"The Best of the Best"

 

  

BEST OF THE BEST

 

 

These are life lessons, analogies, songs, stories, and quotes that have impacted my life…

or maybe I just liked them, and wanted to share with my family. :)

*1*

HOLY- HOLY- HOLY

 

I read of a minister once who was questioning the fact that we could spend eternity bowing before God and crying “Holy, Holy, Holy”. He said honestly that he could do this for 20 minutes or so, but eternity? So he asked God for enlightenment. (I also have had some such thoughts.)

 

He told him, “eons ago, He had revealed a teensie bit of His character, and immediately the angels bowed and cried Holy, Holy, Holy, for God is so awesome.   Then eons later He again revealed a small portion of His character, and again they cried Holy, Holy, and Holy.” (I am crying as I type this because it is so powerful.)    He has done this again and again for ages on end, and He has hardly begun to reveal His awesome character, power, and other attributes…

I feel as we bow at His feet, and our mental ability gains access to all of God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Heaven and all the rest He has prepared for us, that we will also, like the angels, have no trouble crying HOLY, HOLY, HOLY for the rest of eternity.

 

*2*

Papa Denton’s Bibles

 

One year when I was visiting my precious friend Jody, I saw a Bible laying open on a stand. The Bible was tattered and worn, broken beyond fixing. Thinking it was a super old and super special Bible, I asked Jody about it, “what was the age, what was the significance?”

Her answer swept me away, and changed the way I look at my Bible, to this day.  She said, “Nothing special, in fact if you look at the fly leaf you will see it was  one we gave Dad for Father’s day last year.” I think she then said, it is just one of many worn out Bibles they had of his.

 

My immediate thought was, my Bible is from 1958, and here it is 1978, and it STILL is not worn out. Well, this story brings tears to my eyes too! AND I would say it changed my way of studying His Word .

 

Psalm 119:11

Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.

*3*

Introduction to Three Part Harmony

(Music in general)

 

When I was eight years old, I went to church for the first time. So it isn’t surprising that I had never heard or thought about music, well, Gospel music. I do remember my Grandad Collins singing a song, and if I could think of the words and title, I could sing it for you today…*smile*…I’ll think of it later.

 

We had an Evangelist and he had with him three ladies who sang. One of the songs was, ‘When They Ring Those Golden Bells’. They were good, but I had never heard harmony before (that I remembered) and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. The soprano was so high that you could almost hear those bells!

 

We just jumped into everything at church and Allison and I started singing duets, in harmony, and I would rather sing than to eat when I am hungry. Music and all that goes with it is my heart’s desire, and nothing touches my very heart more than music.

 

“He who sings prays twice.”

 

*4*

Weary Traveler

 

One day there was a traveler trudging along the road, carrying his heavy load, exhausted and tired. Along came a farmer with his horse and wagon, and he stopped and asked the weary traveler if he wanted a ride. The traveler was so happy and thankful for the ride, so he climbed up and took his seat.

 

They traveled for a while, and finally the farmer asked him if he didn’t want to take off his large pack and just put it in the wagon. To which the tired traveler replied, “Oh, no! I couldn’t ask you to carry that too.” 

 

Oh, my! Does that ever speak to my heart?

 

Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

   

*5*

THE MERCY SHIP OF GRACE

 

Everyone wants to go to Hawaii…

So he (with a little ‘h’) challenges us to swim. (Whenever I speak of the devil, I never give his name with a capital “d,” he isn’t worth it!)

We work and we train…and we all jump in,

And we all swim like mad.

Some get farther than others…

We look back and say, ‘I’m doing better than they are…

Look how close to the shore they still are.’

 

What we don’t realize is:

No one is going to make it!

We are ALL going down, sooner or later.

 

Do we need more strength training?

More swimming lessons?

NO. What we need is a boat.

 

No one comes to the Father

Except through Jesus and Jesus alone.

HE is the Boat.

Nothing we do, gives us the edge…

We are all going down

Unless…we get in the boat…

 

That in a nutshell is GRACE.

 

*6*

Grace for Greg

 

College for Greg was a challenge, as it is for most young people who have led a sheltered life, coming up the ranks in church, surrounded by church, church family, an incredible inheritance, but if they are not plugged into a solid foundation (which I thought Greg had)…well whatever else gets their attention, you can lose them in a heartbeat. Greg got into the wrong crowd at college, made some bad choices and caused me great anguish.

I didn’t know how to get him back from the enemy.

He and his friends from college were planning on going to Hollywood, and break into acting.  

 

After many tears, (actually, I think I have said buckets of tears) I finally prayed THE prayer of relinquishment: God, do whatever you have to do to bring him back.

 

That is a scary prayer.

 

But a few days later my good friend Joannie came by, and she told me she had prayed the same prayer for Greg…I knew Greg was in trouble and that God was going to do something…I didn’t know what, but I knew God was going to get his attention.

 

But God spoke (thru Joannie) and told us:

I have heard your cry, and have seen your tears. This is not a battle you can fight, and today I have dispatched angels to fight this battle. I AM THE GREAT I AM…

I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA….THE BEGINNING AND THE END…

I AM YOUR PROVIDER.

I AM YOUR PEACE.

I AM YOUR SHEPHERD.

I AM WHATEVER YOU NEED ME TO BE.

So, sit back and watch what I am going to do.

 

I have this all documented in one of my bibles (and for your information Greg, it is in the back of my Thompson Chain Reference bible) and I am not sure of the time frame, but it was not long until Greg wound up in the hospital with kidney stones.  He was in and out of the hospital all summer long. Finally, they did surgery, which they had held off doing, because each surgery would cause adhesions, and the stones would catch on them and cause more trouble.

 

After the surgery, his system wouldn’t respond and ‘wake up’ as they called it, for several days, they couldn’t release him, because he couldn’t take normal food.   God just gave me the sweetest peace about it, and I was not feeling anxious about anything.

 

His Aunt Sug went to church on Sunday evening, and went forward for prayer for Greg. She looked up and there was a little old man coming over to her, to pray with her, and she said to herself and God, don’t have that little old man come, send the Youth Pastor who knows Greg.

 

He came….smile… and he said, “Sister, don’t pray this thing away, God is working on/in his life.” She said, “you don’t understand, he is so sick and his body isn’t waking up, and he is in the hospital” etc.

He gently said again, “Don’t pray this away, God is working in/on his life.”

 

She came running up to the hospital, called me out into the hall and said, “Margaret…don’t pray this thing away, God is working in his life.”

 

This I journaled, but I didn’t tell Greg…for several reasons.

 

He came home to my house to recuperate, but was interested in getting over to Marty’s house because they were all going to Hollywood. Finally, a day or two before they left for L.A., Greg went over to get his things and, I imagine, to start making plans for him to meet them there.

 

When he came in the door, he was very downcast, and he said,

“Mom you aren’t going to believe this, but Marty and I had the biggest fight, and I am not going to L.A. with them.”

I really understand what they mean when they say my outward appearance stayed calm, but I was jumping up and down on the inside.

 

By way of many miracles, he went on to Bethany that year and started his way out of the pit. Today he is working and ministering in his home church. God is using him and his family in great and wonderful ways. 

 

Whoa God!! You are so faithful!!

 

  

*7*

We’ve Taken the Island

 

During the 2^nd World War, the yanks would many times get where they were going, and then unload their implements of war, and on one of the first few feet of ground, they would set up the American flag. They would then announce that they had ‘taken the island’…anyone could see they had just begun the fight.

 

This is the same thing that God does when we become Christians.

He says, “This child is mine!”

Now we know this is true, but it is also the beginning. God has a lot of ground to cover, and take back from the enemy. So, on a daily basis, step by step, He takes back territory from the enemy. In the eternal, He has taken our lives, and we are secure in Him, but from now until eternity it is a daily battle to take one foot of the territory at a time. There are even times, we all know, that the enemy comes in like a flood, and we lose ground, BUT when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord raises up a standard against him. 

 

So, don’t lose heart, God IS victorious, and we have read the end of the book, and guess what?

God wins!

  

*8*

One Beggar to Another

 

This is short and sweet, but I heard this from David Beiser years ago:

 

This life is not about good OR bad

Skinny or fat,

Short or tall,

 Rich or poor…

But about one beggar telling another beggar where to find Bread.

 

 

*9*

Man Overboard

 

Some years ago, a dear friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident.  Because we had many long talks about my precious Friend, Jesus, I was concerned that I hadn’t done enough, said enough, lived a life close enough to Jesus, and presented Christ to him in a convincing way, because for all intents and purposes that I knew of, he had NOT yet accepted Christ. But he had told me time and time again, to ‘help him believe’ or ‘make him believe’, and to my knowledge he had never received Christ.

 

I was devastated, and figured I had failed the Lord, as well as Darral.

 

I wrote as much to a good friend, and her response really surprised me.

It went something like this:

Who do you think you are? Don’t you think that God loved him more than you?  What makes you so special? It was Christ that died.  

 

Then to soften the blow, she sent me an article from the Pentecostal evangel, that God had put there just for me. *smile*

 

The story goes that a young man who had been raised in a Christian home and had a relationship with God, had wandered far away from what he knew and believed. He claimed that his Grandmother never failed to pray for him and believe in him. But he drifted farther and farther away.

 

He went into the Navy and people that served with him said he had the worst mouth they had ever seen or heard... He was a BAD boy!! One day, on board ship a giant wave washed him overboard, but as he went down, the others heard nothing but vile words as the sea swallowed him up.

 

Now, they could say, (just like we would be prone to do), “that we KNEW where he went, because the last thing they heard was curses!!” Right?

 

Wrong!

 

But, when the next wave swept him back on board, he was a changed man; he went down a sinner and came up a Christian. What is the difference? We do not know a person’s heart or his mind…God does!!

 

So as Darral flew to his death as his cycle hit a car backing out of a driveway, we do NOT know what went on in his heart and mind, but God does, and God loved him a lot more than anyone else could ever love him.

 

So we see that God is a lot more loving and generous than we are. It was Christ that died, let us leave the eternal judging up to Him. I sure am willing to do that.

 

*10*

Peer Pressure in the Ultimate Way

 

This is not any easy story to tell, but if it will help someone reject peer pressure, then the story is worth telling.

 

One year when Vincent Peter was in his early teens, or there about, he was fascinated with Andy’s death by drowning. From time to time, as he was growing up, he would ask me about a certain aspect of it. I tried to tell him, but I wasn’t too successful in my telling. Death is a hard one for a child to grasp, and it was hard for me to talk about.

 

But one day the time was right, and we were talking about peer pressure, I had an inspiration. Andy’s death presented the perfect story. This is what I told him:

 

It was an unwritten rule, in our house, to NEVER go to the river without adult supervision….period. However, Andy’s friends across the street did not have the same rule in their house, and they had persuaded Andy to go to the river with them.

When I called him about noon time and asked him what his plans for the day were, he did not tell me what he had planned. I just said, “whatever you do, remember that you need to mow the lawn before you do anything else.” 

He agreed, but he failed to tell me what his plans were. So, not only was he breaking the rules, he was deceitful as well.

 

Soooooooooooo, they went to the river without mowing the lawn, (thank God they did not encourage Stu and Greg to go with them).

 

They had been swimming for a while, and then Andy decided he needed to get out and go home. He got out, and even put on his tennis shoes. BUT they said “come on Andy; just swim out to the rock, just once”. 

 

He declined, knowing he couldn’t swim very well. They kept on, until he took off his shoes, and tried…but we know what happened…he never made it.

 

He gave his life, because he wasn’t strong enough to tell them NO!

 

*11*

Someone You Love is Sick

 

Natalie and I have been in each other’s lives for 30 years or so, but I want to tell you that God has used her to help me come to a better realization of who God is, and what He wants to do in MY life, through any circumstance that comes my way.

 

Nat had been going thru “the change”, and she was affected with depression more than anyone I had ever seen. I could not understand what she was going through, because I have never been depressed a day in my life--I have been disappointed and discouraged, but I don’t know about depression.

 

So, one day as I was praying and reading my Bible, I read the account of Mary and Martha when Lazarus was dying. They had sent for Jesus, but He did not come. They were pretty disappointed that Jesus had chosen not to come and help them, when they needed Him so desperately. Sound familiar? *smile*

 

So, they made one last attempt. It says they sent a messenger to Jesus, and said only to tell Him, “Someone you love is sick.”

 

As I read that, God stopped me and said, “That is how I want you to pray for Natalie.”

 

I stopped right there, and prayed that prayer, “God someone you love is sick, and that is Natalie.”

 

I want to tell you everything in my attitude changed, because I saw Natalie with Jesus’ eyes. I have since then prayed for others with the same prayer, and it changes your way of seeing what God wants to do through you or through me.

 

*12*

What’s Wrong with My Children?

 

Some years ago, Marian & Paul Cozby lived in Sacramento.

(I even remember it was just off Sunrise & Sunset--my mind does work sometimes!)

 

*Smile*

 

Anyhow, Marian was fixing my hair, giving me a permanent, I think, and she had this song she wanted me to hear. The name of it was, “What’s Wrong with My  Children?”

 

I am going to attempt to put some words to the song, and they may not be totally correct, but you will get the drift:

 

“What’s wrong with my children, why won’t they praise me?

I’ve given them everything, but they have no joy.

They sing of their love for me, but the song is not from their heart,

And if the song is not from their heart,

Then I can’t hear them sing.”

 

That touched a spot in my heart, and I couldn’t quit crying. In fact, as I type this, I am crying again. If we aren’t real with God we are just fooling ourselves. He knows our hearts, and we are just playing church…just giving Him lip- service… don’t we realize He can read our hearts, and know when we are not being honest with Him? 

 

*13*

Prayer Time

 

One time after church service, I was agonizing over Greg at the altar. Paul--the Goo, as Greg called him--came by and prayed with me and told me that God was going to answer my prayers.

 

About that time, the Holy Spirit asked me a question:

 

”Why don’t you pray with as much conviction for other friends’ kids, as you do for Greg?”

 

It really touched my heart, because I didn’t pray for others as I did for mine. As a result, it did spur me on to think of others as well as my own.

 

Which leads me to my next story?

 

*14*

Grandma for Luke

 

When we first started our little church, Grace Fellowship, we were meeting on Wednesday nights at the Wampach home. This particular night, Pastor Don was teaching in Ephesians 4, and the scripture was “Children, obey your parents in the Lord”. But he never got past the first word: Children

 

He taught the whole lesson on that one word.

 

(We figured we would be there with that same verse when Jesus came back, if he didn’t go any faster. *smile*)

 

During our prayer time, I told the story about Greg and his wandering away from God, and how God brought him back through prayer. Each one of the ladies pretty much told the same story, about one of their sons or daughters that were ‘OUT THERE’. Kathy mentioned her son, Jeanette mentioned her daughter, and Shari said, “I’m afraid we have lost Luke”. 

 

So, I determined right there that I would pray for their kids with the same fervency that I had prayed for Greg, and I invited them to pray with me.

 

Sometime later I asked Don if his mother was still living. He said no. I asked Shari the same question and she said no. I replied, “Luke needs a Grandma to pray for him, so tell him I’m on board”. I started a correspondence with him, telling him that he didn’t know me, but I was adopting him as my grandson, and that I was going to be praying for him. I was surprised when he answered my letter. All of the ladies of Grace Fellowship started praying for our sons and daughters that really needed prayer.

