The Cost of Discipleship

We who are still here have an important, finishing work to do. ...and it isn't for the faint of heart.  As the Thursday girls left  today I sank into an exhausted sleep.  The mothers in my class are adjusting to empty bedrooms as teenagers leave for college. ...or marriage.  Elderly parents are dying; some girls are wedged into the "sandwich generation".   How well I remember!  None in my class has lost a husband yet, but most are wounded,  requiring more wisdom and energy than I humanly have to handle their multiple cultures, personalities and needs.   Discipleship is always about working ourselves out of a job.  I am requiring more of them now for I will be leaving them one day;  the Lord does not tell me when. 

For the first time in my life I need to have assistance carrying, putting away and cooking food.  My helper came at 10 this morning, whipped up a fabulous cauliflower soup for guests,  made chicken salad and stored it in one-helping containers, replenished my kitties' food stash, and set my kitchen in order before the others came through the door.  Listening to their sister-chatter is music to my ears.  At a quarter to one, the girls split into twos, quoted II Timothy 2:2 in whatever translation they chose,  prayed for one person they are telling about Jesus, and then we headed into Romans 9.  We are re-tracing our interrupted summer steps and opening our souls up even more to God's sovereign Plan for the Israelites and us,  His grafted-in chosen beloveds.  .My own immediate family is scattering to the north of the United States,  all the way east and all the way to Heaven. There won't be any more Thanksgiving dinners with fourteen of us around Ted's and my dining table. There won't be any more sharing of scriptures, praying for one another by name, laughing as six grandchildren race through this grandparent house, screaming with laughter when playing "Duck Duck Goose". There won't be any hide-and-seek games with grandparents, parents and children hiding in every nook and cranny of this house. There won't be any Doug outwitting everyone when all the lights are turned out as he clings to the rocks at the very top of the fireplace where no one thinks to look. There won't be any hide-and-seek games outside, and little girls racing to us terrified by the "tiger eyes" caught in the beam of the flashlight.  Like a mobile,  people, families and disciples are always shifting.  In Heaven all of my family will be together and "Oh, that will be glory".

...a brief wild-life report:  When my helper arrived this morning she burst in the door,  excitedly saying: "Come quick! There are big birds perched on your roof!."  A call to our local police affirmed that the three giant birds are California condors. ...a rare sight here.  They floated away on the thermals. The bear has disappeared from Dee and Brent's property;  no elks have napped in my driveway this week and the moon has disappeared for awhile.

Tuesday night  I looked around my assigned table at a fund-raising banquet for International Christian Missions. There was my beloved  daughter,  her college daughter and friend,  a new Messianic Jewish friend, and a precious couple whom I love.  I am so proud of Phil and Debbie Walker,  once teenagers whom our church sent off to live on a kibbutz in Israel, now for  twenty-six years,  President of a mission in Kenya that is training thousands of Africans for ministry.  While the news reports of Iran's hatred of Israel and American leadership's discounting God's Covenant with Israel can take us into despair our Sovereign Lord is redeeming others by the millions.  Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith requires perspective and constant disciplining of our minds.

I was not in a Sunday School class, youth group, youth camps, Bible conferences or church gatherings as I grew up.  My timid widowed grandmother who was forced to give up her home to my parents and three children must have suffered terribly.  I know there was never a swear word uttered in her home when my Grandfather Harlan lived.  I wonder: When I slip through the Gate will he be waiting? ...this righteous man whom I have learned about only through obituaries?   My mother fled from the Lord and eloped with my handsome, dancing, drinking Irish father.  She was my grandparent's only child.   Her choice of a husband must have broken their hearts.  Colonel Harlan Blair was, in my thinking the one who led the way to Jesus for me and all who come after me. His first wife died in childbirth and that son died of diphtheria during one of the many plagues that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people during the First World War.  Do we notice that many of the strains of influenza, small pox, measles, polio, cholera, dysentery and other plagues have practically passed from our vocabulary?  In their place is cancer, aids, STD's, diabetes, depression, obesity,  alcohol and drug addiction, and dozens of other diseases whose names I cannot even pronounce. ....all as a result of sin that works its way through the bodies, minds and spirits of human beings. 

            HYMN OF THE WEEK: ALL THE WAY MY SAVIOUR LEADS ME

All the way my Saviour leads me; what have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy who through life has been my Guide?
Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know whatever befall me, Jesus doeth all things well
For I know whatever befall me, Jesus doeth all things well

All the way my Saviour leads me; What have I to do beside?
Gives me grace for every trial, feeds me with the living Bread
Though my weary steps may falter, and my soul athirst may be
Gushing from the Rock before me,  Lo a spring of joy I see

All the way my Saviour leads me; Oh, the fullness of His love
Perfect rest to me is promised in my Father's house above
When my Spirit clothed immortal wings its flight to realms of day
This my song through endless ages, Jesus led me all the way.
This my song through endless ages, Jesus led me all the way.

Love, Jo