The Old Woman in My Future

There's an Old Woman in My Future

I have been somewhat out of step all my life
I started to school at 5, skipped a grade and was
the youngest in my class though high school.
I married my childhood sweetheart and he and i
raised our 7 children. When I finally got to college,
I was probably the oldest in my classes.
I suppose I aged into the study of aging. One day as I was writing a paper for a Gerontology Class when at Georgia State,I typed the words “growing older” and sat there looking at the words i had written. I thought, "'growing older' is two words, not just one and 'growing' is a positive word."

We will all get old if we live long enough. We have no choice. But we can choose whether to grow as we age or merely to get old. So regardless of our present age, if we live long enough there is an old man or an old woman in our future:

The Old Woman in My Future
Someday . . .Somehow . . .Somewhere in time
She's waiting . . . I will see
The old woman . . .Time is making
Time is making . . .out of me!

Will she be a sad complainer,
A fretful tenant of the earth?
Or a kind, productive person
Filled with happiness and mirth?

Please be patient . . . God is making
Molding slowly . . . Out of me
A shining portrait . . . He has promised.
Just you wait and see.

He is smoothing out the roughness
Polishing the dreary places
Filling life with joy and gladness
Pouring out His gifts and graces

God remake me . . . in Your image.
I want to like her . . . when I see
That old woman . . . time is making,
Time is making . . . out of me!

Copyright by Ruth Baird Shaw

Dr. Phil 's Test

Dear Fellow Bloggers. This was passed to me. I admit I have not taken the test...yet.
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Dr. Phil's Test:
Dr. Phil scored 55; he did this test on Oprah - she got a 38. Some folks pay a lot of money to find this stuff out. Read on, this is very interesting! Don't be overly sensitive! The following is pretty accurate and it only takes 2 minutes.

Don't peek but begin the test as you scroll down and answer. Answers are for who you are now...not who you were in the past. Have pen or pencil and paper ready. This is a real test given by the Human Relations Dept. at many of the major corporations today. It helps them get better insight concerning their employees and prospective employees. It's only 10 simple questions.
Begin...
1. When do you feel your best?
a) in the morning
b) during the afternoon &and early evening
c) late at night

2. You usually walk...
a) fairly fast, with long steps
b) fairly fast, with little steps
c) less fast head up, looking the world in the face
d) less fast, head down
e) very slowly

3. When talking to people you..
a) stand with your arms folded
b) have your hands clasped
c) have one or both your hands on your hips
d) touch or push the person to whom you are talking
e) play with your ear, touch your chin, or smooth your hair

4. When relaxing, you sit with..
a) your knees bent with your legs neatly side by side
b) your legs crossed
c) your legs stretched out or straight
d) one leg curled under you

5. When something really amuses you, you react with...
a) big appreciated laugh
b) a laugh, but not a loud one
c) a quiet chuckle
d) a sheepish smile

6. When you go to a party or social gathering you...
a) make a loud entrance so everyone notices you
b) make a quiet entrance, looking around for someone you know
c) make the quietest entrance, trying to stay unnoticed

7. You're working very hard, concentrating hard, and you're
interrupted......
a) welcome the break
b) feel extremely irritated
c) vary between these two extremes

8. Which of the following colors do you like most?
a) Red or orange
b) black
c) yellow or light blue
d) green
e) dark blue or purple
f) white
g) brown or gray

9. When you are in bed at night, in those last few moments before going
to sleep you are....
a) stretched out on your back
b) stretched out face down on your stomach
c) on your side, slightly curled
d) with your head on one arm
e) with your head under the covers

10. You often dream that you are...
a) falling
b) fighting or struggling
c) searching for something or somebody
d) flying or floating
e) you usually have dreamless sleep
f) your dreams are always pleasant

POINTS:
1. (a) 2 (b) 4 (c) 6
2. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 7 (d) 2 (e) 1
3. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 5 (d) 7 (e) 6
4. (a) 4 (b) 6 (c) 2 (d) 1
5. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 2
6. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 2
7. (a) 6 (b) 2 (c) 4
8. (a) 6 (b) 7 (c) 5 (d) 4 (e) 3 (f) 2 (g) 1
9. (a) 7 (b) 6 (c) 4 (d) 2 (e) 1
10. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 6 (f) 1

Now add up the total number of points.
OVER 60 POINTS: Others see you as someone they should "handle with
care." You're seen as vain, self-centered, and who is extremely
dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you,
but don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved
with you.

