On our last camping trip to Blackwater River State Park we had reserved an especially good site, along with its neighbor for Lucas, three months in advance.  We arrived and after three hours were nearly set up when the ranger arrived to tell us that the next day a controlled burn was scheduled right on our edge of the campground and we would have to move.  It was not a happy event.  Not only would we have to tear down and start again less than an hour before sunset, but none of the other sites were as private. 

              Privacy is not that important when you sleep in a trailer or RV, but in tents with paper-thin walls it makes a difference.  Our new sites were smack dab in the middle of the campground and so small and close together that I could hear Lucas snoring in his tent next site over.  In fact one night, he and Keith were snoring in rhythm, and the night after Lucas started a snore on the inhale and Keith finished it on the exhale, perfectly synchronized.  Yet when the controlled burn passed the campground we were glad we had moved.  Even with the wind blowing in the opposite direction, the ash would have fallen on our equipment and melted holes in it.

              This is one of the things you must be ready to deal with in a State Park.  The point of a state park is conservation.  There will be more rules than a commercial campground, rules that when broken actually make you a lawbreaker.  But state parks have the nicest facilities for the money that you will find, along with well-maintained hiking trails, nature walks, and all sorts of other free amenities.  We do our best to follow those rules because those parks are part of God's Creation, and we want them to last. 

              Florida has one of the best, and most awarded, state park systems in the country.  The idea was proposed during the Twenty-Sixth Regular Session of the State of Florida House of Representatives on May 2, 1935, and we are thrilled that it was later passed.  In our thirty years of camping, we have certainly made good use of the resulting parks.

              And on that particular trip we learned a lot about controlled burns.  There are two reasons for controlled burns.  When the underbrush is allowed to spread unchecked, all that extra fuel makes wildfires more destructive.  Also, in a pine forest, the controlled burns keep the hardwoods from taking over.  The day after the burn every small hardwood was smoking and burned to a crisp while the pines stood tall and strong, if a little charred on the bottom.

              As Christians we must experience times exactly like these controlled burns.  Perhaps the most difficult “burns” to understand are the problems among God’s people.  If the church is the body of Christ, why do people behave badly?  Why do divisions happen and heresies lead people astray?  The Proverb writer tells us that God will use the wicked, whether they want to be used or not, Prov 16:4.  Paul says in 1 Cor 11:19, For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 

              The question is not will there be problems in the church?  The question is, when there are problems will we be able to “recognize” those who are not genuine believers?  I fear that too many of us look to the wrong things. 

              Do I believe one side because they are my friends, never even questioning their words, while automatically dismissing the other if among them is a brother I don’t like too much?  Does “family” make the decision for me?  Am I relying on how I “feel” about it, instead of what the Word actually says?  Does it matter more to me who can quote the Big-Name Preachers instead of the scriptures?  Is one side more popular than the other?  Will it give me more power if that side wins the fight?  When I rely on those types of things, I am the one who is showing myself to be a less than genuine believer.

              While these things are necessary, it doesn’t mean God likes them, any more than he liked the Assyrians who fulfilled their purpose in punishing his wayward people. 

              Ho Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he means not so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few... Wherefore it shall come to pass, that, when the Lord has performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks, Isa 10:5-6,12. 

              Jesus presents a similar viewpoint when he says in Matt 18:7, Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion comes!  These things have their place and their purpose, but God will punish the ones responsible. 

              Now the hard part:  The apostles did not tell the early church that it was understandable to become discouraged and leave because their idea of the blissful, perfect institution was often marred by sin.  They said to use that experience to double check where we stand, to make sure we are among the true believers, the tall pines that withstand the blaze instead of the scrub brush and interloping hardwoods who try to destroy Christ’s body.

              Those controlled burns in the pine forests happen every three years.  Who knows how often the church needs cleansing but God himself? For me to give up on the Lord and his body because someone causes trouble, because peace among God’s people sometimes seems hard to come by, means I am giving up on God, failing to trust that he knows best. You may get a little singed, but it is cleansing burn, far better than the eternal burn that awaits the factious.
 
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit…Therefore by their fruits you shall know them, Matt 7:15-17, 20.
 
