We talked a few weeks ago about that difficult conversation you must have with your spouse—about how he wants to be cared for should he become unable to make those decisions himself, about what treatments he does and does not want, and even about the handling of his physical tabernacle after he is called home.  It is not an easy subject and the longer you wait the more difficult it will become.  But God expects this of a wife who "does him good and not evil all the days or her life.”

A few have asked and yes, we have had that conversation.  At this point it is still just a “someday” so it was relatively easy.  We even managed a joke or two to relieve the tension. Another ten years and that might not have been the case.  Give yourselves the same gift.

There is another conversation you need to have, the one with your parents.

First we are going to presume that those who bother to read this already understand their obligation to their parents and are willing to take care of it.  Jesus seemed to presume that God’s people understood that responsibility himself (Mark 7:9-13).

The difficult thing in this case is recognizing the time when the roles have made a complete reversal, when you might need to make the decisions for your parents instead of allowing them to make them.  It will not be easy.  They may even resent it.  But think about this:  at one point in your life, they made all the decisions for you and many of them were difficult.  You ought to know from your own parenting experience that children change your life and your schedule, that they become the first and last things on your mind day and night, that you sometimes cry long and hard as you decide to do things you know they need but will not like, and that may even effect your relationship with them.  It comes with the job.  That’s what parental responsibility is.

Now take every one of those things and turn it toward your care for your elderly parents.  It may change your life, your schedule and your priorities.  That’s the way it is and as it should be—you did the same thing to them the day you cried your first lusty little cry.  You may have to give up parts of your life for them—just the way they gave up things to raise you.  And you may need to go against their wishes for their own good, even if it makes them angry.  That is NOT disrespecting your parents.  That is taking on the responsibility of their care.

A few suggestions.  If your parent is the independent sort, you may need to be the one who says, “You can’t live alone any longer.”  She may beg you not to take her into your home or put her into assisted living or whatever option is best, but if her balance is poor, if she can no longer see to her basic needs, if her mind is not clear enough to take her medications properly, then it may just be that difficult time.  It is not a sign of respect to allow her to live in filth because she can no longer clean up after herself—it is actually a danger to her health and the ultimate indignity.  If she falls easily, who will be there to call for help, or will she lie there for hours until you come to make your regular check on her?  If she cannot cook any longer, how will she get the proper nutrition?  Would your parents have allowed any of that to happen to you as a child?  Then why would you allow it to happen to them and call it “respecting their wishes?”

Go to her doctor’s appointments and find out exactly what the doctor says, not what she reports that he has said.  She may forget something or simply get the information wrong due to an unclear mind.  AND TELL THE DOCTOR EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING AT HOME.  He may make a decision based on seeing her for a five or ten minute appointment that would be completely different if he talked to her for twenty or thirty minutes.  You need to tell him if she doesn’t take her medicine as he prescribes.  You need to tell him if she repeats the same thing every thirty minutes.  He needs to hear that she can no longer perform simple tasks like putting toothpaste on her toothbrush or deciding whether she needs a spoon or a fork to eat soup.  You are not tattling—that’s a playground term.  You are taking on the responsibility God expects of you to care for a parent, and you are doing it even when it might cost you that parent’s goodwill for a while.  Someone has to be the adult when she no longer can be, and that someone is you.

Get a list of her medications.  What will happen if you make an emergency run to the hospital and you cannot tell them what she is taking?  If she is unable to do so, the proper care may be delayed or the wrong care may result in disaster because no one had that information.

So talk about it now.  Ask her (or him) if, when the time comes, she might like to live with you or another sibling, or whether she would prefer assisted living.  And recognize that things can change.  My grandmother lived 98 years.  By the time she needed that care, my father was ill and my mother was his caregiver 24/7.  She could not take her mother in, too, so assisted living was the only way to go.  When the time came for my mother, we lived way out in the country where she would have no visitors and no place to walk for exercise on uneven ground, plus a home with steps and doors too narrow for her walker to fit through, and where her doctor and the nearest hospital was nearly 30 miles away.  We could not afford to move and the doctor said she needed to be close to him.  So, once again, assisted living was the answer.  She was not left alone.  We saw her between 1 and 3 times a week, took her to all her appointments, had her out to our house for every holiday and many times for a meal in between, and called every day we were not there.  Our church family was marvelous about visiting, and even taking her out for lunch.  Of course, she was a pretty marvelous person to visit with too.