 

Just before Christmas, Luke called Dave Haidle to see if he could go to the prison with him for ministry, and of course he went. On the way home, he was so under conviction that he had to pull over and right then and there, and get back on the right track. (Don & Shari had told us that he was drinking an awful lot, but when he came home drunk, Don would just hold him and tell him how much he loved him.) Don said, “In our home, love means Grace.”

 

I got the sweetest note from Luke telling me about how he had stopped and made it right with God. The next Sunday morning, when we were taking prayer requests, Luke stood up and said, “No one knows this yet, except Grandma & Grandpa Larson, but I am a new man, God has changed me.”

 

So, all youse guys out there, don’t hesitate to pray for anyone God puts on your heart, and pray with all the conviction and strength you have, as if it was your own child.

 

*15*

Forrest…My Inspiration

 

Forrest Beiser Sr. and his wife Ollie became dear friends.

Their boys became good friends with Stu & Greg. 

But this is about Forrest… (Although I could write a book about our friendship.)  Forrest was our Sunday school teacher at Bethel Temple (as well as our choir director etc., etc). One day as he was teaching, he said. “I wake up in the morning

and realize Jesus didn’t come, so I say, ‘well you didn’t come last night, maybe you will come today’.”

 

Then at night when I go to bed I say, “Well, you did not come today, maybe you will come tonight.”

 

I realized there were days when I didn’t even think about His coming…so I try to be real with Jesus and do the same as Forrest did and look for His coming every day.

 

This could have been one of the things that led me to the daily habit of ‘Practicing His presence’. But Brother Lawrence hit me full in the face with the way he practiced His presence, whatever he was doing he did it with the Lord by his side, and he did it for God’s glory, whether it was washing the dishes, or sweeping the floor.

 

What a novel idea--Jesus said He would be with us, never leave our side, so why aren’t we living that way? I know that when I am practicing His presence, I am aware of my thoughts, my words, and my actions.

 

Another Forrest Beiser bit:

We just dropped in on them one day, as they were preparing to go somewhere. Ollie, being the proper lady that she was, turned and went back into the house to invite us in. To which Forrest Sr. said, “The Tofts we have with us always, but we have to go to this meeting.”  *Big smile*

 

And Rev. Davie says, to this day, “Oh, the Tofts we have with us always.”

 

*16*

How Much Does God Love Me?

 

Once, a long time ago, I was feeling very unworthy, and wondering if God really loved me. Others I knew He loved, but I was so unworthy. Then I read the 1^st chapter of Ephesians in the Living Bible and this is what God shared with me:

 

How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every blessing in heaven, BECAUSE WE BELONG TO CHRIST.

Long ago, even before He made the world, GOD CHOSE US TO BE HIS VERY OWN.

 

His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by sending Jesus to die for us.

 

How well He understands us and knows what is best for us at all times.

 

Moreover, because of what Christ has done WE HAVE BECOME GIFTS TO GOD THAT HE DELIGHTS IN.

 

We were MARKED as belonging to Christ by the Holy Spirit.

 

His presence within us is God’s guarantee that He really will give us all that He promised; and the Spirit’s seal upon us means that God has already purchased us and that He guarantees to bring us to Himself.

 

I want you to realize that GOD HAS BEEN MADE RICH BECAUSE WE WHO ARE CHRIST’S HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO HIM.’

 

Now if you can read this and still feel unworthy and NOT know just how much God loves you…read it again…and again.

 

God choose us to be His very own…

We are gifts to God that He delights in…

We were marked by the Holy Spirit…

The Holy Spirit is our guarantee…

God has been made rich because Christ gave us to Him.

Wow and double Wow!! 

         

*17*

Devil /Counterfeit

 

As just a teenager we had some great teaching and ministering in our Youth Group.

 

We didn’t cuss, we didn’t chew, and we didn’t go with boys that do. We were pretty well indoctrinated about the things of the world…like lipstick, short sleeves, pants, shorts (oh my!), pierced ears…and the list goes on…

 

We couldn’t even say darn or heck…whoa…so we picked up the phrase or slang word of saying ‘Father Divine’. (At least I did) at least that wasn’t cussing. *smile*

 

Then one night I heard a minister telling a story about the man, Father Divine. (He lived in New York City, and had his church and following there.) He claimed to be God incarnate and had quite a large following, and they were not just street people, or those with no means etc. They were from all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers, and many elite.

 

He decided he would go to New York and check this out…who could possibly be following such a charlatan? He said he was soooooooooooo glad he had been filled with the Holy Spirit before he took this trip, because when he walked in the door, the most amazing, wonderful peace came over him, and if he had not known the real thing, he would have been deceived, too! The devil has a counterfeit for anything God has or does, remember that!!

 

The devil comes in as an angel of light and he came to steal, kill, and destroy…he will deceive even the Elect, if he can, so be on the lookout for him and recognize him for what he is…a thief and a murderer.

 

*18*

Galt Gang

 

Because of the introduction on the last story, I need to clarify some things. We did have some dogmatic teachings and were taught some things incorrectly. We had to mature and grow in Christ until we could decipher the Word for ourselves.  But some things we were taught and caught by some good examples. For instance, on Sunday night after the sermon and the altar call, we as a group ALWAYS spent many hours in the prayer room. We learned to agonize in the Holy Spirit, with groaning that could not be uttered, we didn’t know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit taught us.

 

We were filled with the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. We prayed in the Spirit, we laughed in the Spirit, we knew how to spend time on our knees. (I am sure it was wonderful for our parents, but they had to get up in the morning and go to work.) We would sometimes be there until midnight or more.   I really believe that is why we have such a strong bond even yet, 60 plus years later.

 

I could tell a myriad of stories about the Galt Gang and the Dentons…but that will go in my memories that I am collecting.

 

 

*19*

There  IS  NO  Condemnation!

 

Because of some strange things we were brought up with, meaning things that were expected of us, (not by my Sweet Jesus, but by others that had gotten their own take on a particular scripture), I lived under a lot of condemnation….for a good many years. I knew the Scripture, Romans 8:1: ‘there is therefore now, no condemnation, to those who are in Christ Jesus.‘

 

I knew it in my head but I didn’t know it in my heart.

 

God is so good, and He sees and hears our deepest cries, and He knew that I wanted to serve Him, but my life had been so upside down, that I felt so unworthy…and I suppose I didn’t really feel forgiven. Not me, others perhaps, but I was being abused by the enemy. Remember the Word says he came to steal, kill and destroy…and he was keeping me from real freedom, even though I belonged to Christ.

 

One morning, just before I woke up, I had a dream. In this dream, a lady was  quoting Rom 8:1 over and over, “There is no condemnation…there is no condemnation…there is no condemnation”…and then I woke up (literally and spiritually), saying, “ Did you hear that?? There is no condemnation!!! There is no condemnation!!”

 

I did wake up that morning and believed what Christ had done for me at the cross. He had taken my sins, my condemnation and buried them in the deepest sea.

 

In fact, one morning as I did my devotions, I read in Hebrews 2:14 b “through  death satan was destroyed at the cross...” At that point Jesus stopped me and said, “read it again, I did not say defeat, I said destroy”…

He had me go back three times and read it over, “not defeat…DESTROY”.

 

So, when we allow the enemy of our soul to distract us and try to take away our joy, etc., we are letting a DESTROYED enemy defeat us. How dumb is that?

 

 

*20*

Song of Change

 

One night, during the altar service at N.B.C., we were worshipping and Pastor Wayne Clark was leading us into worship. He sang a song that really touched my heart…

 

You can’t come into the presence of the living God and stay the same…

You can’t come into the presence of the Living God and not be changed…

So change me Lord, remake me Lord, conform me to the image of your Son...

Change me Lord, remake me Lord, ‘til Father, Son and Spirit…we are one.

 

I would say, if we are not changed after being in His presence in worship...maybe we were not there?

 

My very heart’s cry is that people will know that I had been with Jesus (like Peter and John). He is no respecter of persons; He will do the same for you as He has done for others.

 

*21*

May All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful

 

Ezekiel 34 has a great message—not one I wanted to learn, but a great message!

 

Suffice it to say, that Natalie and I had a confrontation. We were not too happy with each other. Cliff and I were in Sacramento because Allison had contracted Guillain Barre. It was getting to the point that we were to go home to Illinois, but the air had not been cleared, and I didn’t feel I could leave without working out our problem.

 

I was reading in Ezekiel and the Word really got to me that morning. The chapter

dealt mainly with a Shepherd who did not take care of the sheep, and how God was going to handle that. It went on to say,

 

“As for you, my flock, is it not good enough for you to feed on the good pasture?  Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?”

 

Well, I stopped right there and tried to digest what the Lord was saying…TO ME!   Me? Was I trampling the grass and muddying the water? Me? How can that be Lord? Show me…help me understand Your Word.

 

Then He brought to mind that Natalie had said years before that I was her “spiritual Mother”(or something like that). Then He brought to mind the song I so love, “May all who come behind us, find us faithful.”

 

Was the way I was responding like Jesus? Was it more about me, than about Jesus? If Natalie thought I was presumptuous…obviously some things that I did were presumptuous. So, I asked God what I was supposed to do, and how I could handle this in a Christ-like manner. (Now this old girl was kicking and screaming…because I already knew what He wanted me to do.)

 

If I was hindering her walk with God, and she was looking at my life, what did I want her to see? Jesus, of course!

 

So I sat down and wrote her a letter and it went something like this:

 

I can only do something about me and my walk with God. If you are looking at my life, and seeing something other than Jesus, I take full responsibility for my words and actions. I am sorry for anything I have said or done to hurt you. I am a lot older than you in the Lord, and if I am muddying the water or trampling the grass, I am so sorry, please forgive me. (Obviously I was doing just that, or God wouldn’t have required me to take this path.)

 

Again, God, through Natalie, has taught me a lesson that I am still using today.   I don’t have to be right or wrong, I just need to be pliable and useable, and it is

not always an easy path to take, but it is a pleasant feeling, to know you have done a hard thing because Jesus asked you to, and He sees things in a lot different way than we do. He sees the beginning from the end, and knows things we just think we know.

 

There was one other factor that went with this action—Greg was hurt because I was hurt, and when I told him what I was doing, he said, “if you can handle it that way, so can I”. If I had just done my thing and handled it wrong, it would have spilled over onto Greg and his attitude, and his actions would then have been wrong also.

 

Long story, but God sees and knows our hearts. He is so wise, and we can never go wrong doing what He wants because He is always right on!!

 

*22*

Never, Never Give Up

 

We have some precious friends who are on the mission field. ( I am not going to use their names because of the persecution in that country). One day when they were home on furlough we got to spend an evening with them. We didn’t have a computer in those days, so we didn’t get to hear a lot about their time in the field.  So, this night I asked him to just tell us something about their days on the mission field.

 

This is the story he told as I remember it, and what a great story it is!

 

They spent the first years learning the language (before they even went to the country). Then later when they had gotten to their country and they were sitting in a café, a young man came over to him and said, “I think we need each other, I need to learn English, and you need some help with your new language.” So they decided to meet one day a week and help each other. This went on for something like 5 years. But the rub was that this man never wanted the missionary to talk about God or Jesus, and when he would start, the man would say, “I want to learn English, not about your God”.

 

Finally, the Missionary had gotten to the end of his rope, and decided this wasn’t working, because he wanted to lead him to the Lord. He figured he was wasting his time. So he thought he would tell him that after this meeting they wouldn’t meet anymore.

 

THAT day as they met (how it happened I do not know), but the man opened up and wanted to know about Jesus. He then led him to the Lord.

 

Wasn’t that a miracle? Just listen to the rest of the story!!!

 

The next week as they met, he asked if he could teach him “how to be a pastor,” and my friend asked him “why?” He said that the week before he had led all 80 of the people in his village to the Lord, and they needed a pastor. *smile*

 

The next week they met, and he wanted the Missionary to help him build a church because he had led more people to the Lord that week.

 

The obvious thing here, is NEVER NEVER give up, because you do not know what the Lord has in mind, and His Word never returns void, and will accomplish what He wants it to accomplish.

 

The other side to this coin is the persecution in that country. They are in this country and they teach computer classes in the colleges, they are not there as “missionaries”. But they are having an impact and leading young people to Christ.  In fact, one convert had a small group in her dorm room. They hadn’t seen or heard from her for some time, so they were questioning people about her whereabouts. Finally, someone came up to him and told him to quit asking questions about her, because he was making problems for her.

 

They found out she was in prison for being a Christian, and having the Bible group in her dorm room.

 

Sometime later they received some kind of communication from her and she said she was winning souls to Christ, ‘she had a captive audience.’

 

What we go through here is nothing to what goes on in other countries. 

We aren’t persecuted like they are. Just remember our Missionaries—they need our prayers.

 

*23*

Another Beiser

 

From childhood, Forrest Jr. (or Punky as we always called him) had a call to the Mission Fields of Africa.

 

He was Stu’s age and Stu’s friend, so when he went to Sri Lanka during the summer in his college days, it was as if my own had gone to that foreign place.  Of course, when he came home, we wanted to hear all the stories about his summer away, and in such a place. I had invited them over for enchiladas, and he was telling about his experiences. Actually, he had been with Reinhard Bonnke, and he played the organ for his meetings.

 

He said one night there were a LOT of demon possessed people in the audience. This was probably par for the course in Sri Lanka but not something we know a lot about here in the USA? After the service ended, Bonnke told Punky they were going to pray for the demon possessed, “You start at that end and I will start at this end and we will meet in the middle.”  

 

Whoa Bill…I was really interested in how he handled this!!

 

The first one he prayed with was deaf and dumb, if I remember correctly, and Punky started praying. The demon responded to Punky and said, “Beiser, I know who you are and I know everything in your whole life that you have done wrong, who do you think you are?”

 

I jumped in and said, “Oh Punky, what did you do?”

He said I looked that guy right in the face and said, “This isn’t about me it’s about Jesus, and in the name of Jesus come out of him and be healed!”

He did and he was!!

 

Like I said before, the Beisers made a real impact on and in my life. I could go on and on…and I will for awhile! *smile*

 

By the time the Forrest Beisers were ready to go to Africa, God graciously let me be in their last meeting before they left. This was especially meaningful for me, because by that time, God in His wisdom (for whatever reason) had taken both Ollie and Forrest Sr. home to be with Him in one year. These kids were my kids!

 

I will never, ever forget what Punky preached about that last night! He said someone had said, “Beiser, I wish I had your passion for Christ.”

Do you know his answer?  PASSION IS A CHOICE!  (Still brings the tears.)

 

We make choices every day, some good and some bad. But we really need to have the mind of Christ even on the small choices, because they lead to bigger choices.

 

*24*

Prayer Changes Things

 

I guess when the Whitt family all became Christians, Bud and Honey were just at a time and age that they rebelled against all the rules. They were hard rules. So when they reached their adult years, they both walked away from everything they knew. We had all been filled with the Spirit, so I know they really did know the Lord. There is such a thing called Eternal Security, and I am not sure even yet how I feel about that statement, however I KNOW Romans 8:38 & 39 tells us unequivocally that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. So I don’t know how to explain all this…God has it all figured out, and I will let Him be the Judge. All I know is that both Bud and Honey knew God, accepted Christ, and then walked away from Him and lived a life without the control of the Holy Spirit and the Peace that Jesus gives.

