Rabbit

Once upon a time, we had a sweet, loving dog who thought that she should be mother to all small creatures. Puppies were not in her future, but she would hopefully bring us very wet, very well licked candidates. It might be a kitten from next door, or a baby squirrel, or a mouse – whatever she could find that she thought needed mothering. 

One day she brought us a very wet little bunny. Naturally, the girls wanted to keep it and turn it into yet another pet. Veto. I grew up in a city, and knew absolutely nothing about rabbits who were not named Flopsy and Mopsy and Peter, and for all I knew they might carry rabies!  My husband the hunter, whose main interest in rabbits was hasenpfeffer, was very little help. But he did have the idea that if we took the bunny back out to the woods a little way behind our house its mother would find it or it would find its way home. So that’s what we decided to do.

I didn’t go the whole way back to the woods; it certainly didn’t take all of us to let a bunny out of a box. I just watched from about half way, and off they went. They put the box on the ground, pointed it toward the trees, tipped it up and out ran the bunny. But to my horror the stupid and probably rabid rabbit turned around and ran straight back toward ME!

I shrieked; I turned around and flew toward the house (I was 50 years younger then and highly motivated) while the demented and surely diseased bunny came right for me, gaining with every bound! I was screaming “Help! Help!” but no one helped me! And when I looked over my shoulder, there was my husband doubled over and crying with laughter, joined by my obnoxious children who were holding their sides and rolling on the ground! But blessedly, just before it was close enough to bite me, the bunny swerved out and under a shrub and down a hole which was undoubtedly home sweet home! I guess he didn’t live in the woods after all.

Over the years I have made so many unwise decisions, all based on a lack of knowledge and understanding. But God is good, and I have surely found that the lessons learned through my human errors are the ones that have stuck. It’s troubling to realize how many times I have constructed my own problems through pride or ignorance, and then had to suffer the consequences. But God has always stepped in, and lovingly shown me the way He wanted for me, and assured me that I was not expected to straighten out the whole world, or solve all its problems, that I have enough to keep me busy with my own. Often the consequences of error are more serious than being laughed at over a frightened bunny, and I know that my life is much more satisfying when I trust God for directions before I act. (I guess that’s why Proverbs 3:5-8 mean so much to me):

                  Trust in the Lord with all your heart;

                     Do not depend on your own understanding.

                  Seek his will in all you do,

                     And he will show you which path to take.

                  Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.

                     Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

                  Then you will have healing for your body

                     and strength for your bones.

--Norma Stockton

Memories of War

One day in August 72 years ago, the radio gave all of America wonderful, wonderful news! The war was finally, blessedly OVER! It had gone on for four long years, but now it was ended, and the soldiers and sailors and marines would come HOME! I was fourteen that year and, as usual, was spending the summer on Long Beach Island. Suddenly an impromptu parade started in our town of Ship Bottom, marching south to Beach Haven on the only paved road on the island, and my brother and I ran to join the cars and people and flags and cheering and singing, the celebration of a day we were really still too young to understand completely.

All we really knew were the things that had affected our young lives directly. Our house was on the beach, so the windows on the ocean side were painted black, blocking our lights, so that German submarines could not determine the shoreline. There had been no more night time beach parties with fires, for the same reason. In fact, no civilians were allowed on the beaches at night at all, because there were Coast Guard stations all along the island, and at night armed Guards galloped their horses up and down the beach, accompanied by huge trained dogs, searching for any enemies who might try to swim in from submarines close to the shore.

When we came from the beach back to the house, there was always a bottle of Carbona on the step. We had to take the rag there and clean the crude oil off our feet before we came in the house. Everyone who swam in the ocean had this tar on their feet, because the edge of the water was always covered with it. It had come from tanker ships torpedoed and sunk somewhere off the coast, near or far away. I don’t remember ever thinking about the sailors and merchant marines who had been on those ships, or wondering what their fate had been. We were so innocent, and so protected.

Of course, the adults had coped with other realities. Everything was rationed, and there were books with coupons for everything: gasoline, meat, lumber, things that I never had to think about at all. And I never heard my parents complain about any of it. It was all for the war effort, and everyone was involved. Back in Philadelphia, as in all cities in the nation, there were air raid shelters and air raid drills, with Wardens patrolling their neighborhoods to be sure that all lights were extinguished. And absolutely none of it really affected my day-to-day life at all. Unlike Europe, we never had a real air raid.

I wonder how many, today, are at all affected by the wars we are now fighting against true evil. Behind our self-centered lives, there still are men fighting and willing to die to protect us. Back then there was a draft to turn men into soldiers, but today they are all volunteers…every one of them. Is it any wonder that I burn when someone claims to “hate the military?” How do they think we got here, to be the only true practicing democracy in the world? Who protected their God-given freedoms?

God sent his people out to war many times, and blessed and protected them many times, and is still miraculously protecting Israel today. On this 4th of July in 2017 I wonder how we have reached the place where so many of us here in this land have turned against the God who has so blessed us, and want no mention of God and certainly no mention of the only true Savior, Jesus Christ, in schools or government or anywhere else?

Pray for our country, people of God, and especially for those hearts and minds which are being led astray. Pray for the children who know nothing about God or patriotism. Pray for the Godless, that their hearts would be turned. Pray for our missionaries everywhere, who are introducing Christ to a lost generation.

PRAY.

--Norma Stockton

Mothers and Daughters

All things considered, I think I was a pretty decent mother. It was easy; I just did what my mother had done. My two stepsons were helpful and delightful. All four of my babies were potty-trained the summer they were closest to two; I never had to spank anyone after about age three – a look would do it. I’ve written before about how blessed I always felt that I had a mother to follow, that I didn’t have to hack my way ignorantly through a jungle of parenting, because she and my grandmother had left me a clear path to follow.

I even navigated the teen years, and off they all went to college thousands of miles away from home, full of confidence and joy at being FREE. Of course, in the process, they became convinced that they now knew everything and that I, poor Mom, suddenly knew nothing. But in spite of my puzzling new ignorance they actually graduated in a timely manner and found jobs and husbands and wives and gave me 22 grandchildren. Not so shabby, I decided.

So much for wonderful me. What I really want to tell you about is a woman who loved and raised her children probably much like I did, but who also took on the role of mothering her own mother. Her name is Eileen Hill.

I don’t really know Eileen as well as I wish I did, but I learned so much about her through a book she wrote. It is titled, “WHO’S IN MAMA’S CHAIR?”

She had to face a situation which most of us, through the grace of God, will never have to face. Her much-loved mother became a victim of the dreadful disease of Alzheimer’s. And when the time came when her mother could no longer safely live alone in her own home, Eileen and her husband took her into theirs. It isn’t just that; it’s the way that they did it.