Talk about possibilities now, before the decisions are hard. The longer you wait, the more heartbreaking it will be.  And since when has God ever accepted ignorance as an excuse? 

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God, 1Tim 5:4.

Dene Ward

Dear TV and Movie Producers and Advertisers of same,

I grew up watching television.  But now I find myself completely disgusted by what you are giving me as entertainment.  May I please offer a few suggestions?

I am not a prurient adolescent, so please dispense with the sexual innuendo and bathroom humor.  I am far more mature and sophisticated than that.  Most of the people I know are.  I am relatively well-educated, so please come up with words with more than four letters.  They have already worn out their shock value, and what other use are they?  All they do is turn me off, which means I turn the knob off.

Please give me role models I can identify with, admire, or aspire to.  Give me a father figure who is not an idiotic doofus, one who can make rational decisions and does not need his wife, and certainly not his children, to pull him out of the messes he makes of their lives week after week.  Give me a mother figure who does not treat her husband like a child or demean him to her friends, but respects him; who is not a preacher for the ultra-liberal left, who understands that selflessness and sacrifice for her family is not a fault to be overcome, and can communicate with her family without a martyr complex.  Give me children who respect their parents and obey them without eye-rolling, sass, and deeply heaved sighs of frustration. 

Tell my children the truth not the fairy tale of “happily ever after.”  Show my children that one talk about condoms does not make teen pregnancy a breeze.  Show them that drugs are not that easy to overcome once they are hooked.  Tell them that there is no such thing as “safe sex” outside of heterosexual monogamy, that AIDS is not the only, or even the most common, sexually transmitted disease out there, and that they could easily end up living the rest of their lives in relentless pain, unable to marry and have children till the day they die.  Tell them that the same self-control we expect of them in regard to stealing and murder is just as viable when it comes to sexual self-control.

Teach them something called integrity and character instead of looking out for number one and doing what you can get away with.  Teach them that whatever they do affects someone else.  Do you know how many times my probation officer husband has sat across the table from inmates who were shocked to hear that their shoplifting raised the prices that their dear old grandmothers had to pay?  No one taught them simple economics.  No one told them that what they did was a reflection on the women who raised them.  “I don’t know your mother,” he often says to them, “except what I see in you.”  You would be surprised how many hardened criminals sit there with tears running down their cheeks at those words.  Too bad you didn’t say any of those things a long time before he did. 

And tell me this—would you ever pepper dialogue with the phrase “Oh my Allah!” or “Oh my Buddha!” or “Oh my Vishnu!”?  Or would you never dare in this age of political correctness to cause offense to someone’s religious beliefs?  So why must I listen to you disrespect my God?  Or is it, as seems to be the case over and over, that discrimination against Christians doesn’t count?

Speaking of Christians, show me practicing Christians who are neither fire-breathing, insane radicals nor hypocrites.  Show me people who live what they believe—quietly and selflessly serving others and living moral lives.  I can show you hundreds of families in just my limited circle who do.  Why can’t you find any?

I am not the only one out there who would like these things.  A good many of us are tired of seeing sex used to advertise hamburgers and shavers, and suave urbanity to advertise liquor and beer.  Let me tell you—the most interesting man in my world is not an arrogant, beer-swilling womanizer and no man should expect me to come running just because he gave me the eye across a boxing ring.  My standards are much higher than those.  My friends feel the same way.  We’re tired of having to battle an entire culture in order to teach our children how to be decent people.  Not a few have turned their TVs off.  They have made the decision to boycott businesses who promote themselves in such irresponsible ways, businesses whose only interest is the bottom line. 

And to those who are saying amen, I am calling on more of you to do something tangible to show your displeasure--not violent, not illegal, but something that will make an impact that businesses care about—their profits.  Write a letter, using calm words, good words, not indecent ones.  Don’t become what you are opposing.  Then follow up.  Turn off that television, stop watching those movies, don’t buy those products or patronize those establishments.  You know who and what they are as well as I do, you’ve just been ignoring this issue because it would put a crimp in your style.  Maybe it’s time you sacrificed something.  You know who it’s for.  Aren’t they worth it?  Isn’t HE worth it?

 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead reprove them.  Eph 5: 11.

Dene Ward

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…

Most of the people I know begin their prayers addressing God as Father.  If you think about what you pray, that word “Father” should color your whole life.  To a Jew the father was the authority figure in the home.  His word was law, and the family obeyed.

