This is one of our favorite times of the year—the garden is booming and dinner will always be a treat of things we can only enjoy now, when the vegetables are truly “vine-ripened” and the price is perfect—just a lot of sweat.
            One night we will have stuffed bell peppers in a fresh tomato sauce with green beans on the side.  The next we will have eggplant parmigiana with a squash casserole on the side.  Later in the week it will be a country veggie plate of butterbeans, sliced tomatoes, roasted corn, fried okra, and a big wedge of cornbread.  Pasta night will feature a fresh tomato sauce with fresh oregano and feta cheese or a simple cherry tomato sauce with fresh basil.  Then there will be the times we try something new, like today’s grilled eggplant and red onion sandwich on a toasted multi-grain bun with lemon aioli and a big slice of tomato plus pita chips and baba ghanoush (a dip of grilled eggplant and tahini) on the side.  As the rest of the vegetables die off, we will still have the Italian plum tomatoes and enjoy a pizza with homemade crust and homemade tomato sauce, plus a few late season peppers and some Italian sausage.  A few nights later, we will do the same thing, but fold it over and make a calzone out of it with the sauce on the side.  Yes, this is one of our favorite times of the year.
            But now we are seeing that it will have to end sometime in the near future.  Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s our age, maybe it’s a combination of the two, but all this good food isn’t worth sacrificing our health for, much less our lives.  Someday soon we will have to buy canned and frozen foods at the store like everyone else instead of using the preserved items we have labored over for three months every year. 
            Which all serves to remind us of what we have lost and why.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Gen 3:19. 
We sweat a lot over this garden.  Some days I think it is watered more by us than the rain.  That is as it should be, for sin deserves far worse punishment than that and every one of us has participated in it.  It is by God’s mercy that we plant in the spring when we have a cool breeze and a sun that is not directly over us.  That same mercy grants us a salvation we do not deserve, and the help to make it through a life we have all but ruined from the beginning.  Why should we expect a perfect life now?  Why should we expect that things will always turn out right?  Someone has not been reading the same Bible I have.  It is grace that promises us that there is a perfect place in the future.  Don’t look upon that hope with ingratitude because you cannot have it now.  We have only ourselves to blame.
            But in the midst of the toil, the sweat, the thorns and thistles and weeds, we enjoy a few weeks of some of the best meals in the world—not gourmet feasts, not something concocted by a celebrity chef—but the plain and simple fare that comes straight from the ground and reminds us of the provision God has made “for the just and the unjust,” not because He had to, but because He wanted to.  It also reminds us of the garden we will return to someday, and never have to leave again.  If you don’t have your own garden, head to the farmers’ market this week and remind yourselves that God still loves us.  This is the way it is supposed to be, and it can be again.  It’s up to you whether you get to enjoy it.
 
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many…For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ, Rom 5:12,15,17.
 
Dene Ward

We have a neighbor who loves to fish.  In fact, he fishes so much that he cannot possibly use all the fish he brings home.  Lucky for us!  I now have an unending supply, usually of sea trout and shrimp, some of the best stuff out there.  When he brings it home, he even cleans it before he calls.  Amazing!  But someone has to do some messy work in order for anyone to enjoy the fruits of fishing.  Unless you go to a fish market, or the seafood section of your local grocer, or, even easier, the freezer case.
            Maybe that’s our problem—we’ve been to too many fish markets.
            Seems like when we go fishing for men, we don’t want anything messy.  The only ones we look for are the WASPs with nuclear families, unfettered by problems of any sort.  That’s where we build our meetinghouses, pass out our meeting announcements, and do our mass mailings.  We don’t want people with built-in problems, people overcoming addictions, people with messy family lives, people with “big bad sins” in their history.  No one wants a “high maintenance” convert who needs our support, our encouragement, our patience, and certainly not our time!  In fact, once a long time ago, Keith was chastised for “bringing the wrong class of people to church.”
            To whom did Jesus go?  Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near to him to hear him, Luke 15:1, and I seem to remember a woman who had been married five times and was living with another man, John 4:18.  Would we have even given them the time of day?
            Jesus only appeals to those who need him, and unfortunately, people who have no “big” problems, no obvious needs, seldom think they need anyone.  It usually takes a crisis to wake them up.  So why are we so insistent upon turning our efforts to teach the gospel to the very ones who are least likely to listen?
            Maybe we no longer want to be fishers of men.  The “cleaning” is too messy, too difficult, too heart-wrenching, and too time-consuming. Instead of being fishers of men, as the old saying goes, we just want to be keepers of the aquarium, with a built-in filter (preacher) and someone else to feed the fish (elders and class teachers) so we can swim around in a pretty glass box with plastic mermaids and divers, and live our lives unbothered by things like helping one another grow to spirituality, and scraping the algae off our souls. 
            Maybe we have forgotten, or never even knew, the mindset of the first century church—a dynamic group of people, spreading God’s word to everyone they met, trying to take as many “fish” as they could to Heaven with them, regardless of how messy their lives were. 
            Maybe someone needs to come fishing for us again.
 
