It’s Celebration Time

By Judy Davis –

My husband and I love celebrating our anniversary and my birthday in the mountains. Both of these special occasions are in the fall. We are staying at the Dillard House Inn located in the lovely mountains in Georgia. The Dillard House offers a variety of spacious, modern rooms with excellent and hospitable service. They have beautiful views of the surrounding mountain landscape. This time of the year the trees are stunning with the bright colors of autumn.

All rooms are within walking distance to the restaurant, stables, swimming pool and tennis courts. We enjoy eating delicious meals at the Dillard House. They serve a breakfast loaded with eggs, pork chops, ham, bacon, two kinds of sausage, grits, potatoes, gravy, pan cakes, cinnamon rolls and fried apple pies. They also have a fruit bar with the largest blackberries I’ve ever seen.

On the first day of our trip, we drove up to Black Rock Mountain. My husband’s driving is fine, but going around those sharp curves around the mountain make me a bit nervous. He looked over at me and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Holding on to my seat, shaking, looking down into the deep ravine, I whispered, “I’m scared.” It’s always a relief to get back to lower ground. I give thanks to God for His travel mercies. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” Psalm 100:4.

Last year we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary in Tennessee. We arrived in Pigeon Forge and checked in to our motel, the Inn by the River. It’s a lovely place and our room was so nice and cozy. We ate a delicious dinner at the Partridge and Pear restaurant. The Christmas decorations in the restaurant were delightful. After finishing our dinner, we walked next door to the Incredible Christmas Place to shop.

The next morning we visited the Apple Barn. They have scrumptious Homemade Apple Butter, Apple Fritters and Apple Julep and serve them with every Applewood Farmhouse meal. The landscape is magnificent with the mountains gleaming with all the bright colors of the rainbow!

Our last day we went to a wonderful dinner show called the Dixie Jamboree. The next morning we headed home enjoying our trip through the mountains around the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina. This truly was an anniversary and birthday never to be forgotten.

More than a Mascot

By Dawn Wilson –

Years ago, when my younger son played baseball for the Phillies’ minor league Batavia Muckdogs, I laughed as the mascot dog—now named Homer—entertained fans at Dwyer Stadium. He was clumsy and hilarious. These days, my older son sometimes dresses up as a mascot, Odin, for the Valhalla High School football team. I get a kick out of seeing him on the field, joking around and cheering on the team.

Mascots are adopted by teams as a symbols of groups and teams; but there are some strange ones: the Banana Slug, Sebastian the Ibis, Zippy the Kangaroo, the Boll Weevil. Maybe the strangest one is Stanford University’s unofficial mascot, “The Tree.” To quote one observer, “It looks like it was made with Elmer’s glue and construction paper by a group of first graders.”

Mascots supposedly bring good luck. (To watch some of the blooper videos on YouTube, I think the mascots need some luck of their own! They trip, fall, and generally make fools of themselves. One mascot jumped on a trampoline into a basketball hoop, and lost his pants before exiting the net!) We all love those crazy mascots. They’re great to have around, if only for a good laugh.

But some time ago, I read a statement by David Bryant that made me think about this word “mascot” in a far more serious light. “We often find ourselves making Jesus our mascot,” Bryant said, “instead of our Monarch. He’s around, but not in charge.”

“I’ve never done that,” I thought. But then the Spirit of God showed me ways that I have sometimes treated Jesus like a “lucky rabbit’s foot” or a magic “Jeanie in a bottle”—a good luck charm to keep me safe.

We may laugh at a mascot, but we’d never bow before one. We’re told in scripture, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11).

Jesus is not my mascot. Jesus is not, as some people say, my “Homeboy.” No, Jesus is Lord. He is Master. And just saying those words is not enough. Jesus told people, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). We show the world that Jesus is our Lord when we obey Him, when He is the center of our existence and we manifest His love throughout the world.

Jesus is my Lord because He is my very life (Colossians 3:1-4)—a life I have because He died for me. I can’t think of a mascot anywhere who would love me enough to die for me.

Call in the Big Guns!

By Liz Cowen Furman –

Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched? Followed? Stalked? The other night all our dogs started barking at once, they were outside doing business. Usually when we let them out at night, in the fall especially (when those bears are eating 20 hours a day in getting ready for a long sleep), we go with them, but somehow they had been left to their own devices. Everyone ran to a different door or window to call them in and we retrieved them safely.

When I stood at the front door to call, I noticed that my car’s inside light was on. So, with the dogs safely in the house I went out to check what was up. As I walked around the (very dark) side of the house, the hair on my arms began to stand up and I felt fearful. The kind of fear that comes from deep inside. I did not see anything or hear anything but I felt a presence, an evil presence.

Immediately, I started praying and saying scripture aloud (the devil cannot stand against the Word of God; look up Proverbs 30:5 and Ephesians 6:17). The passenger door was ajar; I closed it and started for the house, still talking into the darkness. As I rounded the corner, I definitely heard something moving in the weeds just feet from me. I could feel the fear rising again and I spoke into the darkness louder.

