Thanks to the young girl who gave birth to you and to the family who stepped in to raise you and make sure you were in the right place at the right time so we could meet and create this life. It may have been a day of mixed emotions for some, the day you were born; there might have been pain, feelings of loss, who knows? But overall, I know heaven was rejoicing just like I am today!
So today, we celebrate you, all of us: me (the wife who loves you so), our 5 grown children, the extra 3 wonderfuls that have come by marriage, these three (almost 4) incredible grandkids. We have no reservation in raucously celebrating your life!
Algebra 1, my freshman year of high school (I think they now teach the same course to 4th graders): on exam day our paunchy teacher with the unruly hair, whose name escapes me now would say, “Don’t let your eyes wander.Someone may step on them.” And I could visualize that happening and it didn’t seem like something I would like to experience and so I never did even barely glance about.
Certain sayings smack of truth and are just good to remember. I’ve gathered a few for you:
Keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
Coffee…chocolate…men…some things are just better rich.
Don’t treat me any different than you would the queen. Please.
Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk beside me, either. Just leave me the heck alone! (Claire Martin)
And finally:
“From the cradle to the grave, underwear comes first!” (Michael Fry)
Did I miss any important ones? Be blessed! Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Get wisdom! It is the principle thing.
Happy Valentine’s Day, David Allen Rhoades, the love of my life!
You have been a wonderful friend and lover and husband and now an incredible grandfather, too. I sang you a song for Valentine’s Day (click the link below). In retrospect, I should’ve picked something a little easier, perhaps with more like a 3-note range?… I am definately not “up to” a Broadway tune, but it is done now – for all to know:
I will never leave you. I know you too well (through all of life’s stages) to let you go. My head and heart are full of our memories, our life – things no one else can ever share. I love you, Dave.
In the book of Philippians in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives his personal biography of a totally miserable, religious past (miserable because anytime getting close to God is dependant on what wedo and how wedo it, it is a cumbersome load). In the spirit of chapter 3, verses 4 – 6, I hereby submit my own biographical history outlining the stupidity I once clung to (that is me in the photo – a Pharisee in the making! )- that somehow I was worth something to God, valuable to His kingdom because of my own good works and where I came from.
The book of Jeanie’s stupidity 3:4-6:
I had lots of confidence in my value to the kingdom of God because I was born into a Christian home to a ministry family. My first full sentence was “I’m gonna go to church” and I was a church girl among church girls. I was a Christian of the Pentecostal persuasion (others had some of the truth, but we had more, thus the term “full-gospel”). All of my siblings and their families are in the ministry. Many aunts and uncles and cousins are in full-time ministry. Concerning the law and attempting to get God’s favor by my own self-suffiency, I could totally relate to Pharisees – working hard to keep it, and hoping for those heavenly brownie points because of it. Zealously striving for favor for my performance and being a “good girl,” I was devasted when the less-holy were blessed. I grew up to attend Bible College and marry a pastor. And then I set out to raise my own bunch of good, Christian kids.
I am so grateful for my godly heritage, the roots I have. I love the stories of how God made Himself real to both my mother and father, each from Godless homes, how He changed everything in them and through them. Many, many people are walking in the redemptive grace of God today because of the choice Ross & Norma Moslander made to follow Christ.
But oh, my goodness, I have to work at not allowing these things to become a snare to me and to others. I have to keep dragging my pride to the cross.
I am in awe of the person who did not have the salvation message and cross of Jesus Christ served up on a silver platter, and yet they live in the full joy of knowing Christ without any of the doctrinal, or religious baggage that can so easily beset us. People with a “past,” who come to Christ knowing how badly they needed a Savior and that they have no chance of impressing Him with their works or religious reputation just blow my mind. It reminds me of Christ’s teaching that “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” We often judge a person’s qualifications to lead in the kingdom by where they came from, how they were raised, who they are related to. God’s criteria are different. It is all about the heart. God is looking at the heart!
But thank goodness, like Paul, I have been knocked off my religious high-horse (although I have the amazing ability to run it down and remount it at times, yikes!) and I can now see all that stuff for the rubbish it is. What I once thought were assets, I now see as liabilities. My passion is to know Christ and to somehow, finally – totally getover myself. What a relief.
Laying aside all human achievements in exchange for the free grace of God, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Phil. 3.8 NKJV
“When you’re young, the future seems limitless, packed with inifinate prospects and choices, B-plans and C-plans in every direction. It was not so scary to lose back then. Recklessness is a form of virtue when you’re first inventing your life. You stand the chance – if you go for broke – of unearthing an authentic existence. Loss is an afterthought, like death, when you’re young: heartbreaking, but distant and not yet your problem, as you careen through decades of unwrinkled plenty.
“Then one day you wake up and see you’ve been dreaming. Some tragedy shatters your shell of blind faith and allows paler, more grown-up truths to to seep in, the unavoidable costs of living. The trance of forever comes to an end. There’s not always more where that (fill in your own blank) came from. We begin to perceive, in a gimlet-eyed way, that often there’s a great deal less. Facing our limits, the coarse truth of endings, what remains becomes more precious to us, the families and lovers, possessions and passions we call our own. Subtraction is no longer taken so lightly. Beginning, of course, with the loss of time.” – Mark Matousek
2006 was not the year I thought it would be. I can think of many people who might secretly feel the same. There’s been a whole lot of shaking going on. Things recently grasped in confidence have been torn from our once-sure grip in a fierce wind-storm of purity and pain; both the breath of life and the wind being knocked out of us. In restrospect, it has been the best of times and the worst of times. What I have loved to the point of obsession, I have also lost, as God has humbled me and demanded my full attention, for He does not share His glory.
