Listening

by   May 1, 2021 with No Comments

By Doug Creamer

            I thought spring had arrived and was planning to stay, but last weekend Mother Nature reminded us that she can be fickle. My wife keeps many of her houseplants in the garage for the winter. When I think the weather has sufficiently warmed up, I begin taking them back outside. I had about half her plants outside when last week’s cold snap arrived.

            Thus began the process of bringing the plants back into the garage. The problem was that her potted perennial plants had come up and had produced lots of beautiful spring leaves. These plants, especially her beautiful hostas, needed some protection from the cold, too. The choice between her car and the beautiful plants being in the garage became no competition. The car was out!

            For a couple of days, the garage was more beautiful than a florist. My wife truly has some stunning, beautiful plants. Her plants and flowers make being on our porches a sanctuary. Their beauty and the peacefulness attract the Lord’s presence. I can sit for hours on either our front or back porch. My soul is refreshed by the beauty that she and God create.

            Many of the plants are now back outside, but there are still more plants in the garage that need to find their places outside. A few of them are extra-large ones and only get moved out and in once a year. So, we have to be sure all Mother Nature’s fun and games are done. Hurricanes can cause the plants to come back in the garage again, but that is a different story.

            I like to walk in my neighborhood and take in God’s handiwork in my neighbor’s yards. God really does a beautiful job at waking up the earth after a long and drab winter. Everything is in bloom and all that pollen drives my sinuses crazy, but I just love stopping and admiring all the beauty around me.

            I like to go for walks. My wife and I prefer to walk on the beach, but the neighborhood will have to do for now. Sometimes I will go for walks alone. I like to think about things when I am alone. I also like to talk to the Lord because I know that I am truly never alone. We have nice talks as I thank Him for the beauty He created. I pray for my friends. Some of my friends get lots of prayers, others get a few. I always figure He knows who needs my prayers.

            Sometimes, I pray what I might call worry prayers. Do you know what I mean? I have some friends who are professional worriers. They might call me an amateur. I don’t want to become a professional worrier. I would rather be a warrior in prayer.

            Two times recently I started down the path of worry, one was late at night and the other was on one of my walks. It was the same subject approached from two different angles. I am so glad that Jesus is patient and that He understands our human weakness. In both cases the critical element in the conversation was that I began to listen.

            Jesus began to show me, in both situations, specifically how and why I needed to trust Him. He knew all about the problem and He didn’t need my detailed analysis. He had a brilliant solution to the problem. What He needed and wanted from me was my faith. I needed to apply my faith to His solution and trust that He was already working on it.

            I believe the problem is that we want to point out all the problems that He is obviously overlooking. What Jesus wants from us is to stay close to Him, look into His eyes, spend time in His word, and look to see where He is working on our lives today. If we will go to where He is working and work with Him today, all those other things will work themselves out. My new prayer is: God help me find where you are working today and help me to work there, too.

            I want to encourage you to pray that prayer with me. Don’t let other things distract you or keep you away from His presence. He is working on you to make you more like Jesus. The key is to listen and to trust Him completely. We don’t always understand what He is doing. We just need to trust that He is working on our behalf. It’s not easy, but He will help us. And remember that He is good, loving, kind, and patient with us.

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com

Pleasuring Herself

by   April 30, 2021 with No Comments

By Roger Barbee

                                                Pleasuring Herself

In his fine memoir, The Old Man and the Boy, Robert Ruark recounts his grandfather’s explanation of aging: “ A man don’t start to learn until he’s about forty; and when he hits fifty, he’s learned all he’s going to learn. After that he can sort of lay back and enjoy what he’s learned, and maybe pass a little bit of it on. His appetites have thinned down, and he’s done most of his suffering, and yet he still got plenty of time to pleasure himself before he peters out entirely. That’s why I like November. November is a man past fifty who reckons he’ll live to be seventy or so, which is old enough for anybody….”       An admirer of Ruark and his two books about the older men in his life, I am reluctant to disagree with his grandfather, but I must because of Florence (not her real name).