For I have chosen [Abraham], that he may command his children and his household after him…Gen 18:19.

He said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law, Deut 32:46.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the  discipline and instruction of the Lord, Eph 6:4.

One who manages his own household competently, having his children under control with all dignity, 1Tim 3:4.

Yes, a father is more than an authority figure, but these passages show us that is an important part of his role.  This is what bothers me:  our culture is doing its best to remove that part of the job from the father.  How many strong fathers do you see depicted on television?  Most of them, if any, are on the classic channels or old movies.  Today’s TV father is hardly more than an incompetent buffoon.

Understanding authority is basic to understanding submission, a hallmark of discipleship.  Even more important, understanding authority means you will be less likely to err in your relationship with God.  God meant that the father in the family be one way the children were to learn about that Ultimate Authority.  Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you, Deut 8:5.  Fathers, when you do not live up to the role God has put you in, acting as the authority figure who must be obeyed, who controls and disciplines, who raises up his children, you are responsible for any misunderstanding your child may have about what he can get away with in his relationship to God.

When you tell him to do something and then do not punish him for disobeying you, you are telling him he can get away with disobeying God.

When you allow her to wrap you around her finger and get whatever she wants, you are teaching her that God will let her do it her way too, even if it isn’t His way.

When you allow them to sass you, to talk back or otherwise disrespect you, you are telling them it’s just fine to treat God that way.

When your children get older, they will disregard plain commands in the Bible.  They will say things like, “But God wouldn’t mind if I…”  They will believe they can finagle their way out of Hell on Judgment Day because they finagled their way out of any orders you gave them, or because you were too weak to make a stand, or because you were afraid they wouldn’t love you, or any number of other excuses you might make. 

They can blame it all on you and what you taught them about a Father’s role, and they will be right, but it won’t help either of you in the end.

Maybe it even says a little bit about how YOU perceive your Father in Heaven.

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it, Heb 12:7-11.

Dene Ward

Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD. The LORD bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Peace be upon Israel! Ps 128.

Nearly every commentator believes the Psalms of Ascents (120-134) were psalms sung by families as they made their way up the hill (ascending) to Jerusalem to worship on the feast days, especially the agricultural feast days of Passover, Tabernacles, and Weeks.  As such you see in your mind’s eye the extended family of parents, children, grandparents, and perhaps maiden aunts or other singles stepping out to the tune of these psalms, year after year, a tradition kept by every generation.  This particular psalm is a picture of the life that family leads the rest of the year, another routine that some might even consider dull but which God calls blessed.

The father works, but the implication is not one of a career-minded workaholic.  This man labors for his family, to provide those meals they meet around the table to eat together and the sacrifices they are able to make on their annual pilgrimages. 

The mother is “a fruitful vine within the house.”  That does not mean she never steps outside the door—it means she, too, is family-oriented.  Like the ideal woman of Proverbs 31, caring for her family may force her to leave the home occasionally, but she is the direct opposite of that other woman in Proverbs:  She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait, Prov 7:11-12.

This blessed family meets at the table every evening and has their meal together.  And several times a year they make that journey to Jerusalem, to God’s Temple, to the assembled worship prescribed by the Law.  When I think about this family, I think of my childhood.  Every Sunday we had a routine.  We rose, ate breakfast together, and then dressed to go meet with the saints.  No one ever asked where we would be or what we would do on Sunday.  We all knew exactly where we would be and what we would be doing.

When I raised my family, the same thing happened.  Maybe the routine was a little different, but it was a routine.  My boys never had to ask what or where.  They knew.

And now I watch my son and his family doing the same thing.  It may be a different routine, but it leads them to the same place—a meeting with the people of God.

A lot of people think that routine is useless, that since it is so much routine it no longer has any meaning.  But consider this for one minute.  What if we had to do this in secret?  What if the church had been bankrupted because of its beliefs, its leaders fined or even jailed, and our only recourse was to go “underground?”  This country is fast moving in that direction.  These things may not happen in our lifetimes, but our children or grandchildren will almost certainly face them.  I know God has a plan, but His plans have not always meant that none of His people suffered or even died.

What you look at with disdain today may sometime in the future be a distant memory of how well we had it.  Of families that could meet every Sunday in a place they had pooled their resources to buy, with a sign on the side of the road that proclaimed who we are and what we were doing:  Christians meet here.