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and the publicans, said unto his disciples, “How is it that he eats and drinks with publicans and sinners?”  And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,” Mark 2:16,17.
 
Dene Ward

It was absolutely necessary.  We had no choice.  My numbers had been up the past two visits, once dangerously high, so we could not afford to postpone the check-up.
              We prepared ourselves carefully. I tucked the hand sanitizer into my purse in an easily accessible side pocket.  Then Keith brought in the last two masks he had.  He keeps them on hand for working with pesticides and fertilizers, and when mowing the lawn.  Turns out they were N95s, and it was the first time we realized he had bought such good ones.  Then he grabbed a glove and a plastic bag because we would need to pick up the mail from our rural box down by the highway when we drove back in.
              When we arrived at the medical center, we donned our masks—a major ordeal for me since I am claustrophobic.  Every time that mask commercial comes on TV vaunting its ability to "keep out pollen, bacteria, and dust," I add to myself, "And air."  I could feel my pulse rising the moment I put the thing on and Keith stood next to me, rubbing my shoulders while whispering, "You can breathe, you can breathe, you can breathe." 
              We were met at the door by two masked nurses who bombarded us with questions, none of which my 90 % deaf husband could hear because their lips were covered and he had nothing to "read."  Seems no one ever thought about that problem before.  Finally they took our temperatures and sent me on to the front desk to stand on a black X, well over the required six feet away from the woman who registered me, so that we had to practically yell my information at one another to accomplish the deed.  So much for patient privacy.
              And so it continued at every phase until we finally arrived back home five hours later to wash up and sanitize once again.
              That's when it came to me.  We really do not understand the meaning of the prefix "pan."  I just looked it up to be perfectly sure.  "Involving all members of a group," I found.  We are being so very careful—staying home, wearing masks, standing six feet apart or behind sneeze guards when necessary to be together at all, perpetually washing hands, pouring out hand sanitizer like water, some greedily hoarding staples from their neighbors.  I wonder what would happen if we were that careful about the only true pandemic there is—the one that effects every single person on the planet, not just a relatively small percentage—SIN.
              What might happen if we spread the news about its contagion and the truly exorbitant fatality percentage?  What would happen if we isolated ourselves from anything that even bordered on it, anyone who carelessly sneezed it on us or our children?  Would we anxiously read up on it (in our Bibles), memorize the symptoms, and tell anyone who would listen what we had discovered?  Would we be as willing to hurt ourselves economically and socially to avoid a spiritual virus as we have these past few months to avoid a physical one?
              And what does the answer to those questions tell us about the state of our souls?  Even as the effects of this physical virus begin to wane ever so slightly, understand this:  That spiritual virus has been around far longer and has claimed the souls of the vast majority of people who have ever lived on this earth.  Now THAT'S a pandemic.
              What will you do about that today?  Aren't you even a little bit frightened?
 
…For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Rom 3:22-23).
 