The first time I met Florence was when my wife introduced us. She was a new member of a support group for widows in which my wife assisted. When we were introduced, Florence held her Bible close to her chest but could not hide the hollowness in her eyes. Her soft voice and softer demeanor caused me to think that she was having a most difficult time concerning her husband’s recent death. Her disheveled dress spoke of her emotional state. Over time, however, as Florence and I established our own friendship through church and our writing group, she shared much of her earlier life and of her marriage to her deceased husband, who was highly regarded in our small community.  She had lived in his shadow, known as “Lou’s wife.” (not his name) I watched as she struggled with the issues concerning a spouse’s death and admired her grit as she sold the house they had shared, donated his tools and clothes, and all the other things that must be done following a death. My wife and I were elated when she found an apartment in a modern complex of homes, restaurants, shops, and that was near her children and us. Florence settled into her life, but she did not stop growing. In fact, she bloomed.

According to the web site Grammarist, the phrase time heals all wounds may be first attributed to the Greek poet Menander, who lived around 300 B.C. and said, “Time is the healer of all necessary evils.” Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, Troilus and Criseyde, written in the 1380s contains the phrase: “As tyme hem hurt, a tyme doth hem cure.” However, no matter how the sentiment is expressed, the pain of a deep wound never disappears, but time and life may lessen the sadness of past pain. And Florence, as she embraced her new surroundings to create a new, full life, contradicted  Ruark’s grandfather’s observation about being seventy.

Florence is no longer any man’s wife, pushed back into the shadows. She is known in her community through her part time work in a shop, for being encountered during her early morning walks around the complex, for her group that meets weekly to share conversation on a veranda, and her patronage to a cigar bar. Into her seventh decade, she is now herself. Yes, she is still a mother and grandmother, but she also has a life in her community that is hers, and not one that she shares with her family. Her family knows of that life’s existence, but Florence denies them entry because it is hers and not one to be shared with them.

Florence shares her new life with my wife and me, and we are happy for her. She told us not long ago how she was planning to smoke a cigar in the near future in the cigar bar and might even get a small tattoo. Not bad for a past seventy-year-old grandmother whose hands still bear the creases from work as a young girl on a North Carolina tobacco farm.

Florence, like all of us, carries certain sadness. But unlike so many folks, she took stock of where she found herself and decided for life. Much like the Phoenix, Florence rose from the ashes of her former life– to smoke a cigar, to get a tattoo, to build her own nest.

Only One True God

by   April 28, 2021 with No Comments

By Ed Traut

Psalms 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

  • Today we lift our hands in praise and glorify the one true God.
  • In all the earth, His name is above and full of glory.
  • No one can deny the greatness of our Lord, that is why we praise Him.

Prayer:  Lord I lift my hands with great joy today just to worship You because there is no one like You.  Thank You for Your great grace and love and kindness towards me that I can belong to You.  Amen.
 

Ed Traut
Prophetic Life

Spring is Here…

by   April 27, 2021 with No Comments

By David Freeze

After 45 years of running, I have a pretty good handle on what works for me and why I run in the first place. That list is long and keeps growing. I read some statistics today about why people start running. No. 1 by far is the desire to lose weight and next best is a certain unhappiness about the shape, both mentally and physically, they are in. Those also are usually the first two reasons for New Year’s resolutions, usually forgotten by this time of year. If not forgotten, then for some reason they didn’t become habits.

As a longtime running coach, early spring is the single most popular time of the year that I get inquiries about how to get started. More than 60 million Americans consider themselves regular runners, so many had success developing the best fitness habit I know.

How is the best way to get started? The single best way is to join a group class that offers coaching, interesting classroom topics and a certain distance challenge at the end. We are in the last few weeks of a booming class at the Salisbury PD that started back in early March. The next one takes place in the fall.

As an individual, you do have several options that will work. About half of those 60 million started running on their own. The other half needed a certain outside accountability, the real key to being consistent in your search for better health. Following a few suggestions below nets a high percentage of success.