Suddenly, the routine you consider boring and unmeaningful will be the thing you wish you had appreciated far more when you had it.  Think about that and appreciate it like you ought to today.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem— built as a city that is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good, Psalm 122

Dene Ward

 I am not a tennis fan.  I can figure out most of the rules by watching a couple of games, but to tell the truth, I only do that if I am home sick and have nothing else to watch on television and don't feel like straining my eyes to read.  But I do remember the Battle of the Sexes.

 At least I remember the second one.  I had no idea that a first one ever happened.  Probably because it did not end the way the media wanted it to, not to mention all the women in the sports world.  The first one took place on May 13, 1973, at the San Vicente Country Club in Ramona, California.  Bobby Riggs, a 55 year old tennis champion from the 30s and 40s played Margaret Court, an Australian women's champion who had won 89 of her previous 92 games—before taking time off to have a baby.  Their style of play was different and reportedly Riggs had the court surface redone so it played "slower," and that undid Court's usual style of serve and volley, giving him time to get to a shot and put power behind it.  He wound up beating her 6-2,6-1.

 Immediately, he asked Billie Jean King for a similar match-up, one she had previously turned down.  Maybe Court's defeat changed her mind, or maybe it was something else, but she agreed to the match-up.  That game took place at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, that same year, and she beat him 6-4,6-3,6-3.  That is the battle I heard about, not the first one.  Frankly, it wasn't King I was rooting for but Riggs I was rooting against—he was such a loud blowhard that he deserved to lose in my mind.

 Of course those are not the only times we hear about competition between the sexes.  Maybe it's the abuse women have suffered for centuries, even millennia, from overbearing men in every culture who treat them like personal slaves that causes women to constantly rebel and need to show how good they are.  But it has reached the point that it is no longer the aim for women to be treated fairly and equally.  Feminists want to make sure people know that women are simply better than men. 

 This is not the way God wants it.  Man and woman were designed to be two halves of the same being.  And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one fleshGen2:21-24.  The Word of God variously describes God in terms of a loving father and a loving mother, and uses the same word to describe the divine Beings—One—as he does to describe the two marriage partners.  Just as God demands unity in His church, He also demands it in a marriage.  Marriage is designed to complete the image of God in which we are all created.

 If anything will help you determine whom you marry, perhaps this will.  How can you be "one" with someone who does not have the same commitments, the same purpose in life, and the same determination to serve God if you are not both children of that God?  Are there instances of Christians being married to unbelievers in the New Testament?  Of course there are, but I would guess that most of those were cases of an already married couple where only one was converted and the other not.  The questions Paul answers seem to indicate that, especially in I Corinthians 7.  "Now that I am a Christian and he is not, should I leave him?" 

 This morning please consider this one thing.  Are you and your spouse truly one or is there a battle of the sexes going on in your home?  I hear too many listing faults, complaining to anyone and everyone about pet peeves, and shaking their heads in annoyance over every little thing.  Ask yourself, what do my friends hear me saying about my spouse?  Are they surprised I ever married such a no-good boor?  Because, instead of the astonishing oneness God intended, that may well be the impression you are leaving.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor wherein you labor under the sun  Eccl9:9.

Dene Ward

 Seeking advice is a God-authorized activity.  Listen to counsel and receive instruction so that you may be wise later in life Prov19:20.  I must have found a hundred passages that say the same thing in nearly as many different ways.  One of the main reasons for the church is for us to encourage each other, advise each other, edify and even rebuke each other when necessary.  God surrounds us with older, wiser people who have been through what we are now going through and who want more than anything to help us get through it without the pain they incurred.  Listen to them!

 Unfortunately, very few do.  I have watched again and again with tears and heartbreak as people I love either refuse to even ask for advice or listen to the wrong advice from the wrong people, and ultimately, make mistakes they did not have to make.  When I am online seeing to this blog, answering questions, getting rid of spam, wracking my brain for yet another post to try to help those who take the time to read, I also check the blog's Facebook page and in the process more than once have seen yet another young wife or mother go to the wrong person for advice.  The lesson of Solomon's son Rehoboam falls on deaf ears again and again.

 Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to these people? ” They replied, “Today if you will be a servant to these people and serve them, and if you respond to them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.” But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and served him1Kgs12:6-8.  Ultimately, he took the advice of young men who had never been king, had never tried to run a kingdom, and certainly had never cared for the citizens of that kingdom as a godly king should.  That is why the nation of Israel divided—an arrogant young man refused to take good advice.

