Category: 2012 Posts

Posted on in 2012 Posts

Who Of Us Is Sure We Will Be Here Tomorrow?

As tornadoes ripped through the Midwest on Friday, many in the Cincinnati area stayed close to the T.V. for updates on where the storms were headed.  Relatives from out of town checked in with us too in order to make sure that we weren’t in the path of the storms.  Personally, I looked out and didn’t see much activity so I continued with my planned activities not thinking too much about it all.  I did send the kids texts though and told them to be aware as the weather may take a turn for the worse.

This is not the first time in my life I’ve been very close to a life-taking tornado as I lived in Springfield, OH when the Xenia, OH storms came through back in 1974.  They killed 32 people that day.  I was walking home from school when my great aunt and uncle sped up to where we were and told us to get into the car fast as the tornadoes were near.  Again, I thought to myself, they are certainly over-reacting; it’s probably not that bad.  However, it was and it was not that far away.

I’ve been told that I often look at life as a glass half-full versus those whose glass is always half-empty.  I think this can be harmful sometimes especially in cases like these.  I walk through life never thinking anything will happen to me or those I love; when in fact we could all be taken away this instant if God chooses to do so.  As Christians, I don’t think this attitude is always healthy.  If we have the attitude that our unsaved friends and family will be here the next time we get together so we can tell them about Jesus then, it may be too late.  We can’t go through life thinking, “We always have tomorrow.”  I am sure there were many who woke up in cities like Henryville, Indiana or West Liberty, Kentucky, and never once thought Friday might be their last.

My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones in the storms and I hope that I never personally have to experience such a loss in my lifetime.  However, I think this week of tornadoes and tragedy is a wake-up call for those of us walking through life carefree.  I am not saying that we need to be all about doom and gloom.  However, I am saying that we should live every day as though it is our last.  None of us know what tomorrow brings.  Who do you need to talk to today?

James 4:13-14 (NKJV) Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;  whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Just as a note, there are many organizations taking donations for those affected by the storms.  Locally in Cincinnati, Matthew 25 Ministries is organizing an effort to help if you would like to drop off supplies or donate cash.  Visit their website to see items most in need.

Posted on in 2012 Posts

One Is the Loneliest Number…

Did you ever feel invisible?  It just seems like sometimes no one even knows I’m here.  Week after week, I have been plastering across the Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-in about my book.  I’ve talked to friends and strangers alike handing out one business card after the other and it never ceases to amaze me that many act surprised that when they hear me say I am an author.  I see them on Facebook because they are my friends, but how do they not know what is going on with my life?  My pastor said a week or so ago, “If you haven’t noticed, people are not nearly as excited about your life as you are!”  I laughed when he said it but I am beginning to experience or at least acknowledge the reality of his statement.  Being the baby of the family, that’s a difficult concept for me to accept.  Why is it that this is the norm?

Saturday we stopped at Panera for a bite in-between carpeting stores.  As Jim was up waiting on our food, I notice a little old man going to town on his pick-two meal.  There is something about old men I love—I am drawn to them. I guess it is their big furry ears and pants pulled up to their armpits that is endearing to me.  When I was younger, my great-aunt and uncle were my chief care-givers as my mom had returned to her career by the time she had me and dad, too, worked a lot.  I spent a lot of time with Mama and Daddy Bill and their friends.  I’m not much of a shopper and never have been.  When we would go shopping, often, Daddy Bill and I would go sit on a bench at the mall while Mama went into the store to retrieve whatever she needed that day.  Daddy Bill would talk to anyone who sat down beside us and it was usually other men waiting on their wives as well.  I would enjoy the conversation and giggle as they complained about the shopping their wives were doing but when it rolled around to their recent prostrate troubles, I would exit and go throw some pennies into the fountain hoping Mama came back fast!

I grew accustomed to hanging out with older folks as even when mom and dad would come home, I would often go out with Mama and Daddy Bill to their friends’ houses to play cards or hang out in the evenings.  One year I went to the county fair with them to celebrate their 50th anniversary and watched proudly as they accepted their award–their cheering section of one.  We would even go pick up their friends, load them into the car and take them to the grocery, hairdresser, or wherever they wanted to go.  Me being squished between two old ladies talking and spitting on me in the back seat seemed all so normal at the time.

