ahead!  Maybe that's all we need to know, after all.

                                                           RESCUE THE PERISHING

Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness
Chords that are broken will vibrate once more

RESCUE THE PERISHING, CARE FOR THE DYING
JESUS IS MERCIFUL, JESUS WILL SAVE

Love,

Jo