Thursday, December 06, 2007

Bundibugyo

O God, come to assistance of those suffering in Uganda; O Lord, make haste to help them.

I came across this blog late last night by accident. I could not believe what I was reading. I was in disbelief. These missionaries (doctors) are giving their lives for the sake of Christ.
I was hungry and you fed me.
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.

www.Paradoxuganda.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

My New Favorite




A Few years ago Barry and I traveled to Spain on a missions trip. While we were there we heard of the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile or so (for some even longer) pilgrimage. The idea of a modern day pilgrimage seemed interesting, but a little odd. Fast forward to this summer. I came across this title. I immediately recognized the subtitle and decided to take a look.

I can't say enough about this book. My new found interest in the topic may be directly related to the circumstances of my life. It's been an easy read with priceless quotes that have directly affected my way of thinking. Who would have thought that walking would be so profound in a person's life.

Boers words felt so real to me. I felt that maybe we had been on the same journey, his by foot and mine by circumstances. I loved the following quote. It's a little long, but it's what pulled me in.
I encountered challenges that changed and transformed me. I did not welcome those opportunities; I endured them. I had no choice about experiencing them, only in what I would do with those experiences. They all reworked me. Long after the trip was done, I kept pondering it. I set my computer to use Camino photos for desktop pictures and screen savers. Even without such aids, the pilgrimage was always on my mind. Over a year later I still recalled vignettes and incidents every day. Each night, when I lay down, I revisited scenes. When sleep was long in coming, I would recall every place I stayed along the way. As I went for walks, uninvited memories flooded my mind. I always wanted to tell stories about my trip to others, whether visiting friends, sharing a meal with my family or teaching classes. I worried that I might become a bore. I could not stop thinking about what had happened. It took only a month to walk but required much longer to process.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Advent and Irving Bible Church

Matthew 25(Message):

Then the King will say to those on his right, "Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me.
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.

Not Just Ourselves is something that my church(Irving Bible Church) does each year at Advent. Since its birth IBC has seen 2 million dollars donated to various things outside of our church walls. Water is Basic has benefited from NJO and today the first of the water drills arrived in Sudan and will begin drilling a well a week. Each well will provide clean water for 2000 people. This year Not Just Ourselves is looking to donate $250,000 to Parenting Alone a ministry being launched by IBC. This ministry hopes to locate itself outside of the church and provide all types of help (medical,legal,parenting,etc.....) for single parents. IBC hopes to see other churches catch the vision and partner with IBC and open other Parenting Alone locations throughout the metroplex, but also across the country. I think it's ok when I say, "I'm really proud of my church." I believe this is what Matthew 25 looks like. When those in Sudan are given a drink, we are also giving that drink to Christ and when we provide food, water or even medical care to a single parent it is as if we are giving those things to our Savior. This brought to mind a quote I used a few months back by Mother Teresa:

"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. We have refused to be instruments of love in the hands of God to give the poor a piece of bread, to offer them a dress with which to ward off the cold. It has happened because we did not recognize Christ when, once more, he appeared under the guise of pain, identified with a man numb from the cold, dying of hunger, when he came in a lonely human being, in a lost child in search of a home."


Advent Prayer:

God,
You are everything to me.
You shepherd me and keep me safe.
Keep me awakened to everything in my life.
Keep my eyes fresh and my energy strong.
Keep me aroused with you power,
a power that sings within me,
a power that continually proclaims hope
in the midst of hopelessness.

Your word is strong,
stronger than any weapon
that can rule against me.
Help me to listen well to your word-
to stay awake and be on watch for you.
May I look to see the many signs
of your coming among us.
May I respond joyfully to the call
to be a voice
for all those who seek justice.

You give me this time of waiting and hoping
amid the craziness and falsehood of the season.
You call me to keep Advent holy,
even though everything around screams
Christmas-
Here!Now!
Help me remain patient
when it is difficult to see you.

May I be your song,
and may I journey well
with my brothers and sisters
who long to see your face.

I will wait for you. Amen.




Saturday, December 01, 2007

Tis the Season

The season is off to a great start. We were able to attend Grapevine's yearly Christmas parade on Thursday with a few Irving Bible friends.(It brought back wonderful memories of Wheaton) The weather was great. It was just cold enough to wear a coat and gloves (sure beats the freezing temp. in downtown Chicago this time of the year).




Tuesday, November 27, 2007

It's Been Pouring

To take a line from Nickle Creek "It's pouring on this side and I'm nothing but scared" could pretty much sum up my feelings and situation from the last two months or so. I have felt and still feel like man this is much.

