Soon, no more "Goodbyes.". Just "Hellos".

It  was hard to walk into my house from Texas a week ago tonight and have no Ted to tell all that I am about to tell you. Be kind to widows, my friends. We tend to blabber.  I talk to my cats and they appear interested for about thirty seconds before they head for their food bowl.

My Father graced me with ten days of renewed wonder at His powerful ministry at Round Top Retreat in Round Top, Texas. Seeds are sown, plants watered and fruit has been harvested for over thirty years in this impossible-to-describe beautiful Place of Love that Euphanel and Nick Goad have built and offer to thousands who come. Each week a different group or groups come from far and wide. The week Nick Goad came to Christ, thirty-five years ago, he asked my Ted: "What does Jesus want of me? " Ted's reply: "Everything you've got!" Nick said, "He's got it!"  ...and he meant it

Last week FirstPlace4Health filled the Great House whose dimensions are exactly those of Noah's Ark. All rooms in every house are perfectly decorated in Texas style. Euphanel is a genius with style and color. I observed and participated in the eternal activity of the Holy Spirit as He touched the hearts of women from across the nation who came with varied levels of hope that they would learn  to eat right, exercise, and have renewed zest for Jesus and life.   My dear Michele, long-time professional entertainer on the world's stages, for the first time ever, led every session with upbeat  worship music she had either written or discovered as she searched for just the right words to put a new song in the hearts of everybody. Every meeting was a zinger.  Michele has lost 60 (That's 60!) pounds since last year's FP4H retreat. ...a perfect marketing visual for the program, wouldn't you say? I didn't want to say "goodbye" to my dear friends, Nick and Euphanel. My insides wrenched and I cried as we hugged.

Sometimes, after some "goodbyes" there are surprising "hellos". Our first son, Doug, now in Heaven with Jesus and his dad, was married to Judie for nine years when we lived in Houston. She lives in that city,  has a job that challenges her, but her greatest joy comes in being a mother to her adopted Chinese daughter, Harper. The two came all the way to Round Top to see me and there are no words to tell you what a gift they gave me. Over twenty-five years were swept away and left where they belong: in the past. She is a lovely Christian woman with a darling Christian little girl who drew a picture for me and addressed it to "Mrs. Jo". I love the way Texas kids are taught to treat adults.

This week I was kind of tired and sometimes glum from all the emotions my time in Texas stirred. Other friends came, but I simply had no energy to make it into Houston to see others and I am sad about that. I just couldn't do it this year. My dear Char and Jim who picked Michele and me up at the Bakersfield airport handed me "The Californian" with side-by-side obituaries of two men, Ken and Dexter, whom Ted and I knew for many decades.  One is in Heaven; the other, as far as the family knows, is not. How can this be? Both heard the Gospel. One received it wholeheartedly and gave his life to serve Christ and others; the other, wealthy by any standards, chose not to be in Heaven with Christ his wife and sons. I cannot get Dexter off my mind. He knew The Way.

The ministry God has set me apart to do will pick up this week and I am ready. A beautiful teenage girl called me early this week to tell me she is overwhelmed by the girls who are showing up in a restaurant to pray with her after school on Fridays.  "Would you come and help me, Jo?" Most of the kids who come to the Thursday study at the Howells are boys, and I love them dearly. I sat in on this girl's prayer time yesterday and boy howdy, how different this adventure is going to be! Girls spill everything. Guys? ...not so much. 

How do I know I am to immerse myself in the lives of more teenagers? He hasn't released me from this verse yet: " Even when I am old and gray do not forsake me, O God 'till I declare your power to the next generation; your might to all who are to come." Psalm 71:18

                                    HYMN OF THE WEEK: PRAISE THE SAVIOR

Praise the Savior, ye who know Him! Who can tell how much we owe Him?
Gladly let us render to Him all we are and have.

Jesus is the Name that charms us; He for conflict fits and arms us
Nothing moves and nothing harms us while we trust in Him.

Keep us, Lord, on Thee relying, whether living, whether dying
Let no bitterness or sighing mar our trust and praise.

Love, Jo

God doesn't waste any agony.

I've gotta take a break from what is going on now in our country and pull up a miracle from the past.  We could surely use one now.

