The Wordless Book

Betty's first husband Ralph left earth by way of a slow-moving brain tumor;  John, her second husband left by instant heart failure. ...but Betty Zimmerman Walker never flagged in her passion to follow Jesus with an ardent passion for the lost.  Widowed and left with four teenagers to raise, she had just married John.  Years ago Ted and I came home from someplace to find Betty Zimmerman Walker sitting on our front steps snugged up beside our little neighbor boy named "Danny Shearer".  She and John were on their honeymoon and dropped in unannounced so we could meet our dear Betty's new husband.  In her left hand was a green booklet that I recognized as the "Wordless Book",  a colorful tool created by Child Evangelism that has led countless numbers of children to faith in Christ.   Danny was listening to her intently as she turned the pages of the little book from black to red to white to gold, explaining that all of our hearts are black when we are born and without the red blood of Jesus being shed on the Cross they will remain black. He makes them white as snow if we ask Him into our hearts.  Golden streets await us in Heaven.   The green covering states that we are to grow like the green grass through God's Word. Ted, and a man we had not yet met and I stood quietly by and listened as our neighbor boy invited Jesus into his little heart. Betty went Home last month at the age of 95!  I sent Betty a list of  the names of five women years ago to pray for and all but one has come to Christ. ...and I'll betcha that Betty prayed for her as she lay on her final earth-bed. 

I have travelled enough.  My system likes to be in its own bed and eat its own food when it feels like it. It likes its cats snuggling up at night, and the great out-of-doors all around me.  ...and our wonderful climate and the blue sky and sunrises and sunsets, and so forth and so on. Reluctantly I recently turned down an enticing invitation to fly to an island off the coast of North Carolina to offer a musical Valentine outreach for the community.  Is it normal for a woman my age to be halfway through an event that has everybody around me eating and laughing and all I want to do is be at home in my big ol'  bed?  Do other aging people sleep a few hours then come fully awake, clearly hearing the Lord tell us how to resolve a situation that seemed blurry in the daytime?  The good news is this: I can snatch a nap throughout the day whereas as a wife of a pastor and a mom the thought of a nap in the daytime would have sent me into peals of laughter.

I wonder if Paul the Apostle did his best thinking and writing in the night.  ...or Matthew, or Mark or Luke or John, and all the other forty or so appointed listeners who wrote down what He spoke into them?    Paul had to have been in bodily agony from all the beatings he endured. ...a Ted-ism: "When  Paul went into a new town he never looked for the motels but staked out the jail because he knew he would be in it!"  ...and then to read that Paul  "beat his own body into submission".  It seems to me that others took care of that rather thoroughly.  Paul  wrote that it really didn't matter to him whether or not the Lord left him here any longer or took him on Home.  Some hours that's the way I feel,  but then I change my mind.  It's a good thing the Lord numbers our days.  I wouldn't want to miss tomorrow night when I entertain at the Apple Shed.  I'll have the staff place the tables in a half circle around the piano and we will sing Christmas songs.  ...and they won't all be about snow and reindeer and stuff that has nothing to do with our Jesus' birth.   Many years ago on a Christmas Eve twenty or thirty of us empty nesters who were having dinner at the Apple Shed were pretending not to be sad  that our kids were with their in-laws or friends.  The owner, George turned to me as he glanced at the old upright in the corner and asked, "Do you play the piano?" "Uhh, yes..." and he said, "Well, get over there and play some Christmas songs and we'll all sing." ...and we did and that's why, nine years later I am still at that old piano on the first Saturday night of every month.

I get to play in the next couple of weeks for some church Christmas musicals.  ...and then there is Tasha's Christmas piano recital.  She wants me to lead a Christmas Singalong for her students and parents. ...dear, dear  Korean Tasha who has been the instrument to recently bring one of her students to Christ, and now the student's mother as well. Both have joined the "Thursday Girls".  Some of the Girls have moved into their own ministries and I am so proud of them, but at the same time,  I miss seeing them on a regular basis. ...not at all unlike parenting.  We knock our socks off training our kids to leave home and then they GO and DO it!

By now it's 6 A.M., so right after I cook up something wonderful for my breakfast I will crawl back into my warm bed and have myself a little nap before whoever and whatever is supposed to happen today comes through on my Email, cell or land phone. People don't just drop by here on our mountain as they did when we lived in cities.  Bears do, however.  If you missed that story, you might want to check out the "He Was Hungry" blog.  I have no idea how to tell you to do that.  This computer still makes me break a sweat. It's been on strike for a couple of weeks, but after hours of techie magic it is behaving again. ...now if I can just find my mailing list.  I fully relate to the title of Florence Littauer's last book: "O.K., I Found My Keys. Now Where's My Car?" 

There is a Name I love to hear; I love to sing its worth.
It sounds like music to mine ear; the sweetest Name on earth.

OH,  HOW I LOVE JESUS; OH HOW I LOVE JESUS
OH, HOW I LOVE JESUS BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED ME.

Love,  Jo