It took a while for this girl to figure out.  She was too young, too naïve, and too lost in her misty-eyed dreams of romance; but finally she learned the real definition of a beautiful love story.
            A beautiful love story is not the fairy tale rendition of two people who are perfect for each other and to each other.  It is not about a rosy life of ease with no disagreements or clashes of any kind at all.  That would be too easy.  A beautiful love story is one that defies the odds, that succeeds despite what everyone said, one that understands commitment and makes it work even when it should not have.  It's a story of two people who gradually change for the sake of the other until the corners wear off and they mesh like two pieces of a puzzle.  That love story takes real love, not fresh-faced, wide-eyed, storybook love.
            A beautiful love story is about her looking at her prince and seeing a few warts, but deciding to love him anyway.  It's about him looking at her and seeing real life etched on her tired face and once svelte body and deciding she is still the one.  It's about two people who suddenly find out that they do not have as much in common as they thought they did—and some of it really matters!—but they determine to do the best they can to get along anyway.
            A beautiful love story can only happen after two people come to know in intimate detail what their vows really meant, who have together experienced "sickness," " poorer," and "worse," to a degree they never imagined, and can now trust one another absolutely to always be there and never leave, no matter how tough it gets.
            A beautiful love story is about morning sickness, scary surgeries, bandaging bullet wounds, and digging trenches to keep your home from washing away.  It's about counting pennies and taking food off your plate for your babies.  It's about living without running water for a month, your husband driving 90 miles an hour while your child convulses in your lap, and following an ambulance to the hospital not knowing what will happen when you get there.  It's about learning how to milk cows, grow a garden, can vegetables, haul water, and blow rattlesnakes to kingdom come with a shotgun.  It's about doing all this with never a thought of "what if" or looking for the loophole in "till death do you part."
            A beautiful love story is about two children of God who understand that when they made their covenant it went three ways, not just two.  And to break that covenant breaks the one they have with the One who sustains them.  It's about making a commitment and sticking with it no matter how hard, how loud, how agonizing it might get.  And it's about a promise that stands the tests of time, pain, despair, tears, and even ugliness at times as they stand together against anyone or anything which would try to break that bond.  It's about fortitude.  It's about endurance.  It's about forgiveness and grace.  None of that comes easily, but once it has come, the love story grows more and more beautiful. 
          As of today, we have been working on our beautiful love story for fifty years.  We pray that you can make your love story just as beautiful in the years to come.
 
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun (Eccl 9:9).
…Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate (Matt 19:5-6).
 
Dene Ward

We got the call that Sunday morning at 5:32.  We were on the road as soon as we could be, but Silas’s little brother Judah beat us there by half an hour.  Mommy and Daddy had waited as long as they could, their three year old sitting big-eyed and quiet in the labor room, but ultimately had to call a church couple to take him.
            About 1:00 that afternoon those helpful people brought Silas back to the hospital, where we sat in the room with Brooke and Nathan, new baby Judah lying in a special bed under a warming light.  It took far longer than it should have to get that baby’s body temperature to an appropriate number. 
            Silas, still a bit confused, and very tired, ran straight to his parents.  Nathan lifted him into his arms and carried him over to the little bed.  He looked down at his four hour old, wrinkly red baby brother, his tiny head still misshapen from his passage into the world, and said, “What’s that?”
            I couldn’t help it.  A bubble of laughter escaped me at his innocent honesty.  When we told him this was his little brother Judah, the one who had been in Mommy’s tummy, his little head swung back and forth between his mommy and the figure in the clear, plastic bed, his eyes full of skepticism.  This was not what he expected.
            It took a couple of weeks for him to really come around, but who could blame him?  He was expecting a brother like the brothers and sisters his little friends had, and probably just as big.  He was expecting a playmate, but every time he shared his toys, the little interloper simply lay there and slept.  Where is the fun in that?  But children are nothing if not adaptable, and his little brother is growing on him.
            I fear some people look on their lives as Christians with the same skepticism with which Silas first viewed Judah.  Freedom, they were promised, but all they see are rules.  Joy, they were promised, yet they still suffer the same trials, illnesses, and financial problems as everyone else, even the same ones as before they were converted.  They’ve lost friends, and rifts in the family are worse than ever.  They expected people to come running at their every beck and call, yet every Sunday the preacher, an elder, a Bible class teacher—or maybe all three!!—tells them they have to serve others.
            Jesus dealt with the same problem among his followers.  Some came expecting to be entertained (Luke 7:32; 23:8).  Some came expecting to be fed (John 6:26).  Some came expecting to be part of a victorious army and a glorious kingdom here on the earth (Luke 19:11).  Very few “came around,” changing their expectations to match his offered reality.  He never changed his offer—if they wouldn’t accept it, he simply sent them away.  He drove off far more than ever accepted him (John 6:43-67).
            Sometimes we have to do the same.  We cannot change the church the Lord bought with His own blood to suit the carnal nature of an unspiritual world—we don’t have that right.  Be careful what you offer your friends and neighbors. God didn’t promise lives of ease, health and wealth, or even a church family that always behaves itself.  The test of faith comes when things are difficult, not when they are easy.
            The church wasn’t what the Jews expected.  As a result most of them missed out on the promised kingdom.  Examine your own expectations.  Make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you.
 
