Meeting Tara

By Brenda W. McIntyre –

“Tara!” The vivacious student approached me with a hand full of fliers when someone called her name. “Hi!” she said, handing me a sheet.

I was moving into my dormitory at college. The flier was an invitation to visit the Baptist Student Union, which I had no desire to do. Religion was for people with nothing else to believe in. I had something to believe in—graduating from college. With a degree, I would be self-sufficient and never rely on anyone. Inside my room, I tossed the paper into the wastebasket.

Not long into the quarter I began slipping into a depression. I went to bed early one evening, going into a deep sleep. It felt like I was plummeting into an abyss, sinking deeper and deeper into a black void. I awoke when my roommate came in, but couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been dying. I became convinced I would die if I stayed at the dismal place, so I decided when the quarter was over I would pack my belongings and go home.

The same week I overheard a professor asking about a student who died. I didn’t know who it was or how it happened, but thinking about it kept me from sleep that night. Grasping for anything that might help, I got my roommate’s Bible. Clutching it throughout the night I prayed, “God, if You exist, please help me. Let me see my co-worker, Tammy, in the morning, and I’ll ask her for help.” I rarely saw her on campus, but I knew Tammy was a Christian.

Going to my first class, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Tammy was coming out of the building I was entering. I shivered from the chill running down my spine and asked if she would meet me after work.

That evening I learned it was a close friend of Tammy’s named Tara Lockhart who was killed by a drunk driver three days earlier. The funeral had been that day. Tammy was grieving the loss of her friend, yet she was reaching out to me.

Before the quarter was over I went to church with Tammy. One time was enough to spark something inside of me. Throughout Christmas break I anticipated returning to college. No longer did feelings of depression and imminent thoughts of death plague me. Instead I was filled with a desire to know God.

I returned to college and began attending church regularly. One Sunday after the service we were going back to campus. At a caution light Tammy said, “This is where Tara was in the accident that afternoon when leaving church.”

I was appalled. We hadn’t talked about Tara much. I didn’t know she attended the church where I was now a member. As weeks passed, I learned more about her and could imagine what she was like. I realized it was through Tara’s death that I was saved. I’m sure she prayed about leading others to Christ. It just happened to be in her death that she witnessed to me.

Although I went away to college feeling alone and uncertain of God’s existence, I now know I’m never alone. I will never be self-sufficient; I must rely on God to guide me every day, but I have something better than a college degree. God will supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19). He knows my needs before I even ask Him (Matthew 6:8). And when I go home to meet my Maker, I know I will meet Tara also.

Purple Basil Nightmare

By Susan Dollyhigh –

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Mark 14:38, NIV).

One day, I saw and purchased a beautiful, ornamental purple basil plant thinking it just the right addition for my little herb garden. This plant grew very fast. The dark purple, frilly leaves were beautiful and it smelled wonderful. I enjoyed its beauty all summer long. When winter came, the basil plant died and I soon forgot it.

Spring came and I looked at my garden and saw little, purple basil plants coming up all over the place. I felt so proud. Boy, do I have a green thumb. Those little plants just kept coming up, and coming up, and coming up. Before long, they were trying to take over my entire garden. Hold on there, I have some other things planted in this garden. I didn’t want to just pull up the basil but I had to give the giant hibiscus a little space. And my purple salvia and lilies were completely surrounded by basil. Then, I started noticing the purple plants in my other flower gardens.

Soon my neighbor told me she had purple basil coming up in her garden. “Just sharing,” I told her with a neighborly wave as I backed up to return home. It became a serious problem when my Aunt Millie, who lives in the house below me, told me that my Uncle David had taken a strange, purple plant to the city horticulturist because it was coming up all in their yard.  Soon my section of the neighborhood had become a purple basil nightmare. I was even pulling it from the cracks in the sidewalk.

That purple basil plant was beautiful. I hadn’t seen any harm in it. I just wanted to enjoy its beauty and fragrance. My experience with this plant sounds like what happens in our lives. The purple basil may be anything Satan puts in our path. It may be beautiful and fragrant. It may make us feel good. But before we know what has happened, it has taken over the garden of our lives and choked out the things we really wanted to keep. The hazard is it may even spread and affect people around us.

I should have found out more about that basil before I planted it. The horticulturist told my neighbor that it spreads and takes over everything.

We need to be aware of those appealing, beautiful traps that Satan puts in our lives because they too can spread and take over everything. God’s word and His Spirit living in us will help us to be alert before the purple basil nightmare occurs in our lives.

September

By Lori Freeland –

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of September.

Strolling the Back to School aisles of Target, tossing twenty-five cent crayons, pencils and glue sticks into my cart, gets me giddy. Pretty folders decorated with kittens and flowers beckon to me, while the notebook aisle disperses that new paper smell and packages of dollar markers, with their untouched ink-filled tips, whisper of new beginnings.

Yet in the midst of my back-to-school euphoria, lurking just around the corner is heaviness, a foreshadowing of all the labor that is to come, and it slips down around my shoulders like a mantle, harnessing me until Spring.

For the last three years, since my homeschooling career began, I have wrestled with all that September offers.