Dene Ward
             
 

A long time ago, when Keith preached for a small country church, he and I used to do our visiting on bicycles.  With two toddlers aged 3 and 1, we each had a child seat over the back wheel of our bikes and off the four of us would go for an afternoon or early evening of making the rounds to our elderly or ill brothers and sisters, or to make new contacts in the rural community whenever someone moved in. 

We rode sometimes as far as five or six miles one way.  We learned the roads far better than we would have by car.  The traffic on the highways was scarce so we could easily avoid the potholes.  We learned to use the center of the dirt roads.  You simply couldn't plow your way through the thick white sand on the corners and edges.  We also learned why lime rock roads are often called washboards.  Talk about vibrations—your teeth were still chattering a half mile after you turned off.

We found another good reason to avoid the edges of the roads—snakes!  More than once one of them jerked back from the road and slithered further into the grass it had been just about to leave.  Whenever we passed a flattened rattlesnake or moccasin in the road, we gave a little cheer.

And we also learned about wind.  I was reminded of it the other day when Lucas called and told me his experience with his bike and the wind.  It goes like this.  You are having the greatest ride of your life.  You feel great.  Your legs seem to fly on the pedals.  You can up the gears with impunity and virtually zip down the road.  Then you turn around to head back home.

Suddenly you understand why the ride out was so easy.  You are headed into a wind that had formerly been at your back.  You pedal harder in lower gears.  Your calves and thighs ache.  You begin to huff and puff.  Sometimes you wonder if you are making any progress at all.  And it takes you half again longer to get back home than the ride out.

When I see someone trying to navigate the trials of life without God that's what I think of—pedaling against the wind.  I cannot imagine facing problems without God.  What's the use of it all?  You can't count on help from anyone because, like you, they are all in it for themselves.  You don't believe that anything good will come from it.  You are pedaling into a headwind so strong you will be lucky to even stay in the same place instead of being blown backwards.  Who will listen to your cries?  Who will hold you up when things get even worse?  And why did it happen to you anyway?  Nothing makes sense.  And sooner or later, even if you get through this one, another problem will rear its ugly head and there you go again.

But with God on your side things are as different--the wind is at your back.  It may still be a rough ride.  Life can deal you some bad moments.  The French have a phrase:  c'est la vie.  Such is life.  You can't get through it unscathed.  But with God behind you, you know you have help.  You have someone to lean on, to talk to, and to count on.  Because you have His Word in your heart you can make better decisions.  Because you pray you can feel calmer and more content.  Knowing that He will send help through your brothers and sisters, through Providence, through his Holy Spirit, and because you believe He will answer your prayers, you can face the impossible and come through it far better than you might have otherwise.  You know there is a reason—be it learning or growing stronger or refining your soul, you know you will be better on the other side of this affliction.

Are you riding with the wind, or against it?  If you don't have that relationship with God, if you don't know Him through his revelation to us, and if you never bother to talk with him unless you want something, maybe you are headed in the wrong direction.  Just because you sit on a pew, you aren't necessarily on the right road.  It's easy to get bogged down in the sand corners.  Just because you were once baptized into the Lord's body, you aren't necessarily a part of it now.  There is a snake out there just waiting to strike at your ankles.  You need to turn that bike around.  He wants to help you, but He can't as long as you keep riding against the Wind.
 
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isa 40:28-31)
 
Dene Ward

Shortly after meeting some new people, word came back from mutual friends that their assessment of us was, “They do so well for a handicapped couple.”

              Handicapped?  We had never thought of ourselves that way.  No one else, even people who have known us for years, has ever described us that way.  Now Keith, who has reached the point of “profound deafness” may well be called handicapped, but he has never used that word of himself.  He just keeps on doing what needs to be done because it has to be done.  About the only thing I have taken over for him is the telephone.

              He has never used his handicap as an excuse.  Nothing disgusts him more than many of the felons he must deal with who blame society, their parents, their neighborhoods, their economic class and anything else they can for their lack of education and ambition, and their crimes.  He was raised in back hill poverty, without running water, with only a kitchen woodstove for heat in a climate where the water bucket in that same kitchen often developed a top layer of ice overnight.  He began going deaf in his early 20s and already had one hearing aid at 27.  He finished a college degree while supporting a wife and two children.  He continues to work, even now in his mid-60s, despite his ever increasing disability and one stroke already on his medical record.  He uses none of these “handicaps” as an excuse.  They are simply obstacles he must overcome.