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Romans 14:17-18
 
 

As a youth pastor, my first class of graduating seniors proved how difficult it can be to keep your kids on God's side.  By the time they first returned from university (at Christmas break…) most were no longer Christians.  …I felt like a terrible pastor.  I had these students for their entire senior year of high school, yet nothing I taught them seemed to make an impact on the decisions they made in the first ten weeks at university.  It was then I realized the error of my inaugural year as youth pastor.  I had entertained them, helped them to form friendships in our youth group, and maybe even inspired them to be better human beings.  But I hadn't given them sufficient reason to believe Christianity is true. 

J. Warner Wallace, Foreword to Keeping Your Kids on God's Side, by Natasha Crain.

Last year we made a distressing discovery—the seam sealing tape on the rain fly to our tent had come loose.  Unfortunately, we made this discovery in the middle of the night during a driving rainstorm when water suddenly began pouring on us as we lay in our sleeping bags.
            So before our latest camping trip, we pulled out the fly and set about resealing the tape.  We found out that not all the tape had come undone, just the places where more stress was put on the fly—at the staking points and over the top where it stretched tightly across the tent poles.  I suppose that makes sense.  After all, where is it that your pants are more likely to rip but where and when you stretch those seams the most?  In the back when you bend over.
            That brought to mind the disciples’ request for the Lord to “Increase our faith.”  I had always thought of this as a simple request, sort of a “Help me get better” generic prayer.  Suddenly I thought to check the context.  Maybe there was a reason for the request, maybe those men were under some sort of stress.  So I looked up Luke 17:5 and checked the verses immediately ahead of that one.
            Stress?  Jesus had just given them a laundry list of commands that would have stressed anyone out.
            “Temptation is sure to come,” he begins in verse 1.  Not “may come” or even “will probably come,” but “sure to come.”  If ever a Christian feels stress it is during temptation.  Yes, I think I might need increased faith to handle those times. 
            Then he goes on to talk about those who cause others to stumble.  I suppose nothing stresses me out more than worrying about how what I say or do may affect others, especially since I teach and write so much.  Yes, I need more faith to keep teaching and keep writing, especially when I receive negative reactions or hear of someone who misused what I have said, and even more when I realize I have made a careless word choice.
            Then Jesus tells them to forgive, even if the same person does the same thing over and over and over and over.  This is where, in an almost comedic outcry, we hear them shout, “Lord!  Increase our faith!”  As often as those same men misunderstood and failed to comprehend Jesus’ teaching, they certainly understood the need for faith when it comes to mercy and forgiveness.  We really haven’t reached the pinnacle of that Divine trait until we can say, “I forgive you,” without adding or even thinking, “Again.”
            Look up the other places where we are told to strengthen or increase or add to our faith and you will discover other areas of stress that could trip you up—times when divisions occur, when sinful desires rear their ugly heads, when we need to love the unlovable, when we are told to obey whether we understand it or not.  All of these things can create stress in our lives, and endanger our souls.
            “Pay attention to yourselves,” Jesus told those men in the midst of his teaching (v 3).  Don’t be caught unawares in the middle of a storm.  “Increase your faith” and so be prepared. 
 
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering-- 2 Thessalonians 1:3-5.   
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Joanne Beckley.

Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force
Dorothy L Sayers
 
When my husband shared this quotation with me, we both laughed–and then sighed with pain, knowing the saying holds a lot of truth. Perhaps you will, as I have, take a moment to consider if you have been tamed. . .
 