I love this song and as I listened to it I thought of Psalm 139:

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me an you're there, too- your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful- I can't take it all in!

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, You'd find me in a minute- you're already there waiting! Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!" It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you....

I know that God is watching. He knows and feels my pain. I love the end of the Nickel Creek song "It's pouring on this side but it feels like I'm home again There's no place to hide, but I don't think I'm scared." There are those days that I want to hide away from it all, but I know that He's there and there is no reason for hiding. God has His hand of mercy on my life and I'm encouraged by that truth.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Thy Mercy - Sandra McCracken

THY MERCY, MY GOD
Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone from the first to the last
hath won my affection and bound my soul fast.
Without thy sweet mercy I could not live here--
my sin would reduce me to utter despair;
but through thy free goodness, my spirit�s revived,
and he that first made me still keeps me alive.
Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.
Dissolved by thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
and weep for the praise of the mercy I've found.
Great Father of mercies, thy goodness I own,
and the covenant love of thy crucified Son.
All praise to the Spirit whose whisper divine
seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine!
Hallelujah�
Hallelujah
~ written by John Stocker in 1776

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

By my brother for my Dad

A eulogy for my dad

The month of September ended with my Dad having entered the hospital with a nagging back problem in the wake of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease two months earlier. By the end of October, Floyd E. Smith had entered Glory, shocking my family with his sudden departure from this side of eternity. Needless to say, October was a blur.

What follows is the eulogy I gave at my father’s memorial service Nov. 3 at First Baptist Church in Leesburg. That church staff is among many to whom I owe a debt of gratitude I can never repay for kindnesses shown to my family during this time. The Florida Baptist Witness staff and board of directors – who allowed me to miss our semi-annual meeting so I could stay with my Dad (and Mom, who was also briefly hospitalized early in this saga) – are also worthy of tremendous thanks. My church family at GracePointe Baptist Church in St. Augustine showed great love and support to me. Scores of other friends, colleagues – including many friends in the Florida Baptist family – held me up during the challenging, exhausting and troubling days of October that caused me to be in Leesburg helping my parents all but five days during the month.

More than anyone else, my wife, Linda, and my children, Lauren and Andrew, are the reason – humanly speaking – I was able to endure this incredibly difficult time. Linda is the epitome of the godly woman described in Proverbs 31, and my children loved me from afar while I was away caring for their grandparents. I love Linda, Lauren and Andrew beyond words.

It’s my prayer that publishing this eulogy will help readers appreciate the life of my wonderful father but, even more, the way a life is made purposeful by Jesus Christ, my father’s Lord and Savior.

The word “eulogy,” as most everyone knows, means good word. As it is my honor to give the eulogy for my Dad, there are many good words for Floyd Eugene Smith. There are many more good words for my Dad than our time together this morning will permit. But the one word I would like to focus upon in these few brief moments is love – Dad’s love for his family, his country and his God.

--Love of family. Dad loved Mom. He loved her faithfully for the 52 years they were married. He loved her in his dying days. In his final month on this earth, most of the time his mind was in varying levels of confusion brought about by medications and illnesses. There were times he did not recognize people he knew, like neighbors, friends from church, his siblings, and even his own children – sometimes confusing one of us for another. But there was never a time he did not recognize the love of his life. Dad loved Mom. When she arrived he knew her, and he loved her. Dad loved his family – all of us kids, our spouses and his grandchildren. Neighbors and others have told me of how Dad would talk about his kids and grandkids with such pride and love. On his last night alive, Mom and I believe Dad knew he was dying – and in the midst of that time, when he could barely talk, there were two episodes in which he made it clear how much he loved his family, and especially Mom, as he pointed at Mom and then pointed at me telling me to take care of her, we believe. Dad loved his family.

--Love of country. Dad loved his country and proudly served his country in the U.S. Navy. I’m certain it was his patriotism that caused my own, as well as my interest in current events. I loved how he would tell people as a child how much I was interested in what was going on in the world and how when he came home from work we would watch the news together and I asked him to explain what was going on. When Jimmy Carter ran for president, Dad loved that a Southern Baptist was a candidate and he voted for him. So, I “voted” for Carter as an 11-year old. When Carter turned out to be a liberal, Dad changed his mind about him – and so did I – and I’ve been a conservative ever since! Dad loved his country, even though he knew his country was far from perfect – but he loved his country enough to care about helping to make it a little closer to being perfect as he encouraged me and others to be good citizens. During his hospitalizations in the last month as his mind was confused, there were times when he thought he was back in the military – even once mistaking me for a colonel (which I couldn’t understand since dad was a Navy man!). Dad loved his country.