              Too often we want to claim handicaps in our work for God.  I don’t have time.  I don’t have the money.  I don’t have the talent.  I am too young and inexperienced.  I am too old.  I am not popular.  I am too shy.  The same God who promised he would not tempt you more than you are able to bear, will not give you an opportunity you don’t have the ability to handle.

              He doesn’t lay out the opportunities like a multiple choice test, then let us choose the one we want.  “None of the above” is not on the list either.  He is the one who decides our handicaps and his decision is obvious in the things he places before us to do.  He expects us to choose “all of the above.”

              Handicaps will make you stronger, but not if you use them as excuses.  You must work your way through them.  Then God will decide whether you did as much as you were able to do.  He is the one who really knows.
 
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor 12:9,10.
 
Dene Ward

Most are familiar with the life of King Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah.  When he was thirty-nine, he became ill “unto death,” the prophet Isaiah told him.  Yet because of his good life and his fervent prayer to God, he was granted a fifteen year reprieve (2 Chron 32).

            Hezekiah was grateful.  He wrote a psalm of thanksgiving, ending with, For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness, Isa 38:18,19.

            I wonder how he felt on his fiftieth birthday, twelve years later.  I wonder what was running through his mind in year fourteen, and as the fifteenth year dawned, was he still grateful for the extra time God had allowed him, or was he bitter, knowing the end was in sight?  If it were the same illness returning, he had to know this was it, even if he was only 54 years old.  Did he ruin the time he had left by railing about how badly God had treated him, completely forgetting the gift of fifteen extra years?  How would you have acted?

            2 Chronicles gives us a lot of information about how he used those fifteen years, some of it not too wisely, in fact.  Yet he seems to have finally reverted to his former self—a man who worshipped God and did what was right in leading God’s people.  We don’t know, though, how he met his death, whether with a smile of gratitude or a groan of bitterness.  I would like to think the former.

            Has God given you a reprieve?  Sometimes he gives it just as he did Hezekiah, a few more years to live following a major illness or accident, even when the doctors thought it was over.  Sometimes the reprieve is about an increasing disability, yet we still function far longer than anyone ever expected. 

            Sometimes it’s a second chance with our finances—an opportunity to show good stewardship with what the Lord has given us instead of once again running ourselves into the ground with a lack of character and self-control. 

            Maybe he has given you an opportunity to repair a relationship and enjoy years of fellowship with an old friend or family member.  Perhaps, most important of all, he has given you the chance to mend your relationship with Him, to come back from a dalliance with the world and serve him as you ought.

            God gives reprieves every day.  Some are obvious, others not so much.  Look at your life today and instead of seeing a bitter end, see if you can find a second chance you might have missed.  Be grateful for the opportunity instead of resenting the new limits you must live with, and the knowledge that the end might be near. 

            Hezekiah knew exactly how long his reprieve would last.  We don’t.  Today might be the last occasion you have to tell a friend you’re sorry, the last opportunity to make amends for a wrong done long ago.  It might be the last time you get to tell someone you love him.  It might be your final chance to return to God. 

            In all things live like your reprieve is over, for it may very well be.
 
Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him, Isa 30:18.

Dene Ward

A few years ago, some young parents we knew had a child whom they discovered was legally blind.  It was possible that nothing could be done for that child, even with glasses or lenses, to correct his vision.  Because I was a child who was visually disabled myself, I wrote this letter to them.  I thought it might also be a help to you or someone you know who has a child who is disabled in any way.  Feel free to share it with anyone it might possibly help.

We were so sorry to hear about your little one’s condition.  When your child is hurt, there is nothing quite like the pain in your heart.  Any loving parent would instantly trade places to spare him.  We will continue to think of you and especially to pray for your comfort, and that your precious little one gets the help he needs, and perhaps even less disability than you have been told.  Our God can indeed work wonders.

