Where Were You on 9/11?

#remember9/11

My mom was visitng us and was going to take us to see the Biltmore House in Ashville the next day. I was making pancakes and Troy was at work at Pope AFB. My oldest son came running in saying, “A plane just hit my favorite towers! The Twin Towers!” I just figured some drunk pilot of a private craft messed up. When the second plane hit, I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence but I couldn’t fathom what else it could be. When I saw that plane hit the Pentagon I knew we were at war.

I tried desperately to get hold of Troy Floyd thinking they might send him off somewhere. He called within the hour after getting out of a meeting and just finding out himself. They kept then all on lockdown on the base for some time. Meanwhile Marsha Green and Miss Marion Smith Williams were calling one another and praying. Marsha came and picked me up while my mom stayed at home with my 11yo and 18mo. We went to the church and PRAYED AND PRAYED AND PRAYED. We prayed over a map of America, we prayed over her daughter as for all our children. We prayed for our leaders. I went home and then my whole family came back to church along with many others and we PRAYED AND PRAYED. And Michael Fletcher gave us pastorial wisdome saying we should not seek revenge as individuals but our country is charged by God to defend its people. We prayed over our military and we prayed for our leaders. And we prayed for the Unity of America to turn back to God.

We all thought very soberly concerning the message just the evening before:

Jackson Senyonga, a guest speaker from Africa, preached from our pulpit at Manna: God will use desperation or desoloation to turn the hearts of people.

I am still praying, God make us desperate for you so we don’t have to fall into desolation.

#remember9/11

40 Something…

Happy Birthday to me!

The big Four – Oh. Wow, right? Or, is it really? Well, it wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t have a big black-out party, or any party at all actually. However I did get what I asked for: a Starbucks gift card.

Did you realize the number 40 represents “testing” in the Bible? Think about it:

It rained 40 days and 40 nights with Noah in the ark.

Moses was 40 years in the desert before God revealed Himself and commissioned Moses to go back to Egypt to lead God’s people to Mt. Sinai, where again, God used the number 40 as the amount of days Moses was on the mountain with Him while the children of Israel fell to temptation and fear.

Jesus was in the desert 40 days fasting when the devil came to temp him.

I haven’t been tested for the entirity of my 40 years, but for the last two years to the finish of my 40th, it was pretty rough.

Calob was 40 when he was chosen as one of the spies to enter the promise land and spy it. God gave him an opportunity to spy his future. And did Calob come back with a grim prediction? No! He saw his future as being full of opportunities for God to gain victories! How do I see my future?

When I get that sort of perspective, I feel faith rising inside of me to choose to see my future as full of potential victories as well.

Now, Calob didn’t see that future come to pass for another 40 years! But when it was his time, the Bible records that he was as strong as he was when he was 40. So at 80 years old, he took his mountain. He watched God obtain victory for his people, then he went and took his own ground as well.

That’s what I want my 40th birthday to be about: Believing God for a victorious future, one in which the things that I’ve been tested over, the deserts that I will walk, will all amount to an amazing life of faith and strength to persevere and see God’s deliverance in the end – stronger than ever, taking my land even to the end of my days.

So yes, happy birthday to me, and praise and honor be to our God, forever and ever amen.

Control Freak or Genius?

Dedicated to all you control freaks out there! You’re welcome!

Is control an illusion as is so popularly purported these days? Is that a biblical idea – that control is just an illusion and something we really shouldn’t strive for? Is it always a sin to try to control something – or someone?

Exodus 32:25 – Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.

Hmm…. So, Aaron was expected to control the people.

And need I list the myriad of verses that speak on self-control?

Needless to say God is for us controlling some things and directing a few aspects of our lives!

Isn’t God proud of the man who structures his day with habit and hard work?

Doesn’t God smile upon the woman whose goals keep her out of trouble and on track to learn and grow and keep her life in order?

Any manager or supervisor over a house or a warehouse does well to have a well controlled crew and schedule.

The problem, the crux, the real issue most people have with what is labeled “control” is manipulation.

