Something About The Joy

  The other night I was thinking about how unbelievable—incredible—ridiculously impossible the Christian message is.   It’s preposterous.   Am I imagining all this?   How could any rational person fall for the idea of a good God creating a good world, then creating human beings, and then giving them the freedom to choose whether or not to listen to Him when He tells them how they should live in that world?     Preposterous that a good God would give the persons He created the ability to destroy themselves and others and the good world around them. That he would allow them to be selfish, greedy and so dangerously careless as to refuse to choose to live by the owner’s manual He gave them?   And speaking of the Bible, that’s another ridiculous idea: that He would write a book, over a period of roughly 1500 years, using the minds and fingers of at least 40 of the very human creatures who messed things up in the first place—a book full of informat...

Looking for help as you step out into the scary new world? Here's a Grandma's advice:   Wow!   So many places! Directions to go! Which path should you follow? How do you know?   You could go south, or go north, east or west. How can you be sure which direction is best? South could be sending you too far away. North might lead someplace you don’t want to stay. East might go nowhere and west be too tough. How do you pick when you don’t know enough?   Your head's in a whirl! There are too many ways! Yet you have to decide how to plan for your days. It's too big a problem. You're not fit to choose. It's too big a decision. There’s too much to lose!   But, wait. Here's the answer: You don't need to know. There's Someone else planning which way you should go. Someone Who’s smarter—Who’s been there before. And His plans for your path will give you much more Than anything you could dream up on your own. You jus...

I was deeply moved by the response to the tribute I wrote about my mother on Facebook today on International Women’s Day.   Some of my friends said they’d like more of the story of my mother’s time in Shanghai after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, so I looked up some notes I had written about her for my cousin, who was compiling some family records a few years ago. I edited my notes, added some more details, and am posting here for anyone who would appreciate a little personal insight into this bit of history from 80 years ago.    Mary Smiley sailed from Seattle to China in August in 1940. She taught English to Chinese children in Shanghai for a little over a year with a small mission organization called The Faith Fellowship. In December, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and soon afterwards moved into China. The Japanese occupied Shanghai and ex-pat missionaries were cut off from their sponsors in the States.   For many months contact was lost.   Mar...