            But for now, may I please be so bold as to offer you a little advice?  My current vision problem did not just suddenly start—I was born with it, but no one realized it, not even my parents.  In those days children were not checked as often or as completely as they are today.  As a result, my parents treated me exactly like they would have any child.  The first four years of my life I saw nothing but a blur of color, but I was the only one who knew that, and of course, I thought everyone was that way and did not complain.  I was, in fact, legally blind, yet I still learned to feed and dress myself.  They were able to potty train me.  I memorized quickly because I couldn’t see, and that has stuck with me, at least until now when age has affected it some.  Still I probably remember things better than most people my age.

            Even after they realized something was wrong, the doctor himself did not recognize exactly what the problem was, just that “she has really bad vision.”  You probably know something about magnification in lenses.  My magnification was +17.25 and that only got me to 20/40 on a good day, and that was not even the worst of my issues.  Yet I still learned to function.  When you can’t see well you notice things that other people don’t. 

            Even with correction I couldn’t see faces across a lawn or a parking lot or even a large room.  But I knew people by their walks and hand gestures.  If I had seen them earlier in the day, I remembered what they wore.  I couldn’t read street signs, but I knew there was a tree on that corner, or a pothole just before the turn.  You adapt when your survival, whether life and death or simply getting along in society, depends on it.

            Even if I eventually lose it all, which is probable, I still plan to be independent as long as possible.  I will probably be a widow someday, but I do not want to live with anyone, or in some care facility, until it is absolutely necessary.  I feel that way because of how I was raised.

            You need to give your child that same spirit of independence.  One thing is good and I say this from experience:  since he was born this way, he will not know what he is missing.  Don’t you make him miserable by treating him like there is something missing.  The best gift you can give him is the one my parents gave me, even if it was accidental:  treat him like a normal child.  He is normal; normal for him!  Help him learn how to get along.  Push him.  Tell him he can do it, even when you aren’t sure he can.  You’d be surprised what can be accomplished simply because a person thinks he can.  This is the loving thing for parents in your position to do.  Babying him is not.  I will be forever grateful that I was not babied—it has made me strong and able to bear far more than most.

            Now comes the hard part:  don’t let anyone baby him, and that includes grandparents.  You may have to put your foot down once in a while.  Do not be afraid to tell them, “No.”  You can do it kindly and with respect, but you have to be the one who stands up for your child against anyone’s misguided attempts to shelter him.  He is your child and God will hold you accountable for his care.  You might need to remind them of that once in a while. 

            Treating him as a normal child will also mean disciplining him that way.  It is hard enough to scold or spank the little hands of a perfectly healthy child.  You must be strong enough to do this.  Your child is counting on you to turn him into a faithful child of God and save his soul.  If you let him have his way because of his “problem,” you are only creating more problems for him to overcome—you are not loving him like you think you are.  I am forever grateful to my parents for not turning me into a selfish, and self-absorbed, adult.

            God has a purpose for all of his children, and your little one will grow up better able to serve those who have disabilities than those who have none ever could.  He will understand and sympathize and think of things that other people do not—another thing that Keith and I have discovered as our disabilities have increased.  No one even thinks to consider what we can or cannot hear, can or cannot see.  Only the disabled give us that consideration. And thus the disabled are enabled to help others.  But he won’t perform that service if you raise him to think that he is the center of the universe because of his disability.

            Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.  Do not be too proud to use Blind Services or anything else offered to you.  It is not sinful to take help.  It will be nice to know that someone who really deserves our tax money is making use of it.  And do not be afraid to ask for whatever help you need from your brothers and sisters in the Lord, including us.  That’s why God put us here.

            We are praying for you as you take this journey.  It will be hard at times, but other times it will bring you even more joy than the parents of the perfectly healthy children.  Just you wait and see!
 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

We have experienced much in our forty some odd years of married life.  Joy, sorrow, excitement, abject terror, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, violent crime, automobile accidents, trips to the emergency room, frightening health issues, life-changing disabilities, serious economic woes, persecution on several levels—all of these and more have shaped us into who we are today.  I do my best to share with you what we have learned, and though we may have seen a lot, it still isn’t everything.  We can tell you some hair-raising stories, but we still consider ourselves blessed beyond measure.