2 Timothy 3:6 – They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who ar loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires…

When individuals or groups engage in soulful persuasion of the fleshly-minded control degrades into manipulation.

What’s that mean? It means when you want something done your way, just because you want it that way – even though your way is better, I know, it’s still manipulation – you are putting your hands on another’s work or will. You know, how you drive a stick shift – you are manually shifting what an automatic transmission usually does. Well, some people are on a different auto pilot than you, and you can’t just decide to make them your manual mobile.

However, many people accuse others of being controlling and use the term in a derogatory sense. It really only stems from their own lack of organization or initiative to schedule and succeed in similar areas. Sometimes people are just better at controlling their lives, their mouths, and their outcomes than others! I personally love to be around people who can conduct themselves and their affairs well. I do not mind having a friend who likes to drive – because every friend I’ve had like that, truly can get us places faster and more directly. I tend to wander if I have someone to talk to - OK, sometimes even if I don’t. But so what! I’ve never had one of my controlled friends make fun of me.

I don’t mind when my controlling friends want to plan our schedule if we are on vacation together or they are visiting from out-of-town. They usually have a better way of organizing out time, saving us money, and making some terrific memories.

I’ve never been manipulated by one of them either. That’s not to say that might not be a temptation for them – for any of us – from time to time in their lives in general. But I wouldn’t call them “manipulators” when what they really are is successful at control.

I want to learn from them, and so should you.

Fences Don’t Mend Themselves

I thought I’d try my hand at submitting a children’s short story to a contest. This is also a part of a blog carnival over at Once Word at a Time. The word this round was: Fences. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/8P78id/peterpollock.com/2011/08/fences-blog-carnival/

Here was my result.

My grandpa was a proud man. My daddy tells me so. When he was just a boy he quit school cause the teacher made fun of his shoes havin holes in them. But my grandpa wasn’t dumb. Nuh uh. He was one of the smartest men I know. I always liked to go to his farm in the summertime and help milk the cows, feed the chickens, or slop the hogs and stuff like that. It was hot and it was hard work. Grandpa didn’t mind and neither did I.

One summer when I showed up Grandpa was out in the fields. We had to go find him. He was by a broken fence. It was ninedy da-grees outside and the middle of the day. Grandpa was about ninedy himself. My daddy tried to tell him to go back to the house and wait till the day cooled off, but Grandpa wouldn’t budge. “Fences don’t mend themselves!” he declared. So, Daddy started helpin him and sent me to get a bucket of water and some cups.

Granny was a quiet woman. She always smelled like peppermint but carried sweet coffee candies in her apron pocket – just for me. She was soft and fluffy too. I loved to hug her. And she loved to hug me – she told me so every time. I guess we were both just so huggable. She and Granpa were funny. They’d fuss over dinner and over the chickens and even what was on TV, but they never meant nothin by it. Daddy used to tell me, if you listen real close, what they were really sayin when they fussed was, “I love you, honey.” “I love you too, dear.” But you had to listen real close. I didn’t have to listen real close, I knew it in my heart all the time.

That hot, pesky summer the cows kept escaping out that hole in the fence. It’s like they knew to go right to that spot and it would give way. I bet Grandpa and I fixed that spot ten times. And every time, when I’d get hot and tired Grandpa’d say, “Fences don’t mend themselves.” I sorta got tired of hearin that all the time, but I guess it was right since them cows weren’t gonna fix the fence either.

Now there were some neighbor boys three miles down the road, a couple of brothers right my age, Bobby and Dan. They’d come on around and help with my chores, which for a city-boy didn’t feel like chores but more like fun, especially when you had someone doin it with you hoopin and hollarin. Grandpa didn’t mind either. We’d spend all morning in the barn cleanin up the hay. Then lots a times we’d head out to that spot in the fence and help nail wire back up or hold the fence post while Grandpa drove it back in the ground.