 Recently I saw a post on childrearing that was linked by a young Christian woman.  I had never heard of this blog or the person writing it, but when I followed the link I was appalled.  The advice this young mother thought so wonderful came from a stripper!  I wanted to cry.  Why, oh why wouldn't she go where the Bible tells us to go—to people who are faithful to God?  And the only answer I could get from reading her own words was that she did not like the advice she got from them.  Like Rehoboam, she was in the market for advice, but only advice she wanted to hear.

 The only way advice will do you any good is to be teachable.  If you already have your mind made up, you will never learn anything.  Once you have decided to seek advice you must find someone who has been there and successfully navigated the waters you find yourself floundering in.  For example, if it's childrearing you need help with, look for someone who has raised godly children.  The more difficult part may be to find someone who loves you and has enough strength to tell you what you do not want to hear.  Most people know exactly what will happen if you tell someone they are wrong about something—you might just lose a friend—so they won't do it.  If you find someone who loves you enough to tell you what you need to hear, love them back by listening and not getting angry.  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; But the kisses of an enemy are profuse  Prov27:6. We all have blind spots.  It takes someone else to see them—or they wouldn't be called blind spots!  Ask that someone and believe what they tell you.  They are not making this up.   Be not wise in your own eyes; Fear Jehovah… Prov3:7.

 When we talk about being Bible believing people that should cover every aspect of our lives, not just how we worship or the steps to salvation.  It means when God says go to certain people for advice, then if you believe His Word, that is what you will do.  Please, please be careful who you seek out for counsel and do not let your own opinions get in the way of following it.  Your family is counting on you.

But you must say the things that are consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be level headed, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance. In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to much wine. They are to teach what is good, so they may teach the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive to their husbands, so that God’s message will not be slandered  Titus2:1-5.

Dene Ward

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not evil, all the days of her life, Prov 31:10-12.

 Bathsheba gets short shrift most of the time.  Due to a lot of misunderstanding of cultural practices, she is accused of things she did not do, and blamed for things that were not her fault, but that is not what we are going to talk about today.  Today we are checking in on David and Bathsheba about thirty years later.  David is near death at the age of 70, and Bathsheba is around 50, or even less.*

 David has promised Solomon that he will be king, that, in fact, God Himself has chosen him to be the next king.  Adonijah, as the oldest living son, has other plans.  He sets about having himself crowned even as David lies on his deathbed.  He isn’t being particularly secretive, but he is very careful whom he invites to the coronation.  David’s mighty men are left out, as well as Zadok, who as a result of all this becomes the patriarch of the new high priest line promised in 1 Samuel 2, and Nathan the prophet also.

 Nathan comes to Bathsheba.  ‘Haven’t you heard?” he asks her.  Then he gives her careful instruction about telling David the news, and goes along with her to verify her story.  Bathsheba seems more than willing.  Perhaps it is a mother looking after the welfare of her son, but for her to have this close contact with David after all these years, when none of his other wives do, tells me their relationship became the prominent one.  She was the favorite, and as any wife would at this time, she made sure he was happy and had what he needed.

 The rest of the story doesn’t really matter to me today.  Maybe it is because I am older now, maybe it is because I have seen so many women doing it up close and personal, but the verse above from Proverbs 31 sprang to my mind when I thought of Bathsheba’s actions.  A good wife will see to her husband’s wishes, “doing him good and not evil,” even when he is no longer able to function.

 And the only way we can do that, ladies, is to ask what he wants.  If you haven’t, you need to sit down together and ask him those tough questions.  If you have a will, and you should, that will help, but perhaps he has other things, not valuable things, but things he cherishes, that he would like to go to someone in particular.  Find out and write it down.  Perhaps he wants a certain man to preach his funeral.  Find out who.  Perhaps he wants certain songs to be sung.  Find out which ones. 

 Then there are the really difficult decisions.  Does he want to be an organ donor?  Does he have a living will?  If he is very ill already, does he have a DNR?  If he were to reach the point that he no longer knows anyone, how does he want to be cared for?

 Life has a way of stealing a man’s identity and our society’s ridicule of the elderly doesn’t help a bit.  The doctor may tell him he can no longer drive.  Be careful what you say to others in his hearing.  You may not think it a big deal, but for some men driving represents more than just going somewhere.  God has programmed into our men the need to provide and protect, and in a society where we no longer face angry natives on the warpath and food is always just around the corner at Publix, he has few ways of doing that.  Driving may be one of them.  Don’t steal his manhood with your comments about this or anything else he can no longer do. 

