My website was down earlier this week. The issue has been resolved and once again my husband and I are so thankful for our vigilant IT tech, Jerry. He is truly a Godsend for us! Writing is the fun part of keeping a blog, and technology is my bane.
Author: Brenda Proulx
Wife, mother and grandmother, educator and someone who thinks about the things I observe. I am the daughter of a writer; my dad's career was in the field of journalism. More significantly, I am God's child, a person believing in Jesus Christ and in His timeless Word. Blogging is new to me but I feel like I've always had a pen in my hand. I jot notes in my planner, mark papers, underline verses, write many letters, and occasionally draft articles for work or church. When I am not holding a pen, I am probably cuddling a mug of coffee.
On Travel: Rest Stops
My husband and I travel the road a lot. Living on the east coast, we traverse north and south on I- 95, and sometimes further west on I-81, also a north-south highway. We enjoy diversions too on less-traveled routes, but we’ve become very familiar with the cities, townships and sights we pass on our repeated journeys.
As empty nesters, we plan our pace loosely. I can’t say that we always stop to smell the roses; there are people and places along the way yet to see. We do, however, often travel with a freer itinerary and that includes frequent stops: mental and physical breaks that are wise for our age, wise for all long-distance travelers.
Along our familiar routes, I have my favorite rest stops. When we head home southbound on 95, the first NC rest stop features giant whirl-i-gigs. A North Carolinian grew fond of building these large wind structures and they now adorn various spots in the state. This whimsical rest stop means the journey is almost over for us. For many years, we drove to Westchester, NY for Thanksgiving. The crisp air and city vibe as we pulled into a Jersey travel center meant the holiday had begun for me! Even the coffee seemed festive! A New York Welcome Center on northbound 81 overlooks a gorgeous mountain vista and inside a market offers nice products from around the state.
Recently, we discovered a unique rest area. It is, of course, accessible from the highway for those traveling by car as we do, but behind it is the Dismal Swamp Canal, so this rest area has a dock and boat slips for those traveling the canal! They too need rest areas, and this one offers special facilities for boaters.
Our road stops include quick bathroom breaks, stretches, tidying the car and maybe some caffeine, but I’ve noticed the travelers who are more leisurely about their stops. They rest at picnic tables in shady areas savoring plentiful picnics. Playful dogs get needed exercise in the open grassy spaces. Once I saw a young family cooking their meal on a rest area grill – now that’s planning ahead and making a memory!
Is rest Biblical? Yes, planned rest began in the account of creation. God worked for six days to bring the universe into existence. Scripture tells us that God “rested on the seventh day from all His work He had done” (Genesis 2 v 2). With His infinite power, I don’t think God was tired on the seventh day. Instead, He was modeling for us the goodness of rest; physical, mental, and spiritual rest. Sabbath rest is a deep topic that I won’t pursue in this post, but I encourage you to rest regularly. Psalm 46 v 10 calls us to “Be still and know that I am God.” And on this Saturday evening, I pray that you include “enter[ing] the sanctuary of God” (Psalm 73 v 17) in your day of rest tomorrow.
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Refreshment in July: Thankful for Waiting Rooms
It’s an odd thing to be grateful for, waiting rooms. Specifically, waiting rooms in a doctor’s office or clinic. Though some doctors offer plush lobbies with a stack of great magazines, that’s not the ones I have in mind. I am referring to ones with sterile styling and plasticized upholstered chairs. Though there may be light chatter, more often there is a serious quietude. In these anterooms, one observes unfiltered humanity. It’s like people watching at an airport but with far more pathos. So why would I be grateful for waiting rooms? It’s not the patience factor.
Experiencing waiting rooms evokes gratitude in me first because I usually see folks who are going through so much more than me. Whatever I may be dealing with that brought me to this place, it is clear that others are suffering and facing more serious, even life-threatening illnesses. It is hard and humbling to see sick people or those going through extreme treatment.