I sure seemed to sprout up that summer too. Come near August my pants were floatin up to my ankles. I got to where I only had one good pair to wear to church on Sundays. This one last Sunday me and the neighbor boys were playin some tag on the front lawn, sorta showin off for one Mary-Gene Autry sittin on the stoop steps of the church, while all the grown-ups were talkin. Just as I was makin a fantastic twist avoidin Dan’s tag, RRRRRIIIIIIIPPPPP!!!! It had to be the loudest rip I ever heard in my life. Everyone stopped and looked at me. My Grandpa just dropped his chin and started shakin his head.

I turned my head as much as I could to my back-side and saw a tear as long as a railroad spike and my underwear hangin out! My Granny started hollerin for me and I thought for sure I was in trouble. She took inventory of my hide and decided we had to go. I began to protest, I hadn’t won a tag yet, but Granny declared in her best Grandpa voice, “Jimmy, fences don’t mend themselves!” Mary-Gene smiled at me with a giggle and I blushed as I covered my backside. We walked to the car and headed on back to the farm. That was the best summer of my life.

Adventure According to Up!

If you have children you undoubtedly have seen and or own Pixar’s movie, UP! What a tear-jerker for a little kids show right? Was it the part when Carl Fredrickson loses his home or when they had to say good-bye to the bird, Kevin? Was it when he walked up to pin on Russell’s badge, or when they sat and had ice cream?

For me it was when Mr. Fredrickson realized his wife didn’t miss out on an adventurous life afterall: He was her great adventure. And she wanted him to go and have some more – by Providence – with a child.

You see, I was pregnant at the time. With my seventh child. I wasn’t sure I believed in Providence anymore. I felt overwhelmed and I thought I could see my dreams and ambitions slipping away in front of my eyes. This cry escaped my heart up to heaven as I watched Carl flip through Ellie’s book of adventures, realizing all the things, and places she wanted to do and see, he feeling bad he didn’t make sure those things happened for her.
But then…

But then…

the page flipped again.

The corner caught his eye and he realized she had put something else down. Something about actually having adventures. As he walked back through the pictures of their life together, he came to the realization that though she was heart-broken they couldn’t have children (another stab in my eye), she continued to enjoy and love their life together. And just in case he didn’t get the message, she spelled it out for him on the page while on her deathbed: Thanks for the adventure. Now go have one of your own. She left pages for him to fill. And who had Providence placed on his path to get him out of his house, his head, and his heart full of unfulfilled dreams? A child.

God wants us to know, there is no greater adventure than Him and the people he brings across our path – including and especially our family. Having children doesn’t keep you from living your dreams! They keep you grounded to live an adventure. Sometimes people think dreams are more impressive, more important, more desirous. But adventure is when you take chances and they pay off! Even when circumstances don’t lead to success, the failure is full of promise: wisdom, experience, humility, forgiveness. When the Lord writes that he will give us the desire of our hearts, I am pretty sure he means to with adventure – rough and tumble, rugged and messy, not dreams with trite ideals and romantical fantasies.

Adventure! It’s out there – right in your own home.

This post is part of a blog carnival on adventure – go check some other posts out at One Word Blog Carnival – http://peterpollock.com/2011/04/adventure-blog-carnival/

Do Numbers Matter to God?

DO numbers matter to God? Sure they do!

Do five dissenting voices really count? Should you continue a meeting for 3 people? These thoughts have occupied my mind recently. Often we will cancel an event because not enough persons were interested. We take votes to decide what actions to take, and we go with the “majority” no matter the number of the minority. Is this godly?

For ten people, God would have spared a sinful city. Preachers have preached though, that perhaps God would have done so for as few as one righteous man. But he coulnd’t find ANYONE to stand for the city. Lot was saved for Abraham’s sake, not for his righteousness.

Would God move for just ONE person? Out of his own mouth Jesus says, “If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the nintey-nine… and go to look for the one…? In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these… should perish.” Matt. 18:12-14

He also said that when two, T W O or three – T H R E E – are gathered in HIS name, HE is in the midst. I’m so glad God doesn’t cancel a meeting with me and my friend because we couldn’t gather enough of a crowd.

God cares about one woman with an issue of blood, one “unclean” Samaritan woman whose daughter is possessed, and God cares about your brother or sister who has a different biblical conviction than you.