            That’s one reason God gave us so many narratives in the Bible, so many faithful followers who have lived through practically every experience it is possible to live through. He has also given us people much closer to us, who set examples we can see every day.  Today I want to share with you a couple who went through one of the worst experiences in life—losing a child--and came out gold in God’s eyes. 

            My in-laws lost their little girl to cancer.  She went to the first day of school barely a month after her ninth birthday and had a seizure.  After a year of treatments and surgeries, even thinking for a while that the doctors “got it,” she died at 10.  I am not privy to everything that went on during that time.  But I did notice some things in them that seem to run counter to many of the things I have heard and read about experiences like this.

            First, Keith’s parents did not divorce.  Undoubtedly there were hard times.  I have seen that just in our marriage and the things we have dealt with.  Everyone grieves over losses in a different way and when I decide that my way is the only right way, there will be problems.  When I decide that my grief is worse than his, there will be problems.  When, “You just don’t understand,” becomes a wall instead of a bridge, you just might have reached the end.  However they managed it, the thought of divorce for these two never entered the picture.  This was a couple who understood lifelong commitment as they had vowed before God, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part,” and they were determined to make it through no matter how difficult it became.   

           I wish I could give you specifics, the things they did that helped and the things they did that did not, but that was long before I knew them.  This I know:  They had a strong marriage, and however they managed it, they did it “together.”  The communication seems never to have stopped, even though I am sure it was occasionally painful.  They had each other and they made sure that the hurt drew them together instead of driving them apart.  They were married just a few months months short of 60 years when my father-in-law passed away first. 

            Second, this couple did not lose their faith.  Their commitment to God came even before their commitment to each other.  They did not expect a life of ease and they never had one.  They endured poverty, estrangement from family because of their faith, and many serious illnesses, some near death, besides this horrible illness of their child.  But they believed in the resurrection.  They knew they would see their child again, and that was a primary source of faith and encouragement.  Keith remembers hearing, “This is what we believe” more than once during that period.  And now they are enjoying the results of that faith, together with that lost daughter, and they will never lose her again.
 
           And then there was this:  they did not let this tragedy define them as a couple or a family.  Of course they remembered their little girl and spoke of her often.  I heard many “Remember whens” and other references.  Her name often came up in casual conversations.  They were more than willing to help those who had similar situations and better able than most to offer the needed sympathy, but it never became an entitlement issue.  They did not think they ranked above any other family because of the things they had suffered.  In their minds, we all suffer, just differently.  And they felt their own brand of suffering made them responsible to be examples and sympathizers with others, not worthy of praise and admiration—not “special.”  Pain and death come from Satan and they would never have given him any credit in any way imaginable.  In fact, if anyone had tried to compliment them for how well they had come through the grist mill of life, it just might have made them angry. 

           Of course this experience changes you.  Life changes you, but something like this makes that change happen rapidly.  Keith told me they were different than before, but “different” isn’t always bad.  I could still see all these good things I have shared with you when I came on the scene over ten years later.  Isn’t it funny how it all turns out?  I was the same age as Keith’s baby sister, born the same year, and my birthday was the date of her death.  Nowadays people would have expected traumatic results, and analyzed it to pieces.  But they never even mentioned the coincidences.  If Keith hadn’t told me, I would never have known what they had been through, and the rest of their life story came out slowly over the years, most often from listening to Keith reminisce, not them. 

           Even through all their trials they stayed faithful to God and each other.  In fact, Keith’s father was converted several years into their marriage, when they had already faced some challenges.  None of this “health and wealth” sissy gospel for him.  But then, this was a man who jumped out of an LST and waded through the water to the beaches of Normandy, walking all the way to Berlin.

           I hope that you never experience the horrible tragedy of losing a child, but you will suffer something.  That is the nature of life.  When you do, here is a godly couple whose example might help you through it.  Did they do everything right?  No, and they would never have claimed to.  But they did do this:  They never gave up on their relationship, and they never gave up on God.  That is how they made it through.
 