Had I known that the Lord was going to boot us out of the visible church when we left California after eighteen years of ministry I would have left skid marks all the way to Houston. You see, He deposited us there in December of 1974,  in a new pastorate. ... for three weeks,  then sent us off for weeks  and weeks to Southeast Asia where we moved from Tokyo , Japan to Hong Kong, China,  to Taipei, Taiwan, to Singapore, to Jacarta, Indonesia, back to Singapore, to Manila, Philippines, then to Viet Nam just as the axe fell and the boat people began to flee. Our mission? To encourage the missionaries in each country.  As our planes landed, we were quickly drawn into the human exasperations that plague every full- time Christian worker, whether in America or in the hinterlands. We barely had time to take a quick nap between each mission field before landing smack in the middle of the next muck and mire that our enemy, Satan had created to stop people from being reborn. (Tuck that away when the next bloody fight seems to come out of nowhere in your church or ministry.  No matter who the players are in  the drama the silent director is always Satan whose motivation is to stop the harvest.  His favorite cast: the older believers who should know better.) 

Viet Nam was the granddaddy of all mirey swamps. Literally.  We were working with Overseas Crusades Missions alongside Dr. Ed Murphy and his wife, Loretta, helping two American doctors set up a medical clinic in the highlands (Dalat), a couple of hours north of what was then Saigon.  Bunkers were everywhere; we were never out of hearing range of shooting. A beautiful team had led most of the Su Tong Tribe of about a thousand to Christ. They were without any medical provisions whatsoever. After a week of being in and out of the tribe, a knock came on our host's door informing us that we needed to leave immediately, or we would not be able to escape.

...but God was protecting this little tribe who had no way to escape.  A Vietnamese guerilla was captured by our army men and interrogated as to why this totally vulnerable tribe was never massacred.  His answer: "We couldn't touch them. They were always surrounded by a large white army." Now, let that roll around in your head and heart.

Our taxi raced to get us to the Saigon airport which was soon to close down. We were each handed a terrified  half-Vietnamese half-American baby to hold. Catholic nuns had rescued these babies and were bringing them to America for adoption.

Those experiences did something to both Ted and me. We could not speak of them, even to each other, for the feelings of horror from all we had seen in every country had numbed us. The words that had flowed from Ted's pulpit ministry in California no longer flowed.  I could not find joy in church meetings.  A Macedonian call came to me shortly after I had unpacked our suitcases, and I was off and running.  ...all over Houston. Ted gave that pastorate his best shot but soon I needed him to work with the men whose wives were coming to Christ.

Enter Euphanel and Nick Goad, new in Christ and ready to go!  Together we launched home ministry after home ministry which reached people at the top of the financial chain to the cellars of drug runners. Somewhere in that time frame, Euphie and Nick bought some acreage, a barn, farmhouse and tank ("lake")  a couple of hours  west of Houston and we began to escape the hot, humid city with them on weekends, dragging along college and career people, ...and that was the innocent beginning of Round Top Retreat. I suggest that you pull up the website. Thousands go there now, for thousands of reasons. I remain on the Board, and my dearest Texas buddies, Euphie and Nick, time our yearly Board meeting in October at the same time  First Place4Health holds their national gathering of men and women. That ministry has opened up another unexpected adventure for me. In my home as I write is a FP4H leader who is here for a break before we head into the Retreat at Round Top, Texas, next week. On October 10,  Michele, professional singer-turned totally committed Christian, and I will fly to Austin, where Euphie will pick us up and we will begin a week and two days of high adventure with FirstPlace4Health. Pull that ministry up on your computer too, if you are up for it.   I will return to my mountain on October 20. Try to survive without my blog.

                                   HYMN OF THE WEEK: TRUST AND OBEY

When we walk with the Lord in the Light of His Word; what a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey
TRUST AND OBEY, FOR THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO BE HAPPY IN JESUS
BUT TO TRUST AND OBEY.

Love, Jo

...but I thought You came to bring peace, Jesus

There was a holy reason the Spirit guided me to Proverbs 16:7 when Christ took over my life when I was nineteen years old. My family of origin was negative and critical, except for my maternal Christian grandmother who lived with us and left us for Heaven when I was fourteen. From that time on, it was as if someone reached up and turned off the light switch. Darkness set in for the next five years. That "darkness" felt like this: "You are bad and we adults are here to tell you so." Translated: "You will never be worth an investment of any kind."

...then a few adult Christians welcomed me into their circle and showed me that I was worth their investment.  The Holy Spirit Who had entered my soul guided me to Matthew 10:34:  "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword, for I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." I began to experience the pain of the "Dividing Sword" of Jesus. At the same time I was experiencing the beauty of the pure, sacrificial love of Christ in my emerging Heavenly family.