Dene Ward

While I was teaching music I was a member of several professional organizations.  My favorite was the local group which met seven times a year in members’ homes for business, some high-spirited performances, and a potluck lunch.  Once we met in a house just off the highway, down a lime rock road.  In the middle of the meeting, a rain came up—not just any rain, but one we around here call a “toad strangler,” several inches in less than an hour—they happen all the time in Florida. 
            The rain had stopped when it was time to leave and we took off down the dirt road shortcut in a caravan of cars headed to our various studios to meet the students for the day.  Suddenly, the cars ahead of me came to a halt, and ladies started climbing out, gathering together and peering up ahead.  I turned off the engine and joined the milling crowd at the head of the line. 
            Water had run across the road.  It had not cut a deep rut, and in fact, was a nice shallow-looking, easily fordable stream, but we had all lived in the country long enough to know you don’t just drive through water running across an unpaved road.  “Someone needs to walk out there and check the road,” was the consensus. 
            Have I mentioned that at 35 I was the youngest in the group by about thirty years?  Instantly, all heads turned toward me.  Having been silently elected, I slipped off my shoes and started across the newly created waterway.  I took five firm steps only to have to grab my skirt and hike it up over my knees as I sank exactly that deep on the sixth.  Instantly I had visions of those jungle movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons as a kid, where the first one in the safari line sinks in the quicksand because, in spite of everyone telling him to be still, he wiggles and squirms and sinks before anyone can even think to cut a vine and use it to pull him out—or if some bright fellow does think of it, twenty people on the other end cannot out-pull the suction of a big mud puddle.. 
            A good minute later it dawned on me that my name was being called, and I still had not sunk any farther.  My feet had found a solid layer of hardpan about two feet below the surface so Tarzan swinging to the rescue was totally unnecessary.  I made my way back to the group with the most unladylike thwock, thwock, thwock noises as the suction released with each step.  We all carefully backed our cars down the one lane road, turned around in the driveway from where we had started and went the long way home, down the paved state highway.
            Hopelessness in the scriptures is often pictured as “sinking.”  Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon will sink and shall not rise again because of the evil I will bring upon her, 51:64.  Amos warns Israel that they are in for the same punishment: they shall sink again like the River of Egypt, 8:8; 9:5.  And all because of sin.  Even Peter, when he tried to walk on water, began to sink because of little faith and doubt, Matt 14:31.  And truly, just like sinking in the quicksand (at least in the old grade B movies), there is nothing we can do but hope a savior happens along.  Praise God, he has!
            The Psalmist pleads in 22:8 Commit yourself to Jehovah, let him deliver you; let him rescue you, seeing he delights in you.  In spite of the fact that, like an ignorant city slicker, we walked out into that mud on purpose, in spite of the fact that we ignored warning after warning, and kept right on wiggling and squirming, and even when we have been pulled out before, but keep stepping right back into the same pool of quicksand, Jesus is ready to hold out a hand and save us. 
 
Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink… Let not the waterflood overwhelm me and swallow me up…Answer me, oh Jehovah, for your lovingkindness is good.  According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me; and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly. Psa 69:14-17
 
Dene Ward

When my boys were young they were enchanted with a movie called “The Never-Ending Story.”  You see, when the movie ended it started all over again, and then again, and again. 
            Maybe it’s because I am a woman that I never saw the appeal.  All I could think of was housework—laundry that needs washing over and over, shirts that need ironing again and again, dust that keeps settling, meals that need cooking three times a day.  Oh for something that when I finish with it will stay finished!
            I think the Old Testament Jews understood a little.  Have you ever read the complex procedure for the Day of Atonement?  You should sometime, and then think about the promise of a forgiveness that lasts forever.
            Every year the sins that were forgiven the year before were once again remembered against God’s people, and every year the pile grew bigger and bigger.  At least when I do the laundry, I know a shirt that I washed and ironed will not be back in the hamper until it has once again been worn.  Imagine if everything you ever washed got dirty again the next week just because clean would not stay clean! 
            The first century Jewish Christians surely appreciated the blessing of forgiveness far better than we can.  They had been waiting for that promise to be fulfilled for hundreds of years.  Behold the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hands to bring them out of the land of Egypt…But this is the covenant that I will make…says Jehovah:  I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, Know Jehovah, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Jehovah; for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins will I remember no more, Jer 31:31-34.
            A high priest was coming who would offer himself, a perfect sacrifice that would cleanse each sin forever.  That pile of guilt would no longer build up on each one, becoming heavier and heavier, needing yet another sacrifice every year.  Think what that must have meant to a people who through the years had seen oceans of blood pouring down that manmade altar, knowing that next year, the same thing must happen again, not only for new sins, but for exactly the same old ones as well.  What a relief.
            And what a relief for us to know that God forgives and forgets, and that because of that wonderful blessing we can enjoy another “Never-Ending Story” that will remind us of a blessing, instead of a burden. 
 