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? Eccl 4:9-11

Dene Ward

I had a bad spell earlier this spring, a time when I had more pain and could see even less than my new “normal.”  So I sat by the window and watched the birds.

            The sparrows, which usually prefer to fend for themselves in the summer, still flitted and darted by, or sat right down in the trough full of birdseed, being too short to reach from the sides of the feeder.  One little fellow was having a terrible time keeping his balance, though.  More often than not, he fell over in the seed, fluttering and scattering grain up and around, “stoning” his companions with their meal.

            The second time I saw him, he was on the wooden ledge of the feeder, right next to the window on what should have been flat, even footing.  Still, he could barely stand up straight, and often rested on his stomach, heaving great sighs of exertion that puffed up his little breast like a pair of overwrought bellows.  The next time he stood I leaned as closely as I could to the glass and finally saw his problem.  He only had one leg. 

            This little fellow was severely handicapped, despite his wings.  He couldn’t hop just an inch or two without teetering dangerously.  He couldn’t get from one side of the feeder across the trough to the other without flapping his wings and causing consternation among his closest dining companions.  Perhaps the worst problem, he could not fly up to the suet cage and hold on with just one foot.  He kept falling off.  So he tried to hover a couple of times, flapping his wings as hard and fast as he could but was unable to get high enough to reach it. 

            I understood why he didn’t just nestle in the seed and eat to his heart’s content.  The bigger birds often flew low across him, trying to scare him away, and his fellow sparrows would jump at and peck him.  In the animal kingdom compassion is nonexistent.  So this little guy had to fend for himself and do the best he could.  I looked for him every day, wondering how long he would last before a bigger, stronger bird decided it wanted what he had and didn’t care what it took to get it.

            All of us have been one-legged sparrows at times.  We have problems.  We experience trials, pain, and suffering, both physical and emotional.  Just like that little sparrow, we often try to fend for ourselves, refusing to admit when we need help.  I don’t want to let someone close enough to find out what’s going on in my life.  It would make me look bad.  I might have to admit I am not perfect. 

            It’s humiliating to admit my marriage is in trouble.  It’s embarrassing to admit I have a weakness that is about to cost me my soul.  I am ashamed to tell people that I have a problem with my attitude, to communicate my feelings in an intimate manner.  You know what?  Most of the time they know it already, but we cannot get the help we need if we won’t let people in.  Refusing to admit weakness may be the biggest sign of weakness there is--it takes strength to admit we need help.

            I have a theory about all this.  If I cannot ask my brothers and sisters for help, I probably don’t have a real relationship with God either.  The same humility that allows us to go to others also allows us to admit our sin and ask God for grace and forgiveness. 

            A sense of independence may be the worst thing for your spiritual life because Christians must realize they cannot do it alone—whatever “it” is.  God expects them to trust and rely on him.  He has given us a spiritual family designed to help each other.  Christians understand that hopping around like a one-legged sparrow doing his best to survive on his own will ultimately lead to destruction.
           
Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory, Matt 12:18-20.
 
Dene Ward

If you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, please don’t leave!  I have converted not only several children, but several Northerners to this Southern delicacy.  It’s all about taking the problems and turning them to your advantage--and being patient.

            The problem with okra, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the slime.  One reason it was used in gumbos was its thickening power, which is a nicer way of referring to that viscous property.  My family just calls it what it is.  It doesn’t bother them because they know what I can do with that--stuff.

            Follow these directions closely.  Use a colander, not a bowl, when you slice it.  You will still get the goo on your knife and a little on your hands—my method won’t fix that—but it will disappear when you cook it.

            Slice it about a half inch thick, discarding the stem end and the tails.  If it has been in the fridge a few days, it might need a little coaxing to release some of its “juices.”  If so, put that colander in the sink and scatter a few drops of water here and there from a wet hand.  Don’t deluge it.  If it’s already good and gooey, don’t bother.  Sprinkle it with salt, then with flour, not corn meal.  (My mother taught me that and we are both GRITS—Girls Raised In The South.)  Stir it to coat.  Now walk away.  In five minutes come back.  If it’s dry, do the water trick again, just a sprinkle.  Add more salt and more flour and stir it again.  Walk away again.  You may need to do this several times, allowing the excess flour to fall through the holes in the colander into the sink where you can wash it away—loose flour will burn in the bottom of a skillet. 