All of you know a regular runner, someone you see out running on a regular basis. A friend or relative, a neighbor, a coworker could all fill the bill. But the point is to start a conversation and make sure that at least that one person knows that you want to be a runner. There are many levels of running, almost as many as there are reasons to start, and most regular runners go through several of those levels during their lifetime.

Some of us want to lose the weight, get fit or even be happier now that life’s issues are being addressed. Others want to be competitive, against themselves or others, and still more use running as a social network. I’ve often said, and Brayden Self echoed the same last week, that some of my best friends came from running. I stopped for 20 minutes beside the road just a few mornings ago to catch up with a running friend. But the point is, start by telling someone and then if you are one of the 40% who prefer to run with someone, find that person. Both of you become accountable to each other and the likelihood of success goes up by another 30%.

Now that you have a partner, start small. There are lots of beginning runner programs on the internet, but honestly I don’t care for most of them, especially couch to 5K programs. The reasons, lack of accountability and individualism. When you drive past someone running, you can bet that they didn’t start with a non-personal couch to 5K.

Almost anybody can run/walk a half mile. I say that in the group classes often. Next, there are no shortcuts, you have to build the distance over a specified period of weeks. That is called “homework.” Accountability again! It takes four days a week for about eight weeks, any time of the day. Follow through and you will have started a wonderful habit.

Salisbury was designated one of the nation’s best running communities a couple years ago by the Road Runners Club of America. We do have lots of runners and walkers in Rowan County, but we always need more. If you’re interested in getting started, send me an email at david.freeze@ctc.net I will share some info that will help and I’ll be glad to answer your questions. No charge! Spring’s here, time to make it happen.

Look for the upcoming prediction run and the 20th Annual Bare Bones 5K at www.salisburyrowanrunners.org .

Help from Haggai

by   April 26, 2021 with No Comments

By Ann Farabee

• Consider our ways.

How can we consider our ways? To consider means to think carefully about something. Ways means our way, our journey, or our manner. As we consider our ways, we could ask ourselves this question, “During my time on this earth, am I more concerned with my own needs than I am with fulfilling God’s will for my life?

Lord, help us to understand that we belong to you. Help us to consider our ways and make serving you our top priority.

Repeat as needed: Consider my ways.

• God is with us.

This is powerful. To even begin to understand that God is always with us is more than the heart can take. We are a friend of God. Do we deserve to be? No. But we are.

Lord, help us to truly grasp that You are surrounding us and that the Holy Spirit is living inside us. When we begin to understand, we will never be the same.

Repeat as needed: God is with me.

• We can be strong.

How can we be strong when we are so weak? We can be strong because God is with us. God gives us strength. Psalm 29:11 says that the Lord will give strength to his people. That’s who we are — his people.

Lord, help us to see that we do not have to toil or labor for our strength. Help us to remember that you give strength to us. It is a gift from our heavenly father.

Repeat as needed: God will make me strong.

• In this place God will give peace.

How can we have peace when our lives are not peaceful? Peace is inside us. God gives it to us. Psalm 29:11 says that the Lord will bless his people with peace.

Lord, help us to remember that you have blessed us with peace. Not just tomorrow’s peace, or yesterday’s peace, but peace in the place we are today — this place.

Repeat as needed: God will give peace in this place.

• The glory of the latter house will be greater than the former.

Haggai spent much time encouraging the people to make the work of rebuilding the temple their top priority. It can be so easy to falter and without even realizing it not put God as our top priority — even though he makes us a top priority.

Lord help us to remember that this life is not about our earthly home — but is about the glorious kingdom not built by man. Thank you for the promise that you will make all things new and that the end will be better than the beginning.

Repeat as needed: The glory of the latter house will be greater than the former.

This has been brought to you from the book of Haggai.

Read it.

It is only two chapters.

Ann Farabee is a teacher, writer and speaker. Contact her at  annfarabee@gmail.com or annfarabee.com.


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