Handle with Care

By Emily Parke Chase –

What college student does not delight to open up his or her mailbox and find a request to pick up a package at the desk?  Thus I bounced from my mailbox to the counter, and the woman in charge handed me a small brown carton swathed in tape.

This was the first and only time in all my years at college in Ithaca, New York that I had received a care package from my home in Arizona.  I eagerly tore off the wrapping to reveal…a box of candied apricots.  Apricots? My pleasure in receiving a package turned to confusion. What was my mother thinking?  But here in my hands was a tray of shiny apricots, each glazed with a thick sugar syrup coating.

My friends had received stranger gifts from home.  My roommate’s mother once sent an envelope full of little packages of ketchup and mustard that she had picked up with her order at a fast food restaurant.   Perhaps she thought we would find them handy in our campus residence hall?  And we might have used them but she forgot to write “hand cancel” on the envelope, so they went through the automatic cancellation process. The machine pressed the contents flatter than the postage stamp.  Red and yellow stains obliterated all but the address.

Another thoughtful mother mailed an Easter basket.  She went to her local K-mart and picked out a large basket filled with chocolate bunnies, plastic grass and marshmallow eggs, all wrapped in single sheet of cellophane.  She tied a tag to the handle and dropped in in the mail.  I can only imagine that the postal service accepted it as a challenge.  In my mind’s eye I see each carrier setting the basket on the seat next to him in the truck, handing it gently to the next person, and the final mail carrier delivering it in triumph to our dorm.  Not a jelly bean was jostled out of place.

Still, as I looked at the strange gift in my hands, I wondered what had prompted my mother to send this package of fruit.  I did what any intelligent Ivy-League student would do.  I called home.

“Hi, Mom.  I got your package today.”

My mother chuckled, thus confirming my suspicion that a story lurked under that sickly sweet glaze.

“Your brother just moved out of his apartment in California.”

I knew my brother was leaving the country for a year.  He was driving across the country before taking a flight to Greece, and was stopping to see relatives along the way, including my folks in Phoenix.  Mom explained that he found the apricots at the back of a cupboard in his kitchen, and rather than toss them, gave them to her.  She didn’t know what to do with them and so she mailed them to me.

With a saccharine smile, I thanked her for thinking of me and hung up the phone.  Unlike her, I knew exactly what to do with these super-sweet fruit-flavored sugar cubes.

My brother was due to arrive in Ithaca the next week.

“How sweet are your words to my taste, they are sweeter than candied apricots” (Psalm 119:103, paraphrased).

(Send all care packages to the author at emilychase.com and read about her books, including Help! My Family’s Messed Up!)

Persona Non Au Gratin

By Rhonda Rhea –

Do you know how glorious it is to speak at an event that’s directed by a thoughtful and gracious event coordinator? Those are the trips that are somewhere near heaven. Ah, to be chauffeured about, fed the best meals from the finest restaurants, then transported to a posh hotel, only to find a gorgeous gift basket already delivered to the room. Bubble bath waiting. Bed turned down. Mint on the pillow. It’s good to be queen.

Okay, no one knows as well as I do that I don’t deserve to be treated like a queen. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it, does it?

You know when I truly realize I’ve been unduly treated like royalty? When I get home. It’s like a whiplash back into reality. One second I’m signing books and greeting the complimentary crowds, the next I’m walking in the door to kids who barely manage a deadpan, “Oh Mom, it’s you. I’m glad you’re home–‘cuz we’re out of bread. And somebody must’ve spilled a bunch of milk inside the fridge ‘cuz it smells really nasty in there.”

I’m suddenly “persona non au gratin”—no longer the big cheese. It’s so funny that I can go straight from the applause of a gracious audience to cleaning the cat box.

While I admit I love my short reigns as queen, I have to tell you that there’s something quite comfortable about coming home to bread-fetching, milk-mopping and cat-box-cleaning servitude. Living with an entire brigade of pride police really isn’t a bad thing.

Humility can be so tricky. Once you realize you have it, it’s probably a point of pride—and then it’s gone! The best way to stay humble is to stay focused on Christ, our example. We’re told in Philippians 2:5-8 to have his attitude. “Let this same attitude and purpose and humble mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus:  Let Him be your example in humility. Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God, possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God, did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, But stripped Himself of all privileges and rightful dignity, so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being. And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself still further and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!” (AMP)

Jesus was true royalty, not the temporary, speaking-event kind. He is rightly called the King of all kings. Yet this passage tells us that He didn’t hang on to those rights as royalty. He pushed them aside on our behalf and took on servant status. Imagine leaving the splendor of a Heaven beyond any five star hotel we can picture to serve and to unselfishly give His life.

