Rejoice in the Lord -- He Makes No Mistakes

I am helping with a project for my church. What I am doing is working on some areas of content for pages on a website being developed. One area that I have been given is to work on the text that tells about our "Patch the Pirate Club." It was as I was re-reading a familiar story that I found myself thinking about how God can use our difficulties in order to reach others. Two people come to my mind -- people who may not have had the far-reaching ministries they do. One is Joni Eareckson Tada; the other is Ron Hamilton.
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Joni Eareckson Tada (aka Joni)

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Due to a diving accident in 1967, Joni became a quadriplegic. Her life is a wonderful example of faith and perseverance through difficult times. Though she suffered a deep depression and lost the will to live in the aftermath of her accident, she gradually came back to a deeper relationship with God.
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After her faith in God was rekindled, Joni began sharing her experience publicly and soon became a popular devotional speaker. In addition to having a speaking ministry, she became a successful commercial artist, learning how to draw and paint using her mouth, and a best-selling author. She has become a popular speaker across the country. Joni also has founded a ministry “Joni and Friends” that reaches out to people who are disabled and suffering and to those who care for them. She can be heard daily on the Christian Radio across the country.
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I sometimes wonder if Joni would have been the person she is had it not been for her accident. Would she have had a ministry? Would she be having an impact on the lives of so many, whether or not they are disabled? I tend to think that she has the ministry she does today because of her disability. Who knows how her life would have turned out, spiritually, had this not happened. What a wonderful ministry she has.
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Ron Hamilton (aka Patch the Pirate)

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When Ron was 27 years old, a routine visit to the eye doctor, revealed something unusual in his left eye, which resulted in surgery. As he slowly regained consciousness several hours later, he was told the startling news. "The doctor found cancer. Your left eye is gone." The doctor gave him his first eye patch, and suddenly he was a pirate! Kids were fascinated by his eye patch. Everywhere he went children [you know how they can be] would call out to their embarrassed mothers, "Look, Mom! There goes a pirate!" The children in his church gave him a nickname that stuck-Patch the Pirate.
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God transformed his loss into a great blessing. The Lord has given him and his family an exciting ministry to families around the world through Patch the Pirate story and song CDs. The family also has a nationwide broadcast called The Adventures of Patch the Pirate. Many churches hold Patch the Pirate Club, a club that teaches not only good Bible lessons but also Christian character-building songs, geared to elementary-school children. Bible memorization as well as guided personal devotions are also a part of the program.
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I do believe that Ron Hamilton has had a larger impact on the world through this club than he would have had had he just stayed with composing and arranging music for adult choirs (and perhaps brass instrumentals), his areas of expertise. Ron was one who chose not to wallow in self-pity at losing his eye at age 27. Instead, he turned the experience into a world-wide ministry which brings glory to God.
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What an example these two leave for us!

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God never moves without purpose or plan,

When trying His servant and molding a man.

Give thanks to the Lord though the testing seems long.

In darkness He giveth a song.

Oh, rejoice in the Lord, He makes no mistakes.

He knoweth the end of each path that I take.

For when I am tried and purified,

I shall come forth as gold.

Now I can see testing comes from above;
God strengthens His children and purges in love.
My Father knows best and I trust in His care
Through purging more fruit shall I bear.

Oh, rejoice in the Lord, He makes no mistakes.
He knoweth the end of each path that I take.
For when I am tried and purified,
I shall come forth as gold

(from a song written by Ron Hamilton)

My Sunday School Class

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My Sunday School class of two grades has only boys in it -- five boys, if they all come. Two of the boys attend regularly; one attends about half of the time; the other two rarely attend (as their parents never come.)
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Sometimes, during the lesson, an interesting question will come up. I am not always sure how the question has come into the boy's mind; but it does. We had just finished talking about Judas's betrayal of Jesus and then his actions afterwards, including his going out and hanging himself. I told the boys how the Bible tells us that his guts splatted on the rocks. [Guys this age always like stuff like that.] Anyhow, here is the question one of the boys asked Sunday:
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Does God laugh?

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How would you answer that?

Why Is It. . . .?

Why is it that those who complain most about cafeteria food do nothing to remedy the problem?All that needs to be done is to take the time to pack a lunch from home. As I said to someone today, it takes me five minutes MAX to do my lunch. With some of these who complain, they do have more than one person to feed -- but it's only one or two more for most of them and in most instances, a lot could be taken care of the night before!