One of the many times when Jesus was talking with a crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him, "Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you'.  He replied to him, 'Who is my mother and who are my brothers?'  Pointing to the disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother.' "  His dear mother had been told by the angel Gabriel "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God." ...and she replied: "I am the Lord's servant...."  As the news of her pregnancy leaked into the community, Mary suffered as the Sword divided.  Later, as Jesus spoke to the crowd, she had to have known that her son's words did not apply to her.  Jesus' brothers had not yet believed that He was the long-awaited Messiah.

Because of the terrible damage to my young soul years ago, I pick up very quickly on legalism that portrays a Heavenly Father Who is never satisfied with anything we do for Him.  I have been convinced for years that when people enter into the thrilling knowledge and comfort of His unconditional love most lift their bar of behaviour higher.  I have been a mentor/discipler/counsellor for many years. Never once has anyone come to me, broken and discouraged,  that has understood that God the Father measures their preciousness to Him by every drop of the blood of His Son. Many have suffered rejection from members of their own family , religions, or Christians who hold them hostage through guilt, shame and blame.

Paul won the prize when the Sanhedrin held "Biggest Bully of the Year" contests . ...but  then later, after he was cleansed forever from the terrible murders he had committed,  he wrote in II Corinthians 5:17 " "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ...God was reconciling us to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them."

I distance from Christians who are in bondage to the evil one who tells them: "You are a dirty, rotten sinner and that is all you will ever be!" That person has made an idol out of someone. So, my dear friends, what idol is holding you hostage? Does that "idol" wield more power over you than the Father and His infallible Word?  Remember how the Egyptians worshipped idols? Then remember how God caused those very idols to drive them to the brink of insanity?  That's what idols eventually do, even idols in the form of human beings and institutions.  In Exodus 20:2, 3,  He told the Israelites: "I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me". 

                 HYMN OF THE WEEK: SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART

What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart!
I have light in my soul for which long I had sought since Jesus came into my heart!
SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART; SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART
FLOODS OF JOY O'ER MY SOUL LIKE THE SEA BILLOWS ROLL
SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART!
I'm possessed of a hope that is steadfast and sure since Jesus came into my heart!
And no dark clouds of doubt now my pathway obscure since Jesus came into my heart!
CHORUS

Love, Jo

Mom, Dad's in the scriptures

It was about a week after Ted was gathered into the arms of Jesus and taken to Heaven. Second son, Jeff called from Sacramento to say: "Mom, Dad's in the scriptures!" I didn't reply for a minute because I didn't understand what he meant. Then he explained: "Everywhere I am reading in scripture, Dad is there"!  ....and it's so true. I am just finishing reading through Genesis in the "One Year Chronological Bible", and I've been thinking all the way: Maybe Ted has already met Adam and Eve, Abel (oh, Cain, why did you not read the directions?), and the bazillion or so progeny that followed.

I,  along with many of you, "groan for Heaven". I weep for it sometimes, actually, but then my Father brings over my phone or through my computer a reason that causes me to say, "Uhh... I didn't mean it, Lord.  I can wait a little longer". One day this week a  young man invited me to a Bible study he has started and asked me to wrap it up at the end. Less than a year ago, this young man's life was in a shambles. As I listened to him present a well-thought-through Bible lesson,  I thought my heart would explode with joy! This week has been one of those that has brimmed with reports of God's heaven-activity through the lives of precious ones who are drenching themselves in God's Word  and partnering with Jesus to bring hope and new life to others. 

Some of us have been searching for Jesus in the Psalms in our Bible studies. Psalm 40 has for years been a "Balm in Gilead" for me and I cannot count the many that needed to read, absorb and be lifted by it that He has brought into my life. ...but I have missed the main Person in the Psalm. It's JESUS!  "For we do not have a High Priest  who is unable to sympathize  with our weaknesses , but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." This Psalm is about His suffering before and during the Cross. I have been so focused on my suffering and the suffering of those that come for comfort that I missed God's graphic description of the Lamb's suffering altogether.

We would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that as a nation, we are in serious jeopardy. If we do not bless Israel, we will no longer be blessed by God.  ...but to let that fact control my mind, my emotions and my will is sin.  Yes, we are to "wait expectantly" for His coming to fetch us,  but we are not to be bored and boring while we wait!