During one wait, my husband noticed a frail, elderly woman come in alone. She checked in and was handed a clipboard of forms that appeared to overwhelm and confuse her. He asked if she wanted help, and he was able to read and write for her until she was called back for her appointment. Another time we ran into a friend of mine and her husband. We greeted each other but didn’t ask any questions; later I found out her husband had advanced cancer. I thank God for the reminder, the wakeup call, about my many blessings, including my health.
I also welcome the opportunity to witness the goodness of mankind in medical lobbies. In the waiting and watching I observe care and concern between families, between friends. I have noticed elderly sisters; husbands and wives, young and old; adult children with a parent; paid caregivers; and other companions accompanying patients. There’s so much to admire and appreciate in the compassion and sacrifice of one to another. One young woman, clearly experiencing difficult illness and treatment, came in with her uncle who lived several states away because her husband had to be out of town on business – heartwarming and heart wrenching all at once. But it is good to see goodness.
Theologians call this goodness “common grace.” It’s the capacity God gives His human creation to do good, as He Himself is good. Doing good is not to be equated with salvation however: salvation comes through faith in Jesus, God’s grace-filled gift to us. The Scriptures say, “ … He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy …” Titus 3 v 5 But our disposition for goodness, despite our sinful selves, uplifts us and ultimately lifts us to acknowledge God, the provider of goodness, compassion, and salvation.
References on gratitude: Psalm 136, 1 Thessalonians 5 v15 & v18. If you receive my blog via email, thank you. The posts are best viewed at “A Writer’s Daughter”
Remembering Beyond D Day
We recently commemorated the 80th anniversary of D Day, the Allied Forces’ rescue of France and other European countries invaded by Germany. As that heroic event was being remembered, I was reading the autobiography of a young Jewish man who lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland. His first-hand account of the persecution and eradication of Jews astounds me once again. It is a clarion wake-up call for today. As with other World War 2 fiction and nonfiction books I’ve read recently, the realities are unfathomable.
Ernest Cassutto was a Dutch university student at the time of the Nazi invasion of Holland. As the round-up of Jews in Holland intensified, Cassutto and his family went into hiding, as did his fianceé and her family. Gestapo raids kept them on the move and in constant fear. Ernest and his fiancee were eventually caught, and she was killed in a concentration camp. The Germans never deported Ernest but sent him to forced labor farms in Holland. Though the liberation of Europe began on D Day in June of 1944, the Netherlands was not freed until nearly a year later in May of 1945. Ernest and his family survived the Holocaust. The Jewish young girl he later married also survived the Holocaust. A Christian teacher in rural Holland took her in, but her parents were captured and died at the hands of Nazis.
What is stunning about the experiences of the Jews like Ernest Cassutto was the explicit race profiling. The Cassutto family did not practice their Judaism. In fact, due to being born overseas, Ernest was not circumcised, a fact known to his German captors. The slaughter of approximately six million people was based entirely on their identity as Jews! How terrifying to realize that this genocide happened in modern times, in ‘civilized’ culture.
At this point you’ll wonder why “A Writer’s Daughter” is addressing history!? Cassutto’s life story took an early twist. Just prior to the war, Ernest examined the Christian faith. A pastor directed him to Isaiah 53, where he and his fiancé came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and their personal Savior. It was the Christian community who put themselves in great danger to hide and protect Jewish friends and neighbors from the Nazis. Several of Ernest’s family members and his future wife also received the Gospel as a result of the perilous resistance work by Christians for the sake of their Jewish brothers and sisters.
Ernest Cassutto recognized the clear description of a Savior suffering for the salvation of sinners in Isaiah 53. John 13 v 35 clearly conveys a deep responsibility to the saved: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Many loved courageously during Hitler’s evil regime. Some lost their lives doing so.
References:
The Last Jew of Rotterdam by Ernest Cassutto. I also recommend Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas.