51 TO 60 POINTS: Others see you as an exciting, highly volatile, rather
impulsive personality; a natural leader, who's quick to make decisions,
though not always the right ones. They see you as bold and
adventuresome, someone who will try anything once; someone who takes
chances and enjoys an adventure. They enjoy being in your company
because of the excitement you radiate.

41 TO 50 POINTS: Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing,
practical, and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the
center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to
their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding;
someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

31 TO 40 POINTS: Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful &
practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not
a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's
extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty
in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to
shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long
time to get over if that trust is ever broken.

21 TO 30 POINTS: Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see
you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder. It
would really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on
the spur of the moment, expecting you to examine everything carefully
from every angle and then, usually decide against it. They think this
reaction is caused partly by your careful nature.

UNDER 21 POINTS: People think you are shy, nervous, and indecisive,
someone who needs looking after, who always wants someone else to make
the decisions & who doesn't want to get involved with anyone or
anything! They see you as a worrier who always sees problems that don't
exist. Some people think you're boring. Only those who know you well
know that you aren't.

Life with Wings

I like the story Cecil B.DeMille told of being in a canoe in Maine one summer day. Just drifting through the water in a shallow place near the shore. He could see the bottom of the lake and noticed it was covered with water beetles. One of the water beetles crawled up on a canoe, fastened its feet in the gunnels and died.
Three hours later, still floating in the warm sun, DeMille said he witnessed a miracle. The shell of the water beetle cracked open and a tiny head emerged. The wings unfolded and finally a beautiful dragon fly with iridescent body and gossamer wings left the dead carcass and sailed across the surface of the water, shimmering in the afternoon sun…going further in a half second than the water beetle could crawl all day long.

The dragonfly sailed across the surface of the lake.. But the water beetles below, unaware of the miracle of metamorphosis, could not see it.
DeMille said, “Do you think God would do that for a water beetle and not do it for you and me?"

Have you ever known the feeling of being lifted above ordinary limitations? Not just doing the best you can “under the circumstances” but allowing God to get you out from under the circumstances that would hold you.

I sat with a congregation listening to Charles Shaw, my pastor and husband, give a sermon. He told about an imaginary conversation someone had with an ordinary looking worm crawling down the road of a busy city. The worm was "out of place" but told the man, "Don't stop me. I'm going to get my wings." This is the poem I wrote:

LIFE WITH WINGS.

God made the butterfly
And I…
Stand on earth
And watch it fly
And see that God
Has fashioned wings
For even earthbound
Creeping things!

I know that God
Intended wings
For you and me
Oh! My heart sings!
I’ve found my wings.
And even I…
Can over circumstances
Fly!

By R.B.S. Copyright in 1973

Epiphany: How Does God Sign His Name

The word "epiphany" with a small "e" simply means mani- festation or making known. When the church uses the word "Epiphany" with a capital "E" it means God's mani- festation of himself in Jesus Christ. It means God making God known in person- in the life and the acts of Jesus.

Epiphany comes at the beginning of the New Year and is the season to reveal to us more about God and how God has manifested Himself in our world.

Back in the seventies, I read a story I have never forgotten. It was about two ten year old girls who lived in the early days of our country.
One day they went with the entire church family to attend an all day Sunday School Convention meeting in a historic old church. They rode in horse drawn buggies to one of the oldest churches in the country, a church building dating back to before the American Revolution.

As the afternoon wore on and all the speaking continued, the children began to amuse themselves by looking around and reading the initials carved on the back of the rough wooden pews...hand hewed pews.

One of the girls pointed to the initials, “J. A.” and whispered to the other, “ Maybe that is the initials for John Adams.” The little girls knew from some of the history of the church that there was a possibility that, as a child, John Adams could have sat in that very pew and carved his initials.

This was a fascinating thought, They might actually be sitting in a pew where one of our earliest presidents had sat.

Then they began to excitedly look for other initials of famous people. There might be a "G.W." or perhaps a " J.M."? Was it possible that George Washington or James Madison had once sat on these same benches?

They whispered to one another about all the important people who might possibly have sat in those pews as children and carved their initials on the rough pews in this early American church building.