My mind went crazy as I imagined why this man was all alone on a Saturday for lunch.  Truth be known, he may have been enjoying his solitude.  I will never know what his story is.  But this scenario did make me stop and think about the millions of lonely people in this world.  My heart went out to him if here were truly a widower out trying to find a decent hot meal.  Then my mind went to the young mom struggling to figure out this new motherhood thing, isolated at home with no car to get out and find other moms to hang out with.  Then I thought about the soldiers in Afghanistan a world away from their families and loved ones living for a three-minute phone call twice a week–and their wives and kids the same.  So what if someone missed my Facebook post?!  This life isn’t all about me.  Rather, it is about touching the lives of those whose paths cross ours and helping them feel visible in an invisible world.

Who is in your world today that might benefit from a phone call, note or perhaps lunch with a friend who understands?  Are we so busy that we can’t put our life on hold for an hour or two to go sit on the bench so to speak and hear what’s going on in someone’s life?  Chances are there is someone you know that is today as I write, struggling with loneliness.  When we take the time to reach out to others and spend time in their world, surprisingly, we are the ones who come away feeling blessed.   For when you touch someone’s life, you are no longer invisible; rather you are someone they will never forget.

Mama and Daddy Bill were as old if not older than those they talked to on the bench or drove around town.  They could’ve chosen to stay at home and watch soap operas all day while feeling sorry for themselves in their senior years.  However, they chose to go help others who needed their help.  They were two of the most giving people I know and I am happy to have had them as role models in my early years.  I never really heard them complain of loneliness as they had figured out the secret cure for sure.

Are you lonely today?  Are you feeling invisible as if no one cares or even knows you exist?  Do you wonder why others always seem to be the one everyone thinks of before you?  If so, I would say to you, “When was the last time you reached out to someone in need?  Have you taken the time lately to sit and listen to someone’s struggles or even just the stories they’re dying to tell?”  www.Dictionary.com describes the word lonely as “standing apart; isolated: a lonely tower.”  So to me this is screaming out to me saying if you are lonely, stop being so isolated!  Find someone who needs you rather than looking for someone you think will fill your void.  Because remember, they are not nearly as concerned about your life as you are.

To sum things up in closing I would say, use the tools before you today.  If you’re on Facebook, take the time to read between the lines.  Is there someone who needs to be encouraged?  Did someone just lose a loved one that you could give a little of your time to talk?  Maybe someone just tweeted about drama going on their lives and could use a friend right now.  Was that a tear you saw in someone’s eye Sunday as they quietly slipped out of church while the last song played?  Perhaps there’s an old man on the bench at the mall that needs a smile and a hello.  Whatever it is in your world that stands out to you is probably that which will bless you for giving it your time and attention.  Have a blessed week as you go out and bless others!  At the end of the week well served, I’ll even let you borrow my phrase, “Just Trying to Be a Blessing!”

Proverbs 18:24 (NKJV)…A man who has friends must himself be friendly…

Proverbs 27:17 (NKJV)…As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

Posted on in 2012 Posts

God’s Timing is Always Perfect!

I apologize for the tardiness of my post today.  In the weeks ahead, I may be off schedule a little as we prepare for our move.  Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Well, we got through our inspections on the home we are buying this past weekend and we are still moving full-speed ahead.  Some people would have run when they saw what we saw, but feeling that God has led us to this point; if we are to be obedient we feel we cannot turn back now.  We’ve spent the last couple of years preparing and praying for God to sell our home and then give us the perfect home for us—whatever that might be.  We have had contracts on other homes or at least had our eye on others and the second we were ready to move forward on them, the process was stopped for one reason or another.

Jim and I had a big list of things we wanted in a home but every house up until this one has been lacking in one or two of the things on our list.  We were OK with that though realizing that short of building the perfect house for us, we were not very likely to find everything we wanted.  Keeping this in mind, if it only had a two car garage and not three, we were OK with that.  If the office wasn’t as big as liked, we would make due.  Or, if the location was OK, we could always renovate and make the new home be what we needed it to be.

