My Time at the Inn

The art of letter writing is vanishing from the scene. Our culture desires instant gratification. We write in under 149 characters, jot off texts, and send emails that contain shortened spellings and little or no punctuation. I remember the days of walking to the mailbox to find a letter or two to be savored. They contained news, a bit of gossip, and often words of wisdom and encouragement.  I imaged the writers sitting at their tables with a cup of hot tea and writing the things that sat upon their hearts to be shared.  Sometimes the message carried brought tears, because of some sadness the sender had to endure.  Sometimes laughter poured out as the writer told a funny story about a child or grandchild.   Letters endure.  In them you see the hand of the person who wrote it.  My grandmother's firm bold lines reflected her bold personality.  My sister's slanted, small letters reflected her soft and gentle personality. My mother's steady, clear, an...

  I love to plant seeds tenderly caring for them and waiting for them to flower.  My four-o'clock seeds sprouted and so spring is here.  I watch my coffee plants grow and joy in each new developing leaf. (At least I haven't killed it yet!)  I thought today, as I took joy in my plants, that my Heavenly Father takes joy in watching us grow.  He is the Master Gardener, and His Word is the water for our souls.  As I pull out the weeds from garden, so I thought, I must pull the weeds of sin out of my life.  That sin of unbelief that puts limits on what I can do for God.  So went my thoughts today as I enjoyed the beautiful spring day God created.

       This morning as I walked down the breezeway at school, a soft breeze whispered and a bird sang his heart out. The song was such a happy, lithe song that it lifted my spirits. I felt happier.  It sang a gladsome song, and it made me rejoice at God's creation.  All the burdens and cares that I carried with me, when I first started down the breezeway to my library, floated way in the air chasing  after the song the bird sang. As I neared my classroom, the bird's trill came overhead.  The little bird sat in the flowering tree and raised it's little voice in such a jubilant way, I thought how can anyone be sad at such beautiful music as this? It made me think.  The birds don't worry about what predator might lurching to devour them or what food they might find that day.  As one of the little third-graders said, "They just live, Mrs. Turner, to make us happy."  We are "...of more value than many sparrows," says the Lord, so...

   At the recommendation of a grandparent of one my violin students, we watched Question 7.   The movie was filmed in 1961 in what was then West Germany, just five miles from the Eastern border.  The story takes place in East Germany, and the movie concerns post war Germany and the persecution facing Christians at that time. The movie centers on the struggles that both father and son must face, will they stand up for Christ in the face of persecution? The father is a pastor of a Lutheran church, and Peter, the teenage son, is prodigy pianist who wants to go to the Conservatory.  The only way he can go is if he answers seven questions in essay from.  Question 7 centers on faith. Whom do you follow?   The Father has his own battle to face.  He is sent to this new church because the former pastor is imprisoned for preaching the Bible.  Now the father must decide if he can still preach the word and satisfy the state. At one point ...

 Do you ever feel that your life is spiritual balancing act?  Today that is how I feel.  You know you want to overcome something in your life, but  the more you try, the more you feel you fall in the sin you so desperately want to avoid?  I am struggling with performance anxiety.  I know as a Christian I should overcome those noisy voices that say,"You aren't good enough"  or "You will make a fool of yourself here."  "You aren't talented, who do you think you are?" Do you remember this:     Sometimes that's me.  I have the voices on one side whispering, you can't do this, Marsha.  While on the other side is the word of God saying, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth  me."  This happens I think far too much, so I end up feeling like a failure.  Do you struggle? Well, we all struggle in some area or other, don't 'you think? Paul wrote in Romans 7 about our struggle with sin. He ...

William Penn wrote:  "Time is what we want most but use worst.: Coco Chanel has said, "Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to turn it into a door." There is something to be said for that.  There are things we just cannot do and other things we cannot fix.  Those are best left up to our heavenly Father. One day one of boys came to me and said, "Mama, I don't have time?"  Time for what?  I asked.To which he replied, I don't know, you told me don't waste time, and I can't find it."  Ha ha, I know the feeling. He thought I meant something tangible like a watch.  Time isn't tangible.  We can't hold it, yet we can lose it or waste it.  Maybe writing my thoughts is wasting time.  Maybe not, if it helps you, Reader.  Time is a gift from the Lord, yesterday has passed, tomorrow has yet to be, but today is all we have that is a precious gift from God, that's why we call it the Present. :)

 Sounds easy enough, right?  I think I do this, but do I have other gods before Christ?  Luther, in his small catechism  says, "You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things." Our pastor has preached several times in the last month on worry and complaining. (Okay, I am guilty as charged.) He says that when we do this, we are breaking the first commandment.  What?  You mean when I complain about anything from the trivial, like I have another wrinkle on my face, to something more serious such as, how are we going to pay the next bill, I am breaking the first command.  Yep.  and Ouch, that hurts. I've been thinking a lot lately about this, because I complain and worry way to much. I know it's wrong.  I mean, how many passages in scripture do I need to read before I realize God doesn't want me to worry.  Matthew 6:34, "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take tho...

After I moved to checkout, I thought the clerk there might have a spark of a smile on her face.  She rang me up, gave me my cash and when I thanked her, she said, "Yeah, it's my job ya know. Next lady. Okay, I know they are busy, they are losing their jobs and life right now seems bleak for them, but whatever happened to civility.  Even in the worst of the depression, my parents said that folks were kind to one another because everyone seemed to be in the same boat. My take, and my thoughts are meager to be sure, is that we have become a selfish society.  I have thought a lot recently about how would my mother or grandmother, for that matter, react to Facebook?  They were private women.  I told recall my mother sharing her deepest thoughts even when my Dad died, and she loved him so much.  Private feelings were left private.  She would talk to her mother or her sisters, but that would be it.  Today, we tell everyone everything on social m...

I often complain that I just don't have enough time in the day to do everything I want to do.  Do you ever feel that way?  Last evening, I read this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, "All we have to decide  is what to do with the time that is given us. I have thought about this off and on all day. Something to think about.

Have we as a people become less compassionate?  Do we as a people have less patience?  I wondered this Saturday as I went into a local fabric shop that was going out of business for their"Going out of Business  Everything Must Go Sale". I have gone to a lot of closeout sales in stores in the past, after all we love a good bargain, don't we?  Especially in a stagnant economy. Usually, you encounter a full store with folks eager for a good bargain, you may find one or two rude folks, but for the most part customers and sales clerks are helpful.  Not so on Saturday. The store was filled, long lines curled around the aisles as ladies waited to get bolts of fabric cut.I saw other lines of ladies tapping anxious feet at check out counters as they waited to purchase their items.  Few similes shone on anyone's faces. I only need a few items, as my budget this time of the month is limited, so I waited in the curled line waiting to approach the cutting tables. ...