The one child whispered to the other, “maybe God carved his initials here. How about God’s initials?" “That’s silly", the other child said, “God cannot write.”

“That’s silly again, God can write if he wants to," responded the other child.
Then the thought struck them...if God wrote something, it would not necessarily be in English or any other language. God's writing would not have to be like our writing.

As they began to look around the building, thinking of the concept of God carving his initials, one of the girls noticed a tiny blue violet growing in a crack in the floor. She quietly whispered to the other, “Look, God signed his name there.”

Their excitement grew as they began to look around and point out place after place where God had put his signature. One pointed out a dimple in a baby's neck in the lap of a young mother in the pew in front of them. Then they noticed smile wrinkles on a grandfather's face. Then a small intricate spider web.

The writer, one of the girls in the story ended the article by saying, "I knew that Molly and I would spend the rest of our lives looking for places where God had left his imprint.

Epiphany comes at the beginning of the New Year and is the season to reveal to us more about God and how God has manifested Himself in our world.

With all the distractions, falsehoods, and half truths banded about in our world today, it seems easy to put aside serious thinking and to spend our time thinking of lesser things.

There are still the Herods of the world, who have a vested financial interest in defeating us , rewriting our Christian history as a nation and making us forget God and forget who we are as children of God.

Just yesterday, the Televisiaon and Internet news revealed a 16 year old who took his dad's gun into his school and seriously wounded his school Principal and killed the assistant Principal and himself. He left a sad note asking people to "remember him for he was was in his past" and not for his last actions. A sixteen year old already tired of life.

Solzhenitsyn said some thought provoking words about the presence of evil and of the Herods of our world. He said, “The fight for the planet, physical and spiritual is a fight of cosmic proportions , and it is not a vague matter of the future, it is a battle that has already started. The forces of evil have begun their decisive offensive. Our TV screens, computers and publications are full of prescribed smiles...we might say canned laughter and raised glasses.” Yet alcoholism and suicide is rampant , even among youth.

But in the midst of heartache, terror and evil, God does not leave us withour signs of himself, God has given us a brand new day and today is the first day of the rest of your life. Epiphany comes in the New Year as a time of unveiling…

In our church office in East Point, we had a poster with the words “I know I am somebody because God don’t make no junk.”

I, like many of my generation, was reared “poor” in this worlds goods but with great spiritual wealth. Millions of people in this country have come up from poverty and physical deprivation into self esteem because we learned that the eternal God loves us and had a wonderful plan for our life. We learned in church that we were so important, and so loved that Jesus Christ died for us.

We did not need “self esteem classes” as some of our poor little rich kids do today, who have not had the privilege to learn about Jesus.

The two little girls searched for God’s signature, and I am sure if they kept honestly searching, they also found God in the Bible and in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

And also even in the midst of the great mystery of sorrow and grief as well as in the beauty of flowers and sunsets and babies.

Women Recruited for Work During World War II.

When My husband was drafted into the Marine Air Corps During World War II, we lived in a small house in a small Georgia Mill town near my husband's parents.

Every morning I dressed my two children, and we walked to the Post Office where I mailed the long letter I had written to my husband the night before. Then I picked up any mail I had as well as the mail for my parents-in-law. The Post Office was also had, what could be called "the Company Store" of grand-ol'-opry fame! I purchased any grocery item I or my mother-in-law needed. We had ration books and were limited in the amount of staples we could purchase.

On the way back home, I stopped at the home of my husband's parents for a brief visit and to give them any mail or information I had from their son or about the war.

They had another son, Grady, who was a tail bomber for the Air Force in the European Theater. We were all "at war." Our hearts and prayers were with "our boys" in service and with the few women who were also serving as WACs or WAVEs. Women were not drafted, but many joined to serve in one of the Women's Corps.

Calloway Mills was making cloth for the growing needs of our defense troops in Europe as well as in the South Pacific, and soon cotton looms were running 24 hours a day to make tents and uniforms for the soldiers.

With so many men away in the Army, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard, Calloway Mills began to recruit more women workers. Then they noted that in order to make it possible for able-bodied women to work , child care was needed.

One day, a Calloway official came to me and asked if I would take a job supervising the night shift of the Children's Nursery they were establishing. When they were looking around to find someone, they told me, it had been noticed how I cared for my two little children and would likely be good for that position.