If you feel “free” to drink, you ought not do so in front of the one who sees it as sinful. Rom 14:20-22 Insert: dance, speak in tongues, raise your hands, wear a two-piece bikini.

Freedom isn’t freedom to your own opinion and desires! It isn’t freedom from responsibility. God says we have a responsibility to our brothers and sister in the body of Christ. Freedom is responsibility to be mature enough to be free from being ruled by your wants. Freedom is wisdom. Foolishness, selfishness, is slavery.

God says the kingdom is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Rom 14:17 You can insert “dancing” you can insert “bathing suits”.

The point really is about asserting yourself over the interest of “the few”. Phillippians 2 tells us to consider others more, or better, than ourselves and that we should prefer one another, looking not to our own interest but also to the interest of others. Humility is supposed to be at the governing table of our thoughts and decisions. Fellowship is supposed to be superior to our fun.

God is the God of “One” – One Christ, One Spirit, One Mind, One Body.

God is the god of the few.

God’s GPS

If God were to have a house with an address, it would be in Heaven right? And if you were to try and visit him, or go and live with him there, you would need directions right?

With the technology age came a modern-day life saver: GPS. What a godsend right? You put in just about any address and this nifty, neatly packaged device, it takes you there via visual and spoken directions. You get an estimated time of arrival. You get turn-by-turn instruction. You get warnings when a diversion is up ahead.

If God were to give you a GPS to get to his house, it wouldn’t be a Tomtom, Navigon, or Magellan; what would it be?

God’s GPS to his heavenly home is Jesus – the Way, the Truth, and the Life. All the things you need to get to God.

Do you have this spiritual GPS?

Expressionism

I feel like a new person after I’ve written something in which I expressed myself. I feel like a new person after I’ve counseled with a person and encouraged them. I feel like a new person after I’ve sung a song, or performed in a play.

Why?

Why do I need venues to express myself, or share with people some type of performance?

God has created us to express. Please follow this analogy with me: it’s like the need to express milk. If a cow isn’t milked, she will become engorged, her body will diminish the supply. She could become ill and she could dry up. if a mother doesn’t nurse her baby or express the milk, she will become engorged. It is very painful. It could lead to an infection. She could also dry up. Women were made to nurse their babies. We were all made to express.

God has put in all of us the ability to express some form of his goodness and nature. He is a creator and we are his creation, made in his image, therefore also made creative. That can range from your creativity organizing your house, to how you come up with solutions to problems at work, in your marriage, or in raising your chidlren. It can also look like what we traditionally term creative: singing, dancing, writing, painting, acting, decorating, designing. But it still takes something we all are required to do: WORK!

Some years back God informed me that while I might be anointed I am far from faithful. OUCH! I sort of took the optional rout to ministry or creativity. I wanted to write and publish songs. But did I sit at the piano everyday, or carve out a regular time to work on writing or sining? No. I wanted to be in ministry. But did I study my Bible every day, and show up where or when I was needed whether I felt like it or not? No. Anointed, or creative isn’t a feeling, it’s doing. Faithfulness is doing whether you feel like it or not. Ugh… so not there yet.

Now, my new goal is to be a writer. Do I carve out time every day to write? No. I have been writing more lately, but I still haven’t committed to it in faithfulness. Yet, it feels so fulfilling when I do it! Whether it’s writing here, or creating a grammar exercise for my Classical Conversations homeschool co-op, or trying to write a book. I feel better after I have expressed something.

Expressing is a purging of something that is building up inside of us. Now people express things all the time, but not all are godly or life-giving. See, if you go back to the milk analogy, milk is life-giving. It feeds another, or, many! What you express should positively effect someone else. That’s what I really love to do. I loved nursing my babies, and I love expressing God’s creativity.

In what ways can you seek God about being expressive in this way? And then be faithful to do so?

I can start carving time each week to write and set a reasonable goal: 30min 3x a week.