I really do want to be like Him. I want to humbly serve before any crowd. And I want to humbly serve as I load my shopping cart with four gallons of milk. The Message phrases Proverbs 15:33b this way: “First you learn humility, then you experience glory.” By His grace, there’s glory before the crowds. I truly believe that in humble surrender, by His grace, there’s glory in the cat box too.

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality, conference speaker, humor columnist and author of eight books, including High Heels in High Places and the newest, soon-to-be-released, How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Change a Person? You can find out more at www.RhondaRhea.com.

My Spring Has Definitely Sprung

By Kathi Macias –

The arrival of Spring brings with it all sorts of images of fragrant flowers, chirping birds, new green grass, and colorful Easter outfits. As a result, Spring has always been my favorite time of year, especially as I anticipated the arrival of Summer right behind it—picnics, cook-outs, trips to the beach…

Uh oh. Now I remember why Spring used to be my favorite season. Now? Not so much. Of course I still love baby chicks and newborn calves and all those great signs of new life, but trips to the beach? That type of outing at my age makes me wish for the long-ago days when women wore bathing suits that pretty much covered everything—and it also reminds me that my spring has definitely sprung.

Okay, I know enough not to buy a bikini or a two-piece, but even sliding into a modest one-piece is more of a shove these days than a slide. I’ve tried to make peace with where I am in life—and most of the time it works—but then the warm weather arrives and there I am, caught between draping myself in a muumuu and hiding under an umbrella or facing the ugly truth that cellulite is not my friend!

Yeah, I know. I’m a grandma (many times over), so what’s the big deal? Still, I love the beach. I grew up in a beach town and went there every chance I got. It’s part of my history, my makeup, my personality, and somewhere deep inside, that young girl who grew up at the seaside thinks she hasn’t changed. Nothing like a forced bathing suit day to bust that bubble!

Now admittedly, Spring isn’t Summer, so I still have a little time to do something about the approaching beach days. Yeah, right. How many times have I set out to conquer that challenge? Diets? No problem. I do great—very disciplined—for two or three days at least. Exercise? Slightly less. Consequently I end up looking just as much like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in a bathing suit as I did before trying to lose weight, but now I have the added guilt and sense of failure to weigh me down even more.

Is anyone feeling sorry for me yet? Maybe a few. But I imagine a lot more are commiserating with me and saying, “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean! I go through the same thing every spring when I come out of my own winter hibernation.” (The only difference between us and bears is that they spend the winter sleeping, while we just keep inhaling more chocolate!)

I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I haven’t found one yet. Some diets and exercise programs work better than others, but most fall by the wayside sooner or later. And the years just keep sapping our metabolism and enticing us to let go and enjoy whatever food comes our way.

Maybe that’s okay, though I imagine I’ll keep putting up at least some semblance of a fight to keep from going over the I’ll-never-wear-a-bathing-suit-again edge. But the only thing that really puts things into perspective for me is a quote from the late E.V. Hill, who was famous for saying, “This ain’t it!” And aren’t we glad? If our life in this world was “it,” then look around you, folks. What you see is as good as “it” gets—and that’s a depressing thought, cellulite notwithstanding.

But this world is just a blink in eternity, our physical life a vapor ready to vanish on the first puff of wind. How we look in a bathing suit when we die is not even going to be a consideration when we stand before the Judge of the Universe. The only thing that will matter then is whether or not Jesus is our Advocate, our Lawyer, our only Defense against our defenseless behavior. For none of us will make it past that Judge on our own merits; we can only hide under the shadow of the Almighty’s wing, grateful for the mercy that covers us.

And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? It’s not about what’s uncovered when we’re exposed in a bathing suit, but rather what’s covered by the blood of God’s Son—and that means ALL our sins. We can stand before Him unashamed because He covers us in His perfect righteousness.

Thanks for the reminder, E.V. This surely “ain’t it!”

Kathi Macias (www.kathimacias.com; www.thetitus2women.com) is an award-winning author of more than 30 books, including her upcoming April release, People of the Book, the final installment of the Extreme Devotion series from New Hope Publishers.

Counting the Miles

By Emily Parke Chase –

“Mom, are we there yet?”

Our kids are no different from yours. Their energetic minds and bodies rebel against the inactivity of sitting in a car for hours at a time. And, as every parent soon learns, we know that idle minds become the devil’s playground.

To head mischief off at the pass, my husband and I use a sure-fire way to entertain our kids on long trips in the car. No, it does not involve OnStar movies or iPods with ear buds. We don’t even hire a professional clown or bribe our kids with stops at Walt Disney World.

