My Favorite Four-Letter Word

 

I used to say it was love, but I have moved on to hope. Love is a very good word, but it varies from the mundane to the sublime: I love lemon pie, I love going on vacation, I love my husband, I love God and God loves me.

As a personal choice, hope ranks first. Levels of love may vary, depending on other people. For example, I expected lemon pie with meringue but it came with whipped topping. As for vacations, did I really love them all?

If I’m honest, my love for my husband went down at times of misunderstanding. And, though I love God, I don’t always fully understand how much He loves Me!

Job is one of the best examples of hope despite a challenging relationship. His wife had no patience with his suffering. She said, “Why don’t you just curse God and die?” (Job 2:9-10).

Job let her negativity float on by. Hope was his choice and he would not give it up: “Should I accept only good things from God, and nothing bad?”

He had an even stronger answer when three well-meaning but non-comforting friends came by: “Even if God kills me, I’ll still trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Job’s hope gave him the strength to stay focused on his faith.

Hope results in joy. A characteristic of believers is to be joyful in hope, patient

in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12, NIV).

Since patience and faithfulness are listed among the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), it would seem that hope, and the joy it brings, have a purpose.

Job’s story is one of patience, perseverance, and the ability to endure. The way I see it, hope might have been Job’s favorite four-letter word, too.

 

Labels Are For Pickles

 

I enjoy the taste of a good pickle and rarely meet one I don’t like.  As a child, I enjoyed going to our cellar for watermelon rind pickles or bread and butter chips.

There’s a certain beauty in row upon row of pickles in glass jars.

While living in an old farmhouse, I once got inspired to try canning pickles. The key word is once. During the process, I dropped a very large jar of pickles and brine. You can imagine the mess!

Labels remind me of another aspect of childhood. You could drive by any church in town and read their label. It might be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, Catholic, or a variety of others.  

Have you noticed that church labels today are more generic? I’m sure our town is not unique in the number of non-denominational labels and community church names.

Dad taught by example that labels are for pickles. As a minister, it didn’t matter what town we lived in, he always joined the ministerial association. 

He believed Psalm 133:1: How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. When I grew up, I came to appreciate his example even more.

As an adult, I was always surprised to hear people say, “When I was growing up, I could only be friends with kids from my own church.”

Dad's advice was, "Friends don’t have to be just from your denomination. You can always find a friend who loves Jesus.”

Thanks to Dad, my life was enriched by a variety of friends. We didn’t always agree on some points of doctrine, but our hearts were knit together in Christian love with God’s Word as our guide for living.

I associate labels and pickles with Dad because he had his favorites. But, lucky for me, when it came to people, he loved them all.

 

Weep With Those Who Weep

Doesn't it seem like lately we've had way too many opportunities to do this? Worldwide Covid-19 deaths, Hurricane Ida flooding, plus the Afghanistan situation have created plenty of tears. Plus, today was 9/11, complete with memorials for the unsuspecting citizens, twenty years ago, who were held hostage on rogue flights they never planned.

One of those planes hit the Pentagon. I saw a review of that tragedy on Friday. Today I tried to watch the other two memorials.

I started with the one near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Flight 93 National Memorial. As names were read of brave citizens who acted in solidarity to bring the rogue plane down, I couldn’t help it---I wept.

I tried switching to the memorial in New York. It only brought more tears. Twenty years have not erased the impact of this tragedy.

While listening to names read at Ground Zero, I had one question. Why did so many people have the same last names?

I was satisfied with the information in an article titled “The World Trade Towers Collapsed on Will Jimeno. How Did He Survive?” You can find this article by Garrett M. Graff (09/10/2021) on the web.

Never having been to New York, I did not know The World Trade Center actually consisted of seven buildings on sixteen acres. The Twin Towers famously dominated the skyline. Statistics say there were more than 50,000 daily occupants and over 200,000 daily visitors.

Will Jimeno, a NY Port Authority Police Officer trapped for thirteen hours in rubble between the two towers before he was rescued, has written a book: Sunrise Through the Darkness.

In his article, Mr. Graff, historian, journalist, podcaster, and author of a NY Times Best Seller (The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11), gave Will Jimeno’s book a thumbs up: “It’s the most hopeful and inspiring story from that day I’ve ever found.”

After speaking engagements, people usually say they can’t think of a worse thing to happen. Will, having dealt with physical injuries, survivor guilt and PTSD still has the heart to weep with those who weep (Romans 15:12, NLT).

He says, “Whatever tragic event is happening in your life, at that moment, you have your own World Trade Center. It isn’t comparative or competitive. At some point, in all our lives, we’re going to feel like the World Trade Center fell on top of us. It’s what we do in that moment---and who we are after---that matters most.”

Thanks, Will, for your example of bravery and compassion.

  

The Way I Remember It

Everything we do creates a memory. Memories are part of our human composition. 

Memories are like sunshine and shadow and that variety makes life interesting. It’s one reason I enjoy reading autobiographies. Thoughtful authors acknowledge that others in the same events may not have the same memories.

Have you ever noticed how memories seem to be triggered by our five senses? We smell something and a memory comes floating back. Or we see, hear or taste something that conjures up the familiar. Sometimes they pop up from something we’ve touched.

During the Exodus from slavery to freedom, out in the middle of the desert, people began to remember some tasty food from the old days (Numbers 11:4-6).

Conversations went something like this: “Remember that fresh fish in Egypt? Oh,

and what about those delicious cucumbers and melons we used to enjoy? This daily manna is so unappetizing. What I wouldn’t give to be able to flavor it with some leeks, onions, or garlic.”

Sometimes memories need a little help. The people above had positive memories, but they let them trigger negative attitudes. If caught in such conversations, try to be the catalyst for change.

Happy memories can be a choice. Sometimes I remember especially encouraging people. Other times I relive vacations or special events. I’ve had a variety of jobs and lived in a variety of places. That simply means I find even more memories to enjoy.

Was everything in my life positive? No, but why dwell on the negative?

Psalm 126:3 says, “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” Choice memories make it easy to give God thanks, and science has proven that being thankful is a positive trait for health.

If someone disagrees with your memory, you have an out. Simply say, “That’s the way I remember it!”