As a young woman grows up, time allows for a gradual increase in her knowledge and understanding. This is especially true if she continues to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Pet 3:18). But even as she grows she will make mistakes and cause problems. She will face what she says and does–and try to correct her own attitude toward loving others rather than herself. Whatever comes her way she knows her Lord is with her. As James said, the testing of her faith will be her joy, Js 1:2-3.
 
But what if the young woman does not grow as she should? Her attitude toward herself and others will begin to change. Eventually, as an old woman, she will no longer have the ability to love and care for others. Instead, she considers whatever and whoever is in her way who might thwart her desire to be heard. She has opinions on everything and everyone, convinced she has the right to “speak her mind.” As one person described her, she has climbed high on her pile of self-importance. Even though earthly forces may not stop her headlong destruction, the Lord says, “I can and I will.”
 
Pride can be the downfall of every older woman. 1John 2:16 includes the phrase, “pride of life”. The literal translation is “arrogant assumption.” Apt, isn’t it. Satan even tried to appeal to Jesus on this basis. Jesus did not listen–but Eve did. Satan knows the powerful temptation of pride. Do we?
 
Ec 7:16 Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?
 
Rom 12:3 For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
 
2Co 12:20 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps [there may be] strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.
 
Tit 3:2 to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.  For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and [His] love for mankind appeared he saved us. . .

Jer 9:24 Let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, "declares the LORD.

Old woman, you can change!! It will not be easy. Listen to that younger woman previously mentioned who might bravely try to help you face your true self. You will have to recognize the destructive path you are on, and then complete your “growing up”. You can change through Jesus Christ and heaven can still be yours. To that woman who loves her sister: Speak the truth in love. Don’t expect a harsh response. Honor her with your confidence that she desires the truth and will recognize your love. Thus you will have peace between you.

Eph 4:15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.
Zec 8:16 These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates.

Joanne Beckley

A long time ago I rode a bus with my four year old son to visit my sister, about a 12 hour ride.  It was quite an experience.  The only buses I had ever ridden before were school buses and they were another story altogether.  The Greyhound had much more comfortable seats, air conditioning, and a bathroom.  I could tell you countless stories about that trip, both coming and going, but they are beside the point.  Here is the point that matters.
            When I called to find out the schedule, I was given a time and a location for departure and a time and location for arrival.  I knew exactly where I had to be when to get on the bus, and my sister knew where and when to pick us up.  If either had not happened, we would both have been shocked.
            Some of my poor brothers and sisters need to think about that in relation to their salvation.  The Hebrew writer says, And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end (Heb 6:11).  Do you see that?  Hope and full assurance in the same sentence!  Hope is needing a bus, finding the closest bus stop, knowing the schedule and going there to wait for the bus that you know will arrive.  Instead, we have a tendency to treat our hope as someone who needs the bus, guesses where it might be stopping, and going there to stand, not knowing whether it is even the right place or the right time—just "hoping" it is.
            No matter how many times we hear preachers tell us the definition for the Greek word for hope (confident expectation), we force our culture's definition on the word.  We have fought so many battles over the perseverance of the saints ("once saved, always saved") that we scold anyone for saying exactly what John tells us we ought to be able to say.  "I know I am saved" (1 John 5:13).  Don't be so arrogant, we tell them.  You can always be lost.  Well, so can we—in this case for discouraging people to the point of severe anxiety and even giving up altogether.  Shame on us!
            Everywhere I find the word hope, I find words like assurance, confidence, rejoice, power, boldness, courage, steadfastness, and faith.  Does that sound like someone constantly afraid that if he dies unexpectedly he won't be saved?  No.  It does not.  In fact, questioning that hope seems to be a signal of weak faith:  But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope (Heb 3:6).  And notice this too:  we can boast in our hope.  There is nothing arrogant about it!
            Christ did not die so that we would lie in our beds at night, a quivering mass of fears and doubts, almost too frightened to even go to sleep.  He died to give us confidence.  It isn't that we know we are saved because we did so well.  We know we are saved because he said he would save us if we devoted our lives to him—not because we did it to absolute perfection.  Do you do that?  Then get on the bus to Heaven.  There is no question at all about where it will pick you up and where you will arrive.  The bus stops where Jesus is.  Just make sure you are with him.
 
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful (Heb 10:22-23).
 