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Music to my Ears
The familiar idiom ‘music to my ears’ suggests welcome news, something one is glad to hear, but in my case a theme played on repeat in my head. For the last few weeks, the topic of music circulated around me. First my mind recalled in-home concerts I experienced. Then I read about the benefits of singing in sync with others (Pink, Daniel. When. 2018). More music related hints came from a recent sermon text on singing (Ephesians 5 v 19), a link to register for the “Sing” conference, and a daily verse describing God singing over us. Finally, last week, CeCe Winan’s “(I will sing of) The Goodness of God” music video hit one of my text threads followed by it being one of the worship songs in Sunday’s service. So, on music at home and singing I will write! This composition will not win a Pulitzer, but it will stop the ringing in my ears.
Have you attended a concert in a home? Though rare these days, music in the home was common before TV, radios, stereos, and phonographs. Entertainment was homemade: music and games in the parlor. Whoever could play or sing, did so with family and for guests. There were mansion ballroom dances accompanied by chamber groups and barn dances with fiddles. Simpler days spawned simpler ways.
I experienced an extraordinary concert at my sister’s home. She, an accomplished pianist, and a musician friend on the vibraphone, gave a concert at a graduation party. They far surpassed the level of skill for most in-home recitals, but it retained the warmth of a home setting with an intimate audience. Pictured is her keyboard with music for the opening number.
Today music is piped in and turned on everywhere, like the surprisingly loud easy rock playing in pre-op before my last colonoscopy. We access any artist, any song with a flick on our phone. Our access to music is quite amazing, yet live music, even if amateur, feeds us in a different and unique way. Many years back, I recall a friend’s child played her piano recital piece for our visit. Another time a neighbor invited several of us to her home so she could play a dress rehearsal for an upcoming musical she was accompanying. On a New Year’s Day, a group of us sang “Auld Lang Syne” together as the host strummed it on his guitar. Maybe you recall a hearthside serenade, a parlor performance, or an impromptu campfire concert or sing-along – I hope so! We could all try singing a hymn at mealtime or hum the children a bedtime lullaby. I don’t discount streaming playlists at home which adds cheer or comfort too, especially when our voice joins the chorus.
Music is a gift from our Creator. We get joy from making music, music can praise Him, and God sings over us. Zephaniah 3 v 17 expresses, “The LORD thy God … will joy over thee with singing” (shared in the King James Version as it was shared with me.)
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Victory Lap
The trek through turmoil is a slow one. When mess surrounds, the mundane persists. Life unravels but the dishwasher needs to be loaded and unloaded, the car needs gas, and the trash must go out. Elisabeth Elliot, widow of one of five missionaries murdered in the Ecuadorian jungle in 1956, taught this admonition: “do the next thing.” In other words, in that spot of loss or commotion, you move forward to a task at hand, however menial, even if you don’t feel like it.
John Ortberg assigns such a holding pattern to the Saturday between the crucifixion and the Resurrection. He writes of the “silent Saturday,” when the terror and adrenaline of Friday’s nightmare were over, yet no one knew about Sunday’s coming triumph (Ortberg, 2012). The followers of Jesus could not foresee it, especially as they waited through the silent Saturday ritual day of Sabbath rest.
But they got through Saturday and got up on Sunday. With their world having fallen apart, Mary and two other women arose early, prepared spices, and went to the tomb to embalm the dead body of Jesus. It was a routine task, but they managed to get up and “do the next thing.” (As ordinary as the women’s act of ministration was, it is recorded in all four Gospels: Matthew 28 v 1, Mark 16 v 1, Luke 24 v 1, John 20 v 1.) And that’s when they discovered the miracle! The tomb was empty, angels on guard, and then their encounter with Jesus! In doing the mundane, they experienced the Divine!
In our lives, the extremes are not usually as glaring as crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday. We face losses and tragedy, healing and success. In the middle life of these, we press forward in daily simple obedience to God. Though I find the encouragement to “do the next thing” very helpful, here on Easter Monday, I remind myself that every day this side of the cross is really a victory lap!
Ortberg, John. (2012) Who Is This Man? Zondervan.