 

When Mom died in 1971, they were still out there. So since Mom was gone, I took it upon myself to pray for them. Nothing changed, and Honey dabbled in lots of things, even spiritualism and a lot of things that I wondered if she had crossed that invisible line and it was useless to pray for her.

 

So one day when I was specifically praying for Honey, I just plain asked God if it was too late for Honey. His answer was priceless, “If I had given up on her, I wouldn’t have put her on your heart to pray for.”  God is so good!

 

After Cliff and I were married she came to see us for a week. We really did have a wonderful time, and we talked about some things that we needed to talk about, and I heard things that I had never heard before, and I certainly saw Honey in a new light. I guess I saw her with Jesus’ eyes. There was an absolute wonderful change in her, and her letters sounded like Sug or Carol, or any other Christian.  She did get back on the right track, give her life over to Jesus, and became my close sister once again.

 

I think the sweetest thing was what made her change and decide to pray again.  She said when she was in our home and Cliff asked the blessing on the food, that he acted just like he was talking to his friend. I said, he was! Things started to change for her too. She was amazed, but when she went out to lunch with her lady friends as usual, they looked at her and asked her to pray over the food.  She was shocked, but she did it and she said, “you know it was easy, the words just came out.” 

 

Lots of little things God changed in her life, and we were both amazed. The most priceless thing was that her friends could see the change that Jesus was making in her life, and she could see it too.

 

But the really amazing thing was that just 2 weeks before Bud died, they had this long talk, and she told him his bitterness was killing him. The person he was so bitter about was long gone, so who was he hurting? After a while, he said, “Honey, will you pray for me?” She answered, “No, but I will pray with you.”  And that night, just a few days before God took him home, he gave his life back to Christ.

 

That, my friends, was worth praying for. You never know what God is doing and how long it will take Him, but God is in control, and He is always on time. Well, that is five out of seven of our immediate family that are already there, and Heaven is sweeter because Andy, Mom, Dad, Bud and Honey are all there waiting for the rest of us.

 

*25*

My Challenge

 

In those teen years, at Galt, there was a Minister who challenged me one night while he was preaching. He said that in the Word of God, God told us that the Holy Spirit would bring to our remembrance things we need. What the Minister told us was, “How can He bring it to our remembrance if we have never read it?”  So that was my challenge, to read the Bible through so God could use it.

 

I set out to read it through and I did it. Then I decided to read through every version I had, and as I read through I would mark the chapters, one by one, so I could look and see where I have been and how many times I have been there.

 

When Cliff and I got married, we set out to read through each year that we were married. We did this for about 13 years, him reading one version and I would read another version. It was very interesting to see some of the words and how they were changed and how some of the words lacked the power and the punch that another version had. I love the Living Bible, because it is easy to read but it just isn’t the King James Version that I cut my teeth on.

 

I love God’s Word. I love what He shows me in our time together. I truly love it when He shows me something I have never seen or heard before, just me, he reveals to me, His daughter. I used to hear people say that they just couldn’t put it down once they picked it up. They had such a hunger that it was amazing. How I longed for that, but it didn’t seem to come. I think God wanted me to get to the point that I was so thirsty for His Word, that I would just automatically go right to His Word.

 

One time, I was whining to Him about our Pastor, and how he wasn’t feeding me!!! Do you know what God told me? “Feed yourself.” He was right—I was a big girl, and I still wanted the milk of the Word, and He was ready to feed me meat and potatoes. We are such big babies!!

 

At about this time, God sent a lady into my life named Joannie Dunham. She was a real kick in the pants, and I do mean that—she gave me a spiritual kick in the pants with her enthusiasm for the Lord. She just became my ‘real sister’.

 

One time Allison, Joannie and I were having a heart-to-heart talk about the Lord, and Joannie told us something and she finished by saying, “What kind of a witness do you get on that?” Allison and I looked at each other with question marks in our eyes…we didn’t have a clue as to what she wanted us to say. We finally figured it out, but I think we had been ‘in the Way for so long we were really ‘in the way.’

 

This was some of this newfangled talk that the newer Christians used, and we had never heard of it. Like I say, she challenged me BIG TIME.

 

We were both so busy that the only time we had to meet for a little bible study  was early on Sunday morning, before church and Sunday school. I do/did cherish those times, and she never failed to say, “what did you read this week, and what did God say to you?” She introduced me to the Amplified Bible…good stuff!!

 

*26*

Witnesses

 

I had a hard time trying to be a witness for Christ. The key word here is trying.

 

I spent most of my life trying…to be…to do…what I didn’t get was God was the only one who could change me. I couldn’t change, but God promised to change me. But I must be willing.

 

One day, I realized a witness was none other than someone who had seen something, and then told what he saw. Well, that sure freed me up. All I had to do to be a witness, was to tell people, anyone, what I knew that Jesus had done for me. He was real because I knew it. I didn’t know if He was real in your life, but I sure knew what He had done for me. Is that hard?

 

I have a good example from my old neighborhood. The boys and I would jaunt off to church whenever the doors were open. One Wednesday evening, our neighbor was working in the yard. As we backed out, he signaled me to stop. When I did, he asked me just how I got the boys to go to church without a fight.

 

I thought a minute and then said, “Do you give the boys a choice to go to school?”  Of course he said no. Well, when they are little and need guidance, we do what we think is the right thing for them. For me, that was a no brainer, they needed a good foundation and that was the only way to do it. Now I suspect the Asays did not go regularly and therefore the boys did not get into the habit. But they were watching.

 

So I asked the boys what they thought the secret was; why were they always ready to go? They said it came down to commitment. But of course they had lots of years under their hat, and besides we have always had a lot of fun being involved, as well as serving God. This has been a life that has brought much joy, as well as peace, and I guess, anything else that was needed and necessary in our lives. Just the way to go!! 

 

*27*

Sarah’s Prayer

 

A precious niece got in trouble a few years ago, and it was very distressing. She was in high school, and the youth group from their church had made a Missions Trip to San Francisco to do some street evangelism. I suspect they came into direct contact with the devil and his angels. San Francisco is known for its Gay population. She came home with some distressing thoughts and the devil was having a field day with her mind.

 

The family and their ministers from the church they attended had prayed, counseled and interceded for her and she seemed to not be getting any better.  In fact the enemy was really tormenting her.

 

Margie, her mother, called us and asked us to pray for her, a special time that they were going to pray and intercede, on Sunday at 2 p.m. (pst) We promised to pray at our time of 4p.m. Strangely, that morning I woke up and did not feel like going to church. So I stayed home, and was preparing myself for the afternoon for prayer. I asked God for direction, and I went into the study and started typing out all the strong powerful scriptures that I could find. When I got through, I printed them out.

 

When we got ready to pray, I brought out the list of scriptures and told Cliff I felt lead to pray just the scriptures. I must say, that was the most powerful prayer time I had ever had. It was so simple because I wasn’t using my words but the Word of God.

  

*28*

Footprints

 

We all know what footprints are, but my lifelong desire has been to be like Jesus.   Remember Peter and John when they were going into the temple after saying to the lame man, “Silver and gold we do not have, but such as we have we give to thee, in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.”

 

The crowd took note of them, that “they had been with Jesus”. So that is my cry: that I will spend so much time with Jesus, that people will see Jesus rather than me.

 

A little humor here…Greg gave me a present when he was about seven, and on the card he wrote, “silver and gold I don’t have, but such as I have I give to thee.”  At least he knew the scripture and the story!

 

All that to say this: I want anyone coming behind me, following in my footprints, to see Jesus.

 

So the song: 

May all who come behind us find us faithful,

May the fire of my devotion light their way.

May the footprints that we leave

Lead them to believe,

And the lives we lead inspire them to obey.

Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful.

 

*29*

Pickles and Perseverance

 

This has nothing to do with anything, except it has kept Jody and me laughing forever.

 

Grandma Denton was a good cook…a good anything!! Whether it was curing olives or canning fruit or making dill pickles. Especially olives and dill pickles.

 

One year we kept badgering her to let us taste the dill pickles, to which she always replied, “They aren’t ready yet”. Every day we were after her to see if they weren’t ready yet, and each time the answer was the same. Finally, we got brave and went out and opened a jar. Here I have to say, we weren’t the brightest stars in the sky, because instead of opening a little jar, we opened a ‘gallon’ jar.   They were NOT completely done yet, but they were very tasty. So we had one, then another and another, and by that time we knew we were in trouble, how could we eat the whole jar????? Or whatever we had to do.

 

We went into the house and once again asked, “Aren’t they ready yet?” and she surprised us and said, for goodness sake go get some pickles. We headed out to the storage space and got THE jar, and headed for the house, acting like we were eating…eating…eating.

 

She said, “My goodness, you girls really were hungry for pickles.” Well, our consciences were hurting us, and we had to come clean and tell her what we had done. She probably had seen through our little scheme anyway.

 

A few years later, she came to a shower for me, and you guessed it, she wrapped up a jar of dill pickles. It has been a source of laughter through the years.  Especially, when Momma Denton passed away, I brought a gallon jar of dill pickles, and put it under the casket. Some surely thought I was bananas, but I know she looked down and smiled, once again.

 

*30*

More Laughter

 

Since that last story didn’t have anything to do with anything, here is another.

 

We were in Tennessee with Jo and Don, and we went to an outdoor play where they had performed the filming of Christy years before. After the play, the Minister decided to give a little sermon to the very small crowd of 10 or 15 people. At the end of his sermon, he was telling about the Three Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace. When he said their names were Shadrach, Meshach and Beshach…I lost it, and was shaking so bad trying not to laugh out loud, and when Jody felt me shaking, she lost it too, and I think at that point we got up and left.  (That would have been the kindest thing to do). When Jo and I get tickled we don’t always do the best thing. Sometimes before we get tickled we don’t always do the best thing. But such is life—our life anyway!!

 

*31*

Introducing…My Sisters

 

I am getting way off base here, but I just have to tell one more funny thing.

 

When Sug had recuperated enough to come visit us in Illinois, we three girls had not sung a trio in years. So we decided we would sing at Grace Fellowship.

(Since I was in charge of the music we had the chance).

 

When we got up to sing, someone asked me to introduce my sisters. 

Since Sug had quite a time getting up there, I said, “This is my sister, Allison, for whom you have prayed many times. She had Guillain Barre”, and I pointed to my neck, and said, “She was paralyzed from the neck down.”

 

Then I looked at Carol and said, “This is my sister, Carol, who lives here in Sugar Grove, she was paralyzed from the neck up.”

 

It just came out, before I thought…but I probably would have said it anyhow.  That was funny! (At least everyone but Carol thought so.) Actually, she laughed too. She knows she is my Baby Sister, and I love her berry, berry much!

 

*32*

God is interested in a Clothes Dryer (or lack of one.)

 

We were very poor, but happy. I had just started working for the State of California, and my pay before anything taken out was $295.00 per month. (But that was 1967 )

I had kept back in my checking account $10.00 per month for a dryer. I had a washer, but no dryer, and three little boys went thru many changes of clothing.  *Smile*

 

At last, I had $100.00 for a dryer, and when I did my statement from the bank I found I had made a horrible mistake and had, misconstrued something, and I didn’t have $100. I just cried, and as I did I prayed, and said to the Lord, “You know how much I need a dryer….but I guess it will have to wait.”

I tell you truthfully, just then the phone rang and it was Sug, she said, “Bill just  bought me a new dryer, do you want my old one, and he just put in a new heating element?”  

 

Then I did start crying…and I told Allison what had just transpired. From then on out, when I needed anything, Bill said, “Don’t pray for it!!” I think he thought that if I prayed, it went straight up, and then God said, “Bill…take care of that.”  

 

Bill really has been good to me!!!!!

 

*33*

God is just GOOD...period!!

 

While we are on the subject of my brother Billy, I have a couple of things that are not usually told, maybe to a few close friends and relatives...and if he (Bill) ever reads them, I will probably be G.O.N.E.  Gone!  *smile*

 

A lot comes along with losing Andy at age 16 to a drowning accident.

I was working then at D.M.V. in Sacramento, poor as a church mouse, but loving God and His Faithfulness, when it happened. You are never ready and able to cope with a loss like that, without the help of our Heavenly Father. Years before, our friends lost their 13 year old son to an accident, and I remember Betty crying over the fact that every month they had to make payments on Michael's funeral and burial.

 

So when Andy was buried, and life had to go on...I called Sug and asked her to go with me over to the funeral home to get started "paying for Andy". She said to just let it go for awhile.  So I did...but finally I knew it had to be done, so once again I implored her to accompany me, because I just didn't have the strength to go alone.

 

She finally said (in essence), there is nothing to pay. After much talking and crying, she finally told me that Bill had taken care of it, but didn't want me to know.   There is more to the story—when they finally decided to honor the small insurance policy I had on each of the boys, I took that little amount over to Bill and he refused to take it. I insisted, so he said “ok, we are going to buy you a car”. Bill, Eddie and I went shopping, and we found a car that was what we (they) wanted. Then Bill asked me what I was paying a month on my old car, and I said something like $47.00, and so he told the car dealership, write it up, and make her payments $47.00 a month...

 

Of course he contributed more in with the insurance money to make up the difference…how much more, only he knows.  

 

That is the Brother I have had for over 50 years.

 

*34*

More Billy-Boo stories

 

The week before Andy drowned, we were at Sug and Bill's house. Andy had just gotten his driver’s license. Bill looked at him and said, "Here are the keys, and money, go get us some ice cream." 

 

So don't you know how wonderful that made Andy feel? Uncle Bill’s Cadillac!

 

In a little while here came Andy, with a sack. Bill said, "I wanted ice cream, REAL ice cream, and I know what you have in that sack, you don't even have ice milk, and you have imitation ice milk!" Sure enough, that is exactly what he had. (I keep saying we were poor, but we bought imitation ice milk for 29 cents a half-gallon.)

 

Sadly enough, the following Sunday, guess where we were, again? Yep, over at Sug and Bill’s, and we were again eating ice cream...when all of a sudden, it dawned on all of us we were doing the same thing as last week, only someone was missing. What a wet blanket that put on us all, UNTIL...Unca Bill, held up his dish of ice cream, and said, "See, Andy…ice cream, REAL ICE CREAM."

He has the ability to turn around an uncomfortable situation!! And I am sure Andy laughed!!

 

One other time when we were in a very tense situation…Bill brought a laugh, maybe he shouldn’t have, but nonetheless he did!!

 

Christmas morning (Greg had stayed at the house Christmas eve) a terrible thing happened…Ivory got up for the bathroom, and as he crawled back into bed, he tucked the covers around me, turned over and died. It took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t snoring, that it was the very breath going out of his body.  We called 911 and they worked on him for some time and then took him (me too) to the hospital in the ambulance. 

 

Greg stayed to call Sug and Bill, and they almost beat me to the hospital. They were always there when I needed them! 

 

After some amount of time, can’t say how long, the doctors came in to where we were sitting, and apologized…that he was gone, but they had done all they could.  I told them I knew they had and that he was gone before we ever left the house.

 

Very tense moment indeed!! But as the doctors walked away, Bill, who doesn’t handle stress well, said, “Does this mean Ivory isn’t going to be here for Christmas dinner?” What do you think we did? Laughed of course! And I am sure those two doctors walked away thinking, that poor dude just left her a lot of money.