The Measure of a Friend

Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel. Prov. 27:9

I am going to give a true shout-out to all my friends this evening, because I have some true friends. These aren’t convenient companions, or a company of commonality. These are my true sisters in Christ. Why? How would I know? Because I can measure them by their fruit and their fruit by the word of God. Do you need some help figuring out who is your friend and who is just a common occurrence? Read on, my friend, read on.

I have referenced the above verse before in regard to a wonderful time of fellowship I had with my friend, Abbey Woodard. We have known each other since high school – you know, “B.C.”. I will not spill her junk here, but suffice it to say we have gone through some stuff and know stuff about each other. One of the best days in my life, one etched so gloriously in my memory, was the day we reunited after years apart only to find we had both come to the wise conclusion of radical, loving salvation through a personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Since then we have kept in touch through the years. We don’t see each other every day. We don’t have a lot of commonality in our every day lives. But the crucial commonality we have causes us to be even closer than sin ever held sway for either of us. She loves me and I know this. I mean truly loves me. She rejoices in my successes and mourns with me in my trials. As I do her. I love you, Abbey Woodard! Because you love God, and you love me. Thank you for being my friend.

He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail. Job 17:5

Another mark, besides the mark of Christ in each of my friends is: they don’t talk smack to me. They don’t flatter me as I do not flatter them. I am probably a little more harsh than most of my friends because my personality is such that I honor truth so I tend to speak it. Sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly, but always with the right love toward them. That’s how I’ve managed to keep such awesome friends: they know my heart is pure towards them, even when I mess up. And I note the same mark of honest truth in love in them towards me.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Prov. 17:17

This is my friend Eva Miller. She loves me when I’m right. She loves me when I’m wrong. And she has NEVER said, “I told you so.” If I ask she will re-evaluate something and point out “that is why I had said…” and I can totally receive that. But, as she will tell you my mark towards her is: I’m her chihuahua. It’s a joke now, but once she told me in passing as we approached a social scrapbooking event that the last time she had been there a lady had sort of verbally snapped at her. The hair raised up on the back of my neck as my lip started to curl. I calmly replied: And here you’ve brought your chihuahua. She laughed. She bought me a chihuahua bracelet. But you know if you’ve ever had one at your heel or go squirrel in your lap, it ain’t pretty when chihuahua’s attack. Now, I’m not saying it’s right or Christian every time, but in the sense that I was born to defend my friends, my “brothers, aka sisters” in Christ, it is in Christ-like nature to want to defend my friend. And she does this for me as well.

Two times that are etched in my memory are when I lamented to her I was probably going to be judged as showing off if I sang the song I had written for my pastor’s wife to her in front of everyone at the birthday luncheon. My friend Eva encouraged me to give what God gave me, to give without fear of man’s hang-ups. If she hadn’t risen up to defend me, I don’t think I would have delivered that precious gem to its intended receiver.

Another time I poured out my perception of people watching me be overwhelmed with six small children. I felt they often came to the conclusion I shouldn’t have had so many kids. She rose up again to dispel such propaganda: There’s moms who are overwhelmed with one kid so they can just shut up! Oh, how I could feel the truth she just delivered, but also her defense coming to my aid. And I am so grateful. Thank you Eva Miller for loving me, defending me and being my best friend!

I have two other friends whom I love because they love me at all times: Mara-lee Stricker and Kim McGillivray. When I was first walking in a radical interpretation and crazy love for Jesus I wanted to “minister” to people. That was my new-fangled term for counseling and basically telling my friends what they should and shouldn’t be doing. I’ve always done that, but now I could slap a fancy term on it! It has always been my desire to be a good listener and really care about what’s going on in people’s lives. People actually appreciate 90% of that. Now I could do it with the wisdom of God and his love for people! These two ladies loved me when I was still messin up a lot of my “truth in love” ministry. Their acceptance of me and receiving from me did more to propel me to be a better minister than all the teaching and discipline from a book or a class could have offered. I love you Mara-lee and Kim! Thank you for being true friends to me and loving me even when I’m not lovely. That is surely the love of Jesus! In fact Mara-lee inspired this post with her faithful love for me this evening.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Prov. 27:6

My friend Dee Love. We admired each other from across a crowded room – literally – my living room! Our home group needed a place to move which became my house! I watched Dee and her husband each week rightly divide the word of God and I admired their commitment to a personal knowledge of God in spirit AND in truth. We became fast friends. We have seen each other through some rough times.