And they indeed have been made priests many in number because by death they are hindered from continuing; but he, because he abides forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.  Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.  For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needs not daily, like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people, for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself,. Heb 7:23-27.
 
Dene Ward

Medicine has come a long way since ancient times and it hasn’t stopped progressing.  As a patient who has a rare disease, I have had my share of experimental surgeries and procedures, and endured experimental medicines and equipment.  Sometimes it’s just plain scary, but when it works, it’s amazing.  I can still see, several years after I was expected to lose my vision.  It may not be great vision, and the after effects of all these procedures and medications may not be pleasant, but let me tell you, any vision is better than no vision, and you will put up with a lot to have it.
            Blood is one area where knowledge is still blossoming.  But just think of this.  Transfusions were not common until the turn of the twentieth century, and even then it had to be a live donor for an immediate transfusion.  It went on that way for nearly four decades.  Finally, Dr Bernard Fantus at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago performed several experiments and determined that human blood, under refrigeration, could last up to ten days.  Still not long, but enough for him to start the first blood bank on March 15, 1937.  Imagine the lives that were suddenly saved.  It must have seemed like a miracle.
            Medicine has progressed even further.  My little bit of research tells me that at 1-6 degrees Centigrade, blood can now be kept up to 42 days, and that some of it can be frozen for up to ten years.  I wonder if Dr Fantus had any idea what he had put into motion.
            But sooner or later that blood does become stale.  It is no longer usable to save lives.  And if there is a sudden loss of power that cannot be maintained with a generator or other power source, all of it will spoil almost immediately. 
            Imagine a blood that never loses its potency, that never becomes stale, that will always save. 
            For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, Heb 9:24-26.
            Jesus does not have to offer himself “repeatedly.”  He does not have to keep a fresh supply of blood handy.  The saving power of his blood lasts forever.  And what exactly does it do?
            It makes propitiation, Rom 3:23.
            It justifies, Rom 5:9.
            It brings us “near,” Eph 2:13.
            It purifies our consciences and makes us able to serve God, Heb 9:14. 
            It forgives, Heb 9:23.
            It cleanses us from sin, 1 John 1:7.
            Now understand this—it isn’t the fact that Jesus cut his finger one day and bled a little.  Blood in the Bible has always represented a death.  The blood that saves us is the death he willingly died on our behalf, because only a sacrificial death can atone for sin (Lev 17:11).  And we don’t have to worry about “types” and “factors.”  His blood will cleanse us from “all sin,” 1 John 1:7.
            Nowadays people want nothing to do with another person’s blood.  Everyone wears gloves.  But to gain the benefits of Christ’s blood you have to “touch” it.  How do you contact that blood?  You simply “die” with Christ.  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life, Rom 6:3,4. 
            And that blood bank still works for us.  It keeps right on forgiving as needed, as we repent and continue to walk in him for the rest of our lives.         
            Only once--that’s all he had to suffer.  Our trips to the blood bank will likely be more than once, but may they become less and less often as we grow in grace and faith and love.  It will be there when we need it, but let’s not squander a precious gift, nor take it for granted. 
 
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, Heb 9:27,28.
 