 

*35*

Our Friends…The Scotts

 

Allison and Bill have some wonderful friends, Ron and Donna Scott, who for unknown reasons couldn’t have children. In time, they adopted two precious little ones named Faith and Donald. At the time, Donna was a Christian, but Ron was not, and I guess it is safe to say that he was an agnostic, and a quite outspoken one at that, and he did not want to talk about God or have anything to do with Him.

 

But God had other plans…

 

One night, Sug took Faith outside and she pointed to the stars and asked Faith, “Do you see the stars?”

Faith replied in her two year old way, “God do dat!”

Al immediately went into the house and said, “Do you know what this baby just said?”

Then she told them, and Ron said, “Who told her that?”

Allison said, “God do dat!”   

 

Oh MY, isn’t God cute! (Someone once said that was disrespectful, but God is Cute, Precious, Wonderful…and all those other wonderful attributes)

 

*36*

Still, the Scotts…

 

When they were getting ready to go to court to clear the way for adoption for Faith, it just ‘happened’ that that morning Allison and I had lunch with Donna before the court date. We were discussing the fact that the real father was giving them problems about relinquishing his rights. I just ‘happened’ to have a copy of a new book entitled ‘Prayers that Avail Much’, which took situations and combined scriptures creating a prayer for the situation, using just the scriptures.

 

So I pulled out my trusty book, and said that just maybe they had included just a situation as this. We were surprised and pleased to find just a prayer. We prayed that prayer right then, and Donna went on her way to court. Later she called, and the father never showed up, and they were able to go on with the adoption, and finalize it.

 

The strange part is that I have looked that book over for that particular prayer, and couldn’t find it. Sounds like God had a hand in that prayer.

 

*37*

Ron Scott… *smile*

 

Years later, God did a number on Ron, let him be put in a terrible spot, but a spot where he had nothing to do but ‘look up’. He found God, and became a wonderful man of God, and an easy one to be around. We have had some wonderful talks about the Lord and his changing power. He is one sweet man, and one I love to be around!

 

*38*

Diphtheria at age 20

 

I had already been to college (for my one and ½ years) and was having fun working and doing what young people do. We had a group of friends that we went to church with, and just tooled around with, sometimes using my car, which was the only one in the group with an automatic shift. The guys sometimes said, “let’s take the hydro-matic”, which we did and sometimes we’d take “Jezebel”, their car, or sometimes we’d take Harold’s convertible…we just had fun!!! (I can’t remember Harold’s name for his car.)

 

Anyway, we had a weekend planned to go to Ceres, to a family reunion, and I wasn’t going to let a little cough keep me home. We went in Rocky’s (Harold) convertible, with Bob and Rena and their son Larry. I evidently was sicker than I thought…because when we got home Sunday night, I was one sick puppy.

 

Mom called our pastor, and he came over and prayed for me. The next morning, instead of going to work, I went to the hospital, actually to the County Hospital, which had the only isolation ward in the city, at that time. They decided that I had diphtheria. They came in and put a drop of anti-toxin in my eye, to see if my body would tolerate it, and then they gave me a shot of this every twenty minutes for the next 24 hours.

They took a culture numerous times.

 

I was there for 5 days, and no one was allowed in to see me, I remember looking out the window, and seeing the family waving to me.

 

Now, the good part…they never found the diphtheria bug. The doctor told us that the anti-toxin was a poison to counteract the diphtheria bug, and if I didn’t have diphtheria, the anti-toxin would have killed me. So since God was in charge, he took care of all those things, and the doctor said he couldn’t figure it out, and that it had to be God, because of all the circumstances.

 

I was still sick and had to recover, I missed a lot of work, and at the end of my recovery, I went back to work, and could barely walk up the stairs I was so weak.  The doctor said that was another thing that made him KNOW that I had had diphtheria, all of these things just went with the territory.

 

Sooooooooooo, God healed me, in His own way, slowly, but I was healed! It seems He uses unique ways to do His perfect will, in His own way, in His own time…but He does it right. He says in His Word that He doeth all things well.  How can we doubt God? How can I doubt God? I guess it is my human frailty that pokes its head up from time to time. “But I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed, unto Him against that day.”

Which brings me to my next healing story…?

 

*39*

Lung Surgery & Double Pneumonia

 

I am always, no doubt about it, always on a diet of some kind.

I have fought the battle of the bulge all my life, and in 1959, as usual was fighting the battle. This time the doctor had given me some diet pills that really worked, and took my appetite away and I ran with it. Problem was I wasn’t eating right and I did lose a lot of weight, but I ran my health right into double pneumonia. I wound up in the hospital and when they tapped my lungs I got staph infection. I then had a mass in my lung that quadrupled in size in a matter of weeks. They admitted me again and did lung surgery, and found it was a large abscess that went through the wall of my right lung.

 

They removed as much as they could, but didn’t repair the lung, because they said any extra cuts would just send the infection deeper into my body. They would do the best they could and later when I had survived and gained strength, they would do another surgery to repair the lung. They only gave me a 50/50 chance to survive. I was not aware of all this, because they said it might take away my will to survive. (I never, ever had the feeling that I would die.)

 

Lots of prayer went up, and eventually I came home from the hospital. Mom would come over every day after work, change the dressing where all this was draining, walk over to the fireplace and burn it. I guess it was very easy to pick up the staff if you had any little cut or scratch.

 

One day as Mom was dressing the wound, the tube had almost slipped out, and she didn’t have what it took, to push it back into my body, so I told her to leave it, because I had a doctor appointment the next day.

 

The next day at my appointment, the doctor said, “I am going to make you mad”, so of course I asked him why? He told me he was going to put a Band-Aid on my wound and send me home. Granted, the Band-Aid was the biggest one I had ever seen! *smile* But he then added, “You are beating me out of another surgery.”  He then explained how they expected to have to go back in and clean up my lung, but now they didn’t have to…because there was nothing to repair. God, in His own way, and in His own time, once again had healed me. The only residual left from all that is when the weather changes, my lungs get real tight, and it is just a reminder of how God healed me!!

  

 

*40*

God Shows Me How to Minister to the Sick

 

During all this sick time, many people—very sincere, very willing to help—would ask me to call them if I needed any help. Well, I did need help, but it was so hard to call someone and see if they could come over and wash some diapers, or fold the laundry, or any number of things, because I was really sick and could do hardly anything.

 

So a precious acquaintance and her sister showed up at my door, any number of times, and said, ‘What’s bugging you today?’ One day they showed up with their ironing boards and irons, and just jumped into my ironing…which had just mushroomed like fresh bread rising.

 

Now I know when I really want to help someone, I just show up and say what can I do today?

 

*41*

Is there Life after Life?

 

After Andy died, Heaven became more real, because I knew he was waiting there for us. But Heaven…what is it all about? Do we just sit by the river? Sing in the angel choir? Prostrate ourselves worshiping? I was curious about what he was doing.

 

Just before he died, he had become good friends with Dennis Brace, who had just had a fight with the enemy of our souls, in getting off drugs. Then as I used to say, we lost Andy. Just recently I heard someone say, “we didn’t lose my mother, we know where she is!!” So I no longer say we lost Andy, because I know where he is!!!!

 

Sometime later Janice, Denny’s mother, came to me and said she had something VERY INTERESTING to tell me…and it was!!!!!!

 

A few nights before, Denny had gone to bed, and as he lay there trying to go to sleep, he said a large black presence came in the room, filling the room, as it headed toward him. He cried out to Jesus, and he said that immediately, Andy was standing on one side of the bed, and an angel (or Jesus he didn’t know which) was on the other and they just marched that black presence out of the room!

 

The Word says, “we are surrounded by a great cloud of Witnesses” Heb12:1…

Oh my goodness, doesn’t that give us another glimpse of what is going on there?

 

*42*

Forsake Not the Assembling of Ourselves Together

 

This is a cute one!! Carol and Ron had just moved to Sugar Grove and Greg and I were visiting one holiday season. Allison was choosing to listen to some T.V. Ministries rather than go to church. Greg was trying to get her to go to church with us. She was refusing. One morning she got up and told Greg she had a dream the night before, and this was her dream…..”I dreamed God was speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear Him because the T.V. was too loud!”

 

Needless to say, Greg nearly died laughing and Lolly went to church with us.

 

*43*

This is My Story…This is My Song!

 

This song goes back a long way…

 

It was one of Mom’s favorites, and it was Mama and Papa Denton’s favorite. In fact, when Papa Denton died, Jody called and told Allison and me we were going to sing it at his funeral. We did, and got through it by not seeing him  beforehand. Same with Mama Denton, so the song is just one of our very favorites, plus it says such good things about our precious Lord and Savior!!  Allison had made me a tape of some of our favorites, including this one.

 

Now jump ahead a year or two or three:

 

We had just gotten word from Bill that they had diagnosed Sug with Guillain Barre, and they didn’t think she would live….paralyzed from the neck down….it gives me chills just to write this. Cliff and I took care of things, loaded the car and headed for California. Of course I was praying all the way: just let her be okay.

 

Somewhere out there, driving across the states, I remember I was looking out the window, praying...praying…praying…and the enemy, ole’ slewfoot, father of lies, whispered in my ear, ‘of course she is ok, she is in heaven.’  

 

I just came unglued…the tears streamed down my face, as I turned to tell Cliff…that tape was in the deck, playing over and over…and just at that minute the song that came on was…you guessed it…THIS IS MY STORY…THIS IS MY SONG.

That was Jesus…how’d He know that I needed that song at that very moment?  He did and He fixed it to work just like that. I have seen His hand in lots of ways, just at the right moment, He does the most amazing things!! 

 

Sug was still very sick, and had a long recovery time, but I KNEW she wasn’t going to die…we both hung onto that for a very long time…His precious promises that we can depend on!!

 

*43b*

Addendum

 

Here it is many years later, and again, Sug is sick…very sick! She has been pretty disabled from Guillain Barre and now it is September 2013, and she fell and broke two ribs by catching her foot on something as she was getting out of her wheelchair. She wound up in the hospital in great pain, and they started giving her large doses of morphine, which we realized several days later she was VERY allergic to.

 

When we got to the hospital, she was GONE gone!!! She didn’t know who she was or where she was, she couldn’t talk, and I tell you, I was one scared puppy. Bill told the “nurse, this is not my wife, what are you giving her?” She was this way for many days. 

 

Lisa said out in the hallway one night, she had a friend that had passed away, and she looked just like her Auntie Allison, and I responded that I didn’t think this was going to turn out good.

 

The next morning Lisa brought coffee, and I was telling her about the time we were rushing to California, when the Lord gave me the song mentioned in the above story, and I started singing, “This is my story, this is my song” and Sug , (not  having said hardly any words, and when she did they made no sense, she was just in “Laa Laa” land) started not only singing with me, but in harmony.

 

What a wonderful, delightful time that was, because once again—HE (God)—used a song to tell us it was going to be okay. She came back to us!! When Bill walked into the room, I said, ”Bill, do you want to hear your wife sing?”

 

He said “Sing, she can’t even talk.”

 

So I turned to Allison and said, “Sug, can you do it again?” And again, she sang with me.

 

*44*

The Praying Toft Boys

 

In November 2010 I had an angiogram scheduled, and the Toft Boys called me the night before and each one prayed for me for the procedure the next day. I LOVE to hear Greg pray, but it just blessed my socks off to hear Andy and then Zach pray their own prayer for me.

 

What an honor to see the fruit of what God is doing in my son’s life, and now my Grandsons’…what can make a mother/grandmother happier than to hear their kids pray?

 

The scripture that goes with this story is 2 John verse 4:

 

There is no greater joy than to know my children walk with God.

 

By the way, the angiogram turned out to be nothing all. Surprised? Not me!

 

 

*45*

Things That Tickle My Fancy

 

In the 7^th grade, my teacher, Mrs. Leeper, LOVED one-liners. She had one for every subject, and I feel that is where I got my love for them. I write them in the fly leaf of my bibles. Whether they are just quotes from ministers, or something funny, or just about anything. I just read one that Jody put in my journal:

 

“Birthdays are good for you……the more you have the longer you live.”

 

Greg was reading all the things I had put in them (my bibles) over the years, and he said they would make good sermon material. I told him that that is where I got a lot of them. So, I wrote them all out, and Allison Grant typed them up for me on the computer, and I gave Greg a copy for Christmas that year.

 

Back to Mrs. Leeper…

 

When someone wasn’t paying attention, she would say, “Off again, on again, gone again, Finnegan.” When she wanted us to try harder, she would say, “Good better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better best.” 

Or this one, I had a hard time deciphering it, I thought she was talking a foreign language... but it is a quote from the old Scottish poet, Robert Burns: “O wad, the power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us.”

 

I can’t blame this on a teacher, but it is from my childhood. Do you have a hard time remembering how many days in each month? Well, I remember reading Mutt & Jeff, and Jeff said this: “Thirty days hath Septober, April, June and no wonder, all the rest have thirty-one except Grandma, and she smokes a pipe.”

 

AND…“Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where them flowers iz?”

 

Now that hurts even my ears!

 

This could go on for days, but I have already penned them at another time, in another way, and if I haven’t you will just have to like it or lump it. *smile*

 

 

*46*

Poetry and Songs

 

I am a poor excuse for a poet, but I do like to try, and I had a Thanksgiving poem published in the Galt Herald while I was in high school. It is around somewhere—I won’t take the time to write it now, but I will dig it out. You lucky dogs!

 

Music is my forte…it moves me, and I really can worship the Lord through my songs. One line of a song that really touches me is from “When You Were on the Cross, I was on Your Mind”. The line says, “You knew me, yet you loved me…”. It makes me cry to think that Jesus knew me from the foundation of the world; He knew just how many times I would blow it, walk away from what He wanted me to do, or act, and yet He loved me in spite of all my sins and failures.

 

Heaven, (even before Andy got there) “It will be worth it all. When we see Jesus, life’s trials will seem so small, when we see Christ. One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrows will erase, I’ll gladly run the race, ‘till we see Christ.”

 

I just listened to a recording that we made when Mom was in the hospital, and Sug and I were singing that night at Bethel Temple, and here’s the song we sang and dedicated to our darling Mother (I am going to have to write out the words, because they are soooooo descriptive…):

 

I have watched the tender halo in the rosy tinted west,

In the twilight when the evening shadows fall.

And I’ve wondered as I’ve waited

In the hush of purple dawn,

If in listening I could hear the Master call?

 

Oh I’m longing for His coming

Every day I’m longing more..

And I wonder why He tarries , oh so long!

And I think each glorious morning

And in every twilight gloom,

That He whispers, ‘Yes I’m coming, coming soon.’

 

I have gazed from lofty mountains

Through the dawn, dusk, through the rain….

With a longing that no tongue could ever frame.

And I’ve wondered as I’ve waited

With a presence all unseen, If he’d burst the clouds

and come to earth again!

 

Oh I’m longing for His coming

Every day I’m longing more…

And I wonder why He tarries, oh so long!!

And I think each glorious morning

And in every twilight gloom,

That He whispers, ‘yes, I’m coming, coming SOON!’

 

Doesn’t that make you just ache for Heaven??

 

*47*

The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life

 

There are soooooooo many good Christian books out there, and the ones I’ve read have really ministered to me. In reading one of Catherine Marshall’s books, she talked about this one. It had a long and not such a compelling title, that it took me a while to read it. But it was an amazing book, and well worth the read.  “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.”