 We could go on and on with this, but I imagine you have gotten my point.  Because of the emotions involved these things are difficult to talk about, even when we have absolute faith in the reward God promises.  Some men will refuse, but do what you can.  Listen to him when he talks to others and make a note in your mind of what he says if you can’t get him to say it to you, but do your best to know what he wants and then do those things for him when he is lying there completely unable, just as David was.

 An aside here—there are some things a man has no business telling his wife to do.  He should not tell you to never remarry if you would like to.  Especially if you are young, which is a whole lot older than it used to be to me, Paul himself says you should remarry (1 Tim 5:14).  Death breaks the marriage bond (Rom 7), and he no longer has that hold on you.  And of course, anything sinful you can rightly ignore. 

 Back to our point—please do this today.  Do not use your youthful age as an excuse.  One inch either way and a bullet would have made me a widow at 42.  Then there was the "stroke" Keith had when I was 49.  I can tell you sad tales of people who have succumbed to accident or disease even earlier than that.  These days women usually outlive their men, especially if they are several years younger, as I am.  It is only sensible to be ready.  How can you possibly “do him good and not evil” when you don’t know what good he wants?

 And then do this for him too.  Sometimes we women do go first.  Tell him what you want.  If you start the ball rolling, maybe it will come more easily for him.  Once you both have it down, you can rest easy, and on the day when one or the other of you finally do go to that promised rest, the one you leave behind can rest too.

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, Psalm 90:10,12

*To read my take on Bathsheba click on Bible People.  Scroll down several articles and a couple of pages to find “A Case of Mistaken Identity.”

Dene Ward

From guest writer Joanne Beckley:

Goal I: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Mark 12:30).       

1.    Is your child learning of the love of God through the love, tenderness, and mercy of his parents (training and admonition of the Lord)?       

2.    Is he learning to talk about the Lord, and to include Him in his thoughts and plans?       

3.    Is he learning to turn to Jesus for help whenever he is frightened or anxious or lonely?       

4.    Is he learning to read the Bible?       

5.    Is he learning to pray?       

6.    Is he learning the meaning of faith and trust?       

7.    Is he learning the joy and challenge of the Christian way of life?       

8.    Is he learning the beauty of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection?   

Goal II: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).       

1.    Is he learning to understand and care about the feelings of others?       

2.    Is he learning not to be selfish and demanding?       

3.    Is he learning to share?       

4.    Is he learning not to gossip and criticize others?       

5.    Is he learning to accept himself?   

Goal III: Teach me to do your will; for you are my God” (Psalm 143:10).       

1.    Is he learning to obey his parents as preparation for later obedience to God?       

2.    Is he learning to behave properly wherever he is?       

3.    Is he learning a healthy appreciation for both aspects of God’s nature: love and justice?       

4.    Is he learning that there are many forms of authority to which he must submit?       

5.    Is he learning the meaning of sin and its consequences?   

Goal IV: “Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).       

1.    Is he learning to be truthful and honest?        

2.    Is he learning to faithfully worship God on the Lord’s Day (and any day)?       

3.    Is he learning that life does not center on money?       

4.    Is he learning the meaning of the importance and value of family?       

5.    Is he learning to obey his conscience – which has been wisely trained?   

Goal V: “but the fruit of the Spirit is . . . self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).       

1.    Is he learning to give to God, whether money he has earned, or in helping others?       

2.    Is he learning to control getting what he wants and to control his anger?       

3.    Is he learning to work and carry responsibility?       

4.    Is he learning the big difference between self-worth and pride?       

5.    Is he learning to bow in reverence before his Creator, the God of the universe?               

– Adapted from Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives by James Dobson

    If you have been with me for a while, you know that I like birds.  If there is one thing I miss, it's all the feeders we had put out and the many varieties of bird we have seen in the years since.  Here, in Tampa, they do have birds, but our yard is so tiny, there is no place to put feeders without opening an all-you-can-eat Squirrel Buffet.  You simply cannot get far enough away from a tree or a fence but what they can jump over to any feeder you put out.  I toyed with the idea of one of those feeders that sends the interlopers on a tilt-a-whirl ride until the finally go flying, but as I said, the houses and the fences are too close.  All we would hear all day long is thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.  Then there would be the problem of punch-drunk squirrels reeling across the yard.