While her Mama was in the hospital, recovering from an illness, Eileen and her family stripped her mom’s home of all of her favorite things, including her favorite chair and her books and her stuffed bear collection and so many other things, and set it all up in the room which would be her new home. When her mom was discharged and came home to her new home, the sight and feel and smell of her treasures made the transition wonderfully smooth. And what a thoughtful and loving way Eileen chose to accomplished It.

Anyone who has cared for one who suffers from this awful disease knows about the personality changes which the victim undergoes. And so the title of Eileen’s book. When Eileen went to her mother’s room each morning, her Mama was often already dressed and sitting in her chair, and Eileen soon found that she could tell which personality was going to be there today. And she learned, through love and with God’s help, to be the exact daughter that her Mama needed that day. It wasn’t easy. And the charming thing about this sensitive and honest book is how Eileen continued to love and honor her Mama throughout the rest of her life.

I didn’t read this book because I faced or feared a similar situation. My mother was blessed to live to 102, in her own home and in full possession of her mind, which was a tremendous gift from God. I read it because I wanted to know Eileen, and I learned so many things about her through reading her honest portrayal of what it meant to be the loving caretaker of her Mama. I recommend this book. Eileen is surely a woman worth knowing.

Chocolate Smears and Noisy Sheep

This was my great-grandson, Cameron (age 4) and his very sharp Dad:

            Dad:   Cameron, did you take that piece of chocolate on the table?

            Cam:  Oh, NO, Daddy!

            Dad:   Are you sure? I think you have smears of chocolate around your    

                        mouth.

            Cam:  No, it wasn’t me. It was Bunny (little brother).

            Dad:   Really. (Pause.) Well I guess we should take Bunny to the

                        hospital right now, because he’ll be really sick. There was cat poop

                        on that chocolate!

            Cam:  (pause) (pause) Daddy! Daddy! Take me to the hospital QUICK,

                        because I just ate cat poop!!

When you’re four, you’re not yet very good at this lying business. It seems like a great idea, and a neat way to stay out of trouble! And sometimes it even works!! Unfortunately, as we age, we find we are able to get better and better at it, and more able to justify it to ourselves. All the little so-called white lies; all the lies of omission, where we leave out some of the truth. And even more common, the dishonesty of disobedience.

One of my favorite stories is in 1st Samuel 15. Samuel was a prophet, who had been dedicated to God in infancy, and as an adult ministered to King Saul, the first king of the Jews. God, through Samuel, sent word to Saul that He wanted to settle the score with the Amalekites, who had mistreated Moses and his people during their journey. So God commanded Saul to take his army and utterly destroy every one of the Amalekites, including all the livestock. But Saul and his men liked the looks of the fat cattle and sheep and goats, and so only destroyed the weak and sick ones, and brought the rest home with them as plunder. This greatly grieved God and He told Samuel that He was sorry that He had ever made Saul king. Samuel went to find Saul.

 When Samuel finally found him, Saul greeted him cheerfully. “May the Lord bless

you”, he said. “I have carried out the Lord’s command.” But Samuel nailed him.

“Then what is all the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle I hear?” Samuel demanded.

Samuel faced Saul with his disobedience to God’s command. And he said this:

“What is more pleasing to the Lord:

     your burnt offerings and sacrifices

     or your obedience to His voice?

Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice,

     and submission is better than offering

             the fat of rams.

Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft,

     and stubbornness as bad as

              worshipping idols!”   

I would hate to have to count the times I have almost been totally obedient to what I knew God wanted me to do. Or the times I have been stubborn.  Or the times I have refused to submit.

Dishonesty has many facets. We may not lie about the chocolate on our face, which anyone can see.  But how about the disobedience and the rebellion that is hidden in our hearts, that no one can see? No one, that is, except God.

What's Next?

Not to be maudlin, but at the edge of eighty-five it seems that I find myself considering the aspect of death more often than I did at, say, forty. There are jokes: “I want to die in my sleep like my father, not yelling and screaming like the other people in the car!” There is a country song with lyrics which state that “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now!”  And that one is me, I guess.

It’s not that I’m afraid of dying; what is there to fear, with all the fantastic promises that our Jesus gives us! It’s just that I love, love, love my family and my friends, and, difficult as life can sometimes be, I’m used to it! I like being alive!

A few weeks ago I spent a week in the hospital. I wasn’t really sick sick; I had a touch of pneumonia, but the real thing was that somewhere in my lungs something started to bleed just a tiny bit, and they deemed it advisable to find out where and why. Consensus was that somewhere down there tissue that I had damaged by smoking for 20 years 40 years ago had sprung a leak.

Even with all the tests they never did find out exactly where this was happening,  not that it matters very much. But you can see that this episode might have prompted me to wonder just how I might die, when I do. Maybe sort of like drowning? Peaceful.

But if I could choose, I’d pick my Mom. I remembered my mother, the night she died. She was 102, in her own home, lying on her own bed, and as her breaths came more and more slowly she had this sweet smile on her face, and she was saying, “Oh my! ….. Oh my! …… Oh my! …”  How I would love to know what glorious things she was seeing in those her last moments of life on this earth.

I know that I will be ushered into the presence of the Jesus I love, that He has a home for me there, and that I will be with Him forever! I will have the mind of Christ! What does that mean?! I will again see my Nana and everyone who went ahead of me, even the Old Testament prophets and everyone I’ve read about in the Word! And there will be no evil, not anywhere! I can’t even imagine it, not with this mind! And Time; how will it be different? God created time for us here on earth! And our new bodies! No canes, no oxygen tanks to lug around! And how about His thousand year reign on earth? And the Rapture! So many questions, finally answered! I can’t wait!

Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute! Yes I can wait! I can wait in peace, because I trust so absolutely in the truth that GOD IS IN CHARGE!! Yes, He is! And we are so very, very blessed to have this God who sent His only Son to die to save us!

PRAISE GOD!

Tattoos

Tattoos. What’s your take on them?  Do you like them? Do you have one? Do you like the multi-colored ones, or just black?  Flowers? Hearts? Flags? Or don’t you like them at all?

I have to confess; I have two of them. They were done fourteen years ago, when I was 71. But they are really, really small.

They are just two tiny dots to show the radiologists where to aim, because I had breast cancer. I suppose that I should have been more involved with my diagnosis and treatment, but I wasn’t. I was too busy. I did what they said and showed up when I was supposed to, but I just wasn’t really with it. I didn’t have the time or the energy. Because my husband was in and out of the hospital with esophageal cancer, and he really needed me to be there to help make important treatment decisions.  And I was exhausted.