Years ago I heard Charles Ryrie (professor at Dallas Seminary) speak on I Thessalonians 1:10. Greek scholar that he was,  he translated the verse this way: "(We are to ) wait UP for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead --Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath". Now, we know that the term "wait up" isn't even considered correct grammar, but the Greeks apparently didn't know that. While we "wait" we start our days with, "O.K. Father. What are we going to do together today? Let's get after it!"

                                HYMN OF THE WEEK: HALLELUJAH, WHAT A SAVIOR!

"'Man of Sorrows," what a name for the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim! Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Bearing  shame and scoffing rude; in my place condemned He stood
Sealed my pardon with His blood; Hallelujah! what a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we; spotless Lamb of God was He.
Full atonement, can it be! Hallelujah! what a Savior!

Lifted up was He to die; "It is finished!" was His cry.
Now in heav'n exalted high; Hallelujah! what a Savior!

When He comes, our glorious King; all His ransomed home to bring
Then anew this song we'll sing,  Hallelujah! what a Savior!

Love, Jo

How long?

I just received a note from a dear  friend, former astronaut Commander Jack Lousma: "How long will God continue to bless America despite its disobedience?"  Jack, I don't know. You and I and others like us are sounding more and more like Jeremiah, the weeping Prophet. .... but with good reason. Perhaps the Lord's final judgment on America will be withheld longer, giving us a shot at repentance.  You, Jack, who have twice viewed our Planet from space and have twice been astounded by God's amazing Creation and have testified of His might and power to thousands around the world, have a perspective that we groundlings must gain from scripture alone. ....which is pretty "astonishing" all by Itself. We are without excuse if we ignore God's megaphone call to "Return to ME!"

This is an old illustration, but maybe new to some of you who read this blog: Are we Christians all suited up in the finest of deep sea diving equipment, sitting in  bathtubs that are fast filling up, frantically trying to hold down the plug?

I quote from Jonathan Cahn's excellent book, "The Harbinger" (the definition of which is: "a person who comes before to give an indication of what is coming next; a herald") :   "Has America turned away from God?...Yes, it has turned and is turning.  ...As with ancient Israel, America began ruling God out of its life, turning, at first subtly and now more brazenly. ....In America's greatest moments there was always sin, and in its worst moments, greatness. ...In the middle of the twentieth century America began officially removing God from its national life. It abolished prayer and scripture in its public schools.  As ancient Israel had removed the Ten Commandments from its national consciousness so America has done likewise, removing the Ten Commandments from public view, banning it from its public squares, and taking it down by government decree from its walls. ... God has been progressively driven out of the nation's public life. The very mention of the Name God or Jesus in any relevant context  has become more and more taboo and unwelcome unless for the purpose of mockery and attack. That which has once been revered as sacred is now increasingly treated as profanity. And as God was driven out, idols have been brought in to replace Him. ...idols of sensuality, greed, money, success, comfort, materialism, pleasure, sexual immorality, self-worship, self obsession. ...The nation has forgotten its foundations, its purpose and its calling. What was once known as immoral, is now accepted. Its culture has become increasingly corrupted.....growing more crude and vulgar. A wave of pornograpy now penetrates its media. The same nation that was once dedicated to spreading God's light to the nations now fills the world with the pornographic and the obscene. ....Some would call it tolerance. ...Yes, the same tolerance for everything opposed to God, a growing tolerance for immorality and a growing intolerance for the pure. ...Children are taught of sexual immorality in public schools while the Word of God is banned. It was tolerance that put the profane on public display and removed nativity scenes from public sight. ....a strangely intolerant tolerance."

My dear friends, this aging woman is trying to stay calm enough not to have a stroke or heart attack (which took the lives of both my grandmother and mother). That would be so unfair to my remaining children after all they have suffered from the deaths of their dad and brother. This is the verse my Father thrums through my mind daily:  "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, mind your own business and work with your hands". It steadies me. Eating right, keeping my weight 'way down, walking and taking in great gobs of biblical truth and dispensing it as my Father opens doors for the Gospel,  staying away from people who are lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,  unforgiving,  slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (lazy, welfare mentality), having a  form of godliness but denying  its power, has narrowed the list considerably of people I once thought I had to be around. In fact, He has specifially told me to "have nothing to do with them."  I Timothy 3:1-5. Read it for yourself.


                       HYMN OF THE WEEK: STAND UP FOR JESUS

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high his royal banner; it must not suffer loss
From victory unto victory, His army shall He lead
'Iil every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.

Love, Jo