Which brings me to why the above verse is so appropriate to our friendship. Because while Dee loves me and I love her at all times, while we appreciate the sweetness of each other’s counsel and do not engage in flattering, we – me more than she, she would say! – are faithful to wound each other! No, not that kind of wound. don’t you know a doctor wounds you when he injects antibiotics? He has to pierce your skin! That antibiotic has to forcefully separate and then marinate and finally disseminate through your flesh! And you know: it hurts! When you go into surgery there is a deep cutting that takes time to recover from. And there is a purposeful pain that comes from the popping of an infected boil upon your skin. This is Dee and I. And I cannot convey how much I love it.

She does not love me or my feelings more than she loves the truth of God. And because she loves me she gives me the truth of God. And I do the same for her. What good am I if let you stew in your own deceived, or bitter “truth” which isn’t truth – that’s the point. There’s only one truth, and it’s truth that sets us free. Not hurtful, frustrated, or jealous “facts”, real, truth which God calls timely words – like apples of gold in settings of silver. That’s what we gift each other on a regular basis.

I not only love what I receive from her but that she receives the same from me. I don’t have to sugar-coat things for Dee, or wait for her to be “ready”; she’s always ready for God’s truth in a situation. Don’t misunderstand me and think we think we’re each other’s Holy Spirit. No one is the Spirit of God; but every Christian has the Spirit of God. and as Dee says, “Game recognize game”. We recognize and love the truth of God in each other’s truthful counsel. And I “Love” that. I love my friend, Dee Love. She is so good for me, like “laughter is good medicine for the bones”. We do a LOT of that too. I love you, Dee Love! I love your truth, and I love our laughter.
God has blessed me in many ways. But I thank him tonight with a long tribute to my wonderful friends. He shows me through them that He is sticking to me closer than a brother. – Proverbs 18:24

Do you have real friends. Why or why not?

Shopping Carts

I’ve heard Joyce Meyer use them as an example of Christian character, and my friend tells me John Piper has used them as a sermon illustration as well: shopping carts. Well, I have a use for them too.

What if people were like shopping carts?

As you go to pull a cart from its metal nesting, are you hoping for the one with the bad wheel that pulls to the left and squeals all the way around the ailes? Do you figure it needs to be used too and feel sorry for it so you use it anyway? If you stick with it, how well does your shopping trip go? I’ve done it a few times, and OH! what a difference in my time <i>and</i> my attitude.

I’m supposing most times this is not what you choose. You abandon that sucker as soon as you see another empty cart, even if it’s in the middle of an aisle – sorry, Joyce. You want the clean, child-friendly, straight-shooting, easy-wheeling, quiet cart. You’re not galavanting about the store taking up precious time fighting a shopping cart! It’s just a shopping cart, that thing is heading for the heap.

Now I’m not saying people don’t need ministry, but people don’t enjoy ministering to the miserable. This is more an analogy of everyday life and fun-time, friendly relationships anyway.

Healthy People don’t want to socialize with drama-filled, emotionally overloaded others. That’s just life. And <i>you</i> can do something about it.

So don’t be a squeaking shopping cart hoping people will choose you anyway and not abandon you when all you do is slow them down, take up time meant for their family, and pull them off course as they are trying to do what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t start your squeaking and wriggling with all your self-inflicted drama and not realize the negative effect you are having on the people you so want to be your friend. Don’t be surprised when no one takes the time to fix you but just puts you back where they found you only for you to get used and abused again!

Get strong, straighten up, and show that you have worth as a friend and as a person. You can be part of the team, you can be productive, and you can recognize the world doesn’t revolve around you.

Shopping carts are supposed to help people carry their loads, not be burdensome beasts.

You should be helping to carry someone else’s load, not be a burden.

Happy Shopping!