We lived in Manahawkin, and my radiation was being done in the hospital there; he was in Jefferson in Philadelphia, 60 miles away. So I would get up in the morning, do what I absolutely had to do at home, run in to Radiology, and then drive to Jefferson to spend time with him; then drive home in the dark and wake up the next day and do it all over again, 5 days a week. On weekends, blessedly, there was no radiation, and I could spend all day at Jefferson. At the end, though, he came home in Hospice, and the day he died was the next to last day of my radiation. I kept my appointments.

This little short story is just a snapshot of the many times when we face situations we cannot change and don’t see how we can handle. How can we do it? Where can we turn?  I wasn’t   especially strong or especially anything. But I had the greatest thing in the world going for me. I had Jesus.

I know that ‘I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me’, but that didn’t change needing to be in two places at once. But Paul also said, In Acts 22:33:  Pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And It’s true. God CAN and DOES step into these situations and make all things possible. You can be frightened, you can be grieving, you can be angry, you can be totally overwhelmed. I’ve been in all of those miserable places and more, but when I prayed, and especially when I remembered all the times that God had already brought me through, I could feel God’s peace running beneath all the pain and confusion, strong and steady. His doctors became available when I could be there. I could do it.

God is so good. I am stubborn. But after enough times when I first tried to battle it out on my own, I finally got smart and gave up on THAT scene, and started to remember to trust God FIRST. And then it became almost automatic, and that was God ‘guarding my heart and mind’. Without this process, it is so easy for us to slip into resentment and bitterness, which is certainly not what God desires for us. His peace really is beyond our understanding, not only because he is eager to offer it to us, but also in its depth and power. And it is ours for the asking.

What a wonderful God we have!

Choosing

Not too many years ago I saw in a Philadelphia paper an article about the ongoing effort to capture a swan which was swimming in the Wissahickon, not far from where I grew up. For quite a while it had eluded all efforts of the Park officials to net it. The reason they wanted so badly to reach it was that someone had shot an arrow at this bird, and the arrow was still protruding from both sides of its breast.

My brother and I knew every tree and every rock in our area of those woods and our part of the huge Fairmont Park; our bikes took us everywhere. We just knew which big streets we weren’t allowed to cross, and my brother was older, so he had a watch. Younger folks do get very weary of hearing about “the good old days,” but I’m almost 85, and I know. They were better.

It was perfectly safe to turn us loose in the great outdoors and tell us to be home by supper. We rode the Chestnut Hill Local into the city for art classes at 9 and 10 without adults. We wandered the woods behind our house; we made clover chains and festooned my bike. We all put on impromptu plays on the tennis courts; we were free. And we were safe.

And we knew right from wrong. We knew all the kids in our neighborhood, even the “bad” ones we weren’t allowed to play with, and I can tell you this with certainty: not even the very worst of the very bad boys, who stole candy from the drug store, would ever have shot an arrow through the breast of a swan.

In today’s relativity there is no absolute right and wrong. Men can put on a dress and join little girls in the ladies’ room. Women can marry women, and men, men. And most awful of all, we kill babies, millions of babies, because we want to have unfettered sex without consequences. And those of us who want to shrink back in horror are the hated ones, the bigoted ones, the evil ones. We are despised because we stand in the way of “progress.”

So what in the world can we do?

We can pray.

The thing is, God told us all this was going to happen. It will get worse and worse. And the worse it gets, the more clearly the world is forced to see the evil, and each person will have to choose a side. This has to be part of God’s plan of redemption. Christ died so that we could make a choice! Certainly He wants no one to make the choice that will separate him or her from God for all eternity, and his grace and forgiveness is open to all who come to him.

But everyone chooses, and only God knows when it will be time for Him to say,

“ENOUGH!”

-Norma Stockton

Faithful

This is all about the years when my husband hated me.

My mother and dad were not drinkers. Oh, they would occasionally have one when they had someone over to play cards, but that was it. When I grew up and tried it out I hated the taste, so that did it for me with hard liquor. When we got married we might have a drink when we went out (fruit-juicy for me) but never bothered at home. Champagne was tolerable.

But after my father-in-law died, things started being not so good with us. Rich really mourned his dad, and it seemed to get worse; nothing I did was right, and I heard about all my faults regularly, and it got pretty awful. And it went on and on. He was under a lot of pressure at work, and I really thought he was losing his mind.

One of our friends saw something I clearly was not able to see, and told me about Robert Johnson. We lived near Minneapolis then, and Johnson was an Episcopal priest who had literally fallen out of his pulpit drunk in his church in Edina, Minnesota! Anyway, after he had gone through rehab and everything he started a project. Across Lake Minnetonka from us was the town of Mound, and they had in Minnesota the highest divorce rate and the highest alcoholism rate in the state, and he was studying it; my friend suggested I go to him for counseling. So eventually, I did.

He was very kind, and asked questions, and listened to me for an hour and more. And then he asked me how much my husband drank. I was so surprised. I told him that we hardly drank at all, and in my mind I was terribly disappointed. I was thinking, they’re studying alcoholics so everybody has to be an alcoholic!

 But he persevered. He discovered that in our wing of the house (no children allowed!) we had a study, and Rich spent most of his time in there at his desk. And that when I joined him in the evening he usually now was so unpleasant that I soon left. And he assured me that Rich was drinking, and likely had a bottle hidden there somewhere; that I was to find it, mark the level of liquid in it, and the next night look at it again, and then call him and tell him how much was missing.

So home I went, very disappointed and feeling very disloyal about my assignment. And the next day, expecting no luck, I searched for a bottle. You know what happened. There, in a file cabinet, I found it. Blown away would be an understatement!  And even worse, the next day it was obviously a new bottle, because the level was about an eighth of an inch higher than the day before! He was drinking a fifth a day!

New assignment. Johnson explained to me an approach with which he was being pretty successful: intervention. It terrified me. In complete secrecy I was to enlist several men from different areas of my husband’s life, and explain the situation to them and have them all appear at my house together and wake my husband and tell him they were here, and why.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I was so glad that it was something that could be FIXED, so I did it.

My brother flew in from Philadelphia. The company psychologist came in from town … his best friend and tennis partner … a doc who was his fishing buddy … a couple more. And he was furious. He said all the things you’d expect; no he wasn’t, this was ridiculous, what in God’s name was I thinking, etc. etc. But finally my brother said the best thing; he said, “Rich, you may not be an alcoholic, but I have too much respect for your intelligence to believe that you won’t try to find out.”