I came into the house and locked the doors. Then I just went back to what I was doing. Funny, but usually, when something like that happens I want to know who or what is there. This time however, I just went about my business. I surprised myself with the peace I felt after praying. It has happened to me countless times in my life. Something happens to frighten me and I immediately speak scripture out loud toward the thing that is scaring me, after a few minutes peace washes over me. As if I have a bubble around me, all of the sudden I feel safe.

So next time you are afraid, call in the big guns. Say scripture aloud. Ask for help and expect that you will receive it. He promised many times to never leave or forsake us. That promise I have taken to the spiritual bank many times.

When God is LOL

By Carol Barnier –

The three-letter expression, LOL, has been rolling around in text-speak land for quite a while. When it first emerged, I wasn’t clear on its meaning. Lard On Lollipops was unlikely. Licensing of Obese Libertarians seemed even less promising, although in an election year such things are possible. Turns out, it was much simpler: laughing out loud. The problem was, this little three-letter mark of jocularity was often appearing in places where I found it difficult to determine what the text-speaker found to be so funny. . .funny enough that it would cause an actual audible guffaw. Most of the time, a simple snort was more in order. Or even just a hmphh. There have been very few times when I’ve actually laughed out loud at something I’ve read or heard.

One was when reading an interview with a somewhat younger Miley Cyrus who was explaining that she and her new boyfriend were special, more complex, capable of greater thought than one would have expected.

“We’re just deeper than normal people.”

I didn’t mean to laugh out loud right there in the airport boarding area. But I don’t know, it just escaped from me—with a great deal of volume, I might add. I don’t know if it was because of the pretentiousness of the word “normal” to describe all the rest of us mere mortals, or if it was her total lack of awareness that anyone who would actually utter such a phrase has, ipso facto, indicated a decided lack of depth by virtue of her claim to the contrary. But this was most clearly an LOL moment.

People taking themselves too seriously often brings out a chuckle in me. There are many things that do this.

Poetry being one of them. Sometimes it’s a beautiful combination of words that share something fresh and deep. But just as often, it’s the 43-thousandth time that I’ve heard “Life’s a bummer.”

Indie bands. They’re not making music . . . they’re making art, which according to my daughter means they still practice in their parents’ garage and aren’t famous yet.

But, oh how I LOVE those who are unpretentious. . .who even perhaps SHOULD be taken more seriously than they let on, but you’ll never hear it from them.

That’s my Dad. He is brilliant, and yet most of the folks who meet and talk with him would never know it. His goal in talking with folks was always to connect, to encourage and lift them up, and oh yeah. . .to make them laugh. That’s why as a pastor he was so effective. Everything he shared was carried on the wings of an obvious love and concern for others.

I’ve recently heard more than my share of folks who are sharing some concern they have for the theology of others. And while they may or may not have some truth in their concerns, what ruins it for me is the fact that they take themselves sooooo seriously, such that they look down on those they examine—even ridiculing them, and that there is a decided lack of love for those they chastise. I think the apostle Paul said they are like a “clanging cymbal.” Noisy, irritating. Frankly, they remind me of crows. Peck, peck, peck. And such self-important pecking at that.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect that when the God of heavens looks down at any of our self-important pronouncements, we provide Him with an LOL moment.

Circle the Wagons

By Rhonda Rhea –

Coffee and donuts. They go together like love and marriage. Someday I’d like to write a poem and I’d like to start it with the line, “Coffee and donuts, sittin’ in a tree.” I’m not sure where to go from there. I get that far and all I know is that I want to be in that tree.

I confess I’ve had a few too many donuts. Sad to say, the bough on that tree would be bending pretty low about now. That’s why I decided to go on yet another diet recently. Also sad to say, I’ve already fallen off the wagon.

I’m thinking of putting up a sign that says, “Please keep body inside the wagon at all times and please stay seated until the wagon comes to a complete and final stop.”

You know, if someone would think of bringing fudge along on the wagon ride I would be a lot more motivated to stay on it. Okay, I suppose a really good friend would probably give me a nudge to stay on the wagon. Nudge or fudge. Tough call on which is best, friendship-wise.

In our spiritual lives, we all need a little nudge now and then too. It’s good to have people in our lives we can count on to nudge us in the right direction, wherever the wagons are heading.

As pioneers were settling the west, when they were threatened by an enemy, circling the wagons was part of their defense strategy. The circle provided a protected cover they could get behind to fire at their attackers.

We need to rally with those on this life’s journey in the same way. We have a common enemy. Peter reminds us to “be alert” because our “enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Circle the wagons! Our church family is part of our defensive plan against our enemy. The next verse in 1 Peter says, “Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (vs. 9).

We’re in this together. Let’s not neglect circling the wagons. “Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together as believers, as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25, AMP).

I’m so thankful the Lord has placed godly church buds and godly leaders in my path all through my life via the church. People with just the right nudge at the ready. There are pastors, teachers and leaders who stay alert to our spiritual supervision, keeping watch the scripture says. And Hebrews 13:17 instructs us to be responsive to them. “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.”

Less burden. More joy. It’s a good choice.

And in other choices, I’m considering choosing to keep the extra 20 pounds and just get myself a bigger wagon. One with really good shocks.

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