Dene Ward
 
 

Getting old is the pits or, as is popular to say among my friends, it isn’t for wimps. 
            I remember when I used to run 30 miles a week and exercise another 5 hours besides.  I lifted light weights and did aerobics and the standard floor exercises for abs and glutes and those floppy chicken wings on the back of your arms—triceps, I think they’re called.  I didn’t like the notion of waving hello to the people in front of me and having those things wave goodbye to the people behind me at the same time.
            Now, due to doctor’s orders, I have to limit how much I pick up, how long I bend over, and how much and how strenuous the activity I participate in.  Good-bye slim, svelte body (as much as it ever could be with my genes), and hello floppy chicken wings.  Now I can only do a little and boy, does it show—and hurt!
            I was doing a little step work the other day (very little) when a knife-sharp stab stopped me in my tracks.  Yeow!  What was that?  So I stepped up again and found out immediately—it was something deep inside my knee.  I stopped and thought.
            In all that exercising over the years I have learned at least a little bit about it.  For example, if you change the angle of your body, suddenly you feel the work in a different muscle, sometimes on a completely different part of your body.  When I took that step up, I was using nothing but my knee, a very fragile joint—how many professional athletes have had their careers cut short with a knee injury?  Lifting that much weight over and over and over, even for just the ten minutes I allowed it, was too much for that little joint to bear alone. 
            So I focused on changing the working muscle.  All it took was putting the entire foot on the step instead of just my toes, and pushing up from my heel on each repetition.  Suddenly, the large muscle mass from my legs and up through the small of my back was doing all the work (especially that extra large muscle), and my knee scarcely hurt at all.  Ha!  I finished my allotment of sweating for the day with no pain, and only a mild ache where it really needed to be aching in the first place.
            That’s exactly what happens to us when we try to bear our burdens alone.  All we are is a fragile little knee joint, when what we need is a huge mass of muscle.  Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you, David said in Psa 55:22.  Do you think that strong warrior didn’t need help at times?  But David was greatly distressed…[and he] strengthened himself in the Lord his God, 1 Sam 30:6.  David was not too macho to know when he needed help and where to get it.
            Too many times we try to gain strength from everything but God--money, portfolios, annuities, doctors, self-help programs, counseling, networking, anything as long as we don’t have to confess a reliance on God.  It isn’t weak to depend upon your Almighty Creator—it’s wisdom and good common sense.  The Lord is my helper, I will not fear; what can man do to me? asked the Hebrew writer in 13:6.  Indeed, not only is what man can do to you nothing compared to the Lord’s power, what he can do for you is even less. 
            When life starts stabbing you in the heart with pain, anxiety, and distress shift your focus.  Remember who best can bear the weight of sin and woes, and let Him make that burden easy enough for you to handle.  I still had to use my knees that day, but they certainly felt a lot better than they did before, and even better the next morning.  By yourself, you will do nothing but ruin your career (Eph 4:1) with a knee injury, but you and the Lord can handle anything.
 
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7
 
Dene Ward

A long time ago, a couple entrusted their two teenage daughters to us while they worked away from the area for six months.  I was 29 years old at the time, and 7 or 8 years from having teenagers of my own.  I doubt we really knew what we were getting into, but we agreed and did our best. 
            Having someone give the care of their children into your hands for more than just a couple of hours is terrifying.  I think we probably made even stricter decisions than we did with our own children when the first one hit that milestone age of 13 several years later.  This isn’t like borrowing a lawn mower, or even a luxury automobile—these were souls we were asked to look after, in some of their most important years.
            Those girls are grown now, even older than we were when they lived with us.  In spite of those six months, they turned out very well, as have their own children.  I doubt it had anything to do with us, but you had better believe that we were on our toes far more in those six months than at any other time in our lives.  Still, we made mistakes, but it wasn’t for lack of praying and considering before we did anything.
            I am sure you can understand how we felt.  Here’s the thing, as a famous fictional TV detective is wont to say:  all of us who are parents are given Someone Else’s kids to care for.  All souls are mine, God said in Ezek 18:4.  The Hebrew writer calls Him “the Father of spirits” in 12:9, the same word he uses in verse 23, “the spirits of just men made perfect.”  God is the Father of all souls, including those children of His He has entrusted to our care.  How careful should we be about raising them?
            I have seen too many parents who are more concerned with their careers, with their personal “fulfillment,” and their own agendas.  They want children because that is what you do, the thing that is expected by society, and a right they feel they must exercise, not because they want to spend the time it takes to care for them.  “I’m too busy for that,” they say of everything from nursing and potty training to teaching them Bible stories and their ABCs.  When you decide to take on the privilege of caring for one of God’s souls, you have obligated yourself to whatever time it takes to do it properly and with the care you would for the most valuable object anyone ever entrusted into your hands.
            If realizing that the souls of the children in your home are God’s doesn’t terrify you at least a little bit, you probably aren’t doing a very good job of taking care of them.
 