--Love of God. As much as he loved his family and country, even more so, Dad loved his God. He loved Jesus. As a teenager, Dad thought he was called to ministry, but he instead dropped out of high school and joined the Navy, like Jonah fleeing the call on his life for a life on the seas. Unlike Jonah, when Dad came to his senses and surrendered to the call of ministry at age 42, Dad rejoiced at the work of God in people’s lives, especially those who accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. Dad pastored four “small” churches during his time in ministry – places that wouldn’t become renown on this side of eternity, but places where people needed the Lord, and a shepherd who would show them the way. His concern for the lost is clear from a typewritten note taped into the front of his Bible, “What’s 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times and grows 20 miles longer each day? Answer: The line of people who are without Christ.”

Like every pastor I know, Dad was frustrated at times by some people who seemed to believe it was their calling in life to make life miserable for the pastor! Still, he loved being a pastor and cherished the calling of God on his life that allowed him the privilege of preaching the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” a favorite statement of his. He officiated at unknown numbers of marriages – including mine and several others of us kids – and funerals. He helped other men follow God’s call into Gospel ministry. I was reminded the other day as I looked through some of Dad’s affairs that as a 15-year old I was among those who signed his Gospel ministry ordination certificate. And he signed mine.

During his final month, Dad’s confused mind would sometimes go back to church life – asking me regularly when we were leaving for church, who was leading the singing and who was preaching. One day in the hospital, he conducted a church business meeting with my sister Kim, mom and me. On several Saturday nights in the last month, I told him I would come back in the morning and while Mom went to church he and I would have church in his room. “Do you want to preach, or should I?” I asked him. He answered once that I should preach so he could take a nap.

One night his primary doctor came to see him. Dad sometimes confused Dr. Pellegrino for First Baptist Leesburg pastor Cliff Lea, I think because they are both tall, but also because of Dr. Pellegrino’s pastoral approach to medicine. As Dr. Pellegrino was about to leave, Dad suddenly reached up to Mom on one side and me on the other side, and said, “Let’s pray.” We all joined hands and in the midst of his confused mind, the love of Jesus came pouring out in a prayer that was as clear and cogent as any he ever prayed. When it was over – after about five minutes – Dr. Pellegrino told me, “The man still knows how to pray!”

During the last four weeks when there were times I was trying to help Dad get focused on what the doctors, nurses or therapists were asking him to do or I was trying to help his confusion lessen, I would ask him, “What’s your favorite hymn?” With one exception, he immediately answered, “My Jesus, I Love Thee.” And then he would sing it for me, virtually flawlessly. Dad loved music – he and Mom led a lay music ministry, the King’s Musicians, for several years before he finally surrendered to full-time ministry. But Dad’s love of music was because it helped him express his love of Jesus. The hymns we sing today are the ones he asked to be sung for this service.

It may be hard to accept or even to believe, but I’m convinced that it was God’s mercy at work in the way Dad died. When you consider what could have happened with the terrible disease of Alzheimer's, the fact that God took him so quickly was a blessing. The Apostle Paul reminds us, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).

Dad loved his family, loved his country and loved his God. The love of his family continues. His earthly citizenship and patriotism has ended. On Oct. 30 at about 3:30 a.m., Dad renounced his citizenship from this world. While he was on earth, Dad held a dual citizenship – citizen of the nation of his birth and citizen of God’s eternal Kingdom. In this country, we have the Declaration of Independence, expressing our political freedom from the tyranny of another nation; in God’s Kingdom, we have a Declaration of Dependence, expressing our reliance on Jesus Christ for spiritual freedom from the oppression of sin. Today, Dad is no longer a dual citizen, for his citizenship is now exclusively in the domain of Heaven where the King of kings and Lord of lords reigns and where Dad is forever giving glory to his Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, I will join him there one day. I invite you to join Dad and me.

Friday, October 26, 2007

My Dad



The great thing about my dad is his memory. The stories he tells about "his little girl" have always been really special. I can always count on some sort of story. One story in particular that he loves to tell again and again was the time I decided to share a little ice cream with him. According to my dad I quietly (I'm never quiet) came into the living room with two spoons in one hand and a gallon of ice cream in another (I'm not quite sure why a five year old was able to get a gallon of ice cream without anyone intervening). I then proceeded to climb into his lap, give him a spoon, open the ice cream, and begin to eat and at the same time never saying a word.