            After about fifteen minutes and maybe as many as five applications of flour and salt, the flour will have adhered to the “slime” and, magically, the okra will have made its own batter.  It will stick together in clumps like caramel corn, which is exactly what you want.

            Heat a half inch of vegetable oil in a skillet—no higher than medium high.  Put in one piece of okra and wait till it starts bubbling and sizzling.  Slowly add only as much okra as there is room in the pan.  Since it tends to stick together, you will need to mash it out to spread it around.  Now walk away and leave it again.  No fiddling with it, no turning it, no stirring it. 

            In about ten minutes you will begin to see browning around the edges.  When that happens you can start turning it.  The second side will brown faster, as will the entire second batch.  Watch your oil; you may need to turn it down if the browning begins to happen too quickly.  Drain it on paper towels. 

            You will now have the crunchiest okra you ever ate.  No slime, no weird flavor, nothing but crunch.  You cannot eat this with a fork—it rolls off, or if you try to stab it, it shatters.  This is Southern finger food, a delicacy we eat at least twice every summer before we start pickling it or giving it away.  Too much fried food is not healthy they tell us, but everyone needs a lube job once in awhile.

            The trick to that okra is patiently using the problem itself to overcome it—given enough time, that slime makes a batter that is better than anything you could whip up on your own with half a dozen ingredients.

            Patience is a virtue for Christians too, not just cooks.  How do you make it through suffering?  You patiently endure it (2 Cor 1:6), and you remember its purpose and use it for that purpose.  Patiently enduring suffering will make you a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17,18).  It will make you worthy of the kingdom (2 Thes 1:4,5).  If we suffer with him, we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  Only those who share in his suffering will share in his comfort (2 Cor 1:7). 

            But none if this works if you don’t patiently endure the suffering.  If you give up, you lose.  If you turn against God, he will turn against you.  If you refuse the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, he will refuse you.  We must use that suffering to make ourselves stronger and worthy to be his disciple. Just like I am happy to have a particularly “slimy” bowl of okra to worth with, knowing it will produce the crunch I want, the early Christians “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  They knew it would make them better disciples of their Lord.  We can understand these things when it comes to something as mundane as fried okra.  Why can’t we recognize it in far more important matters?  We even have a trite axiom about this—when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When life gives you trials, make yourself a stronger person.

            After suffering, Peter promises that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us (1 Pet 5:10).  He is talking to those who endure, who use the suffering to their advantage and become better people.  Remind yourself of the promises God gives to those who suffer.  Remind yourself of the rewards.  Remind yourself every day that it’s worth it.  The New Testament writers did, so it is no shame if you do it too.
 
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:16-18.
 
Dene Ward

A couple of times when I was young my family, together with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, shared the rent on a house in Daytona Beach for a week.  It was an ordinary cement block house, probably built in the 50s, two bedrooms, one bath, a living room and kitchen.  What made it worth renting was its location—right on the beach.  Every morning we four girls were out building sand castles and playing tag with the waves, floating on the undulating water just past the sandbar or diving below to play shark attack on one another.  We all smelled of suntan lotion and seaweed, coconuts and salt, and only came in for lunch and an afternoon of card games and board games during the worst of the heat, and were back out again in the evening when the sea breeze cooled enough to give us a shiver after once again dunking ourselves in the brine.

            Our parents got the two bedrooms, but we girls didn’t mind sharing the floor in the small living room, the gray, white-streaked linoleum tiles covered with quilts, the floor beneath crunching with a little grit despite all the sweeping our mothers did every day.  You live on the beach, you WILL have sand.  At 8 I was the oldest and usually the last one asleep.  No air conditioning in those days meant the windows stayed open wide and I loved listening to the roar of the ocean.  Over and over and over, the steady pounding of the surf gave me a feeling of security.  I did not have to guess if the next wave would roll in; all I had to do was wait for it, and eventually it lulled me to sleep.