AND . . .

Why is it that those who complain most about the cost of cafeteria lunches -- and one of the reasons they work is family financial needs -- are ones who buy cafeteria food almost every day, if not every day, for themselves and for their child(ren)? Some of them are also ones who will go out to the local Italian food spot one day of the week to get something "uncafeteria-like." The answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question above.

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What do I do? Take my lunch most of the time. On rare occasions I will splurge and go to the store next door to the school and buy a 6" sub (reasonable price). On my sub I get meat, cheese, and the usual assortment of vegetables. Usually I have in my school bag an apple. I think that in our busy lives, we sometimes fail to manage our time as well as we should or we sometimes fail to plan ahead as we should. Sometimes we just don't think we have the ambition to do what we should do; yet, I think that if we managed our time better and planned better, most of us would find that we do have the ambition to do what we should be doing. Our saving ourselves physical and mental stress generates within us more energy -- more ambition. We also will find that we can save ourselves money.

How's Your Civics Knowledge?

For a number of years, I taught a course about American government and its basic economic system. I wanted to be sure that my students knew their basic rights, as citizens of the USA. I wanted them to know how their government worked, and how they could be involved. I wanted them to understand why our Constitution established an amazing form of government, one that had never been tried before. I wanted them to understand how what had happened in 16th-18th centuries Europe in relation to governance of the people had a big influence on why our Constitution was written as it was. I wanted them to understand the Judeo-Christian principles behind its writing and to realize that the Constitution would only work at its best when the American people had a respect for those principles – to understand that the problems that exist today in relation to the Constitution and its interpretation is because the nation has removed God from its public places.
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One thing I thought would be interesting to try with my high school students was a citizenship test that people take as part of the process of becoming a naturalized citizen. (To become a naturalized citizen, a person must be at least 18 years of age.) For myself, I found a copy to peruse to see if my students should be able to pass that test. I also thought it would be good for them to actually see what citizens-to-be need to know about our history, about our government, and even about current events. These questions were all short-answer questions – these people had to know their stuff!
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A question I did ask these juniors and seniors was this, “Would you be able to pass this test fairly easily or would you have to go back and review your knowledge of U.S. history and of U.S. government?” I think they would have done all right – better as a group than as individuals, unless they refreshed their memories with a few days of review.
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(www.history.com/content/citizen_quiz : quiz yourself (easier mode than what citizens-to-be have) OR take a look at the questions and format)
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Why do I talk about all of this today? I read this today, “Dumb and Dumber. What Are College Students Learning About Our Country?” If you were to read it, you would be alarmed at the thought that these are our country’s current voters and future leaders.

“On an individual level, less than 60% (sometimes far less) of college graduates can identify on a multiple-choice test the three branches of government; seminal passages from the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address; basic events from the Revolutionary, Civil, and Vietnam Wars; and the primary features of our free enterprise system. Several of these questions are actually required knowledge for new American citizens, signifying their relevance to what we as a nation demand for informed citizenship.”

The Intercollegiate Studies group also found that “many of our most elite schools, like Yale, Princeton, Duke, and . . . Georgetown, not only did those surveyed fail to get above a “D,” seniors at these top schools did worse than freshmen on the same test . . .!”
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The article goes on to discuss what kind of teaching does go on in most of the civics classrooms of most of our colleges today – actually, I would say that this has gone with a few generations before this. You read the information here, and you can understand why so many college-educated people are liberal. The writer of the article states: “What ISI’s research proves is that when people do attend college, their political attitudes and opinions begin to shift in an identifiably leftward direction, much more so if they had not decided to go to college in the first place.”
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Think about where our current president attended college. Think about his being a law professor by occupation. Think about his political ideology. Think about his view of America. Think about what is in our future, even after his tenure is over.
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(www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/02/10/dr-richard-brake-isi-civics-literacy-college-education/ )

Hair Is As a Flock of Goats

[Thanks, Sharon, for the inspiration.]

So, as my sister wondered -- what is with this phrase in Song of Solomon 4:1, "thy hair is as a flock of goats"? I have no idea, at the moment; but this is how I would start my search.

Amplied version: "your hair [makes me think of the black, wavy fleece] of a flock of [the Arabian] goats"

To me, this sounds like the kind of simile only a guy could think of -- comparing the beauty of a woman to an animal.

; - )