Randomize
Words intrigue me. In linguistic studies, one learns that language does not stagnate: it changes over time. Words are lost, words change, and words are rediscovered or newly created. The word ‘camera’ isn’t used much anymore since it’s our phone. ‘Google’ is a verb that was nonexistent 30 years ago. ‘Transformative’ has replaced ‘transformational’ in popularity, though their meanings may be distinct.
I recently heard a new use of a familiar word: random > randomize. ‘Randomize’ describes how researchers randomly select participants for the experiment variable or for the control group. To keep the results unbiased, the experimental assignments are made with, another new term we have – AI! Randomizing might select a traveler for additional security checks or determine the order of questions in an online exam. A patient might be told they were ‘randomized’ for a treatment in a clinical trial.
But is anything really randomized? Are our lives left to chance? I believe that God is in control of all things. Scripture tells us that God knows when a lowly sparrow falls (Matthew 10:29), that God sends elements like rain and fire, (Matthew 5 v 45, 2 Kings 1 v 10), and that He saw us forming in the womb and has numbered the days of our lifetime! (Psalm 139 v 15 – 16). God’s plans supersede the adage “right place at the right time.”
But what about “wrong place at the wrong time?” Yes, in God’s sovereignty, we face terrible things sometimes, yet we are promised God’s guidance and help when we walk the path He’s planned for us (Psalm 37 v 23 below). In other instances, one might have strayed to the wrong place and face consequences (Psalm 119 v 9, Proverbs 7 v 25).
Here, in conclusion, I admit that these are hard truths. Followers of Jesus boldly give God credit for His provision and blessings, or cling to His strength in crisis; it is a day-by-day surrender to do so, only through Holy Spirit power. AMEN
Musings on a Saturday
I have been mulling over a podcast I listened to last week. Following the news story of the Lakewood Church shooting in Houston, TX, “The World and Everything In It” (wng.org/podcasts) contributor John Stonestreet discussed some of the issues related to the event. Stonestreet spoke of “deaths of despair” and “acts of desperation,” terms I was not familiar with. These are increasing at “skyrocketing rates,” he said, and he rightly attributes that to the logical outcome of a secular worldview. He explains that the “expressive, individualistic secular culture (that) gives them no strong resources of a stable family, a stable sense of identity or anything else” leaves people “grasping for a cause, grasping for hope.” But Stonestreet lands the interview on hope, and it is the hope the church has to offer: “Christianity grounds (us in) dignity and value and purpose.” For the church, “this is a mission moment,” he concludes.
Here is a place I often arrive at: the unique role of the church for you and me. The Church is the God-given structure for bonding believers to Biblical truths and to each other. As we gather and grow, what we know fills our lives and the lives of others we touch. That does not mean that there will never be a searching, confused soul like the woman at Lakewood Church, but more of us will be grounded and confident in God’s design and purpose for our lives and this will have a ripple effect around us.
Each Friday, “The World and Everything In It” podcast ends with a blessing and a charge for the weekend. It is my closing today for you as well: “the Psalmist writes: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 43 v 5) Worship with brothers and sisters in Christ in Church this weekend, and Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday. Go now in grace and peace.”
The extensive quotes in this blog post are all from this source:
Brown, Myrna, Lindsay Mast, and John Stonestreet. “The World and Everything In It.” February 16, 2024 https://wng.org/podcasts/culture-friday-jesus-and-super-bowl-commercials-1708027228
An Ice Skating Love Story
He grew up in a northern US city with plenty of naturally frozen skating spots all winter, and her childhood in Canada was replete with abounding enthusiasm and opportunities for ice skating over many winter months each year. With mutual friends from church, he asked her out on their first date to go ice skating. Wasting no time for feelings to melt, he gave her a Valentines Day card shortly following the skating date. Their romance quickly swirled into an engagement on her June birthday, and they married at the end of that summer. Their honeymoon included time in Lake Placid where they skated together at the indoor Olympic rink.