     Our neighbor has a couple of very tall oak trees.  With a tall stepladder, he has fastened two long strings to branches a good fifteen feet high with a feeder hanging from each.  A squirrel cannot go down the long string, nor can he jump far enough—at least not yet.  Finally, we have a few more birds around us.  We also have Muscovy Ducks in our neighborhood and they have begun flocking to the feeders to eat the fallen seed—a whole "raft" of ducks, which I have discovered is the collective noun for ducks in the water.  If you are not familiar with them, Muscovy Ducks are the Ugly Ducklings of the species—actually the ducklings look much better than the adults.  Those cute little yellow ducklings grow into a wide range of coloring from all black to all white with various mixes of pattern in between, but their distinguishing characteristic is a large, fleshy, red patch around the base of the bill and eyes called a caruncle.  If you see red, you are seeing a Muscovy Duck.

     These ducks are excellent at pest control.  They will eat the bugs out of your lawn and also do a number on flying insects like flies, gnats, and mosquitoes.  We have seen them at work, in fact, as they cross our front lawn to get to the fallout from the neighbor's feeder.  Sometimes a couple of them will even stay in our lawn while the others go on to the neighbor's.  For every bug they eat, that's less pesticide our lawn needs and the more comfortable we are when we sit on the patio.

     They began laying eggs in the spring.  Brooke and Nathan had a couple of clutches between their driveway and the front door—18 eggs in all.  Mama discovered quickly that she needed to move the babies as soon as she could because she was about a foot from a rising garage door and a couple of fat car tires.  All she left behind were empty shells.

     We had our first encounter with the ducklings as they came down the south side of our house one morning while we were sitting on the back porch, the west side, drinking coffee.  Mama did not realize that she had found a dead end street.  The subdivision fence walls our backyard, and the north side of the yard has no outlet thanks to the neighbor's fence.  We sat and waited until finally, here she came with her babies behind her, cautiously peering at us as she came back around the back porch.  She kept turning back every foot or two, realizing she was in a bad situation with no escape.  Keith had to go as far as possible on the porch so it would seem like he was behind her, then bang on the porch wall in order to encourage Mama to keep going.  Meanwhile, I sat as still as possible so I wouldn't scare her.  As she turned on the west side of the porch, she picked up the pace and her ducklings waddled as fast as their short little webbed feet would go.  Soon she was back on the south side headed the correct way to the neighbor's fallen seed.

     Pay attention, parents.  Those ducklings went wherever Mama led them.  They had no idea if it was a safe place or a dangerous place.  They didn't care whether there were big, bad monsters there or nice people who just liked to watch ducklings.  They didn't even know if there would be food there or not.  All they knew was that where Mama went was where they wanted to be. 

     I watched another Mama and her ducklings yesterday.  When Mama was finished eating, she left.  So did her babies.  She walked across the only straightaway in our neighborhood where some of the neighbors hit 45 on this narrow street lined with parked cars and where human children also play.  Some neighbors don't care about anything but getting from one place to another as quickly as they can.  Keith has been known to go out into the street when the other neighbor's children are playing to wave the speeders down.  But he wasn't home that day as Mama Duck led her babies across the street.  I held my breath until they were all safe across.

     It seems to me that some parents have no idea where they are leading their children.  It seems that some believe they can let them run wild and they will somehow miraculously become kind, generous, polite, self-disciplined adults at some magic age in the future.  They won't.   They will be just as poorly behaved, ill-mannered, and undisciplined as adults.  If you shield them from all the consequences of their misbehavior, they will be shocked when society makes them pay.  Oh, but my husband could tell you stories for hours of the young people who wound up on probation but somehow thought they didn't have to follow the rules and eventually wound up in prison.  Yes, it can be exactly that serious—kids who came from good families in good neighborhoods and who went to private schools and sometimes church, but who were never taught to behave, to respect the rights of others, and the simple fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, not in real life.

     I watched ducklings leave a meal because Mama was finished.  Whatever Mama does, whatever Daddy does, whatever they allow, that is what your children will do.  Remember that.

Take these commands to heart and keep them in mind, tying them as reminders on your arm and as bands on your forehead.  Teach them to your children, talking about them while sitting in your house, walking on the road, or when you are about to lie down or get up.  Also write them upon the doorposts of your house and gates  so that you and your children may live long on the land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors—as long as the sky remains above the earth Deut 11:18-21.