And that did it. The next morning he went in to work to tell them what he was doing, and took himself north to Hazelton, a famous rehab facility, and stayed a month, and never took another drink.  And started to hate me for involving his office.

But this is the worst thing. Alcohol really damages your brain. It changes things in you. And for at least two whole years you are just as nasty, just as mean as you were when you were drinking. It takes that long for your brain to heal. Many, many partners of non-drinking alcoholics find that period of time just too hard. They are already wearied by everything that went before, and they thought things would be better. They leave. And who can blame them.

But guys, this is the REAL wonder! All this happened before we found the real Jesus. And yet it is so obvious that God choreographed the whole thing!!! He led me to just the right Christian counselor; He gave me courage when I had none; He kept me from leaving; He gave me understanding; He was my loving Father when I desperately needed one.

God gave us a happy ending. We had both grown up pretty much the same, he in the Methodist church in Fort Worth and me in the Baptist church in Philadelphia, where we both considered ourselves Christians but really weren’t. And after we found Jesus, God used Rich greatly. AA was very meaningful to him, and he wanted to find a Christian AA, so to speak. So we went to Rick Warren’s church in California and brought Celebrate Recovery back to our church in Manahawkin, and he used his own story to minister to so many men there. When he died, man after man spoke at his memorial service about what Rich had meant to him.

And of course he had long since told me that I had saved his life.

This is a long story, and it covered a long time in my life. But God was so faithful. And I learned to see and depend upon God’s never-failing love and guidance, assured that He had the answers when I had none. We sometimes failed Him, but He never failed us, never. I surely pray that a time like this is never yours, but there are many, many circumstances that I never knew, and our God, our Creator, who designed our minds and knows our lives, is more than big enough for all of them. It is so true that we learn and grow in the valleys, and the most important things we learn are about God. He is with us. He is FOR us. He is able. He loves us beyond our understanding. And when He delivers us through our valleys, He enables us to love others with HIS love, and comfort them with HIS comfort, which is what Celebrate Recovery is all about. Remember that. Remember that you are never alone.

God’s faithful love never, never fails. Never.

Norma Stockton

An Odyssey

I will tell you a sad story from many years ago.

I was thirty-one, and I was putting my seven-year-old daughter to bed one night. It was Christmas time, with carols galore everywhere, and after she said her (ritual) prayers, she wanted to ask me something. She said, “Mommy, is Jesus really God?”

This was during the period in my life when I THOUGHT I was a Christian because I had grown up in the church and I wasn’t Jewish so I must be a Christian, right? I hated child evangelism because I thought it was manipulating the emotions of children too young to make such decisions. Oh, I was very sure of myself. And so I said to my precious daughter, “Andi, that’s something you will have to decide when you get older.” She was so troubled, and she said, “But I want you to tell me!” And I said, again, “No, sweetheart. You will decide that when you are older.”

I remember feeling very shaky as I left her room, but I did not doubt that I had done the right thing. And so life went on. Some years later God brought me to the truth, and I REALLY became a Christian, and so did my children ---- all except Andi. It was like she had slipped through the cracks. And I suffered. I could clearly remember every detail of that night when she begged me to tell her who Jesus was, and I refused to give her the answer. She became like I had been; she and her husband went to church because that’s what nice people in Texas do on Sunday, but her life was her own. And I prayed and prayed through many tears.

Then, some more years later, she had an accident at work and had one finger removed, and came home to New Jersey in a cast to heal. And one Sunday night she was having dinner at her brother’s house instead of going to church like I wanted, and the reason that they didn’t show up was that her brother was leading her to the Lord! Praise God! Then she wanted to be baptized right away and so she was, in the ocean, with one arm in a cast held up above the waves!

BUT GOD…such wonderful, wonderful words!  In the midst of my grief and fear, He reached down and touched the heart of my precious daughter and repaired the damage of my arrogant decision. He also taught me a few things about needing to be right and the folly of ‘leaning on my own understanding.’

Do you, perhaps, have someone you love who resists every effort to tell him or her about your wonderful savior? Have you prayed and prayed, seemingly with no result? Have you wondered if God even hears you?

He hears, and He cares. It is so hard to try to understand God’s timing. My dear grandmother was a devoted Christian, and I know she must have known I wasn’t, and I know she prayed for me, but she died before I really learned to love the Lord. Still, when we pray for the salvation of one we love, we can be sure that we are praying in God’s will, and that He wants the same thing!

So be encouraged. Pray and pray and pray. Know that God’s timing is perfect. Know that God loves you and that loved one beyond your understanding. Remember all the seemingly impossible stories where great sinners turned to the Lord. Remember stories like mine, where I also had to repent of my arrogance and pride and allow God to change me.

This is the God we love and worship. This is the God we serve. And this is the God who loves us, and comforts every grieving heart. Trust Him.

Looking Through the Wrong Lens

Twenty years before the Babylonians captured Judah and led them into captivity, Habakkuk was a prophet in Judah who was very troubled by the sin all around him. The powerful and wealthy oppressed the poor and powerless, and Habakkuk did not understand why God allowed the wicked to prosper.

When God showed him in a vision how He was going to use the cruel and exceedingly wicked Babylonians to correct unrighteous Judah, he was even more troubled, and could not understand. He saw good people suffering at the hands of the powerful, and questioned why God would allow these things to happen.

We often wonder about the same things ourselves. We see bad things happening to good people, and we wonder if God really cares. But God tells us that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and our ways are not His ways. His very magnitude is almost impossible to grasp, and the fact that He is intimately involved in the life of every person on earth is incomprehensible to our limited minds. We cannot know or understand the panorama of God’s plan.

Writer Poh Fang Chia laid it out most clearly:

                  “In moments when we don’t understand God’s ways, we need to

                  trust His unchanging character. That’s exactly what Habakkuk did.

                  He believed that God is a God of justice, mercy and truth. (PS 89:14)

                  In the process, he learned to look at his circumstances from the

                  framework of God’s character instead of looking at God’s character

                  from the context of his own circumstances. He concluded, ‘The

                  Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of

                  a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.’”(HAB. 3:19).

We may be distressed by life’s seeming injustices, but we can only find contentment through seeing everything through the lens of God’s goodness. Sometimes only hindsight shows us how God used a painful period in a life to accomplish a wonderful thing. I have written about how the months my son spent in prison, sentenced and eventually justified for an embezzlement he did not commit, was used by God to make powerful changes in his very soul.

Believe me, it only takes one such experience to change forever the lens through which we view our lives. I have a peace, truly, which passes all understanding. I may suffer circumstances which I hate, but my faith in God’s love and goodness will never be shaken. I am so grateful for every example of God’s providence, even through pain, in my life. He has truly taught me to be content.