It can be anything, really, that jolts us, makes us realize we no longer possess something we once thought we owned: a friendship, a spouse, position, title, monetary security, respect, reputations, jobs… I sort of lost a church family and dear friends, a job I loved and my identity – because I had placed trust in the wrong things. I am old enough, spiritually and chronologically, to have known better. Yet this year, I have seen a shaking in ministry reminiscent of the one in the late 80’s as televangelists were exposed in humiliation on shows like Nightline or Larry King. But this time, it has been close to home, in me and in people who have my deep love and respect. There is a purifying that hurts, but it is grace. God asks us, will you humble yourself and repent of your pride (your self-sufficiency)? If we won’t He will. He will humble us under His mighty hand.
For me, I think maybe the loss would not have caused as much agony if I’d gone willingly – answered the call to humble myself instead of waiting for the judgment for resistance. But it is grace. He is cutting off in me those branches that are not producing the fruit He created me to produce. He is pruning the branches that are producing so they will produce even more. I am older. I have less time than I did in my brave twenties or strong thirties. He is shaking everything that can be shaken in me so that that which cannot be shaken will remain, for His Name and glory, for His acclaim in the earth. I am spreading my arms out in the middle of the whirlwind and watching the dead branches fly.
Be encouraged. God is not through using you. Blessings, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Haggai 2.5 NIV “And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.” This remains.
Bob George, album collector extraordinaire – I think I love you! I finally found some one as tech-savvy (NOT) – as me!
All you ipodders – here is your chance to learn a little about the past. I have a stack of about five and half feet of vinyls. The guy on this 3-minute video has a few more. But he got me to thinking: I wonder what my copy of Faith Bible Chapel’s Youth Choir 1974 would go for? Hmmmm…. Check it out:
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=ae4482b5b3c41e1e8663af3630ff4020.1511812&cache=1 [update: link no longer valid]
“It’s hard to love a CD…it’s easy to love an LP” -Bob George, smart man and record collector
Blessings! Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Pull out Carole King’s “Tapestry” album this week. Turn up the Hi-Fi and sing like the kid I was when I first heard it. “I feel the earth move under my feet….”
One of my favorite things about the Christmas season when I was a child was sitting in a dim room with only the lights of the tree twinkling and I’d sing all the Christmas carols I knew. I had no idea at the time that I wasn’t just singing songs about the Christmas season, but I was actually being impacted with spiritual truth about God’s great gift to us.
While my own kids were growing up, even though it could be challenging to get a spare moment, I would still find an evening or two to myself to do the same. It was good to find peace during the season’s rush, in a light-quiet room, to sing truth, to just sing myself into joy.
These days you could do brain surgery from the glow of our 12-foot tree, due to the 6000 lights Dave loves to add. But stealing time to sit there and sing is a priority for my Christmas joy-quest. I love Christmas carols!
This past weekend as I waited in line for some hot chocolate and caramel corn in a tiny and extremely crowded establishment full of holiday shoppers, an older gentleman behind the counter was singing his head off. No piped music for him. He just reared back and proclaimed, “Silent night, holy night…,” and then, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come...”
How unusual, how risky and politically incorrect in these days, and yet, not one person there seemed offended or got out of the very long line to leave the store. Because it was “Christmas music,” it was OK. How cool is that? Even if they have never heard those songs before (and I bet they have), seeds were sown that afternoon into shopper’s hearts. And as year follows year and season follows season and they hear them again and again, that beautiful truth will continue to be declared as an inescapable testimony (no matter how far they may be from Christ) – those seeds remain, ready to spring up!
I love Christmas carols!
In the Old Testament God told Moses, “Now write down this song and teach it.” So Moses recorded a very lengthy song God gave to him and he taught it to the Israelite people. They sang it. Moses instructed the people to take all the words of the song to heart saying,
“These are not just idle words, these are your life.”
God knew and Moses knew that a song can impact your heart and memory like nothing else can. When you consider some of the rich, spiritual truths found in Christmas carols (and I sing them a lot, so I have!), you can see that the joyous messages contained in them are life-giving. Consider these incredible truths. Better yet- sing them:
“Son of God, love’s pure light” Jesus is the light of the world.
“Let every heart, prepare Him room”
“God is not dead, nor does He sleep” Bing Crosby does a great job of declaring this important message.
“Born that men no more may die”
“O, come let us adore Him” What an invitation to personal worship.
“God rest ye…let nothing you dismay” Because Jesus was born, we get rest, rest!“…to save us all from Satan’s power.” Sin’s terrible grip is broken, rest. “O, tidings of comfort and joy…,” rest.
And who hasn’t heard Mariah Carey on KOSI 101 belting out, “And in His Name, all oppression shall cease!” ?
Right now, for these brief few days, we don’t have to feel sheepish or guilty about what Christmas has become, but we can be the most joyous celebrants around.
I think we should all stand in shopping lines and sing Christmas carols and make people smile…or think we’re weird, but at least plant the seeds of truth in a song that will stay in their heads.
Do it. Sing a carol in a music-less place. I will if you will! Let me know how it goes!!!
Blessings, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Go sit by the Christmas tree. Remember the gift God hung on a tree 2000 years ago while anticipating the gifts under my tree we will share in a few days. Sing with uproarious joy. Sing!