September offers an end to chaos, re-instating organization, neatness, schedules, activities and goals. Skyrocketed bedtimes plummet back to earth. Family dinner hour resurfaces. My calendar, filled with weekly repetition, makes expectations clear.

September also offers an end to spontaneity, stifling my impulsive nature. No more sleeping in or late night TV. No more ordering out or yelling, “Get your own!” No more spur of the moment afternoon movies and days at the pool—there are too many things on the schedule for that!

It’s love/hate because it’s hard to pick a side. Chaotic “make up your own rules” days vs. “consistent know what to expect” days. I love order and structure—but not if I’m tied to them!

Does God understand my war?

He does! The Bible promises He is always the same, never changing, and dependable without fail. In Revelation 1:8 (NIV) God tells me that He is the “…Alpha and the Omega…who is, and who was, and who is to come…” And Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) assures me that, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Yet, God’s character is still filled with novelty and my relationship with Him never needs to be idle. There is always a fresh start. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-20, NIV).

As I press on through September, going from one extreme to another, I know that I am not walking this path alone and I love that God understands me, even in all my strangeness and contradiction. He sprints beside me through my chaotic impulsiveness and marches evenly alongside me through my structured organization. And one day when my kids are grown and gone, we will make a brand new path together. Although, I think September may always lure me in with its nostalgic memories and my desire to reconcile the two sides of myself.

Lori Freeland is a freelance author from Dallas, TX, with a passion to share her experiences in hopes of connecting with other women tackling the same issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a full time homeschool mom. In addition to the articles she is writing for The Christian Pulse, she is currently working on her first novel, based on the journey her family has taken in the world of pediatric cancer.

God on the Spot – Part 9: Fulfilling the Prophecies

By Dianne Butts –

There has been silence from God for four hundred years.

As we have seen through the first eight parts of this “God on the Spot” series, God has made many promises, including to bring the Messiah through Abraham’s bloodline, then narrowing down that branch of the family tree to King David’s line.

God made other promises as well: that Messiah would be born of a virgin, in Bethlehem, with a mysterious star, be called “God with us,” and more.

Centuries have passed. When will God honor His promises? And perhaps more importantly, how will people know who His promised Messiah is? How can they (and we) recognize Him?

The answer: The Messiah is the one who fulfills all of God’s promises. That’s why God gave all those promises (prophecies) in the first place: so we could recognize Him when He came.

Every last one of God’s promises, predictions and prophecies must be fulfilled. If they aren’t, what would that mean? God was wrong? God lied? God couldn’t pull it off? If God is all-knowing (meaning He can’t be wrong), and if there is no shadow of darkness in Him (meaning He can’t lie), and if He is all-powerful (meaning He can pull off anything He wants), then every single statement God has made about Messiah must come true. Without exception. 100%. Or else either God is not God, or the one we’re looking at isn’t the Messiah. So, let’s recap God’s promises and see if they are fulfilled:

Messiah would come from the bloodline of Abraham and then David:

Do you ever get bored reading all those “so-and-so was the father of so-and-so” passages in the Bible? When you read the Christmas story, do you skip over Matthew 1:1-17? In Luke, do your eyes glaze over when you hit 3:23-38? Well wake up! This is the very reason genealogies are recorded in the Bible! If God promised Messiah would come through the bloodline of Abraham and then David, then bloodlines had to be traced in order to know who qualified! Or if someone claimed to be the promised Messiah, then the first order of business would be to check his ancestry to see if he fulfilled this prophecy. Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ genealogy to verify that He qualifies.

Having established His bloodline, the other prophecies given in the Old Testament (at least four hundred years prior to His birth) must be checked as well. There are so many, we don’t have enough room to cover them all here, but here are some:

He would be born of a virgin: Prophesized: Isaiah 7:14. Fulfilled: Luke 1:31-35.

He would be called “God with us”: Prophesized: Isaiah 7:14. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:21-23.

He would be born in Bethlehem: Prophesized: Micah 5:2. Fulfilled: Luke 2:4-7.

There would be a mysterious star: Prophesized: Numbers 24:17. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:1-2, 9-10.

When Herod tried to kill this newborn king, it was God on the spot to protect the life of the infant Jesus, which He did by two dreams: one sent the Magi home without returning to Herod (Matthew 2:12) and the other warned Joseph to flee (Matthew 2:13-17).

When God made promises about the Messiah He would send, He was putting Himself on the spot to fulfill every one of them—and He did.

October: “God on the Spot – Part 10: Providing the Sacrifice.” When Satan connived to have Messiah killed, it was God on the spot to preserve life through His death—Messiah’s life as well as the eternal lives of all who would be redeemed by it.

Dianne has written for over 50 Christian print magazines and seventeen books, including the recently released For God So Loved the World He Created Chocolate (Group, 2010). Her work has appeared in Great Britain, Bulgaria, Poland, Canada, and Korea. When she’s not writing, she enjoys riding her motorcycle with her husband, Hal, and gardening with her cat, P.C. in Colorado. www.DianneEButts.com www.DeliverMeBook.blogspot.com

The Sting of Sin

By Heather Arbuckle –

We call our youngest daughter, Sofie, the Honeybug. Bug, for short. It is a nickname that suits her perfectly as she is sweet as honey but has been known to sting her adversaries in confrontation. Read more

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