 

One thing in particular that caught my heart, and was used by Christ to heal a portion of my heart was the part where it talks about the “Juggernaut”.

(in my mind’s eye that is a very large steam roller.)

 

I had lived in such fear and condemnation because of the teachings that I had received in my early life—fear of God, never being good enough for God to bless etc—that this one little part of the book literally changed my life.

 

It said, “When you find yourself in the stranglehold of some sin, there are two things you can do. One, you can confess your sin, give it to God, and since there are always consequences to sin, the juggernaut is coming, sure as shootin’, but since you have given it to Christ, you will be riding on top of the juggernaut instead of underneath it.

 

Two…Or you can just let it run you over, smash you all flat, because it is coming.”

 

Now the word was, that even though you knew better, and did it anyway (which in my case was what happened) you could still ride to victory “on top” of the thing, if you let Christ handle it!! Now is that Mercy and Grace to the fullest extent? We serve a great, good, merciful, God, and would you believe, He chose me, ME, from the very beginning to be His very own? Because He loved me, because He believed He saw something worthwhile in me? That He could use?  OH MY! That is just too wonderful for words!!

 

  Use this as part of God’s plan, use it for yourself when the enemy of your soul tries to tell us we have blown it so bad that even God cannot forgive us. God is not a man that He can lie!! He loved us so much He literally died for us, and His love covers all!! So why would you let the old devil, the father of lies, tell you another one, and you would believe it?????????

 

*48*

God Heals

 

When I was first a Christian, somewhere around eight or nine, we were playing on a homemade teeter-totter that not only went up and down, but round and round.  Our ingenuity was amazing. *smile*

 

There were a few problems with the teeter-totter, one being that there was a large log stood on end and planted in the ground, and in the top was a hole, don’t know how deep, and somehow we had managed to make a hole through the four-by-twelve and we placed a long nail, or something through it and ‘eureka’ we had a very teetering totter.

 

How we managed all this I do not know!! But it was pretty spiffy to say the least.  We had several of the neighborhood kids setting on each end, and I suppose we had at least three or four on each end…up and down, round and round. What fun!! What we didn’t realize was that as we went round and round, the nail was inching up and up, until it finally came loose, the 4x12 came off and down we all went. The only problem was that my left leg was under all that weight. It crushed the muscle and tore the flesh pretty bad. 

 

It was Wednesday night and of course, church, so Mom bandaged the leg as best she could. We probably didn’t go to the doctor because of the expense, and the fact that it wasn’t broken.

 

Dad went to church and brought home a handkerchief that they had anointed and prayed over (just like Paul) and they put that on my leg, and guess what? It healed completely, the only thing left is the indentation in the muscle, and the scar.

 

James 5:14

The prayer of faith shall save the sick.

 

*49*

Sin’s Outhouse

            

This was Jody’s ‘Out House’ dream, regarding praying in tongues…which opened the door…this ‘mess’ ( the old out house) is what our children and grandchildren are being exposed to…every day and every hour. Pay attention…because this is from God!! (For those of you who have never experienced an old out-house…there is nothing like it…)

 

Jody was awakened one night and the Lord told her, “Place the Blood Covering over your children and family, before they start the day.” I (Margaret) have asked the Lord to wake me early, so I can do this.

 

Her dream:

She went out at night to an old, dirty, smelly out-house, where all kinds of ‘crud’ was all over the seats and walls. Very ugly words and things written in crud…but the smells were horrendous!! When she turned to go out, the door was shut and locked tight from without.

 

She prayed all kinds of scriptures and the door would open a small amount…only to slam shut, tight again.

 

All of a sudden she started to use her prayer language…and the door burst open and she was free.

 

Then the Lord told her, “This old ugly out-house is where our kids are today...bombarded with filth…continuously! Pray! Pray! Pray! and use your prayer language.”

 

Cover them with the Blood Covering…That is why we are living longer, not for our benefit, but to pray for our kids and grandkids!

 

*50*

Praise….An Instrument of Violence?

 

This is from Jack Hayford in ‘Prayer is Invading the Impossible’.

 

Praise is not intended to compliment God. Some people have confessed quite candidly that praise seems like an effort to curry God’s favor by soothing or massaging His heavenly ego.

 

But praise is not the blind pursuit of heavenly intervention. IT IS AN INSTRUMENT OF VIOLENCE.

 

It upsets the climate that furthers life’s suffering, confusion, turmoil and strife.

 

Praise destroys the atmosphere in which suffering, disease, discouragement and futility flourish. Praise beats out hell’s brush fires and breathes heaven’s life into death’s vacuum.

 

Well! I couldn’t have said it better, actually I could have never said it at all.

So next time you think about praising God, and you give Him a ‘sacrifice’ of praise, just think about the POWER of your praise, and what God can and will do with it!!

 

And by the way when you sacrifice anything, whether it is your time, your effort, your money…remember, sacrifice means: the offering of something valued, the willing acceptance of a loss, to forfeit or give up.

 

When you are so busy and time is of a concern…sacrifice your time and Praise Him! When money is tight, sacrifice a ‘bauble or two’ and supply a needy person’s need. Go out of your way to bless someone, even if you have needs of your own to fulfill. That is sacrificial giving. God will use it for His glory, and then He can supply our needs!!

  

*51*

God’s Power Within Us

 

Greg had a friend named Robert, whose Father had a family furniture business.

One day, Greg and Robert were to deliver some furniture in Placerville which is 50 miles from Sacramento. When they got there, the people were not at home, and had left the garage door open, so they could deliver the furniture.

 

There was only one small problem…well…I should say TWO rather large problems…dogs. They were quite challenging, and would not let the guys out of the truck. They tried for some time without success.

 

Finally, Greg opened the truck door, started to get out, and as he did he yelled, “In Jesus’ name, sit down and be quiet!”  

 

They did, and the guys got out unloaded the furniture and were soon on their way. Robert was amazed, and said, “How’d you do that?”

 

It really tickled me, and I know it tickled God, that Greg had been taught and believed the scripture.

 

*52*

Streams in the Desert

 

One of my devotional tools just happens to be “Streams in the Desert”. It is special for several different reasons.

 

First, because one morning in December 1970, I found it in my mailbox, and it was one of Andy’s best friends, John McIntosh, who put it there. This was just a few months after Andy died.

 

Second, Jody has one just like it, and we often share bits when they are especially meaningful to either one of us.

 

Third, I have given one to each one of our kids and their mates, so they too can share when a message hits the spot.

 

I have a few things that I gleaned from “Streams” and they are as follows:

 

“It is the last step that wins! It is when heaven’s heights are full in view that hell’s gates are most persistent and full of deadly peril.”

 

“I have chosen you less for your strengths than for your weaknesses, which amplify your need for me.”

 

In fact, as I read thru it each year (sporadically, not every day), I find it is like a journal: we were in Tennessee on this day…birthdays and anniversaries get jotted down, agonizing times for someone, and how God has answered prayer…you can tell, I like my “Streams.”

 

The first year reading through, I came across on July 29^th, a devotional and then the poem at the end was the song Ken and Carolyn Nichols sang at Andy’s funeral: “If We Could See Beyond Today. Ken was our music director at Bethel Temple at that time.

 

Many times since, when I come across that day, I said Happy Birthday to Honey, or Honey’s first birthday in heaven, in 2007.

 

In the back of the book, I wrote this:

 

In the early 80’s we bought a new lawn mower. Ivory left it on the sidewalk by the kitchen window.

 

I was upstairs and looked out and the mower was gone. Someone had stolen it.

 

I just jumped into a prayer and asked the Father to burn their hands every time they touched it.

 

The next day, I looked out and there it was.

 

God says what concerns us, concerns Him. I am so glad that I serve a God who listens to our cries—not only listens, but He answers.

*53*

Standing in the Gap.

 

I love the scripture in Ezekiel where God says He looked for a man to build the wall and stand in the gap, but He found none. There are so many times when we are overwhelmed with a situation, and we have prayed and maybe are too sick to even hold up our heads, and we need someone to come along side of us and just stand in the gap, to pray for us.

 

We were in Sacramento, just about ready to travel home, and we got a call from home saying that we needed to get on our knees for a very special woman, who was in a very bad place. Our pastor said this woman was in danger and needed to get out of the situation. She didn’t know what a spot she was in and couldn’t see with her spiritual eyes just what was happening.

 

The Tofts and the Larsons were there, so we immediately prayed. 
Then I said we needed to pray and stand in the gap for her…my heart is full right  now thinking about this…right away, Natalie said, “I will stand in the gap.” Stu said, “I will stand in the gap.” Greg said, “I will stand in the gap.” Carrie said, “I will stand in the gap.”

 

My heart just about swelled out of my chest at their responses, and so quickly too. These were not just my “kids”, they were prayer warriors, ready to do battle with the enemy of our souls! I guess this is what this Christian walk is all about, to live and love and hold up the hands of those who are hurting, and when you see the next generation coming along, steady…strong…believing…marching in the army of the Lord, then all the times we have spent on our knees are worth all the time and energy. I am sure God looks down and smiles……A great big Texas small (you know that is how they say smile in Texas?)

 

*54*

God is Cute

 

When we first moved to Prestbury, the Ladies of Prestbury welcomed me into their Bible Study that they have had for over 30 years. I feel much honored to be part of this. They are great strong wonderful Christian ladies, and they always encourage and spur me on to greater depths in Christ. This particular story is one of my favorites of all times:

 

This couple had been Christians for a long time, but the wife had just gotten hold of some new truths, and one of them was that God was interested in even the smallest things that matter to us and He is a prayer-answering God.

 

They were going to Iowa where her husband was to speak, and they were on a two-way road. Traffic was slow and Tom couldn’t pass the truck in front of them.  He commented that they were not going to make it. Sharon said she thought about prayer, and the fact that God could and would answer, so she just said a simple prayer. Right then, the truck in front of them pulled over and let them pass. I LOVED Tom’s response, “Now that was spooky!”

 

*55*

One Thin Dime…Rich? You Bet!!!!!

 

In 1946, we (Whitts) came to California from Colorado. We met the Galt Gang, of which I am proud to say I am still one. But “more better” than that is we met the Denton Gang. *smile* 

 

That began my lifelong friendship/relationship with my ‘Bestest Buddie’ and Sister.

 

We knew right off that we were not rich with material things, but decided whenever a birthday or Christmas came around, if we just gave each other a dime, we would know it was with all our love.

 

We look back and see that was kinda cute, but we really meant it.

So, as the years passed, each Christmas we knew that in the Christmas card from the other, there would be a dime. Now, many, many years later each Christmas, ‘lo and behold, there is the dime.’

 

There have been a few funny aspects too…like the year Andy died, as Jody was getting my card ready, with the dime, Kenny came by and saw it. He said, “Mom that is not enough, you need to at least send her $20.00.” So she did. *smile*

 

Another time, I got this large package, and inside were taped at least 100 pennies,

with an explanation by each one, of a funny, beautiful or precious time. Another time, she felt magnanimous, and sent 2 quarters. She is very creative!! This has been going on for at least 50 or 60 years. Rich? Yes, we are because I know there are very few close relationships like ours!!

She is also my ‘prayer partner’, and I know that if she is praying for me, so are Gwen and Marion, and believe me, they know how to pray…they are Dentons, are they not? God sure knew what He was doing when He put me in the Denton family!

*56*

Dinkey

 

I just have to tell a funny every once in awhile…so here goes: 

Allison and Bill were going to be gone back east for a few days, and they left me in charge of the office. (That was their first mistake.)

They had a cat and litter box at the office that needed to go! So she told me to find the cat a good home while they were gone, and while I was at it, find a good home for Dinkey too. Now Dinkey had a good life, but she was at the end—she couldn’t hear and couldn’t see.

So I said to Allison, “now who would want Dinkey?”

She replied, “Who is to say what a good home is?”

I figured she didn’t have the heart to put her to sleep, so I said I would try to find her a good home. I did—I took her over in her own ‘blankie’ and had her put to sleep.

Charlie picked them up, and when they came home and the first question was, “How are the animals?” Charlie said they should talk to Margaret about that.  They finally found out that I had put her to sleep. 

The next morning Bill came in the office and said, “What did you do with my dog?” 

I said, “Exactly what Allison told me to.” (I thought) 

A few days later, Bill was giving Allison a bad time, and she said, “Do you want Margaret to take you to the Doctor?”

 

*57*

Annapolis

 

We, the Tofts, went to Northern California to help pastor a struggling church there. It wasn’t just struggling, it was mostly non-existent. We were there for 6 years, and though the boys had wonderful memories, it was nothing but a struggle for me. I went because Earl felt called to the ministry, and I was his wife, so I went.

Later, after we divorced, I was talking to my Mom about the experience, and I felt I had completely failed the Lord for 6 years, and completely wasted them. What did I have to show for those years?

We started talking and God showed me/us that it is not about us, but about how He can use us even in the worst situations. Our special friends were the Walkups, and Jody and her two kids, Marie, and Benny Paul, were sometimes our only parishioners. Sometimes another mother and family would come, but mostly just the Walkups. I had children’s church—or maybe we called it Sunday School—but Bennie Paul was up and down, and playing around and not listening, or so I thought, but as an adult, someone would say something about the Lord, or the Bible, and he’d say, “Oh, no, that’s not what Aunt Margaret taught.”

He is now in ministry, and Marie is my sweetheart. She as a young lady got in the habit of reading her bible each night, and has blessed me many times. So who is to say what or if I made any impact, only eternity will tell. Then, many years later, Jody called me and said Ben (her husband, whom we had prayed for many a year) had something that he wanted to tell me. He had just given his heart to the Lord, and I was the first one he wanted to call.

So the moral to this story is: just keep on, keeping on, because only eternity will give all the results of your life and faithfulness to God.

When Andy drowned, Uncle Ben, and the husband of the other lady who came with her kids, was right among the first to call, and offer me any help I needed.  They didn’t have any money either, but both said they could come up with a thousand, or two or three if I needed it. God is Faithful and He always cares for His own!!

*58*

In The Meantime

After Stu had bought his own house and left home, I was inspired by someone who had their husband build them a ‘secret place’ under the stairs in their home and used it for their private time with Jesus. This just delighted and excited me, and I asked Ivory if he would turn the coat closet under the stairs into my own ‘secret place.’

He said he would and after a while I asked him again, and he said he would. I got impatient and was really wondering why he hadn’t done this for me. So I prayed about it, because I knew God knew my heart and how I longed for the ‘secret place under the stairs.’

You know how I said before, that God was so cute? He said to me, “In the meantime, why not use Stu’s old room?”

*59*

Sing, Sing, Sing!

 

When we were in the car—or anyplace else really—we were singing.

That goes back to Sug and I when we were little…well it has been that way all my life. So as soon as Andy could talk, he was singing. I can remember him outside on his tricycle with his little guitar, just singing. You couldn’t understand all the words, but he sure had the tune right.

So in the car we sang, and I would harmonize with him. (Remember the story of Annapolis? We were 35 miles from Healdsburg, but it was such a crooked road, and a logging road at that, it took us an hour and a half to drive those 35 miles.) So we spent a lot of time in the car. *Smile*

We were singing along one day, and I realized Andy was harmonizing with me, instead of the other way around. I was so excited, and so was he. We couldn’t wait to get to Sacramento so we could sing a trio with Aunt Sug.