A few months ago I got a phone call that I would never forget. My father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I walked around in disbelief. Not my dad. Surely this diagnosis can't be correct. I think my whole family thought this, maybe even my parents. The doctor said he was in the early stages. I thought we had plenty of time. Things changed a few weeks ago. My father became ill and his mental state went down quickly. It really through me for a loop. I couldn't believe this was happening. Again I was in disbelief. During this time I was reading a book by Tony Jones "The Sacred Way". The spiritual practices that Jones discusses have been very helpful like the Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner. When fear began to consume me I repeated this again and again. What a fantastic way to reorient myself to God. I think the thing that was most profound was this prayer by Ignatius:

Take, Lord, all my freedom. Accept all my memory, intellect, and will. All that I have or possess, you have given to me; all I give back to you, and give up then to be governed by your will. Grant me only the grace to love you, and I am sufficiently rich so that I do not ask for anything else.

Accept all my memory-I knew God was speaking to me. Those precious memories that my dad so often spoke of were not mine and they were not his. Our memories don't belong to us, they belong to the Lord. What a big idea to swallow. It was hard to accept and is hard to accept, but is strangely comforting. I don't understand this but I know that I can trust my God and He's in control. I love how Matthew 6:34 is worded in the Message:

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

I'm not sure what tomorrow holds. My father has again taken another difficult turn. My prayer today is O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help my father.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

This Side

This song makes me smile. I love these guys.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Alison Krauss-A Living Prayer

A Prayer for my precious friend Donna.

I look to you, heaven-dwelling God, look up to you for help. Like servants, alert to their master's commands, like a maiden attending her lady, We're watching and waiting, holding our breath, awaiting your word of mercy.
Psalm 123:1

The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.
Psalm 6:9

Thursday, August 02, 2007

A Few Favorite Things

Whenever we travel with our kids we like to ask the question, "What was your favorite thing?" So our recent trip was no different. We spent 7 days in Ca. We visited San Francisco, Yosemite, and Big Sur. An awesome trip. We asked our 2 year old the question and his answer was the Golden Gate Bridge. The answer might have had something to do with the fact that we spent a large portion of one day trying to get to the bridge. Someone in our family (not naming any names) had this great idea of riding bikes from Fishermen's Warf to the Golden Gate Bridge (it looked so close). The bike rental place had in big letters "Bike the Bridge", so we thought this should be no problem for us (remember there are four of us). What the rental place had not taken into account were two very out of shape adults, a 2yr old in a trailer, and a five year old who was just beyond the weight limit for his seat on the back of his dad's bike. The rental place also left out some very important info - it was about 8 miles or so to the bridge up hill with headwinds. It was certainly a moment (how about many many many moments) to show our kids what perseverance looked like (or maybe stupidity). We made it across the bridge in hopes to take the ferry from Sausalito, what the bike rental people failed to tell us (seems like a pattern with them) was it too was all up hill with a trip through a dark tunnel with oncoming traffic and then crossing the freeway. After some inquiring of other bicyclist (all said they would not go that way especially if you want to make it to the ferry alive) and a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, we decided to go back the way we came. The trip back was a breeze except for the fact we had to move Will into the trailer (with his brother - a little to close for comfort) since his bike seat was broken. Barry and I switched bikes. Barry's bike was a wee bit to big, I could barely touch the peddles (did I mention that I was wearing flip flops - now that's a true bicyclist for you). Barry's experience was little different - imagine a 6ft tall man peddling a bike for a very short woman and pulling behind him an extra 75 pounds or so. It was quite the sight. I laughed most of the way back. So to our surprise it was great to hear Pierson say this was his favorite thing about the trip. Looking back on the trip we wouldn't have done it any different. (By the way, the map the rental people gave was pretty crappy too)

We continued to have a great time - camping, big big big trees, hiking, ocean, desert, ocean cliffs. We were awestruck at the beauty of God's creation. Since I included Pierson's favorite thing I thought I would include my favorite things.





















Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Genocide In Darfur

"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened becaue neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. We have refused to be instruments of love in the hands of God to give the poor a piece of bread, to offer them a dress with which to ward off the cold. It has happended because we did not recognize Christ when, once more, he appeared under the guise of pain, identified with a man numb from the cold, dying of hunger, when he came in a lonely human being, in a lost child in search of a home."

Mother Teresa

Look at that smile!


What a smile! Can you imagine what his "little" cut would have looked like if he had been running.