A City Life For Me

Continuing in the thoughts of my last post , when Jehoshaphat was faced with a difficult situation of almost certain anihilation, he turned his eyes to God and trusted the Lord to fight for him.  After the Lord sent a message through His prophet with instructions for Judah in the battle, their immediate response was to bow, worship, and sing praise to God.  God hadn't yet done anything, but Judah praised Him for what they knew He was going to do -- fight for them. These thoughts have been brewing for a little while, since the outbreak of COVID-19 that has turned our whole world upside down.  At first, our church wasn't able to meet at the public school we were renting because the schools were closed down.  So, we had church in our dining room for two weeks.  It was all very last minute, and unplanned.  My mind was swirling and things seemed uncertain.  I turned on my iTunes and started a playlist on random.  Each song, though having little to d...

For the last couple of months, in between my study time for ladies' Bible study group, I have been marinating in 2 Chronicles 20.  It is the story of King Jehoshaphat and the great multitude that comes against him in battle.  This force is more than he can handle.  Jehoshaphat has just been strengthening Judah, building the defences, and teaching the people from God's Word.  He is a good king. So Jehoshaphat doesn't just try to handle everything on his own.  He doesn't call up the reserves.  No - he leads his people in a national fast, culminating in a gathering before the house of the Lord.  And there Jehoshapat prays.  He adores God.  He praises God's strength.  He reminds God of His past works, and His future promises.  He calls God to notice that they have gathered at God's house to ask for God's help.  And then he throws himself at God's mercy, and leaves it all in God's hands, withwith these amazing words: "O our G...

On March 11, 2018 Elaine made a very important step in her spiritual growth.  It was an answer to a prayer I have been praying over the space of a couple of years.  Elaine asked to be baptized.  We had talked through baptism on several occasions, but always felt as if she didn’t understand completely, or as though her motives were wrong.  We didn’t push, but we prayed.  Elaine was in the Sunday morning service when Pastor Bickel announced an upcoming baptism.  She came to me and asked if she could be baptized.  We talked through things again and it was different this time.  Elaine called Pastor Bickel to talk to him.  He sent her a packet of information that she had to read and complete before she could be baptized.  It included a written testimony of salvation, and also several passages to look up and study to be sure that the picture and purpose of baptism was understood. Elaine completed her packet and submitted it to Pastor Bic...

I wrote this post on Friday, but I wasn’t ready to publish it yet.  While most years find us remembering this “Good Friday” as the day Jesus bore our sins at Calvary, prior to celebrating a glorious Resurrection Sunday, I was all set to enjoy this day, April 14, 2017, as a good Friday for another reason.  Today, at long last, we were to close on the house in the Bronx. Three years ago we began a life changing journey of deputation.  I admit, it wasn’t anything I had planned on doing (even as a missions major…I thought there must be a way out of it).  But it was good, and hard, and growing, and we crossed the finish line of that season of life on November 28, 2016, when we pulled into our temporary driveway after our last deputation trip.  Near the end of that process, we gave up a much-loved apartment in Brooklyn.  We moved into missions apartment in upstate New York, 2 long hours from my beloved Brooklyn, to save money on the rent.  It has been 19 ...

Last year I came across something called the Jesse Tree Project as a form of advent/Christmas devotions.  I think it is basically what my mom did with us several years, but it wasn’t called that.  I knew my kiddos weren’t ready for it last year, but Elaine has been understanding & retaining so much of her church & Bible Time {morning devotions} lessons that I wanted to try it this year. The idea behind this comes from Isaiah 11:1 – that Messiah will be a rod of the stem of Jesse.  We started with Creation and will explore the Fall, the major patriarchs, and some of the prophecies leading up to the Incarnation of Christ born in the manger in Bethlehem.  As I googled different Jesse Tree reading plans I found that many of them were Catholic.  Some go for more than 24 days.  The version I chose is simplified, and we read the stories from our children’s Bible in order to keep it understandable for Elaine & Nolan. I purchased my set of figures...

When Elaine was about 18 months old, I printed off some uber basic memory verses to teach her.  They were short, partial verses like, “Be ye kind” or “God is love.”  I put an icon or picture on each verse to help her learn by association and understand the verses better.  I think we had 8 or 10 verses to learn.  She did very well, and now I am using those verses with Nolan. But this summer Elaine was encouraged several times to learn longer verses.  She got to participate in our Summer Adventure Club at church, and she learned a verse each night (trying to win the grand prize for her age group).  I was impressed with how easily she learned the verses.  Then she learned all of Romans 6:23 for a friend’s VBS program.  She then quoted it to Grandma, Pastor, and her Sunday School teacher too.  And now each Sunday she wants to go to Sunday School and know her verse. For a while I have wanted to do ABC memory verses.  But all of the ones I...

In the Bible, names were very significant.  Parents named their children after the circumstances of life at that time, what they hoped or desired for their child, a special attribute of God, and sometimes the name was even decided by God before the child’s birth to have special significance to Israel.  I think I have recently become more aware of the meaning and significance of names as I read my Bible. Elaine’s name probably has the least forethought to significance of our kids. (Maybe as a parent I shouldn’t admit to that!)  I guess we got better at this as we’ve gone along?!?  I just really liked the name Elaine .  I can’t remember where I got it.  It’s not after anyone in particular.  But I wanted an Elaine.  Her middle name is Cristin.  This was purposely named after my best friend, Danielle Cristin .  Danielle was a special gift from God and the direct answer to my prayer for a friend when I went to college.  I loved how sh...

Many people have asked me about Nolan’s name, so I thought I would answer with a blog post.  Lot’s of you ask if he is named after this guy: Don’t recognize him?  That’s okay…I wouldn’t have either!  How about this? Yes…it’s the same guy – the famous baseball player, Nolan Ryan!  If you have been reading here long, you may remember this post where I said that we might name our first son Nolan after Nolan Ryan.  I was mostly kidding, though we did have “Nolan” our our list of boy’s names.  Nolan means noble or famous . So…is our son named after the baseball great?  Not exactly.  Ben loves baseball.  Ben admires Nolan Ryan as a baseball player.  But our Nolan is not a namesake.  You see names are important.  And we would only want to purposely name our child after someone if that someone was someone godly – a good example and testimony of living for the Lord.  I don’t know that much about Nolan Ryan to say one w...