Calloway Mills, under the direction of a "Nursery Expert" had taken one the the large houses in the community, gutted it and rebuilt it with play and sleeping areas for children in the community.

I accepted the job and the salary each month -- perhaps the only easy money I ever made. Each night, I bathed and got my two little girls into their pajamas and we walked the short (about a quarter of a mile) distance to the nursery. My children and the few other children who came were put to bed soon after their arrival on this night shift.

The Nursery stayed open less than a year. This kind of public "Child Care" was new to our generation. Most of the young women who needed child care while working for Calloway had a mother or an aunt to take over in their absence from home.

Christmas Means God with us!

Merry Christmas 2008. “Are you ready for Christmas”, I was asked yesterday. The only answer seems to be “yes and no.” There seems to always be one more gift to buy, one more card to send or one more pie to bake.

I have been somewhat out of step all my life. I started to school at 5, skipped a grade…was the youngest in my Elementary and High School classes…was often the youngest mother on Mothers Day...etc.

I went back to school after my children were grown. By the time I finally graduated from college and later Seminary I was among the oldest. Looking back it seems I went from youngest to oldest overnight.

I kind of aged into the study of Gerontology … which proved to be a wonderful asset when a door was opened and I was finally thrown into the pastorate and preaching ministry …a calling from the Lord I had kept putting on the back burner for a long time.

Several years ago I was asked me to give a Christmas Story for the annual Christmas dinner for a United Methodist Women’s group. This is one of the festive Christmas events at Trinity each year, hosted by a couple in their beautifully Christmas decorated ante-bellum home.
I read the Christmas classic, "The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson about the Herdman family. I had read the story to other groups that enjoyed it. It is a lovely and humorous story. But that Monday night at Brady and Barbara’s they all practically rolled in the floor laughing as I read the story!

WOW…what a wonderful response! Sould we take the program on the road?

But on second thought, I began to wonder if the story was really that funny or if they were laughing because we had just eaten a high calorie dinner and I had told them before I started reading the story that every laugh actually burns 16 calories! I told them that:
o Laughter is the secret of youth!
o Laughter goes hand in hand with creativity!
o Laughter increases circulation and heart rate!
o That means …Laughter is jogging on your insides! Imagine that…jogging without getting out of your chair.
o And listen to this and laugh if you, like me, can use a little tightening of the muscles: Laughing improves the muscle tone of the abdomen!

Dr William Fry of Stanford U tells us, “Laughing heartily has the same beneficial effects as the same amount of time on a rowing machine.” I heard about a minister in a Presbyterian church in Sandy Springs who has the “Ministry of Laughter.” He contends that laughter is therapeutic and hastens physical healing.

We have all heard the story of Norman Cousins who was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition in 1976. Cousins said he spent time each day watching films of Laurel and Hardy and other comedy groups and laughed his way back to health.

Most of us as we age, have some health issues…so we need to laugh. But an interesting fact I have noticed with the advent of Television and the internet… many, if not most of us, have heard all the funny stories there are to tell!

So even if we have already heard the stories, we laugh at them again. If you are on the computer you probably read the story about the lady who took her 4 year old with her to deliver Meals on Wheels to a bed ridden man? The child kept staring at a set of false teeth soaking in water glass on the bedside table. The woman was bracing herself for a question when the little girl whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this.”

They tell me the older you get, the faster times passes. That is scary. It seems only yesterday we were celebrating Christmas 2007 and here we are …Christmas 2008! More scary to realize?
“Even though it seems like yesterday since last Christmas, I am a whole year older now than I was in Christmas 2007!"

How many Santa Clauses did you see if you traveled more than a mile or two away from your home today? Santas are everywhere –– on billboards, in yards, on roofs and shop windows.
Two little first grade boys left Sunday school discussing theological matters. One said, “Do you believe this business about the devil?” The other replied, "Of course not –– it’s like Santa Clause –– it’s really your Daddy.”

We do all go though four stages with Santa Claus.1st Stage: We believe in Santa Clause.2nd Stage: We stop believing in Santa Clause.3rd Stage: We are Santa Clause.4th Stage: We look like Santa Clause.