Being content does not mean not caring. It does not mean not feeling the wounds. It just means knowing without the shadow of a doubt that God is there, He is love, and He is using every circumstance for ultimate good. And having this assurance, this heart-treasure, is worth every pain we could ever suffer. 

Golden Calves

     Last May I turned eighty-four! Wow! But I’m nowhere near matching my Mom. She died just 12 years ago at the lovely age of one hundred two, with a totally clear mind and much annoyance that her body was not keeping up!  The things that she could tell about having seen the birth of so much technology were fascinating. 

     But she was not able to tell us about the most wonderful thing she saw. She loved the Lord, and just as she was actually dying, in her own bed, in her own house, smiling, she kept saying, “Oh my …… Oh my ……. Oh my…..!” And then she was gone. Isn’t that absolutely beautiful? Isn’t that a wonderful thing to expect at the end of our lives? Usually when we are anticipating something nice, we say, “I can’t wait!” Well, scratch that; I can wait! But I certainly have no fear.

     One true advantage of being older, as anyone of us can tell you, is the development of the reassuring certainty that our God will see us through. Always. Perfectly. Pain is pain, and it hurts, and we hate it, but as we age we can see over and over how God was accomplishing good things through it, and other than drilling a hole in our skull and pouring the knowledge in there was no other way that we could grow, and learn, and most of all develop that perfect trust in God. 

     But it’s not automatic. Look at what God’s people did while Moses was up on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments. He was talking with GOD, for pity’s sake, but they decided Moses had been gone too long so they built a gold calf, and they actually worshipped it! Before we sneer, we need to remember how many golden calves, how many of our own worldly solutions, we have tried to trust instead of trusting in God’s everlasting, never-failing love for us. Nothing, but nothing comes into our lives unless God allows it. And His purposes are always, always for our good. We have to choose.

     Hindsight is our teacher. Only by revisiting episodes in our past can we begin to see how God has refined us, often dragging us kicking and screaming, into a closer image of himself. And hopefully, as we age, and experience more and more, with the help of the Holy Spirit we will develop a deeper understanding of our need for God, and how he is always working for our good, only for our good. ALWAYS.

Norma Stockton

To Judge or Not to Judge; That is the Question

When I quit smoking, it was because of God. I was playing guitar for a seventh grade girls Sunday School class (no, I am not a musician; EVERYONE played guitar in the early 70s). Along about then, God clearly convinced me that I should not go in there smelling like an old ash tray. So that week I just threw it all away: cigarettes, case and lighter. And because it was all God, I was able to go cold turkey, and was never ever tempted again.  That was wonderful, but that’s not my point today. The whole thing was quick, it was clear, and it was totally effective. And that’s because no one else messed it up.

No one had judged me for smoking. No one looked down on me. My good friend who taught the class (who was also Principal of the Christian school) obviously did not feel that my nasty habit precluded my participation in her class of impressionable girls. And any non-smoker can attest to the fact that one needed only to be in my vicinity to know that I smoked! I was living proof of the wisdom of Romans 14: 3 and following:

    Accept other believers who are weak in faith. Don’t argue with them 

    about what they think is right or wrong. God has accepted them. They

    are responsible to the Lord, so let him judge whether they are right or

    wrong. And with the Lord’s help, they will do what is right and receive

    his approval.

In spite of having grown up in church, I was a new believer.  And I was accepted and loved, faults and all, which is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.  

We are responsible to judge those within the church.  We are supposed to be able to discern sin (1Cor.5:12). But more important than anything else, we are told to love. Our motivation makes all the difference in the world. Are we coming from a critical spirit, or from a desire to heal and uplift? We are told that it is a very good thing to be one who turns a fellow believer from sin, and that many blessings follow. That can only happen with love. And if any of us cannot approach that sinner without anger and condemnation, then we are definitely not the one to approach him at all. 

Paul tells us not to judge the world, that God will judge them, that unless they change they are judged already. But of course the whole import of evangelism is to do our part in effecting that very change! And although we need to be able to see what is wrong, there too the most winning approach is surely love. My dear little friend Sherly Giglio put it best: “We have to love them where they are, don’t we, Norma!”  And she was so right. Without love our message is not received, cannot be received. Without love, we are building walls, not bridges. “I really love you, but …” is not acceptable. The Word does not overreach in telling us so much about the absolute necessity of sincere love for those we would reach for Jesus, both saved and unsaved. If you pray for anything, pray for love.

If, all those years ago, I had been met with disapproval and distance, I don’t know where I would be today. Surely saved, because when God calls we answer. But not then, and not there. And who knows, I might have missed many years of fruitful service to my Lord and Savior, all because someone messed it up. 

NEW THINGS

Driving down Brewster today, I was enchanted by all the trees coming into flower. And I marveled again at how beautiful our world is, and how wonderful that God gave us eyes able to see the glorious colors He used in His creation.  What fun it must have been for Him, deciding which bird needed a spot of red here, or some feathers of white there!  But because most trees were today mostly still bare it was also easy to see where some limbs had been removed to make way for telephone lines and power lines. Those poor trees looked unnatural, crippled  while they were still bare and visible.  After all, there had been nothing wrong with those limbs; they were just in the way of something new and good and important, so the tree had to give them up.

Often it’s the same way with folks. Like the way a new mom gives up many hours of freedom in order to care for her baby, whom she adores, and a wise student spends time studying  when he’d much rather be doing something else, because he wants to get good grades. We all have to make choices every day. Choosing between good and not so good can be pretty  easy. But sometimes  it’s hard when we need to choose between what we have always seen as good, and another different good thing.

I’ve found that in my spiritual life, which hopefully is always growing, I’ve often had to give up something and take on something new, usually painfully.

One new thing that we are now being asked to do is to take on our share of five thousand gospel conversations, and for me, that whole idea is hard! See, the thing is that my main motivational spiritual gift, the way I approach almost anything, is really directed toward people who are already believers.  My gift is Exhortation, so I am an encourager, if necessary a corrector, which has little or nothing to do with evangelizing! So I am now supposed to seek out and witness to strangers? Humph.

Preconceived ideas are the very hardest branches to lop off!

So, I wrote my story. We all know our stories, although the idea of finding people and chaining them to a chair and making them listen is somehow beyond my comprehension! But guess what! It’s not that way at all! Let me tell you about a great point Art Baruffi made at a meeting this week. It is this:  that we always have to find a point of connection. Here’s how.

People are usually willing to talk about themselves, and we need to be really good listeners.  Make yourself a list of negative things, hard things, that have happened in your life, and listen for them in what he/she is telling you. When you sense a possible connection, ask questions, be interested, and if it clicks you can then work in how God helped you, and whatever part of your story that fits.  