Of course old standbys like the alphabet game, I Spy and collecting license plates from fifty states, not to mention the geography game and travel bingo, can help. But with the assistance of my OC husband who has a counting compulsion, we have a new way to keep the kids attention from the start of a trip all the way to the arrival at our destination.

“What shall we count today?” we ask as we settle into our seats and head for the highway.

Flags? US postal trucks? Police cars? Coca Cola signs? Each child suggests a theme. Once we agree on an item, each person in the car, including parents, estimates how many of that item we will encounter in the course of the trip. From then on, everyone joins together in seeking out objects that fit the theme. At the end of the trip, the person closest to the actual total, without going over, receives mega honor and glory.

Of course, counting American flags quickly becomes passé, especially if we plan a trip close to Memorial Day. Do you have any idea how many flags appear in each cemetery along your route? Thus our themes become more targeted. For example, one Fall season we count every orange leaf bag decorated like a pumpkin. Another time, we count houses with dangling Christmas lights. This is in July.

On one memorable trip returning from a visit to my husband’s folks, we decide to count tacky lawn ornaments. Does this sound easy? We soon have to define “tacky.” Is a birdbath, clearly a lawn ornament, tacky? We agree that it serves a useful function and therefore is not tacky. Bathtubs and pedestal sinks, though filled with flowers, are. And crystal balls in varying shades of blue or green, and the plywood cut-outs of female backsides bending over a garden scream tackiness.

Some houses offer more ornaments than we can number as we drive by at 55 miles per hour, so a new rule says that no single domicile may contribute more than six objects to the overall count. That rule saves us from digging out our pocket abacus.

The “tackiest ornament of the day” award? How can you choose between the yard decorated with five porcelain toilets (filled with flowers) and the yard that offered an oversized wagon wheel with ceramic horses attached to each wooden spoke?

We arrive at our own driveway in time for supper. “Aw, are we home already?”

“Preserve sound judgment and discernment . . . [as] an ornament to grace your neck.” (Proverbs 3:21,22 NIV)

The author is busy counting hits at her website. Visit her at emilychase.com to learn more about her books, including Help! My Family’s Messed Up! (Kregel, 2008).

Stringing Along

By Rhonda Rhea –

“Son, did you clean your room?”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s all done.”

Funny how when you look into your teenage son’s room, you find that it’s “all done,” yet things still seem to be swarming in there. Personally, I rarely go in without haz-mat gear.

Teen vision is amazing. I’m nearing the finish line in raising five of them and it’s still remarkable to me that a teenager can look directly at the biggest, ugliest, most disgusting mess and totally not see it.

I opened my microwave not too ago and found a big, fat mound of cheese cooked onto the bottom of the microwave. Someone obviously tried to make one of those nacho mountains. But how could a person zap Mt. Nacho and completely miss the fact that it’s doing a volcano cheese eruption kind of a thing a couple of minutes in? And then how could that teen just walk away and leave all the cheese-lava smoldering there? You would think even a teen would notice something was up when he pulled the plate out, got halfway across the kitchen, then realized the plate was still connected to the microwave by a 6-foot stretchy string of cheese. The only viable answer? Teenage select-a-vision.

Of course, it’s also just about as easy to have selective vision in our spiritual lives sometimes. Isn’t it so much more pleasant to find a fault in someone else than it is to notice a weakness of our own? I don’t even want to think about how many nacho-type messes I’ve noticed in others, all the while stringing along a six-foot-long cheese rope of my own.

But Jesus can give us a different kind of vision. It’s vision that’s not so quick to dismiss our own messes. He asked in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Jesus’ kind of vision clears those hypocrisies right up. And His kind of vision is the kind that sees the best in others. His vision is filtered through love. First Corinthians 13:5 tells us that real love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

According to verse two in that chapter, even mountain-moving faith gets us nowhere if there’s no love.

Loving according to the Lord’s example will keep us on the right track and help us to consistently see things more clearly. It’s not only better vision, it’s the best vision.

By that mountain-moving faith, I’m seeking to hang on to that kind of love vision through those weird scenes in the microwave. Getting plenty of practice. Last week somebody exploded a dozen or so pizza rolls into a forest-looking scene just before another nacho-cano. Now I can’t see the mountain for the cheese.

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality, conference speaker, humor columnist and author of seven books, including High Heels in High Places and her newest book, Whatsoever Things Are Lovely: Must-Have Accessories for God’s Perfect Peace. You can find out more at www.RhondaRhea.org.

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