Dene Ward        

I despise dusting.  I think part of the problem is all the things you must lift and dust individually in order to get the job done.  It takes forever to do it right.  Maybe if all I had to dust were flat surfaces I wouldn't mind so much.  Of course, being allergic to dust mites doesn't help either.  I am usually miserable for the rest of the day, no matter how careful I am.
              So last Saturday I was taking all those knickknacks off the shadow boxes in the bedroom and, to make the job less annoying, thinking about where those various gadgets came from.  Piano students and family members were the biggest culprits—vases of all sizes and materials including one made of olive wood from Bethlehem, cups and saucers with cute pictures and sayings, dinner bells, porcelain figurines, seashells, a few pictures, a whiskey bottle inside of which Keith's uncle had whittled a wooden airplane.  (Yep, after he drank the whiskey.)
              Then I took down the brass candle holder.  It used to have a twin, but it was broken long ago in one of the many moves it has made since I received it over 45 years ago.  It came from my best friend in high school years.  We did not attend the same high school because we lived in Tampa across town from each other.  Even 45 years ago, Tampa was big enough to have several high schools.  But we attended church together and did our best to call one another and spend the night every so often.  Her parents owned some lakefront property and every summer found us out on the raft, a la Huckleberry Finn, talking, laughing, and planning our lives as we soaked up the sun.
              We were different in a lot of ways.  She was a petite blonde with big blue eyes and long hair, interested in becoming a secretary.  I was a not so petite, beady-eyed brunette with long hair, planning to attend college and eventually operate a music studio.  We traded lessons—she teaching me Gregg shorthand, and me teaching her music theory.  I can still do some of that shorthand, but I doubt anyone could read it!
            We were both introverts and loners, both had distinct likes and dislikes especially in clothing styles, which amounted to high neck Victorian collars, billowy sleeves, Bell bottoms, and granny dresses in those days.  We both wrote in our spare time and had things published in the school literary magazine.  We even wrote spiritual poetry together in some of those late overnighters.  We taught the children's Bible classes, brainstorming together about techniques and take-homes since no one had bothered to actually teach us how to do it.  We discussed our favorite hymns and their deeper meanings.  We took sermon notes in shorthand and always sat where we could see the overhead projector, the precursor of power point.
            All of that came flooding back as I picked up that well-patina-ed candle holder.  I have done a little purging lately, not as much as I should, but some.  I don't even use this thing any more, I thought, especially since it lost its mate.  While we lose our power often out here in the country, we have plenty of flashlights and a much more powerful propane camp lantern, not to mention a generator for the long hauls.  I have much prettier candle holders in my china cabinet now for special occasion dinners.  So why not throw it out?
           I suppose part of the problem is that I have completely lost track of this friend now.  She was in my wedding and asked me to be in hers, even though I had moved a thousand miles away, but by the time the wedding came around I would have been 8 months pregnant and that just wasn't going to work. 
          We also married differently.  Her husband was a professional, a PhD in psychology, I think, and a city guy his entire life.  Mine was an Arkansas hillbilly who had been in the Marine Corps, and then became a preacher.  They were as different as night and day, and though she did convert her husband before their marriage, we still had little in common.
           But we kept in contact, visiting one another a few times, back and forth, anxious, at least I was, to keep that old friendship that had meant so much alive.  But then, after about thirty years, it was only a matter of Christmas cards, and now that has gradually come to an end, and I don't even know how that happened.  Right now I cannot find out if she is even still alive, and no one from the congregation we used to be a part of is around who knows where she might be.  When I checked the address on Google, she is no longer listed as a resident there.
          So, what about this candle holder?  Well, I still have it.  It isn't that it would be hard to throw it away.  After all, it isn't even worth much now.  What's hard to throw away is the relationship.  I think God has the same reluctance.  When I look at those churches in Revelation, the symbolic seven (there were many more in the area) have so many problems, you wonder that God had not already angrily destroyed them.  Leaving their first love, sexual immorality, idolatry, lukewarm faith, but still he warns rather than simply throwing out their candlestick—the symbol of their identity as a church of the Lord, giving light to the world.  Even in the Old Testament, he waited for centuries, hoping that his people would turn to Him again.  He was their father, and they his firstborn.  But finally, he did come in destruction, just as he will for us someday if we follow their footsteps instead of our Lord's.
          But maybe, for a little while longer, I will keep dusting that brass candlestick.  Maybe I will someday find my old friend.  I will hold out hope a little longer, and try a little harder to find her before I discard this candle holder.  What we used to have was wonderful enough to be worth it.
              How about your relationship with the Father?  Does He even have a candle holder to remember you by?
 
