Thankful

Why Do Good?

“Why does God want us to do good works?” asked the preacher yesterday morning.

I had a “new” answer pop into my head. But before that, another photo from the Mother’s Day excursion Ruby and I took the day before Mother’s Day.

Ruby at Jefferson, Scio, Crabtree Food Bank coffee wagon at Albany I-5 rest area

Food banks are a great way to do good. And when they have coffee at interstate rest areas, they do even more good! If Hubbard (Oregon) has no food bank, perhaps our congregation (Hopewell Mennonite Church, two miles distant) should start one.

Anyway, may God bless and prosper the Jefferson-Scio-Crabtree Food Bank as well as those who make it work. And thanks for the good coffee!

Now, back to the question: “Why does God want us to do good works?”

And what popped into my head: Because He wants us to have faith!

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17).

Peace

[Peace (1 Thessalonians 1:1)]
from 1 Thessalonians 1:1

In my Bible reading this morning, my troubled heart grabbed at that single word in that verse.

Then in casting about for a background to use for it, I remembered a photo my friend and minister Peter Turner took last week while we were in Mexico with several other Mission Board members.

Beautiful flowers on a thorny saguaro (aka sahuaro) cactus — peace in the storm.

Maybe it will be just what you need as well.

(Thank you, Lord, for that reassuring promise: peace.)

Swine Flu Update 2

OK, OK — so somebody decided to defer to the pork industry and call this ailment something else. CO2. 280Z. R2D2. H20. H1N1. Something! 🙄

Anyway, so I was in Sonora (northwest Mexico) for a few days last week and this.

Two of my traveling companions and I were struggling with varying illnesses of varying degrees.

Thankfully, none of us had symptoms that were strictly flu-like.

However, upon returning home, I learned that one of the missionaries we visited had come down with flu-like symptoms. The last I heard, thankfully, she’s doing better.

Thank you for your concerns and your prayers.

Heart Warmers

Toddler caught after falling 3 stories

Two men were being hailed as heroes by police on Monday for catching a toddler who fell 40 feet from a home's third-story window.

Robert Lemire told the North-Andover Mass. Eagle-Tribune newspaper that he was talking on his cell phone Sunday evening outside a pizza shop in Lawrence, about 25 miles north of Boston, when he saw the toddler dangling from a window across the street.

Inmates baby-sit tot found alone on highway

A prison work crew kept a toddler safe after the child was found wandering alone on a rural highway, Maryland authorities said.

The six minimum-security inmates shared their lunches with the boy and played with him, while authorities spent hours trying to locate the 2-year-old’s relatives, a correction officer said.

Thank you, Lord, for good news!

Transition

Another orderly and peaceful and smooth transition of power

OK, some of my scattered thoughts while listening to inauguration coverage on the radio for a while earlier this morning.

President Obama is no great orator, but then neither is President Bush. It’s OK.

President Obama’s inaugural speech included plenty of statements that sounded as though President Bush hadn’t been doing a bunch of things President Obama mentioned were now going to happen.

I wonder what will be President Obama’s first Executive Order.

And what about his birth certificate?

Kudos to Rick Warren for mentioning the God of Israel and excluding Allah of the Muslims. And for praying in Jesus’ Name. I must confess to being surprised by both. Seems like there was something else, but I don’t recall.

Who messed up the administering of the Presidential oath of office: Chief Justice Roberts or President Obama?

That was quite the “poem” that gal had!

And the prayer after it had more rhyming in it. (Yep, I still say real poetry rhymes!) And that prayer! Well, never mind. I’m white…and I’ll let it rest at that. 😀

So what was with letting some music trump the United States Constitution? Or perhaps the Constitution doesn’t require that the Presidential oath of office be administered by noon. Because if it does, and since the oath was a few minutes after noon, is George W. Bush still President? 😯

And speaking of that music — I thought it sounded like funeral music! Which struck me as somewhat ominous given it was “forcing” the oath to wait til after noon.

Oh, and did I hear a news commentator actually refer to one of the Obama girls as, “Cute as a bug”?! 😯 I hope that doesn’t get branded as racist.

Well, let me close with some positives and some good news:

  • President Bush didn’t hold on to power.
  • By all appearances, it was another orderly and peaceful and smooth transition of power. Thank you, God! (And thank you, too, President Bush.)
  • Like President Reagan before him, President Bush survived the “death-in-office curse” on US Presidents elected in years divisible by 20 (beginning with 1840). Thank you, God!
  • Terrorists didn’t succeed in striking such a juicy target as the inauguration. Thank you, God! (And thanks also to all individuals and agencies working on preventing such a strike.)
  • President Obama is younger than I am!

President Bush, bless God.

President Obama, bless God.

America, bless God.

And may it please God to bless America and President Obama and President Bush.

Amen.

Above all, love God!