Friendship Making an Eternal Impact

This is a story that my mother (Kay Smith) wrote about how she came to know Christ:

I grew up in a home where neither Mom or Dad or my sister attended church.  My grandmother would come each month and take me to Sunday School.  She later gave me a Bible for my 16th birthday.  I had a neighbor who attended a church nearby and constantly invited me to attend church with her.  I did not pay much attention to her constant invitations but decided one day to tell her that I would go with her if we invited other friends in the neighborhood.  We decided on a Sunday and all of us walked to church with her.  I remember that the first thing that caught my attention was the choir singing and later the congregational singing.  I don’t remember the sermon but we all enjoyed the music and decided to repeat our visit in future Sundays.  

The preacher seemed to emphasize salvation by grace in each service and gave an invitation  to accept Christ and become a Christian.  One Sunday morning in January I realized that I had never taken that step and thought about it all day.  That evening we all returned to the church and I stepped out into the aisle to go forward and make a profession of faith in Christ.  In fact, my friends followed me to the front of the church and we prayed and accepted Christ and were baptized that evening.  

That was in January, 1955.  My life changed spiritually from that day forward and I thank God for a friend who did not give up on inviting me to church.  Thank God for churches that preach the Gospel and reach out to all those who are willing to come and listen.  Thank God for good music in churches which was the first thing that drew my attention and made me want to return.

This picture was taken of my mom and me in Ardales, Spain overlooking the lake in 2022.

Crazy People

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go...Genesis 28:15a 

The Bible is full of crazy people according to the worlds standards. To name just a few, let's look at Noah who was building an ark to prepare for a flood in an area of the world that had never seen rain. Joseph who took care of his family in spite of being sold into slavery by them when he was young. Moses who gave up all the comforts of Egypt to lead the Israeli nation into the wilderness for 40 years. There are so many stories in the Bible about people who looked like losers but died winners.

God has created us to be a winners not losers. The one thing all of these "crazy" people have in common is that their natural ability played a minor role in their success, instead it took courage & faith. These individuals had supernatural success. When God is with us, we cannot fail. It does not matter who we are, what we have gone through, or what others think of us; what matters is that God is with us, in us and for us.

Kay Warren writes in her book, Choose Joy: At Saddleback Church, sometimes we repeat this sentence together as a congregation: "I'm broken, but I'm not crazy." You can sense the release  and relief that washes over those gathered as we affirm this truth to one another.  

 A picture I took of one of my grandkids, December 2013.

~Less Than We Should Be

Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”  “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Deuteronomy 1:28-31

The world tells us we don't do enough, we don't do it right, we can't do it and fill in the blank....it seems that in life I notice there is so much more disapproval in everything that we do than there is approval.  All around we are getting negative messages about being a bad child, a poor parent, a disappointing spouse, an inadequate employee....all around we are being accused of being less than we should be.....it's exhausting!

People are so judgmental, mean and cruel. Let's not be the one's with the critical spirits of this world but instead be the beam of light and hope to those around us. Life has enough set backs and disappointments. Our encouragement may be the one thing that makes an individual feel like they can go on because someone cares or someone believes in them.

Ridiculing, sarcastic remarks, disrespect, criticism are all prevalent everywhere. You can find it when you are not even looking. It wounds me deeply when someone close to me does any of these things to me personally. Oh, I'm just kidding or you know I didn't really mean that will follow but the wound has already been made. 

If I had to raise my children over again I would have been a better example and I would have taught more the importance of being kind and gentler to others.  

My father took this picture in the early 1960's of Valle de los Caidos near Madrid Spain. 
Valley of the Fallen was conceived by Franco to honor and bury those who fell 

during the Spanish Civil War.