It can be uncomfortable to try new things. But this is an important one, and it will become more natural every time you do it. And knowing that you are spreading the knowledge of our God and Savior is a wonderful, powerful thing. We can ALL do it, even an unwilling , annoyed eighty-four-year-old woman like me! 

When that tree with chopped-off limbs becomes full of leaves, it will be beautiful again, and ably fulfilling its purpose … to fill our air with new clean oxygen and to provide shade and a home for others of God’s creatures, while also doing the new thing, providing a safe pathway for important utilities.  When we learn and practice the art of connecting with others, telling them what God has done for us and can do for them, we too will be more perfectly filling our role in the Kingdom of God, doing our one small, essential part in bringing others to Christ.

Norma Stockton

FLUFFY

One might naturally suppose that when a teenage girl takes herself to town to go shopping, she would likely come home with something cute, like a shirt. At least, that’s what I expected. But my elder daughter, Andi? Nothing so mundane. She came home with a Boa Constrictor.

Only spiders give me the willies, and snakes aren’t really slimy, but my first choice would not be to share my home with one. But there it was, along with a big glass tank and a live mouse for its dinner. We already had or used to have multiple happy animals -- dogs, cats, horses, gerbils, guinea pigs and a hermit crab – but in this case I really did not favor the idea of either the mouse or Fluffy (she had already named him!) escaping from the tank. After many assurances from my daughter that this would not occur and, I’m sure, also silently from the snake, as regarded the mouse, Fluffy became part of the family.

We don’t always get what we want, or even what we think we need. And we’re often not very appreciative of what God does provide for us. We think He doesn’t understand, or doesn’t hear us. And we think we know best what would solve whatever problem it is we’re facing. We beg and we beg. 

I’ve done some begging. 

A few years ago my son Denny was going to sell his payroll business, and he hired a reputable (he thought) broker to line up a buyer. He became connected with a small group of investors who seemed legitimate, but they weren’t. They stole $1.8 million from his tax accounts and when my son found the money missing and contacted the IRS they ran back to the hole they had climbed out of and left him holding the bag. In the middle of all this my son’s excellent lawyer suddenly died from a heart attack!  The prosecutor went after everyone. One of the so-called investors was sentenced to years in prison, but the judge decided that since my son was the owner of record she had to “sentence him to something,” and gave him 18 months in federal prison, which turned out to be in Ohio. He had stolen nothing.  

I begged God to change it all. I could not understand why He had allowed such a miscarriage to happen. One thing after another went wrong. Unbelievably, his second lawyer died from a heart attack! And because U.S. Marshalls picked my son up to take him to a hearing in New Jersey without properly notifying some clerk his record was changed to say that he had attempted to escape from a maximum security prison (he’d never been in one). It was never corrected, and after he was returned from the hearing he was housed in solitary confinement for months and months and months! He had been a Christian since he was 14; do you think his faith was tested? You can bet it was! Do you think mine was? I wept. I begged. But I wrote and wrote and assured my son over and over and over that God loved him and was with him every minute, and prayed that it was true. We both hung on by a thread.

But you know what? God was working on him, and for him, the whole time. My son did not grow up on the street, and he knows that he would not have survived in the general population of federal prison. It’s a different world in there. He wouldn’t have known how. Isolation, moving from cell to cell every couple of weeks, was terrible, but we realize that God was protecting him the whole time. There were things God wanted to change in him, and He did. My son came out of that experience with greater maturity, with much deeper faith, owning his faults and mistakes and never doubting that God had been leading him. Denny has often told me that he feels that God knew that it would take 20 years to get him from point A to point B, but instead He took Denny on the intensive, accelerated trip in 18 months. And he is grateful every day. God used that dark time to accomplish things in him that my son might never have allowed if he had not been where he was. He was changed. And as for me, if I ever doubted God, I never will again. 

Life is not just funny stories. Some periods are indescribably painful, with no sign of a bright light ahead. But God is there. And God is good. God is always good. And He loves us with an everlasting love. 

If you are going through a dark time, large or small, hang in there. Pray for wisdom. Pray for peace in your spirit. Pray for trust. When there is no understanding, there is only trust.  God is so completely, totally trustworthy. He will see you through.

Norma Stockton

A CHRISTIAN “FISH” on YOUR CAR?

It was the day before the moving van arrived to take us from Minnesota to Massachusetts. At the dining room table were two movers, wrapping and packing the last of the kitchen in layers of paper. My husband, definitely an A-type, was in the eaves of the attic directly overhead, struggling to remove a youth bed mattress so he could take it to the dump. The new owners were to arrive in two days and he was determined that everything should be perfect.

All was going swimmingly when suddenly, without warning, my husband’s foot and leg crashed through the ceiling overhead --- the freshly painted ceiling, I might add.

Dead silence. Everything stopped. All four children froze. The two packers were fixated on the leg. I just stood there with my mouth open, cringing in anticipation of how my dearly beloved might choose to comment on this latest catastrophe. More silence.  And then, blessedly, he burst into wild laughter, and pulled his leg back out of the wreckage, and he and the cursed mattress came back downstairs where we were all helplessly doubled over at the memory of his leg waving around through the dining room ceiling. And one of the men summed it up. He said, “Yep, Doc --- that’s a hundred dollar hole!” (1965 dollars!)

So how do you think God would really like us to react when we are stopped in our tracks by some unforeseen and decidedly unpleasant surprise, or some obnoxious person, or the failure of something we really, really wanted to succeed? 

Back in the ‘70s a Christian music artist, whose name I have forgotten, shared a few thoughts in the middle of his excellent album. He reminded us about the shock-absorbers in our cars, and how they made the ride smoother and more comfortable for us. And he said that he was pretty sure that God wanted us to be His shock-absorbers. He said that when something hits us, we have a choice. We can always bounce the bad right back at someone else, and let the anger start a new journey bouncing off who knows how many people in its journey. Or we can  react in a way that pleases God, and stops the damage, and we can let it end with us. We can be God’s shock-absorbers. 

If we are to be the light of the world, then there really isn’t any place for yelling and screaming, or nasty hand-signals to the driver who cuts us off, or snarky comments to the clerk who offends us. We can really never know the life circumstance of that other stranger who treats us poorly, or what awful distraction may be causing what looks to us like rank ignorance. Even when faced with a direct confrontation there are almost always ways to defuse it without anger and retaliation. We do need to be God’s shock-absorbers, as much as we can, in this angry world. 