When Jim and I were both single, we signed up for e-Harmony—an Internet dating site—to help us find the perfect mate.  That is where we actually met.  e-Harmony’s system matches individuals on 29 important qualities of their personality, beliefs, etc.  When you sign-up, you are to make a list of “Must Haves” and “Can’t Stands.”  Their computer supposedly uses your personality test along with those lists to match you up to the perfect person.  Before we met each other, we both dated others on that site and although we had a lot of things in common, they weren’t the perfect match for us.  Had we moved forward with those relationships, we would have been settling for less than what God actually had in store for us.

Well, it appears that the same is happening now in our home purchase.  We have begged God to speed up the process and help us move forward as we desperately wanted to at least get our living space on one floor in case I should begin having my breathing problems again that I was having last year.   Two things we weren’t willing to bend on were the size of our dining room or at least space in which to extend a table at holidays and Jim wanted a walk-in shower big enough that he wasn’t knocking his elbows as he bathed.  Just as the people we dated previously and may have settled for, there were also houses that we could’ve settled for and been OK.

However, I have learned over the years that God is Sovereign.  If I am willing to wait on His timing, He will give me the desires of my heart.   God has had a plan for the last two years for us and while we were getting to where we are today, our future house sat empty waiting on our arrival.  Others have tried to purchase it to no avail as God had a plan for the Kemptons to live there.  Just as Jim highly exceeded my expectations with my e-Harmony experiences, I suspect our new home will do the same.  It not only has a huge dining room for my entire family to sit in one room together at the holidays; but it also has Jim’s walk-in shower–one on the first floor and one in the basement!  Isn’t that how God is?  He doesn’t expect us to pray in faith and patiently wait for Him to answer only to give us something to settle for.  When God is involved and we are willing to wait on His timing and not ours, He blesses us beyond what our minds can conceive.

Does our new home have problems?  Yes.  When we turned the water on during the inspection, water came pouring out from many areas of the plumbing all over the house since it had been empty for the last two years.  However, I consider that a mere distraction from Satan.  In fact, at that point of discovery, we could have chosen to either stay focused on the problems or we could choose to stay focused on where God was at work in our lives.  Truth be known, those are easy fixes and once they are done, we will have a wonderful home.

Many of us pray and pray for something and when we get it, we think oh, it leaks, God couldn’t want this for us.  Or perhaps they think, this answer is too big or too nice.  I really don’t need that or deserve it.  But just as when our loved ones here on earth give us nice gifts, so does our heavenly Father.  In fact, it gives Him great joy when He does.  So if your spouse gave you a wonderful gift and you knew they had all the money in the world to give it to you, would you tell them to take it back?  I doubt it.  So why do we question God?  He wants to richly bless you in all areas of your life.  When have you told God, “I really don’t need that, or I had something much smaller in mind.”  Or when have you been willing to settle for second best because you felt unworthy or didn’t have the faith that God could give you everything on your must have list?

The Bible says, “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.”  Most of us will never understand that concept as we tend to depend more on ourselves than on God most of the time.  Our society tells us to be independent, just make it happen, and find one’s inner strength.  My experience has been that when I am more dependent on God, wait for His timing and pray for the Holy Spirit to be my strength in times of trouble, my socks are blessed right off my feet and I end up with way more than I ever imagined possible.

Yes, my house isn’t perfect.  In fact it is far from perfect with leaking plumbing and other things.  However, I know in my heart that God has put us in this place for this time so whatever lies ahead will be just fine.  I would much rather be in God’s will with the husband and home that He chose for me than to have settled for less and do it my way.

What have you been praying for lately?  Do you have the faith that believes that in God’s time, your prayer will be answered perfectly and according to His will?  Are you prepared for a long wait if need be?  We haven’t closed on the house yet and until we do, I don’t know what tomorrow brings.  However, if this is the gift God has planned for Jim and I, we are moving forward in faith that He will take care of the details.  I pray that whatever is on your mind and heart, God will give you the peace to wait on Him and the grace to accept the answers He gives when He does.

Matthew 17:20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

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