Last week I posted funny things kids say in church…well I can’t forget the adults. Here are some great Church Bulletin Bloopers! Enjoy!
Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
*****
Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
*****
Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.
*****
The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
*****
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
*****
Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.
*****
Miss Charlene Mason sang, “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
*****
For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
*****
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
*****
Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.
*****
The Pastor will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: “Break Forth Into Joy.”
*****
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
*****
A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
My house is slowly but surely crumbling into disarray. I see dust bunnies scurrying with wild abandon under my coffee table only to gather in little “burrows” in every corner of my room. My foster pup, Samson, hasn’t been put out in hours…his little feet are pitter pattering on the floor…he’s trying to get my attention. Does he want to play or is he desperate to relieve himself? I haven’t put on my makeup, brushed my hair…gasp…I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet! I haven’t washed the dishes in the sink, or thought about what to make for supper and I haven’t set foot outside in days. Was this the life I pictured when I decided to write books?
I am buried in the plot created in my own mind. I can’t let it go. When I sleep I think about it, when I am awake I think about it. I have created a world of characters that have become real to me…I’ve even thought I should see if they have profiles on Facebook. That’s how real they seem. I have seen the inside of their homes, I have met their parents, I know their thoughts and I know what they are feeling. I feel like I know them better than my own children at times because I know what they will say or do before they say it or do it, and if I don’t like it I can change their actions by a simple use of a delete or backspace key.
It is the oddest feeling of supernatural power being a fiction writer. I can make the characters be good, evil, mute, emotional, dull, irresponsible or responsible. I have ultimate power over their actions….mwhuuuuhahaha….I feel almost…divine!!
It’s a scary thing this power!
I am so happy that I am limited to enact this “divine power” in the somewhat safety confines of the pages of a book. What would the world be like if I had this kind of influence, if I had this kind of absolute power over real people I came into contact with every day? If I made a mistake that destroyed their character I couldn’t just delete the words or backspace for a do over.
Today I rediscovered Psalm 139, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways….I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
I may consider myself to be a writer but He is the Author of Life! He leads us, He directs our steps, He loves us and He weeps for us when we go our own way. He also never makes mistakes! (Psalm 145:17) God does not use delete on us, (even if sometimes our actions may deserve it), instead He picks up the storyline, exactly where we may have left it and helps us rewrite the plot, not so we get the glory but so that He does!
So while I continue to fumble for the correct words and phrases to use as I write Heal the Wounded, the sequel to Shoot the Wounded, and erase and backspace to my heart’s content until the characters and plot line are just right, I am thankful that the Lord perfected MY LIFE STORY from the beginning of time. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
(This post was originally published on March 9, 2010 and won a Canadian Christian Writing Award that year.)
One of the most beautiful places to visit is the Comox Valley in B.C. My husband grew up there and we return year after year to spend time with his family. Comox means “Place of Plenty” and the description is an apt one. One of the most picturesque sites is overlooking the valley from the Back Road. The view is spectacular with the mountains and glacier as the backdrop, the ocean to the left, and the green, fertile farmland below. Certainly we Alberta landlubbers are drawn to the ocean, and we appreciate the mountains, but the valley is the heartbeat of Comox. Locals shop in the “valley”, farm in the “valley”, go to school and work in the “valley”. The people may look to the hills and to the ocean, but they tend to do the majority of their living in the “valley”.
Driving around Comox, there are sights and sounds in the valley that overwhelm the senses. From the cacophonic honks of Trumpeter Swans nesting in the lowlands to the shrill peal of Eagles circling overhead, not to mention the routine drone of air force planes taking off and landing at the Comox air base, it is a thrilling natural and unnatural orchestra of sound that emanates in and around the valley. The gardens are plush, the farmland is fruitful. Truly it is a peaceful place, if one only takes time to appreciate it.