It’s not easy for everyone. Some of us may have grown up with pretty short fuses. Some of us may even be a little proud of the way that we’ve taught people to treat us carefully and sort of walk on egg-shells around us. But that isn’t God’s way. Jesus didn’t teach us to be that way, and we know it. 

       “You are the salt of the earth, but what good is salt if it has lost

    its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out 

    and trampled underfoot as worthless.

        “You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot

    be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.

    Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to 

    everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine

    out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

                                                                                                           Matthew 5: 13-16, NLT

Norma Stockton

The Teacher Had No Answers

My Bible-in-a-year reading just finished Ecclesiastes. This is not my favorite OT book for sure. It tends to leave me annoyed and frustrated. Solomon (we assume he was the author) wrote many wise and true things here, but somehow it feels like he just doesn’t get it. There’s this disquieting feeling that he’s missing the mark. 

But what mark was he missing? God gave Solomon astounding wisdom, along with great wealth and power. It’s such fun to read his book of Proverbs, just one fantastic truth after another! He was surely gifted in every way. And he knew God.

 But this time I realized what was bothering me so much. It was this: that he seems to have had many periods of satisfaction and happiness, but in spite of it all, he was missing something which we have in such wonderful abundance!  He had no joy!  

He had no joy because he didn’t have Jesus! He didn’t have the confidence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, guiding him, teaching him, correcting him. He didn’t have hope for the future.

For us it is a bit of ironic humor when we say, “You can’t take it with you!” But for Solomon it wasn’t funny! He only saw that good and evil people both died, and had to leave everything behind – so why work so hard? He knew that there would be a judgment, but the idea that God would provide a way for us to escape payment for our sin never entered his mind. That God would send the Messiah to earth to DIE was totally beyond him.

Do we ever seem to take this for granted? This is the very bedrock of our joy! This is the only reason for our confident hope! This is why we know, we KNOW that death has been conquered, that we will spend eternity with God and His Son, our sins having been washed far away by the very shed blood of His Son Jesus!

But just consider all those lost people out there whom we desperately need to reach with the wonderful Good News of the Gospel. They too, like Solomon, are living without joy, without hope, always looking for some elusive thing to fill that void which only Jesus can fill. You want to know their thoughts? You want to know how they, rich and poor, live? Read Ecclesiastes.

Read Ecclesiastes again, and think how it must be to have no answers, no future sure thing but death and taxes, no confidence of heaven, trying to believe that you will be good enough. You should ache for them, and want to find them, and to reach as many of them as you possibly can!

As we learn more clearly how to tell our gospel story, keep thinking of them. Don’t worry about yourself; God will give you the right words and the opportunities to say them. Just be willing. Just be yourself. And let God’s grace flow through you.

Norma Stockton

But God...

Memory can be a very tricky thing. But there are some moments so permanently stitched into your mind that you can still see the furniture, see the people, hear the words and feel exactly as you felt when you heard them, or said them yourself.

The most painful one of mine is this: I was putting my oldest child to bed, hearing her say a little rote bless-mommy-and-daddy prayer. She was seven or eight. And she asked me, “Mommy, really, who WAS Jesus?” And I actually said to her, “Sweetheart, that is something you will have to decide when you are older.” She said, “But no, Mommy, I want you to tell me!” And I said, again, ”No, you will decide that for yourself later. Now go to sleep, precious, and sweet dreams.”

I was so proud of myself! I did not believe in child evangelism; I thought it was taking advantage of young minds. I was so woefully and ignorantly opinionated, so sure I was doing the absolute best thing. I was so wrong.

But then, over the years, one by one, all of the rest of our little family came to the Lord. Except this one. It seemed as though she had slipped through the cracks and was lost, and you can surely imagine the tears I shed as I replayed that night in my mind, over and over and over. 

So now, we listen to advice about Faith Talks, and hear how other young parents do it so well and live the Gospel in their homes. But are any of you a little older now, with no children in your home anymore, and do you have children who are not walking with our Lord, and does this whole next-generation thing just fill you with sorrow because you believe you missed your chance?

I have an answer for you. PRAY.  God really understands. He loves you so much, and He loves that child, and He hears that prayer. 

“He surely heard me, and let me tell you how He answered.”

Many, many years later, that same child was living a thousand miles away. She had experienced a painful divorce, and now had badly injured her right hand at work, and had had one finger removed. Her lower arm was in a cast while it was healing, and she couldn’t do much for herself, so she came home for a few weeks. This was after all the rest of us were finally true Christians, and one Sunday night I really, really wanted her to come to church because I knew what the subject matter was going to be, and I was sure – (of course I knew best!) – that God wanted her to hear it! But she was at her brother’s house for dinner, and those wretched children never showed up at church at all! I was SO mad at all of them!

BUT   GOD …….  oh, those two sweet, sweet words! …….  but God had other plans. While I was at church, steaming about my miserable children, my son and his wife were still at his house, leading my beloved daughter to the Lord! We lived at the shore, and she wanted to be baptized immediately, so she was --- in the ocean, with her bandaged right arm sticking up out of the waves!

Don’t give up. God knows that where you were then was not where you are now. He loves you, more than you can possibly understand. Pray, pray, pray. And pray too for the younger parents who are hearing these messages now, that they would believe that they can do this with their children, and that it will make all the difference in their lives, and their children’s lives, and the lives of those to come.

Norma Stockton

Toxic People

Who are they, anyway? 

My son-in-law has a saying which could describe the relationship we might have with someone who is not very good for us. He says, “When you put your gloved hand in the mud, the mud doesn’t get glovier!” And that is about what happens. If you have grown children I’m sure you can remember a new friend who seemed to be a bad influence on your child, or maybe it was just a bad combination of the two of them. Maybe new words suddenly appeared, or lying, or candy bars when he had no money! Upsetting, to say the least! And we think, “My goodness, is he/she so weak that just anyone can drag him around?!” 

But it’s not a matter of weakness, or, more realistically, it’s a weakness we all have, child and adult alike. The difference with a child is that he has no wisdom to recognize poor choices; choosing his new friends himself is all new and exciting to him. And his character is pretty much unformed.

With adults, it’s pretty much the same process, except that we ought to know better. We know when our actions change with different folks. We know when we adjust, not for the better, to fit in with some people. Yes, we know when we are not obeying the scripture which tells us that “whatever you do, do to the glory of God.” And we surely can be expected to listen to the Holy Spirit and to make better choices. We need wisdom and discernment; if we lack wisdom, God has promised to give it to us, if we just ask Him.  And we need that wisdom. Satan knows exactly where our weaknesses are, and that’s where he will tempt us. We don’t need to work up the strength ourselves to resist temptation. God’s strength is manifested in our weakness. He says so. Ask Him.