Every December the newspapers feature a story about the toys that are at the top of children’s wish list. A few years ago, there was a “Tickle me Elmo” that managed to stay in the news with people running to the Malls and fighting over the opportunity to buy a “Tickle me Elmo” for their child. I asked my oldest granddaughter, the mother of three, to tell me what “the toy of the year” is this Christmas. She said all the kids want a “Webkinz.” It is a stuffed animal with some kind of computerized component to it.

I thought, "There is some advantage to being old. Even if we are in stage 4 and look like Santa Claus, at least we do not have to trudge out to Walmart looking for a Web-kinz.

I served at East Point Avenue Church for four years after mandatory retirement age. Each Christmas, the church bought poinsettias each to give to all the sick and shut-ins. I delivered many of them. I delivered one of the poinsettias to an elderly couple. Both were bedridden in a modest little frame home. They had very little help so when I visited them, her mind started working about what I could do to help - hand her something, take something out, throw something away or other little things that I could do while I was there.

This, of course I was always more than glad to do, as would any pastor or able bodied person. The day that I took the poinsettias––– I brought in their mail, got fresh water for both of them, straightened up around the room, took her to the bathroom etc.

When I started to leave, I was so painfully aware of their frightful situation. I knelt down between their two beds. I reached out and held each of their hands. Before I began to pray for them, the wife spoke up. Speaking for both of them, she said, "“I told John this morning that we are so blessed, we are so much better off than many people … Best of all ---- the Lord is with us.”
Probably without realizing it, this elderly lady was quoting what is reported to be the last words of the great, John Wesley, as he lay dying: “The best of all, God is with us.”

And I remembered all over again: Christmas happiness and joy comes, not from escaping from reality, not from being protected from the shocks of life, but from looking life squarely in the face and seeing the countenance of God. Christmas means God with us.

We need to learn from secular as well as Christian history. 2008 years ago, the world was watching the Roman Empire ...in all its splendor! All eyes were on Caesar Augustus, who demanded that a census be taken so that taxes could be enlarged.
Who noticed Mary and Joseph making their 90 miles journey to Bethlehem? If there had been television then, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson and their crews would have run over Mary and Joseph to put their microphone in the face of Caesar. Today Caesar is only a small paragraph in the life of Jesus. And all the great schools in the Western world were built to study every word that fell from the lips of Jesus and every single word written about his deeds have been poured over and translated into every languagee, and people by the tens of thousands make pilgrimages to Bethlehem and stand in awe at the spot history has marked as the birthplace of Jesus.
Luke’s gospel reminds us that the birth of Jesus was a happening of such cosmic majestic significance that ordinary words are not enough to describe it. It takes more that natural speech to tell the story. It takes poetry, music and drama to tell that the infinite God has come to our rescue - that regardless of what else is missing or even who else is missing from our life, we are not alone.
The Christmas message is ”The Best of all - God is with us!” Amen!

Happy Birthday Dear Beth!

I am the mother of seven. Each one has a very special place in my heart. There are all kinds of stories to tell, as all of you who are parents know. Beth is our baby girl.

I know what it is like to be the baby in a family. People like to imply or say outright that the baby girl or boy in a family is a "spoiled brat." It was said about our youngest, our son David, and it was said about Beth, our youngest daughter. When I was a child it was said about me as the youngest of 11. Not true!

Each one of our children also had a special place in my heart and in their Daddy's
heart and life. The picture to the right is her Daddy holding Beth up as a Christmas decoration at the Parents home on Christmas Day.

Beth's Daddy was a pastor and was told on Sunday December 19, the day of her birth that he had plenty of time to go to church and get back to the hospital long before her birth.

However, Beth got in a hurry to make her appearance and came into the world at 12 noon just as her father was pronouncing the benediction and hurrying out the church door to go back the few miles to the hospital.

Her Daddy's first words to me after visiting the nursery to see his fifth daughter was, "She is easily the most beautiful baby in the nursery, and I heard a man say, 'Look at that baby! One can tell she is a girl - look at those beautiful lips.'" Beth was and is feminine - all woman!

One of Beth's special talents is as a singer. She and her younger brother were members of the UMC Youth choir where she was a soloist with David at the keyboard. Her high school Choral Director predicted she would "go places" with her "big beautiful" voice for such a small girl. She's only a little over 5 feet tall.One of the pictures I want to post wishing Beth a Happy Birthday is one of her giving a concert with her brother at the piano. The event was at The Joyful Noise, a supper club in a suburb of Atlanta.