For thus says the LORD: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. ​With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. (Jer 31:7-9).
 
Dene Ward

I wonder if it means as much to us.  I wonder if it would have even gotten our attention.  We take so much for granted, so many things people have not always had access to, things they would marvel at were they alive today. 
            Noon on a hot, dusty day saw a thirsty man sitting by a well after a long walk.  A woman trudged up, not during the normal hours of drawing water; a woman, we would later discover, who was on the fringes of her society, a society that was on the fringes itself, especially to people like this man, who sat where she had hoped to find no one.  To her utter amazement, he asked her for a drink.  It was not just that she was from a hated caste, but she was a woman, and men seldom talked to women in public, especially not one with her background.  And not only that, but he offered her something wonderful--she would never have to come draw water from this well again.  She was so excited she ran to tell the others in the town, even the ones who before would not speak to her because of her questionable morals. 
            He stayed for two days, teaching about this miraculous water, water they eventually realized was not wet or even real, as the world counts reality, but far more real in the dawning light of a spiritual kingdom that would accept them all, not just those other people who hated them.  Soon, everyone would have this living water available, and no one in that kingdom would be considered “second class.”
            I wonder if Jesus would have gotten my attention with this talk?  I don’t have to draw water from a well in the heat of the day—enough water to clean, bathe, cook, and stay alive.  But one day, 30 years ago, that little story meant a whole lot more to me than it ever had before.
            We came home from a trip to discover that our well had collapsed.  We did not have the several hundred dollars it would have cost at the time to fix it.  Keith had to dig a new well himself.  For a month, every night after he finished the studying and home classes he conducted as a preacher, he worked on that well, even in the cold January rain, even running a fever. 
            A farmer neighbor filled and carted a five hundred gallon tank outside our door.  That tank had held things not good for human consumption, so we used that water to carry in five gallon buckets for flushes, and pressure canners full for bathing.  Every morning I went to another neighbor’s house to fill up gallon jugs for the water we used to brush teeth, make tea and coffee, and wash dishes.  The boys were 5 and 3, way too little to help cart water.  I learned the value of carrying a bucket in each hand—balance was everything if you wanted to slosh as little as possible all over your carpets.
            We learned to conserve water without even thinking about it—no more water running in the lavatory while brushing teeth, shaving, or putting in contact lenses!  Suddenly, carrying water was a time-consuming, back-breaking job. Modern homes are simply not geared to anything but running water.  It would have been much simpler to have had an outhouse in the backyard, and a pump handle in the kitchen.  The amount of water that needed hauling would have been cut in half.
            And after a month of that, I understood what this woman must have thought, what a luxury the concept must have seemed to her hot, weary body.  Do we feel that way about “living water?”  Is salvation such a luxury that we marvel at it and run to tell others?  Or do we take it for granted like running water in our kitchens and bathrooms?  I would not wish the month we endured on anyone else, but you know what?  I think it was good for all of us.
 
Therefore with joy shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.  And in that day shall you say, Give thanks unto Jehovah, call upon his name, declare his doings among the peoples, make mention that his name is exalted, Isaiah 12:3,4      
 