He loved to sing, and in his first year of high school was in the madrigal choir.

In fact, that last summer, we went to Portland to see Betty and Robin Johnson, and they had some friends come down from Bar Harbor, Washington. That meant we had my three boys, the Johnsons had their four girls, and the kids from Washington were three boys and a girl. Do you think that house was full of teenagers?

I have a recording of two of the boys from Washington and Andy singing, “He Touched Me” in three-part harmony!!

 

*60*

Bang Up Fourth of July

 

This is a good place to tell about July 4, 1970. We were in Portland, and the Johnson’s church had an annual picnic that we attended. It was a wonderful day, but toward evening, I got to feeling bad so I went home and crawled into bed.  Betty and Robin were bringing Stu and Greg home with them, and the kids had the van.

The picnic was at a lake, and I have always been afraid of water, so I was hoping they would keep their eyes on Stu and Greg.

I was lying there half asleep, when I heard a car drive up, and there was a lot of weeping and wailing going on, and it startled me out of my wits, I just knew someone had fallen in the lake.

About that time the car doors burst open, and I heard someone say, let Andy tell her!! Now I was really concerned. They stormed the house like 8 teenagers can, and into my room they came. It seems they had been witnessing to several people at the park , and on the way to the van, they stopped to pray for the success of their witnessing…and at that time, our Precious Savior filled my Andy to full-and-overflowing with His precious Holy Spirit. Those kids were so excited that we didn’t get a lot of sleep that night.

Now to add to the story…the day before, July 3^rd, we had all attended a rally put on by Bob Larson, who was a converted rock star, and he was challenging all the kids to bring their rock and roll records with bad messages in their songs to the rally and to bring them to the front and break them.

Andy loved the Beatles, but I had not liked the words to some of the songs, and he had assured me that he was only listening to the music. That was one thing that Bob Larson talked about that night, and he said, ”Don’t tell me, like you tell your Mother, that you are just listening to the music. That garbage is going into your head and it will stay there and rot.” 

At that point Andy leaned forward and around the kids, and gave me a big smile.  So he went forward and promised he would go home and break his records.

I told the girls (that was who Andy was interested in, you see?) that they had each other, but Andy didn’t have anyone to help him, and to pray for him to have the strength to follow through with what he had committed to do. So the next day he was filled with the Holy Spirit!! (He did come home and he did destroy his records.)

This was July 4^th and he died September 1^st, and God gave me the most blessed month and a half, for Andy to tell me lots of things that he had never told me before. He wanted to be a missionary, and God had given him dreams about people walking toward a precipice and he was trying to grab as many as he could before they went to their death.

We spent many nights lying across his bed, talking about the things of the Lord.

What a sweet memory I have of that few short weeks. God knew I was going to need and cherish them! Was God good or what?? HE IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME!

 

*61*

D.L.Moody…Buckets of Water

We all know and have heard of D.L.Moody, and his great ministry. As I read the book about his life, I often wondered if he was Spirit-filled. Then one day at church in Siloam Springs, Arkansas I heard a lady quote him and she said, “I carried buckets of water to the lost and dying…now the River of Life carries me to the lost and dying.”

I interpret that to mean, the first was what we can accomplish in our own strength, but the second, was what the Holy Spirit can do through us.

 

*62*

Faith…..Taught….Caught…..Wrought

I love talking about God and His goodness, and one evening we were sitting talking about faith. How sometimes it is taught, sometimes it is caught, and sometimes it is wrought.

Jeannette’s father had a blacksmith shop in Kaneville, and she told us about wrought iron. It is heated to a red hot consistency, then hammered into position and then twisted, to achieve the desired look. She then said, “This could hurt a lot! But the finished work is beautiful.”

Does that make you think of us going through the fire, to turn us into the instrument that God wants? Well, as Jeannette said, “This can hurt a lot, BUT…” we need the desire to go through the fire and come out as pure gold, a vessel that is usable, one that is created and molded and twisted and hammered, but one that He designed and can use for His glory.

 

*63*Yahweh…(Breathe in, Breathe out.)

(Allison Priebe Grant, whatever am I going to do when you move to Tennessee?)

One day she had heard a ‘Completed Jew’ speak, and this is what she told me: Yahweh means Jesus (Yah-Shua…Yahweh Saves), but it also is a name contained in every breath. Breathe in…breathe out. Breath.

So when a baby is born, the first breath he takes is (in) YAH (out) WEH. It is also true when we take our last breath…(in) YAH (out) WEH. Now if that doesn’t just make your heart sing…read it again!

So this has made me take a good look whenever I come across God’s breath in the scripture. In Genesis, he just spoke, and it happened. Wow, how powerful is that?  Then farther on I ran across a passage where His voice thundered! Well, how powerful is that? I do not want God to thunder at me; I think I would fall flat on my face with just His gentle voice caressing me.

There is so much to learn about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit—I guess I can say to just go back to my first entry about God’s Holiness. Don’t you think when we get to heaven, we will just know? We won’t have any trouble falling prostrate at His feet, and staying there for a few thousand years, maybe?

*64*

Tapestry

(Greg you are going to love this.)

God is at work up there in heaven, working on the tapestry of all our lives, and smiling every time He plans something that will cause us great joy, as we realize what He is doing. Sometimes it takes a long time for us to even catch a hint at what He is planning, and sometimes we will not know until we see the tapestry from the other side, if you know what I mean!  *Smile*

But when God brought Cliff and I together, we saw some wonderful flowers being “needle-pointed” into that great work.

Flower number one:

I grew up in Colorado, and I only have 3 cousins, who also lived in Colorado at that time. My cousin, Phyllis, and her family sold their home and set out for Europe for a whole year with Youth With a Mission.

Fast forward a few years, Cliff and had both lost our mates, and we found each other—or should I say God pulled a few strings for His tapestry, and put us together. Several years later we had been in Sacramento and bought a car and drove back to Illinois. Our precious Niece, Cynthia, and her husband Tom, were back in the states from Switzerland in order for Tom to finish his doctorate. We had told them they could use the other car in Illinois when we got back.

As we drove across the states, we of course stopped in Grand Junction, Colorado, to stay the night with my cousin. She was standing at the stove fixing our dinner, when she said, “I can hardly stand it, and my best friends are here in the states from Switzerland, to finish his doctorate.” WHO  ARE  YOUR  BEST  FRIENDS ( I think I must have yelled!?!?)  Why, Tom and Cynthia Bloomer, she said. 

We were all floored!! Isn’t that a kick?

Flower number two:

When Cliff and I were coming back to Sacramento from Los Angeles area right after we got married, we stopped to see another one of Cliff’s nieces in Modesto.  She said she taught at a Christian School there in Modesto. I said what an interesting thing, because I have a good friend who teaches here in Modesto at a Christian School, her name is Judy DeWar, and I had known Judy from day one.  Can you guess what this niece, Alice (who just happens to be the sister of Cynthia) said?  Oh yea, you guessed it…”Judy is my best friend.”

So Alice grabbed the phone, called Judy and said, “Do you know a Margaret Peek?” Judy said, “Yes, but it isn’t Peek any longer, she just got married.” Alice said (you guessed it) “She married my Uncle Cliff!!”

How does God do that?????

Flower number three:

Another niece, not their sister this time, smile… Margie and her husband Jonathan were missionaries to Kenya, Africa, with African Inland Missions.

(From flower number two): Judy’s aunt Marian had a son who was an aircraft mechanic, and guess where he was working? In Africa, for A.I.M. and we told the Dawns to look for John and Cindy Cozby, and for the Cozbys to look for Jon and Margie…guess what? Yep, they knew each other.

We could never in a million years pull any one of those things off, too many intricate details, but it was just one of those things that God wanted to surprise Cliff and I with, don’t you know? Now isn’t that just like my Heavenly Father??  Sure enough!!! So do you think He doesn’t care for us? When He would put all these strands of circumstances together, just to see us smile? Oh my, how I DO love my Father God, who loves me and has from the foundation of the world, because He said He did, and He watches over me and plans my pathway, guards my feet, so that I don’t stumble. Great Awesome God of heaven, lives within my heart!! I am a blest woman!!

Flower number four:

 This is the sweetest flower, because way back when, God maneuvered Ron Priebe to California where he captured my baby sister’s heart, and then moved her to Chicago!! Who knew that all this other stuff would happen? Years later they “just happened” to move next door to Laurie and Keith. What a lot of fixing, planning, working, threading lots of needles to work this marriage into His tapestry. Suffice it to say, I met Laurie, fell in love with her, and later her mother died, and I met her father, and ‘EUREKA—I HAVE FOUND IT’. (That’s what eureka means, for those of you in Rio Linda.) Now wasn’t that a nice set of circumstances?  I think so!!  Just to make us smile?!

*65*

My Name on the Palm of His Hands

Isaiah 49:16 says, “Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are ever before me.” 

Marian Cozby found a good interpretation of this: The nail prints, were put there for you and I, so our names have been written there. Thy walls, are said to mean, ‘my difficult situations.’

When you look closely and let the Holy Spirit define what the scriptures mean, aren’t we a blessed people?  I am so amazed at the precious promises that God gives us through His Word.  They are all there, all we need to do is read them, hide them in our hearts and ‘stand on the promises.’  I heard a song once that said, “You can’t stand on the promises if you don’t know what they are!” Duh!

 

*66*

Memorizing Scripture

Hard? Yes, until you decide to just do it!

Marshall, another nephew, let us in on an old Indian secret, and that is: take an index card and put the scripture reference on it and then the scripture. Take it out and read it several times a day, until you get used to it. Then turn the card over and put just the first letter of each word on the card i.e.…91^st Psalm. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”  

Your card would look like this:

H  w  d  i  t  s  p  o  t  m  h,

 S  a  u  t  s  o  t  A.

Then when you can do that, just put the letter of the first word of the verse.  It would look like this:

H

S

Cliff and I are working on the whole 91^st Psalm...It’s fun too!!

He did say to hide His word in your heart, and I am afraid we put too many things before scripture memorization—I look at my life for an example, and I am not proud of what I see. 

 

*67*

S.O.A.P.

Sound interesting? It is a way to work through a scripture passage, want to know more? Okay, here is how it works:

Journal…which is fun…but begin your lesson with a particular scripture, and my first one was Psalm 91.

S…Scripture

O…Observation (what you think it means)

A…Application (how you can apply that observation to your life)

P…Prayer (asking the Father to help you understand and make it a part of your life)

It is a wonderful way to tear apart the scriptures and let the Holy Spirit illuminate them into your life.

 

*68*

Books of the Bible

One of the best lessons I ever learned was in our children’s church, and our Pastor’s wife challenged us to learn the books of the bible.

We worked on it for a long time, but eventually ‘I got it’, and to this day, I can rattle off the books of the Old Testament in a flash. But it has really been a big help—when I am trying to find a certain book, I just run through them and ‘there it is’!

*69*

Attitude of Gratitude

Natalie got me started on this one. 

I like to journal, but after getting a book from her that used the Gratitude/Attitude approach, I started a ‘little book’ listing at least 5 things that I was grateful for that day. It is really fun to go back and see just what I was grateful for on any given day, and it also makes you more thankful for everything… just a hot cup of coffee in the morning by the fireplace, to help start your day. Anyone care to join me?

One favorite that I put in just about every day is my precious ‘Cliff’.

 

*70*

We Are to be Like Jesus

One Wednesday night, our Pastor wanted us to talk about someone that has impacted our lives in a positive way. I immediately thought of the Beisers, and was trying to nail it down to one thing, when I thought, “no, I have someone closer than that”, and it was Cliff. I knew he would be embarrassed for me to say what I was going to say, but “just let the chips fall where when they would fall” was my motto for the day.

So when It came to my time, I said, “Cliff is more like Jesus than anyone I know.” (to which he replied under his breath, ‘you sure don’t know very many people.’) He is! He never talks about anyone, doesn’t judge others, and is very wise in how he handles situations, and he has helped me many times to see things clearly.

A few days later the phone rang, and it was our Pastor Don, asking to speak with ‘Jesus.’ Cliff said, “yea, all he wanted me to do was hug his toilet.” They had a leak from upstairs, and it was leaking into the dining room, and he really did need Cliff’s help! ( So Jesus can do anything, and he fixed the leaking john.)

 

*71*

Home for Good

We were going to a church in Orangevale, California and things were not right, and I mean they ‘WERE NOT RIGHT’. Later, we learned lots of things that we did not want to know, but at the time, it was all hearsay, and I have been around for a long time, and didn’t want to take sides and be part of the problem…I wanted to be part of the answer. So we stayed as long as we could and finally the Lord gave us the green light to move.

We started going to Neighborhood Bible Church, jumped in with both feet and  really loved it. The majority of the congregation from Orangevale had by then moved to Neighborhood.

We had gone on a long vacation, and when we got back, that next Sunday night the Pastor preached on reconciliation. In essence this is what he said: “There are many people here from Orangevale who still have unfinished business and need to take care of it. I am a blest man, because of things that went on over there, I have all the workers, tithe-payers, and Sunday school teachers, and in fact I have the ‘cream of the crop.’ But you have unfinished business, and you need to go home and get things settled, if you want me to, I will take you home. So if you are one of the ones, please come see me and we will get you squared away, because if you don’t, you will not be any good to the ministry of Christ here or there.”

After the service I went up and asked to talk to him. I said, ’Pastor we are home!”  He said he was glad because he thought I meant from vacation, I said, “No Pastor, we are home, and we don’t need to go back, we came in the right attitude, and there are not things to take care of, BUT I just wanted to tell you, that was amazing how you handled this situation, and you were right on in what you said.  His answer to me was, “wasn’t that the way I was supposed to handle it?” My answer was an unequivocal “ YES” however I have been a Christian since I was 8 years old, and I have NEVER had a minister even handle it, let alone handle it like Jesus would!! Pastor Clark you are an amazing Man of God!!

*72*

One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus.

By now you know that I am a lady (?) that likes to laugh—a merry heart does good like a medicine, the Good Book says.  So when we would get into a tight situation, or pretty tense, we usually tried to see the funny side of whatever the situation was.

We had a friend who according to her niece, had always wanted me to sing at ‘one’ of her weddings (true). So when she died, the niece decided if not a wedding, then her funeral. They were only having a graveside service, so I was asked to sing at that. Allison was always my ‘perfect sidekick’, so I asked her to sing with me. Then we found Greg was going to be in town that day, so we decided to have a trio. Our only problem was there was no time to practice with him, so we said, we have the words, and we practiced the tune on the way.

We get there and are all set up to sing, with no accompaniment of course, and when the time came we got our pitch and started to sing. Now we had decided   Greg, being the head of our drama department, would sing the verse, and we’d just back him up. We handed him the words, and of course, the verse started out, “I’m only human, I’m just a woman,” and as he sang this I was looking at one of the mourners, and she said with disdain, “really!” Which just about set us off, but we composed ourselves and sang the rest of the song.

On our way home of course we laughed and laughed, and Greg said he thought we had set him up. We didn’t of course, but we laughed, and sang in a nasally twang, “One day at a time, sweet Jeeesus!” all the way home.

When we got to the office, a young man, who worked for Al and Bill came out of the door and said, “The next time you go to a funeral, take me with you, we always cry at ours.”

*73*

May as Well Laugh as Cry.