When we think of valleys in life though, we do not associate them with beauty but with heartache. Valleys are places to be avoided, or to walk through quickly. Our sights are always set on the mountaintop experiences, never on the valleys. Valleys are associated with suffering and grief. “Vale of tears” is a phrase that refers to Earthly sorrows that are left behind when one enters heaven. “Vale” means a valley or a dale. The expression hearkens to the 23rd Psalm with reference to the “valley of the shadow of death”. When we grieve, we are in a “dark valley”, when we rejoice we are “on top of the world”.
So let’s contrast the “top of the world” with the “valley” for a moment. I have observed that when I am in the Comox Valley my eye is constantly drawn to Mount Washington. I have been told that the skiing there is fantastic, and it is supposedly the second busiest winter recreation destination in B.C. just behind the Whistler/Blackcomb resort. The thing is, despite having visited Comox for over thirty years, I have yet to visit Mount Washington. I have been told that the view of the Comox Valley from Mount Washington is absolutely spectacular, which leads me to deduce that those who have been up to that mountain top spend a lot of time looking down at the valley. So I can’t help getting a little philosophical here. When we’re in the valley we look up, and when we’re on the mountain we look down. Am I right?
As a Christian I have done that repeatedly. In the valley I looked Up and when on the mountain I looked down. How many times have I cried out to the Lord, “Help! Get me out of this deep valley! Rescue me!” I don’t want to stay in the valley; I want to be on the mountain. I have often mistaken the mountaintop experience as being closer to God somehow. And yet some of the most beautiful encounters I’ve had with God have happened right there in the valley.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” I look up to God and I discover that He is right there in the valley with me and I am comforted. I have also noticed that the times I am “on top of the world” a kind of self-sufficiency comes over me and I forget Who it was that guided me over all those rocky places as I climbed out of the valley. The “rod and staff” are not as necessary at the top of the mountain and rather than feel closer to God I have a tendency to look longingly down because it was there in the valley that I feel the closest to Him.
It is not by accident that the Psalmist paints a word picture of the Good Shepherd leading His flock of sheep through a valley. It was common practice then as it is now for a shepherd to guide his flock to prime grazing grounds. The shepherd allowed the sheep to feed and quench their thirst in the streams there for a while and then would guide them up the slopes and over the rocky terrain to the next pasture ensuring that there was always an abundance of food for the herd. But traveling from valley pasture to the next meant negotiating through narrow ravines or wadis, or journeying over rocky and dangerous terrain. It required the sheep to not run ahead of the shepherd. The shepherd was the guide, he determined the path and direction, to stray from the path could prove destructive for the sheep. Likewise it was the shepherd who determined how long the sheep would stay in the valley. Once he felt they had been sufficiently nourished, he would guide them on to the next pasture. He would help the sheep traverse the slopes out of the valley but he would not linger long on the mountaintops because of the scarcity of food there for his sheep. Although the sheep may have enjoyed the view from the mountain and preferred not to have to negotiate the rough terrain leading down to the next valley, the shepherd knew that it was in the valleys that he would be able to adequately feed and prepare his flock for the next journey ahead of them.
It is also interesting to note that the Psalmist says, “Even though I walkthrough the valley…” It does not say, run, skip, jump or rush. The journey from valley to valley for the sheep is not a time of running quickly through one just to get to the next pasture. Time is spent being nourished and cared for by the shepherd at each destination for as long as the shepherd decides before moving on to the next pasture. It is also not a place to stop and set up camp indefinitely. Walk “through” the valley, means just that. It is something to be experienced and then move on when the shepherd signals to move on.
My family and I are walking through one of those “valleys” right now. Notice I say we’re “walking through“, we’re not rushing through it, nor are we going to camp here indefinitely. We’re walking through, taking our time, being comforted by the Good Shepherd, and we’ll move on when He says move on. Until such time, we will take nourishment from Him here in the valley, and though our eyes may stray to the mountain from time to time, we will find rest and comfort here for now. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
(Originally posted on February 9, 2010 – “Even though I walk through the valley” was the winner of a Canadian Christian Writing Award that year.)
Last week I posted funny things kids say in church…well I can’t forget the adults. Here are some great Church Bulletin Bloopers! Enjoy!
Lynn Dove's Journey Thoughts 