Beth is the mother of a son, Joshua Shaw Hearn and a daughter Amanda Ruth Hearn Sims. Picure of Beth with Josh and Amanda when they were small children.
Joshua is married to Michaela and the father of Emma

Amanda married to Brian Sims.

Washing Clothes in 1920's and 30's.

Monday was "Wash Day" in my childhood in the late 1920's and early thirties. Wash Day was a long day. The family's clothes were washed weekly in large galvinized tin tubs. Soapy hot water was prepared in one tub, and rinse water in two other tubs. A rub board was put in the wash tub, and clothes were scrubbed on the rub board.

A big iron pot was set up on bricks out in the back yard, and a fire was built under the cast iron pot to heat the water and to "boil the clothes." This was done winter and summer every week. Talk about a hard day's work!


The clean clothes were pinned with clothespins to a long wire or rope clothesline to hopefully , dry in the sun. On cold winter days, one's wet hands would turn purple before all the clothes were hung up to dry.

Sometimes the clothes would freeze as fast as they were pinned to the line. Hopefully the sun and wind would dry the laundered clothes enough to be brought inside before dark.

Tuesday was ironing day. The clothes that had been washed, dipped in starch, and
dried on an outdoor clothesline had to be brought inside, sprinkled with water, folded up tightly in a sheet or pillow case to get slightly damp through and through so as to iron smoothly. The clothes were taken out a piece at a time to be ironed and hung up or ironed and folded. This was at least one other long day of exhausting work. We did have electric irons (heavy irons) in my childhood.

The earlier non electric irons were very heavy and made of “iron” and were heated on a stove or at a fireplace . I never used one of those, and I do not remember seeing my mother or sisters or anyone who helped us with the ironing use a non-electric iron. ( I do have a small collections of Flat Irons , like the ones in the picture on the left, on the hearth of my Fireplace.)

HOW TO WASH CLOTHES (Following is the "recipe for washing Clothes" by an early American grandmother to new bride. Despite the spelling, it has a bit of philosophy. This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrap book.)

"Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water. Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,1 pile colored,1 pile work britches and rags. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then Rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch. Hang old rags on fence.Spread tea towels on grass. Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.Turn tubs upside down. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

Fear of Dentist and Public Singing.

Carol, known to some of you as themediansib told yesterday about her fear of dentist. I wonder if her paralizing fear of dentists began with her fear of solo singing. Let me tell you a story.

Yesterday, I went picnicking with the Trinity UMC “Rah Rah’s” (Retired And Happy). We had a great time at the Coosa River Lock and Dam just South of Rome.

Pastor David Campbell is beginning his second year as pastor of Trinity. David rates …well "excellent", in every area of ministry… preaching, pastoral care, administration. He had been asked to “do the program” for this outdoor picnic for the retired and happy Trinity folks.

David brought his guitar, his wife (who is an accomplished soloist and music teacher) and his three young children. His wife, Susan led us in singing some of the old time gospel hymns of the church including , “What A Friend we Have in Jesus”, “When we all Get to Heaven “ and other familiar hymns with David strumming the guitar.

They had also planned to include their children in the singing. Hannah, 12, who has a beautiful voice like her mother's sang a solo. But when it came time for the usually vivacious Allie (age 7) to sing, she hang her little head and did not make a sound.

WOW. Memory took me back to a Sunday night service at a little church called ‘Sunnyside Methodist’ in Sunnyside Georgia. Carol, our beautiful blond middle daughter and middle child, told her daddy (the pastor) she would like to sing a solo. Just before the sermon, her daddy announced that Carol "would sing for us." Like Allie yesterday, our Cabbie hung her little head and would not make a sound.

What is a Christian?

When I say 'I am a Christian' I don't speak of this with pride.

I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say 'I am a Christian' I'm not trying to be strong.

I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say 'I am a Christian' I'm not bragging of success.

I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean up my mess.

When I say 'I am a Christian' I'm not claiming to be perfect.

My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

When I say 'I am a Christian' I still feel the sting of pain.

I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say 'I am a Christian' I'm not holier than thou,

I'm just a simple sinner who received God's good grace, somehow!

Note: The above is passed on from an email. C.S. Lewis makes a similiar claim when he points out that when we say we Christian, we are not saying we are good, we are saying what we believe.