Since the last entry was about laughter and a funeral, I must tell this one. Nothing spiritual, but quite funny. My Dad was a ‘tarter’, and you could use about any adjective to say what a tarter is, but he was one! A good father at times, and a bad father at times. His Dad didn’t want him, but when he took Dad and his brother Bill, far away from the Mother, he told her that the two boys had died, and he told Dad and Uncle Bill that their mother had died. So you see what a life he had when he was a little boy. When he said he left home at 8 years old carrying a gun, he actually did.  He ended up at home, many times, but they did not train or nurture them at all. O.K. so Dad was a tarter.

When he died, the pastor who did the funeral had only known Dad from Sunday a.m. services, (and the fact that Dad liked his little boy, who was red-headed.) So he had some wonderful accolades to give. There was a whole row of friends comprised mostly of our Galt Gang.

Finally, Paul leaned over to his wife Marian and whispered, “I think I am at the wrong funeral, do you think I should go up there and peek in the casket, to see if that is Pop Whitt?” This went down the line, and I think they almost broke up the funeral.

We do like to laugh, even if it is at the wrong time.

 

*74*

Brianna, My little Song Bird

I think the first time I ever babysat Brianna, she rounded up all the toy animals she could find, set them in a row on the couch, and had them all sing, “Jesus Loves Me.”

Another time that was precious to me we were in California and Britta called us for some reason, and as I answered the phone, I heard this little voice singing, “Zippity doo dah, zippity aye, My oh My what a wonderful day. Plenty of sunshine coming my way, zippity doo dah, zippity aye!” It was Bri bri, and what a wonderful, neat way to start my day.

Brianna is still singing, in the choir at school, and I love it!!

One more thing I need to tell you—and I might not get all the information just right, but the content and what it says to me and others that hear it is VERY convincing—that this little girl had a visit from Jesus.

As I remember it, she had either just woke up in the morning, or from her nap, but she said, “Jesus was here. But He had to go away. But He said He would be back very soon!”

It gave me goose bumps then, and it does again today.

 

 

*75*

Childlike Faith

Vincent Peter always liked to pray for everything and everybody…that was just the way he was! So as the Candido family started out for a camping trip, it started to rain. V.P. was looking out the window, and he said, “Jesus you know we are going camping and we can’t camp in the rain, please make it stop raining.”

Now for everyone with faith, there is always a doubter, and Shara Jolene was sitting in her car seat (I think sucking on her ‘cho-cho’), and she said, “He isn’t gonna do it!” I think both Barb and Vince had a hard time keeping a straight face on both statements. I do know Barb said she looked back when V.P. asked the Lord to stop the rain, and wondered what would happen if He didn’t.

But the great part of this story is, a few miles on further, yep!! The rain stopped. Oh, if we could have faith of a little child, but alas, most of us are like Shara, we don’t actually know if the Lord hears us or not.

Now, both of them are married, and have children of their own, and they will have their own stories to tell! I’m glad they will be telling these to Great Grandma Margaret.

 

*76*

Chosen from the Beginning

When Lolly was three, no more than four, her mother asked her what her Sunday school lesson was about on their way home from church. Allison replied, matter-of-factly, “Oh about the cross and the blood.”

I think maybe Carol didn’t want to go there with a three year old, so she said nothing. Then Lolly said, “Mommie, why did they kill Jesus?” 

Carol replied, “Because they didn’t believe He was God’s Son.”

“Well, wasn’t that ‘portent?” 

“Yes”, Carol said, “It was very important!” 

Allison thought for a moment and replied, “Hmmmmm, I bet they died and were dead forever.”

When Carol told me that, I thought that Allison was surely born with God inside! It takes on a whole new meaning to say God chose us from the foundation of the world. 

I have to tell you, that Allison has been an inspiration and a help to me through the years, when she hears something very neat or challenging, or just inspirational she calls and shares, I LOVE that! (funny things too. *Smile*)

 

*77*

God’s Perfect Number: 7

I will end on ‘seven’, with this: One day someone said, ”Margaret, you really know how to pray.” 

I replied in all truthfulness, “No, God just really knows how to answer!”

 

*777*

Perfect Quietness??

It is really hard to shut a Whitt down once they get started, so I will leave you with a laugh: 

When Carol was a little girl she had an imaginary friend named “Boney”. 

This was pretty cute until one day she came in crying, saying ”Boney scared me.”  (Now that was scary! *Smile*) But it gets scarier!

Not too many years ago Bill was going to do some aerobatics in one of his planes, so he set up a camera to film his escapades. As we were watching the film later, there seemed to be some sort of glitch, and the camera vibrated (or something) and we asked Bill what happened, his reply was, “Boney scared me!” 

Now that’s scary, very scary indeed. 

 

*7777*

Did You Laugh?

I hope you laughed and cried and were touched by some of the things that have touched me in years gone by.

 

*77777*

…one more thing, no, two…

Looking back on this tapestry thing, I have to add one more Flower…(I should be in the shower, but, you know…one more thing?) 

When Carol moved to Chicago, we prayed for Ron, and whether he really believed. Well, when God moved Ron and Carol to Tennessee, we were aware that something was wrong…later we found out it was dementia.

Ron was a highly intelligent person…very! But when they moved there, one of the first people he met was the Pastor of a church, who caught his attention, and liked very much, started going to his church and thru time, we found out that God had really touched his heart. Miracle! Awesome!

But the best part for me was a conversation Ron and I had on his front porch one evening. We talked about how the move to Tennessee was timely etc..etc.. for spiritual reasons, and the conversation was a very special time for both of us. But the amazing part was when Ron said, “this was a God thing.” Of course I agreed, but what he said next blew me away…(I might not say it just like he did, but the meaning was is the same)   

“Yes, I said, it was a God thing!” He said, “No the really God thing was that He got ahold of my heart, before I lost my ability to understand what He needed to do in my life.” (before my mind was gone.)  I am crying as I write these words, because God is so faithful, so Merciful, so longsuffering…and I know Ron made everything right!!

 

 

 

*777_777_7777*

The End, or Just the Beginning?

When Greg went to be with Jesus on June 20^th, 2016…I didn’t want to take his number out of my cell phone, so I just changed his address to 77 Heaven Drive…Phone number? Yep!

(I just have so many more things to say, so many more experiences, so many blessings that I just might have to start another…Best of the Best…Good luck Lolly!)  Your Aunt Swede loves you…and thanks for helping this ol’ lady ramble on and on…

Facebook Thoughts: Moving Back Through Time

 

May 11, 2023

I read something very interesting, about Faith. 

Jude 1 vs 3 ( amp version)

“Faith is the SUM of Christian belief….”

 

As we know, everything about God and our walk with Him, is built on Faith.

Interestingly enough, that is the first thing a non-believer centers on! When you look at it with their eyes and ears, it is perfectly reasonable for them to have many questions.

 

However, as I was telling Jesus goodnight, I could feel, really feel His love for me!!! When you live and breathe His very presence, when you know He prays for you, when He says He sings over you with joy; that you are the apple of His eye, He keeps your tears in a bottle, they are that precious to Him!

Your prayers are never wasted, He keeps them too, in a bowl!

It isn’t that hard to believe and trust Him!!!

   

Sooooooo…if they have never met Jesus, never felt His great loving arms around them, have never felt Him literally carrying them--because they were too exhausted to take another step--then it would be easy not to believe, to have serious doubts!!

 

So, give them some grace, invite them to seek, find, accept, Jesus and find out for themselves!

It is literally THE BEST!!!

Easy? No, but life is not easy. How about a big dose of Help from our Sweet Jesus?!?!?

 

May 3, 2023

Well, Friends, a little ‘pick me up’ this morning….I have been wanting to share something with you that is really ‘plain and simple’, but has been a life changer for me.

Several years ago, some precious family members were having a real spiritual struggle...they called us to set a time (on the phone) to help them break the enemy’s bonds.

 

We set a time for the next Sunday at 3 pm to help intervene. As we were praying for direction from the Lord, I went into the computer and grabbed my Bibles, and just copied all the verses that were so meaningful for me thru the years.

That afternoon, as we were getting ready for the phone call, Cliff said, “how do we do this?”

 

Well, I said “I have the secret ingredient. We are just going to pray these scriptures…..period!! We are just going to give back to God, what He promises us in His Word!!!!”

 

We did, just that!!!! Nothing we contrived to say, but we prayed The Scripture!!!!!

I will say, that was the most dynamic prayer time in my history!!!! It has changed my prayer time…

Literally!

 

Is that simple enough?? I have one of those sheets in every Bible, book, or

Devotional I have. ( I don’t have to wonder where in the scriptures it is,

It is at my fingertips.)

 

So that is my “Secret Ingredient” to a powerful prayer time, and it was there all the time!!

 

The very first one is: Isaiah 65:24

”It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.”

 

Not too shabby, for one of God’s precious promises!!

 

 

April 21, 2023

Hi this is just a simple thought from a Simple Lady...I was just reading from a book by Dutch Sheets, callled, ”The Pleasure of His Company” that said:

 

May I never be satisfied by accessing through another, what is readily available to me.

 

He talks about ‘undistracted devotion’. We can and should be thrilled and motivated by our Pastors, Sunday School teachers, mentors and such, but our greatest joy and inspiration should be His Word, from His heart to ours!

 

We are getting a great bargain from others, but a bargain, no matter how good, is a bargain because we spent less time and money…

Getting my point? So when we are sitting at His feet, reading His Word, listening to what He wants to say especially to our very heart...this is intimacy at the very best!!!!

 

We all know He has a plan, just our size, for each of us alone…

What He wants is not all of you time, but our own undistracted time…

Just our Father God and His Child!!!

 

Pretty cool, pretty simple eh?

I thought so!!!!!

 

 

April 7, 2023

Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d share!

 

When reading Psalms yesterday, God impressed me with some very encouraging Words, (that He impressed someone, long ago to write….) and I am excited, because I know the Bible IS the inspired Word of God!

 

As I say, I am just a simple Girl, not a lot of ‘ book learning’ but wise enough to Trust a God who is NOT simple!

 

There are a whole lot of friends out there, who brought their children up in the right way, but who chose at some point, to walk away from the Lord and His ways. Our hearts are heavy , worrying about eternity…for them.

 

Well I have good news for you , right from God’s mouth, to your ears….listen up and be very encouraged!!!

 

Psalms 89 says this, and I quote right out of the Amplified Version:

 

vs 26 He shall cry to me, you are my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation…

vs 29 His offspring shall I make to endure forever. (your Son or Daughter)

vs 30 If his children forsake me…

vs 31 If they break my statutes…

vs. 32 then I will punish…

vs.  33 NEVERTHELESS my loving kindness I will not break from them,

Nor allow my Faithfulness to fail…

vs 34 My covenant I will not break,

I will not take back a Word I said!!!!!

 

So this is not about us, it is about Him, His covenant, His love, His death for our salvation…and for our Children and our Children’s children.

 

So crawl up in His lap, lean back in His arms , and just SIMPLY trust Him to do what His Word promises He will do. It may very well be many hard things come their way, to turn them back to Him, but I am just like a child, not complicated at all…He said it…He watches over His Word to perform it.

 

So join me in trusting (not trying)

 

Resting (not running)

 

Song? Sure!  ”So why should I worry it fret?!?!?”

 

Hey, see you here, there, or in the air!!!!!!

 

 

March 23, 2023

I am just reflecting on God’s goodness as we walk toward Allison’s Memorial.

 

A couple of years before we actually lost Greg to his kidney disease, he was in and out of the hospital regularly, several times a month. I dreaded for the phone to ring at night because I was so far away!

 

One time Cliff and I were visiting some of our favorite relatives in Arkansas.

(By the way, these people really know how to pray and LISTEN to His voice.)

Early one morning I got a call that he was in the hospital, and had flatlined, and they put in a tube but were not being successful.

 

All day long we were in prayer, but no change by the time we went to bed.

I woke up for a trip to the bathroom, and decided to call the hospital….

They said he’d had just woke up, and they had removed the breathing tube.

I said that was good news, their response was, no, it was really great news!!!!

I went back to sleep and slept very well!!

 

The next am, my friend from Spokane called me and said God woke her up at

1:30 am to pray for Greg! Hallelujah!!! God is still on the Throne, and His promises are true!!!

 

I just heard a good word at our Ladies Bible Study…..a precious Sister said, one of her first prayers is, “Show me Today Lord what I need today, that I do not even know I need!”

(isn’t that sweet? And He is sooooo willing and ready to answer that need!?!?!)

 

March 18, 2023

Hey, all you old timers of Bethel Temple days, got a puzzle for you to help me with….who remembers in Forrest Beiser days, the classy Classical number we did to a Piece of Chopin’s work? The first few words were:

“The Lord is my Guide, He is my Stay, by night and day, He leads the way….”

 

My nephews here in Tennessee are very musical, and one of them is at the keyboard a lot…playing classical stuff! I am blessed to set and just soak it in.

But so far, of the pieces of Chopin, none have the melody that we sang to.

I thought it was the classiest piece we ever did!!

So, anyone….Dave Powers, Barb, I will take information from anyone!

 

By the way, the chatty part of the Snoop Sisters, my sweet Sister Allison, went to be with Jesus March 14^th after her long bout with Gillian Barre’ and several other things.  She now is dancing all over Heaven in her high heels.

 

Her memorial is going to be April 15 th

At New Life Church in Fair Oakes at 11 a.m. Mark Tucker’s Church .

Come celebrate her home going with us, you may even have a memory you could share.

 

March 14, 2023

Well, I woke up with a song in my heart(as usual)…and that song was:

 

“This could be the dawning of that grand and glorious day, when the face of Jesus we behold….”

 

My friend from Spokane (who was my angel when Greg was so sick) texted me early,

”Could this be the day when Jesus says to Allison, Well done my Faithful servant, enter into the joys of Heaven?“

 

Not an hour later, Bill called and said she was gone.

 

She does indeed have her wedding garments on as I write this...and for those of you who knew Allison well, she also is dancing all over Heaven in her high heels!

This is her big day!!!!

(she had lost the use of her legs in the last year, and was going downhill )

 

Oh my, am I going to miss my sister of 89 years and 11 days?????? YES!!!

Now to whom do I call??

We sang our way thru life…now I have to do a solo for awhile! But guess what?    She is singing with Forrest, with Jory, and she is now the best Tenor in Heaven!!

I told Bill, “well you know, you will be 94 in Nov. I will be 92 in Sept. We are going to be nipping at her heels!”

So look up, hang on--as I always signed off on my blog:

I’ll see you here, there, or in the air!!

Bye bye Sug, I’ll meet you in the morning…..over there!!!

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King!!!!!

Missing you already….Sisser!!! (she always said, “Is this my very Sisser?”)

She says, add any adjective you want, and it would apply!

She knew me better than anyone, yet she said I was her Angel Sister!!!

Hmmmmmmm????

I will sleep well tonight…..with thoughts about Tomorrow……

 

January 9, 2023

Hi Friends!!! Got a little bite I want to share with you today.

Clearly ol’ slewfoot is on the rampage,

At least at the Rothrock, Toft, Larson abode here in Tennessee!

 

I am here to tell you something you already know but...you are going to revisit this with me!

The Word says, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him!

Kristen & Zach have both been very sick with the flu. Very very sick! Our cars are getting sick too! Lots of things going south!!!