That first February ice skating date happened more than six decades ago. My parents continued to enjoy skating together over many of those years. They shared their love of ice skating with us kids. Virginia winters were milder than their hometowns, but we skated on rinks, and occasionally on the Washington Monument reflecting pool and the nearby C & O canal in years when they froze over. I remember buying my own full-size, good quality leather skates during a visit to family in Canada.
My parents also shared with us what it means to be married: “one man, one woman, one lifetime,” as Pastor Jeff at my church succinctly put it. Like pairs skating, marriage is magical, elegant, sensual, rhythmic, and risky – a dynamic partnership. There will also be bumps and bruises along the way. Marriage requires endurance and stamina, like the long program in skating competition. Couples can’t skate by on infatuation alone.
Marriage is God’s good and natural design for us, His creation (Genesis 2 v 24). Love is laced throughout the Scriptures. You’ll find romantic love stories and Solomon’s PG-13 passionate song in the Old Testament. Themes and analogies of weddings, the bride, and marital joy, commitment, and purity weave through the New Testament. Ultimately, we find God’s sacrificial love for us in the familiar verse John 3:16
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. NLT
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your beautiful love story. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for loving us enough to give us your Son, Jesus.
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Book Reports
Do you remember doing book reports in elementary school? Teachers cleverly devised multiple project ideas to ensure that students were regularly reading books. Assignments included paragraph summaries on 3 X 5 cards, dioramas, posters, book jackets, and others you may recall. Book reading for the young student continues to be a high priority at the elementary level, but approaches have changed, which I will not get into here. Instead, I will report on two, make that three, books I read in 2023. They stand out for me in ways I’d like to share. I hope my synopses earn passing marks from you!
“Live Not By Lies” was the famed dissenter Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s clarion call to resist Soviet repression, especially of religion. Writer Rod Dreher borrowed Solzhenitsyn’s phrase to entitle a book he never intended to write. Live Not By Lies lays out a “soft totalitarianism” that is creeping, maybe steamrolling, into American culture. Dreher came to author the book when immigrants from communist countries approached him about the glaring similarities of events and policies in Western democracies to the oppression in communist countries that they had personally experienced.
The book uncovers the many ways that a liberal ‘creed’ is being forced onto American society. Warning that it could happen again, Dreher recounts dreadful stories of massive religious persecution in Soviet block nations. It is a sobering and very unsettling book to read, but the story is not limited to America’s current dangerous reality and the evil history of the recent past. Dreher shares the steadfastness of individuals, families and congregations who resisted communist aggression against their faith, and he explains how their means of resistance were effective. He suggests these are ways that would be successful again.
My other book report features the book The Thrill of Orthodoxy by Trevin Wax. I saw the book on a recommended list in 2022 and was captured by its title – a bit of an oxymoron? The author was a new name to me, but I liked his bio. ‘Orthodoxy’ sounded daunting, nonetheless I bought the book and determined to read it. I was pleasantly surprised: the book was quite readable and compelling! Wax’s thesis is that orthodoxy, the timeless doctrines of the Christian faith, is adventurous and exciting. Rather than being dull or static, the Christian faith has been and always will be solid, stable, exuberant, invigorating … and in other words, thrilling! Joy and energy permeated the explanations and examples of historic Christian orthodoxy.
For extra credit, let me tell you how the two books are complementary. The onslaught of a new totalitarianism determined to wipe out Judeo Christian beliefs is chilling, but the orthodox truths of God are firm and life-giving. Scripture is “for such a time as this,” not unlike the Jewess, Queen Esther’s, vital calling during an impending genocide (Esther 4 v 14). With confidence and fortitude, we hold on to our foundational beliefs knowing they, by the power of God and His Son Jesus, will withstand the confrontations that may lie ahead.
Indeed, the Bible is the third in my book review of 2023. Now my assignment is complete and posted by the January 31 due date! As this first month of 2024 draws to a close, evaluate the quality and quantity of your Bible reading: set some goals or make a plan for the year ahead, inasmuch as “Every word of God proves true” (Proverbs 30 v 5) and “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4 v 4).
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