            Fast forward to a time thirty years later.  We were camping on Anastasia Island, a beach 60 miles further north.  The state campground was still small back then, only one section just a few feet off the dirt trail to the beach, acres of palmetto groves separating it from the bridge to the city streets of old St Augustine.  The boys had their own tent, and as we lay in ours once again I listened to the surf crashing onshore, just as it had all those years before.  Over and over, as steady as a ticking clock, as a piano teacher’s metronome, as a heartbeat on a hospital monitor.  All those years and it had not stopped.

            And then another twenty years passed and we two spent a weekend on Jekyll Island.  This time we were too far from the beach to hear it in the night, but after a wonderful meal at the Driftwood Bistro we stopped on the beach for a walk and there it was.  The wind whipped around our legs and plastered my hair across my face, gulls screamed over us in the waning light, and the waves were still coming in, again and again and again, just as they have since the dawn of time.  They never stop.  Some days they may be rougher than others.  Some days the sea may look almost calm.  But check the water’s edge and that lacy froth still creeps onshore in its never-ending cycle.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: ​“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Jer 31:35-36

            Jeremiah tells the people that God will restore his nation and establish a new covenant in the verses just preceding those, a covenant in which their sins will be “remembered no more.”  He uses the stability of the natural phenomena that He created as a guarantee of His promise.  Only if the sun stops rising, if the moon stops shining, if the waves stop rolling in, can you discount my promises, He says.  That guarantee counts for all of God’s promises.  He never changes, we are told.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so yes, He will keep the promises He has made to us of redemption, of protection, of spiritual blessings and a final reward.

            Are you a little blue today?  Has your life been upended in a way you never expected, in a way you can hardly bear?  The sea God made is still roaring.  Those waves are still rolling in just as they have for generation after generation after generation.  The white caps you see are the same your parents saw and your grandparents and your great-grandparents on back to your earliest ancestors.  And God is still faithful to His people.  Close your eyes, listen to that perpetual roar, and breathe a little easier tonight.
 
I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name. ​And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” Isa 51:15-16
 
Dene Ward

Since late last year it has begun to look like things are on a downward trend.  Before long there may very well be more surgeries, even riskier than before.  I usually cope fairly well, but one morning the blues hit particularly hard.  I was out with Chloe and came upon the morning glories.  We saw more blooms that day than any before, at least five shades of blue and purple, and a lilac-throated white as well.

            Why I did it, I don’t know, but I began assigning names to each blossom, names of people who have been special blessings to me during this journey toward blindness.  At first I thought I would run out of names before I ran out of blooms.  Higher and higher my eyes roamed, spotting another and another, and yet another bloom ten feet above the ground.  When I ran out of blooms I still had a dozen names left over.

            Suddenly my steps became springier and my mood brightened.  Look how many people have been there for me, driving me all over, picking up medications for me, sending cards, calling, bringing meals, giving me an encouraging word, and often a hug, even helping me with some of the earlier expenses that the insurance company wouldn’t touch, and always praying. 

            “My grace is sufficient,” Jesus told Paul when he had prayed for the thorn to be removed.  “It doesn’t need to be removed; you just have to trust that I will help you through it.”  He has certainly given me ample help.   

            Too many times, instead of looking up to count the blooms, I am looking down to count the weeds.  Do you know what?  There were far more blooms than weeds that morning, and it is so in my life as well.  In fact, some of those blooms once were weeds, but through the grace of the Lord working in our lives, the two of us managed to make a new relationship that we both count as blooms now.  In some cases, the grace that made this happen were the very trials we prayed to have removed.

            So today, as you walk through your life’s garden, don’t look down and count the weeds.  Look up and count the blossoms that hang from the vine of Christ’s grace, the grace he promised would help you overcome, would make you stronger, and would cover any weaknesses you still might have after giving your all.  Put a name on every one of those blossoms.  I imagine you will have names left over too, names you forget about when your mind stays too long in the weeds, people who have made the hard times easier to bear, and who will hold you up when life beats too hard for you to stand on your own. 

            God is the reason those blooms are there, as He sheds yet more grace into your life, promising that nothing will happen that is too hard for you to bear, and that you will never have to bear it alone.        
 
Fear not for I am with you; be not dismayed for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,  Isa 41:10.
 
Dene Ward