 

But God…

 

He is in total control, and when anything went wrong, Cliff sang,

”Trust and Obey, for there is no other way…”

 

So each day as the challenges come, we “Again” give all to God…but along the path, we seem to pick it up again and the enemy jumps up and down with glee!!!!!

 

So in our nightly prayers, or our sweet devotions the next morning, we say,

“Well here we are again Lord, same song second verse, once again I am giving it to you, help me to Trust & Obey…

 

Romans 8:1 sez: there is therefore no Condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

And as you read that feeling like a failure, once again, guess what God is saying???? Hey Children, guess what?

 

My mercies are new every morning, so what’s the big deal?

 

So forget about yesterday, it’s gone…

Can’t do anything about tomorrow…we will deal with that, tomorrow!!!!

So a new slate in front of us, let us put our Trust in the Trustworthy One….

Strength comes with use of our muscles, so let’s strengthen our Trust muscles until they Stay!!!!

 

Now if you want some encouragement, take a little trip thru Philippians today, it is only 4 chapters, but you will find many healthy verses to underline and absorb!!!!

 

 

January 2, 2023

Happy new Year, to all my wonderful wonderful Friends!!!!

God is good, and He never forsakes us!!!

 

One year ago on the 4th Cliff started to slip away….miss him terribly, but we will see each other soon, (at my age, it can’t be far away) but in the interim, there is NO coasting to the finish line, and that includes me!!!!

 

December 29, 2022

Well, it has been a long time…. But I found a sign in a little shop here in Tennessee, which reads: 

 

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come!”

 

It is a quote from Shakespeare.

 

Now for a little something I just gleaned from my ‘Streams in the Desert’…

We are in God’s Army, period!

No slacking off, we are in it to the Finish Line!!

However, that might look different to us as we perceive things, as to how God sees us, and things.

God may have a group, that He has on the front lines!!!!!

He has another group, that He has, right in the middle…remember, put on the whole armor, and when you have done that?  

Just Stand!! Don’t run into the fray, just stand.

Then comes the third group, He takes us to the Meadows green, and gently has us lie down.

 

Is anyone in any of those three groups wondering just WHY in the world are we there?

I have wondered, lately, why am I just lying here in the meadow….??

What good am I doing?

There is MUCH battle going on around me…..and God is sweetly saying, “this is where I have you, at this point… just relax, Trust me, the Battle is mine, sayeth The Lord.”

 

So as my sweet Friend, Judy Clark says, “There is no resting until the finish line.”

 

So while I am just resting where God has me, am I not to be effective?

Absolutely there is always something to do, even at rest, for your soul!!

We can do what we do best, in Christ!!!

Devour the Word, it is health & strength to your bones. (God’s Word, not mine.)

Pray constantly, for someone in the heat of the battle…. Remember when they, in the heat of the battle, were winning as long as he had his arms in the air? But were losing when his arms were tired and his hands came down?

We can be the “Lifter up of the hands”

Right from our time in meadows green!

 

So as I sit in my easy chair, here in Tennessee, (as Rennie says, ‘this is your arm chair ministry!)…

Lord, I thank you for your challenge to Trust You, in times of adversity, sitting/ lying, in your pastures green, (in my soft cushioned chair).

Not to grow soft, but to strengthen my very being, thru the Holy Spirit, and be usable for the Kingdom….even if it seems to be slacking off, I know you have plans for me at 91, to be strong, (never turn my back on the ol’ devil) and as the song says, ”To be used of God, to sing to speak, to pray. To be used of God to show someone The Way. I long so much to feel the touch of His consuming Fire!

To be used of God, is my desire!!!!!”

November 17, 2022

Ok guys, I am just a simple Lady.

Not complex, just give it to me slow and easy.

 

I was reading in Romans 7 this a.m. where Paul was talking about his will. And the fact that he was willing. But when it came to doing, he did just the opposite.

What he wanted to do he didn't, etc.

 

Well I have thought if Paul struggled, boy I am going to struggle much harder.

When we read the Word. It is like eating a meal....you chew your food to get the

most nutrients into your system, so I thought I'd chew on that a while.

 

I found we are 'helplessly helpless'…

 

But I found the answer.

 

The answer is "Simplessly Simple'.

 

IF....we could do it by ourselves, just by trying harder...there is NO reason for the Cross!

Simply put: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me ( or gives me strength).

He wants us to be willing, to see our inadequacies. Step aside and take His strength, which is why He died for us.

 

We can't do it on our own!

Isn't that simple?

If you had it figured out before, God bless you. You are not as slow as I am...

But it just reinforces my heart to see how simply God puts it.

I need simple, like I said!

 

 

September 12, 2022

Guess it is time for an update. For you who want to know. And if you don't

Just stop reading.

 

Well I am thinking about writing a song…

Sounds like such great lyrics:

 

"Just hold tightly to His hand,

Just hold loosely to my plan."

 

Pastor & Judy just keep saying, "There is no coasting to the finish line."

So far my plans aren't working. Even tho I walk as close to Him as I can.

Cliff and I started to prepare to move to Tennessee…

Before covid.....but you see God had other plans.  

So Zach, my grandson, has been with me since Cliff's memorial.We are cleaning, clearing, packing etc. Finally got a launch date, of 9/17/22.

Zach got covid. Now out of quarantine, but I have Bronchitis...may not go. Even tho we have waited on God for every plan.

 

So , what do we do? We wait on what God has planned for now, or later. So if you are confused, join the clan.

 

It is not clear, but we do not have to see clearly, we just need to hold His hand.

 

Pray for us. As we slowly walk this path.

 

We are not coasting, (smile) but God has a perfect plan, and He says. "if you get tired, just lean back into my arms, and I will carry you just like I have done all your life."

So who can challenge God? Not, me!!!

 

August 12, 2022

God is sooooo good!

My Sweet Grandson, Zach, said ,the other day, "I think people forget, that this old earth is the devil’s domain....when we look at all the ugliness and evil going on."

 

And he is absolutely correct!

HOWEVER, do not ever forget, that God reigns over ALL. 

The devil only has so much power...BUT GOD is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end! AND what the devil throws at us, only makes us stronger and we ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS!!!

Do not forget not WHO we are...BUT WHOSE WE ARE!!!

 

We win!! I read the book!! Yeah God!!

 

July 30, 2022

What's on my mind?

Well this may take longer than usual…

 

This about my journey, actually the next step in my journey....literally...next step!

God has His schedule & timetable....me, I have mine, and they do not/hardly ever...connect.

 

So the pieces in the puzzle seem to be falling in place...But I don't know about tomorrow....I just live from day to day...

LITERALLY MY WAY OF LIFE!

 

Waiting for God's direction...and it seems we may have a moving date, of some weekend in September ...that is our choice...but we can't see around the corner...so we are holding our moving plans...loosely...very loosely!!

 

When I say we, Greg's youngest Son, Zach, is with me, and He is my partner in crime...sez he is interested in moving to Tennessee too.(eventually he wants to  be with his big Brother (where ever that may be). He is also learning to "Fear not. Tomorrow. God is already there..."

 

So there you have it in a very large nutshell...

Some ask, "Does Kristen have room for you? "....me? Probably not!...Kris?..we will scrunch. There is always room for Family."

 

Can you imagine, a whole new chapter at 90 9/10....(91 in Sept)?????

And Cliff Catlett, you are always going somewhere...you will need to come see my new Digs!! Unfortunately for you, I will be closer than you think!!!

 

May 10, 2022

Today, Mr Zach makes it to 21.  

He has been with me since Grandpas' memorial.

We are having so much fun, and loving every minute of it!

 

Don't know how long this will last, and we do not know what tomorrow holds, BUT WE DO KNOW WHO HOLDS TOMORROW.!!

So pray for wisdom, for both of us...drop in, and join us, for a 'spot of tea' or just good conversation.

 

Thank all of you for your friendship, our prayer partners for their prayer support!!!

 

Love you all.....and as these two always say....

OUCH-A-GOOGLE !!!!

(Which is a phrase they and their Dad (Greg) coined....

Meaning...love hurts sometimes, but their love is like Google, it cannot be measured!!!

 

April 12, 2022

It is time once again, to open my heart, And let you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, how great and mighty, yet soft and gentle my God is!

 

As I told my wonderful Prestbury Ladies yesterday, when they asked how I was doing, I said,

"I just feel blah."

 

So this morning as I set at Jesus feet, I asked Him,

Am I feeling Blah because that is a trick of the enemy, or just because I am missing my Sweet Cliff?

 

As I asked that question, I was feeling Blah, but as I got to the part, of just sitting still at His feet He gently told me, " This is the BEST PLACE TO BE!"

I am not blah, I am walking a path, AND HE walks right beside me.

Every day, all the way!

I have said, that Jesus has filled my head, heart. home...with His Peace....beyond anything that I could measure.

So as Rennie told me, this is a time of healing,

Reflecting (and the best part)

My Arm Chair Ministry!

So, even if you are 90, and walking thru the Valley, you are still active in God’s Army!!!

Don't feel useful?

Do not despair, the part that Jesus loves and wants????

From the beginning, why did He create us?

Very simply, to walk and talk with Him, In the still of the day, In Gods' holy union, And sacred communion, in the Garden of my heart.

Blessed beyond measure!!!

 

 

February 16, 2022

I know that I have posted this before, but I MUST  do it again.

At the trial, betrayal and death of Our Jesus....when Judas was finally overcome with remorse, he went back to the ones he had made the deal with, said he was sorry, "For Jesus was an innocent man."

But he went to the wrong people...had he gone and bowed at the feet of Jesus, hanging there, and confessed, do you know what Jesus would have said ?

"Judas, I am dying to forgive you."

Hmmmmmm.

 

 

February 9, 2022

I am certainly getting behind on my THANK YOU'S.   

I thought I could do it. But....I am messing up.

The phone calls, the wonderful cards. The prayers, the gifts of love, the flowers and plants...

I am a blest Lady....and to see the outpouring of love for my sweet Clifford, and how much he was loved and admired....is truly amazing.

We laugh. We cry, and laugh again.

He was an avidly funny man...always had a comeback to make you laugh.

Probably the first one liner that we use often, was at a party Allison threw for us, so Cliff could get a taste of our Friends.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately)  the group included Barbara and Vince, Greg, Allison and myself.

The ones I mentioned, got quite rowdy. Shall we say?

Cliff leaned over to Allison and said "Do you think it's too late to back this train up?"

That was my Sweetheart. And I am missing him sooooo much!  

He is having the time of his life, just sitting quietly at Jesus feet.

My Grands, Andy and Zach, were wondering what they thought G'Pa was doing up there in Heaven..

Andy thought he was no doubt "driving' all over Heaven....the DMV gave him his Driver's license at 100. But we had some restrictions we placed on him.

 

Zach said, "oh no, he was standing up there looking around. And saying " Isn't  there SOMETHING up here that needs fixing?"

 

Thanking all my precious friends for caring and giving your love.

His Memorial is the 19th of February at our Church here...just for information: Grace Fellowship in Maple Park...just west of Sugar Grove.

You can Google his obituary if you care to.

Clifford E. Larson. 

Love all youse guys. (As Vincent Peter used to say.)

 

As I used to sign off on my blog:

 

"See. You  here....there....or in the air!!"

 

 

January 30, 2022

Beautiful Sunday Morning!

(Do I sound like Cliff Catlett?)

This is the day the Lord hath made,,let us rejoice and be glad!

 

I am rejoicing this morning, that all my spiritual and physical needs have been met in abundance.

My Cliff is sitting, right now, at the feet of Jesus!

I am quite envious! But this is not my time.

So what's left for me? Who knows....but I am going back in time....and I am going to challenge all my (old) Friends from Bethel Temple days.

These are perilous times. BUT they are in God's Hands and His great timing.

B.T. Friends remember this song:

 

"To be used of God...to sing, to speak, to pray.

To be used of God, to show someone the Way.

I long so much, to feel the touch

Of God's consuming fire...

To be used of God, IS MY DESIRE."

Here is what's left for me and all you others:

To be filled up...

To be spilled out...

To be used up...for God!

We ARE to be the Light of Christ...

In these last days...if not now. WHEN???

These ARE The last days...

Oh God...fill us....pour us out....use us Up!

May the Holy Spirit, light us with the fire of God

And be consumed by Him!!!!

I definitely want to hear these words,

"Well done, my good and faithful servant."

 

January 23, 2022

Well as Don said about Sharon, Cliff put on his wedding garments Friday night at 9:40 p.m.

 

He is home, safe, running, and as the boys said, IF there is anything that needs fixing, He is on it.

 

Best of all, He has heard Jesus say, "Well done, my good & faithful Servant!"

 

November 26, 2021

You have heard, 'This is no big deal...or this is a big deal?'

Well, I am going to tell you about a BIG DEAL!!

 

My Bible tells me, that before the world began, God chose me to be His very own.

Now how this could be, I cannot begin to tell you, and God is the only one who can explain it to us, and He isn't telling.

  

So He chose me, created me, and breathed into my life, the breath of life, Sept 12, 1931, placing me into the Whitt family, 3rd child in.

 

So here is the interesting thing...(and I remind Him daily) He chose me, created

Me, gave life to me, saved me when I was 8 years old. Filled me with His Spirit, kept me, NEVER left my side, all these 82 years.

 

But it gets better...

He brought the Whitt Family to California...placed us in a great Church, where the young people were encouraged to pray…and spend hours in prayer...to pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and be effective for God and His Kingdom.

God gave me 3 red headed sons. (Who were the joy of my life....they all gave their hearts to Jesus, at a young age)

 

But my life was challenging.

Dysfunctional family life as a child...I lost two of my sons...one at 16...the other at 55.

 

But through it all, through it all I've learned to trust in Jesus, I've learned to depend upon His Word.

    

Now for the amazing part...THE BIG DEAL!!!

 

My Greg said, you are amazing, Mom...after all you have been thru...You still have a song in your heart and a smile on your face....How??

  

This I cannot tell you, except...The Holy Spirit is The Comforter, but JESUS IS OUR COMFORT!

   

THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!!

 

But the biggest deal is, it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus...and I have stopped looking for the signs, and started listening for THE sound of the trumpet...with the return of Christ.

 

Now if you didn't stop reading minutes ago...hang on...because if you haven't  asked Jesus into your Heart...you will miss the BIGGEST DEAL OF ALL TIME!

It is easy, just pray, ask Jesus to be in control of your life, forgive you and choose  to walk with Him.

 

That my friend, is THE BIGGEST, BEST DEAL OF ALL TIME!!!!

 

 

November 21, 2021

Hey, Sweet People...when Greg was alive, I used to do a blog which helped me work thru all the things Greg was going thru. It not only helped me see the Goodness of God, but encouraged him too.

I miss that...because GOD is in our lives, not just daily...but 24/7...ALWAYS...ALL THE TIME!!!

 

So I decided to do a mini-blog, here, now.

 

I will start with Jesus/God, being THE BREATH of Life...the Light to our path, the light of the world...He spoke (his breath) and the world was formed...then when He created man, He literally breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

 

(I know you know that) but the very name Jesus means breath.

 

So as you are born, the first breath you take in, is saying, "Yah" and as you breath out, "weh." AND as you die, the same thing happens, as you take your last breath, you are saying the name of Jesus.

 

So whether you believe in Jesus or not...Every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess...Jesus IS our very breath!!

 

I just think that is not just sweet...it is Profound!