And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life… Deuteronomy 32:46-47.
 
Dene Ward

This business of treating small dogs as fashion accessories strikes me as a little barbaric.  I’m surprised PETA hasn’t stepped in and complained.  Of all people, they should take offense at an animal being treated as an inanimate object.
            I understand loving an animal.  I have cried at the loss of every dog and cat we ever had.  I planted flowers on both Magdi’s and Chloe's graves, one that blooms all summer and one that blooms spring and fall.  The only time I can’t look out the window and know at a glance where they lie is the middle of winter.  But they had their place and it wasn’t in my purse.
            Some people treat pet peeves as if they were real pets, live creatures that must be fed and cared for.  In fact, feeding is a good word for the way they nurture those peeves at every opportunity.  Understand, I am not talking about matters of sin and morality, but things we like or don’t like, opinions we hold about certain behaviors, and even matters of courtesy.  Courtesy is usually a cultural notion, not one of moral right and wrong.  It may bug me to death to be in an elevator with someone yelling into a cell phone, but I doubt it will send him to hell.
            If it is possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all, Rom 12:18.  Nowadays, when our culture is calling on us to take a stand on things we used to take for granted, it is even more important that we not raise a fuss over the inconsequential.  “Choose your battles,” something parents must learn so their children won’t view them as prison guards but as wise guides instead.  We need to learn that in regard to pet peeves too.
            When you take that unpopular moral stand, no one will listen if all you have done before is rant about minor things at every opportunity.  No one will care what your opinion is or how well you back it with facts when they are used to tuning you out.  If, on the other hand, you have always been fair-minded, cool-tempered, and tolerant of others’ social gaffes, making allowances for them without even being asked, when something comes along that actually causes you to stand up and speak, they are far more likely to pay attention—and consider.
            It is also important to stifle those pet peeves with your brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Be at peace among yourselves…seek peace and pursue it…suffer wrong [for the sake of peace]…be one…so that the world may know you have sent me, 1 Thes 5:13; 1 Pet 3:11; 1 Cor 6:7; John 17:22,23.  God could not have made it plainer that how we get along with one another affects far more important things than our own personal agendas.  Today we must be as tightly bound as the threefold cord spoken of in Eccl 4:12.  We need one another when the world turns against us and labels us “hateful” simply because we exercise our American right to disagree and, much more important, our Christian obligation to speak out (Eph 5:11).  If my reputation precedes me as an irrational ranter who isn’t worth listening to, it isn’t just myself I am hurting, but the Lord and His cause.
            I must stop tending those pet peeves as if they were pedigreed pooches, when all they are is a crack in my armor.  Who do you imagine rejoices the most when I lose it over a trifling matter of preferences?  The Lord or Satan? 
            We are all sojourners on the same trip, stopping for a night at a second rate motel.  No pets allowed.
 
A fool’s wrath is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult…a fool utters all his anger, but a wise man keeps it back and stills it…love covers a multitude of sins, Prov 12:16; 29:11; 1 Pet 4:8.
 
Dene Ward
 

Why do bad things happen to good people?  Finally, a book with an answer that makes sense.
            Everyone has problems.  We all face trials.  Sometimes it seems that God has especially chosen us for the worst.  List all the things that can happen:  chronic pain and illness, increasing disabilities, loss of loved ones in events that seem random and meaningless, severe financial reversals, or as Paul puts it:  Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches (2Cor 11:24-28).  If righteousness made a difference, surely none of these things would have happened to that great apostle.
            And of course, we have Job who lost everything, including every one of his children.  Yet God never told him why.  Job was never given an explanation.  Is this book the explanation?  If not, it seems to come awfully close.  This is the only book my well-read husband has ever read and, upon reading the last page, turned back to page one and started again.  That is the best recommendation I could give any book.
            Celebrating the Wrath of God is published by Waterbrook Press.
 
Dene Ward