Dene Ward

All the stories my mother told me have come rushing back to me that past few weeks since her death.  One of the most special was the story of her conversion.  We could all learn a few things from this.
              Nearly a century ago, preachers often traveled from city to city and town to town, setting up tents and preaching every night for a week or more, depending on how things were going.  One of those preachers was Byron Conley, who toured Central Florida.  He was responsible for the beginning of many of the churches in that area.  One of those congregations was in a small town called Winter Garden, about 10 miles west of Orlando—at least in those days.  Now you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
              All of my grandparents lived in Winter Garden, the typical Southern town with a train track running down the middle of the main drag, and diagonal parking in front of storefronts like Piggly Wiggly, McCormick 5 and 10, a barber shop, and a drug store complete with soda fountain.  My father's mother, Thelma Ayers, attended one of those tent meetings and was converted to the Lord, and eventually became a member of the new congregation there.  Although her husband, my grandfather, was never baptized, she taught her three sons and all of them followed in her faith.
              My daddy was the oldest.  At 17, he took his high school sweetheart to church with him.  She had been raised a Methodist, mainly because it was the closest church to the house and they could all walk.  She told me that all she heard were slow dirges on Sunday morning, so that morning when she went to church with her boyfriend Gerald, she was in for a shock.  "They sang happy music!" she exclaimed.  The first song she heard was "Heavenly Sunlight," and the day she told me that story she added, "And I want that sung at my funeral."  And we did.
              So let's consider a few things this morning.  This was a small Southern town.  As is our custom and belief, they sang a capella.  It may have been "happy" compared to the slower organ pieces she was used to, but I imagine there were a few places, especially by the end, where the music dragged a bit.  I imagine there were a few flat Southern altos and a tenor or two that stuck out like a sore thumb.  This was not a performing choir, certainly not a pro or semi-pro praise band.  So why did the singing impress her so?
           Because it wasn't just a happy song.  It was sung by happy people, people who knew they were saved and pleasing to God, people who believed they were going to Heaven, people who, despite the trials of life, knew it was all worth it.  I have heard it said that our singing can be an evangelistic tool.  It certainly was for my mother.  But if the people do not match their songs, it is just another form of hypocrisy. 
           "Heavenly Sunlight" isn't as deep as some of the other older hymns but it certainly doesn't sit in the wading pool with the babes either.  It takes a mature spiritual mindset to see the "Sunlight" even in the "deep vale" and to have the faith to know that no matter what happens He will "never forsake thee."  She could see that faith in the faces of those people and eventually it became her own faith, a faith she passed on to children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
            Many of these thoughts ran through my head that afternoon as we sang for her the song that made all the difference in her life.  A small town southern church sang it like they meant it, and she wanted to know more about how they could do that when so few other places did.
           Would your singing begin the journey of conversion for a visitor?  It does not have to be ear-catching, toe-tapping, and rhythmically complex.  You just have to sing it like you mean it, and then live it that way too.
 
But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.  (Ps 5:11).
 
Dene Ward

In the midst of grief there is always business that still needs to be taken care of.  Planning funerals, going through belongings, paying final bills, and other such matters.  But this is the first time I have had to deal with death certificates.  My mother took care of my father's since they lived over two hours south of us and I could not be there for everything.  If you have seen them, you know that there are two kinds, the long form and the short form—just like taxes.  The long form lists the manner and cause of death.
              The manner could be natural, homicide, accidental, etc.  The cause will be the primary cause, such as heart failure.  Then there are "other conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause" which might include things like hypertension or diabetes.
              I began thinking about people I know who have experienced spiritual death—those who used to sit on the same pews I do, but for some reason left, those who decided that living as a Christian was not worth the taunts or the sacrifice or the minuscule persecution we have to deal with in this country, or simply not worth giving up the pleasures of this world.  Those causes of death are pretty obvious. But how about those who just weren't careful to live a "healthy" spiritual life, watching their diets and exercising their senses to discern good and evil (Heb 5:14)?  I wondered what their death certificates might look like.
            
              Manner of death:  suicide
              Cause of death:  sin
              Other contributing conditions:  failure to assemble with the saints, no companionship with their spiritual family except at the meetinghouse, prayer and Bible study deficiency, failure to consider and counteract the materialism of our "too rich" culture,  thoughtless acceptance of society's standards instead of determining whether those standards will help or hinder their spirituality and are truly part of a holy life.

              I will keep a copy of my mother's death certificate in the file next to my father's.  But this I know—it is only the certificate of their physical deaths.  They never had, and now they never will have, a spiritual death certificate.  I don't believe I could bear it if they had.
              Do you have one?
 
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.  (Rev 20:6).
 
Dene Ward