On the other hand, if you worked on the genogram a couple of weeks ago, you may have had to recognize and name a different kind of toxicity ----- the kind that has the power to damage us  and change us in situations we were never prepared to face. There may be ones who have the power to hurt us so badly that we have to separate ourselves from them for good. And with some of them, that solution is not completely possible.

My parents are both dead, so I can tell you a little about my story. My father had a very disruptive childhood. He was an orphan, and was adopted by a young Methodist pastor and his wife, who soon after both died in the flu epidemic in the early nineteen hundreds. There was some money, so for the rest of his childhood he was in court-supervised foster care, and who knows what happened to him there. We think he had no example of a good father as a child; certainly as an adult he was not a loving father. He gyrated from anger and suspicion to over-indulgence, and we never knew which it would be. He did not know how to love, except in one way: when I was grown and married and had two pre-teen daughters I discovered that he liked to kiss little girls. 

I have no idea when my mother discovered this charming pass-time --- surely much earlier ---  but she was very good at keeping her head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich when it was something she could not handle, so she was essentially a gifted enabler. I had never heard the word “pedophile,’ and I would be glad to tell any of you more about this terrible time in my life, but for now I will just say this: that that was when, to me, my father died. I will not go into the anger and betrayal and hatred I felt. It was impossible to cut him completely out of my life, but for the rest of his life I treated him with distant respect, essentially putting on an act for the rest of the world. When he actually died many years later I did not mourn; I had done my mourning, for more than his death, many years before.

Of course I do so sincerely hope that none of you ever have to experience anything like this, but I know that many of you have, though perhaps in a different way. And my very best advice to you is to get counseling! A good counselor has heard EVERYTHING, believe me, and would be so very much help in guiding you through it to a more healthy place in your life. You deserve it, and I am sure God wants you healthy, and both emotionally and spiritually mature.

Life is so messy. I know that God weeps with us when he sees the terrible things we do to each other, and I know that He longs to hold us and comfort us when we are so terribly hurt.  He does comfort us and gives us peace. And I know that there will be a day when all tears are wiped away, and all sin is gone forever. Come, Lord Jesus!

God bless you all.

Norma Stockton

The Sweetest Words

Valentine’s Day was this past weekend, and I hope we all had loving messages from folks we care for. But the sweetest words I ever read were not on a Hallmark card or a candy box. Not on a card tucked in among roses, but in my Bible. Just two words: “But God..”

I don’t think anyone can really get to know God without reading and rereading the Old Testament. That’s where we see what God actually SAID, and what He DID, and His very character is unfolded before us. Even the long lists of strange names and the big numbers serve to show us the magnitude and magnificence of His works!  I know that I could never get to know God just through my own experiences. It would be too easy to substitute my wishes for His, and ascribe my opinions to Him. Too easy to pick the traits I love, and downplay the ones that are hard, like sure justice, and then to build myself a God who suits me. 

And those words, “But God” show us, over and over, the times when God stepped in and changed the way things are going.

So often we seem to be like a toy train that goes too fast or hits another toy, and jumps the track. We need a big Hand which can reach down, remove the hindrance, set us back squarely on the track and get us going again in the right direction. And because we know that God never changes, we can be very sure that He is watching over us now just as He did then, and doing His “But God” thing to save us from who knows what! Sometimes in life we can look back and see how God intervened and did what only He could have done, but most of the time we are probably blissfully unaware.

That is our God, loving us. And the best “But God” of all, Ephesians 2:

“Once you were dead because of your many sins….. BUT GOD is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!”

Surely the greatest manifestation of love in all of time, past, present and beyond!

Norma Stockton

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Back in the day, when the world and I were young, my brother and I were the family dishwashers. This was the forties, and unless we got lucky we did the job every night after dinner. One night I washed; the next night I dried, but as soon as the food was put away we got down to our real business, which was to make the other one do more work than we did. This involved diligently searching for any tiny speck of food left on a washed plate, so the washer had to wash it twice, but the dryer only had to dry it once! Hah! One point for the dryer! Of course, the next night the situation was reversed. All this was accomplished in relative silence. This was so that we could at the same time listen to the radio. If we got into an argument, the radio got turned off. Our weary mother was a teacher, and found little patience with fractious children who ought to be getting done with the job at hand and on to their homework. So we mostly behaved, because we wanted to listen to the radio more than we wanted to fight.

There was no TV back then – I was in college when we got our first tiny TV – but every night there were radio shows! “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy!”;  “The Green Hornet”;  “ Buck Rogers”; “The Creaking Door”; “Lights Out”;  “I Love a Mystery” – all of them somehow more vivid because we could use our imagination to create the people who owned the voices. It was wonderful.  And oh, those mystery shows! Scary, scary, scary! Many were the nights I checked under my bed before I turned out the light! I didn’t know what I was afraid might be there, because I had nothing visual to apply, but I looked!

The pertinent thing is that at our young age we could only imagine what our experience and our minds could enable us to picture. We were basically protected from horror by the limits of our actual reality. How unlike some of the television shows today, which graphically illustrate every kind of depravity.  So, there are shows I simply don’t watch. I like cop shows; I like spy dramas,  I love football! But I find I cannot watch psychopathic horror shows. The images are far beyond anything I can easily dismiss. They stay there. And so I try not to clutter my mind with this degree of illustrated evil. Could I handle it? I don’t know. I choose not to. Believe me, I don’t for a minute think there is no evil lurking in my mind! My miserable sin nature is very busy luring me with all sorts of evil, which God enables me mostly to resist, but I think I surely don’t need to go looking for more. I am an adult, with a clear understanding of the reality or lack of same portrayed on the screen, but I still can be affected by what I watch.

Which brings me to our children. Can we really convince ourselves that terrible graphic images on the screen have no effect on them? That they, too, don’t somehow struggle to find a safe place to hide pictures they cannot forget? Are we carelessly burdening them awfully with concepts they aren’t even able to process? Can we believe that they’re not changed, however subtly, by these experiences? We wrap them in seat belts. We vaccinate them against disease. We teach them about dangerous strangers. We would give our lives to save them. And still, in spite of how we try, we know we cannot wrap them totally in soft cotton batting. The world as it is will indeed batter them in many ways. But could we please try our best to protect their very young minds from images God never meant for them to see or try to understand? Could we let them be innocent a little while longer?

If we were to have a – what shall we call it – a strenuous disagreement with our spouse, we would never sit our toddler down in the middle of it! You know what would happen: the little one would be frightened to tears.  So how can any sane adult assume that a small child with absolutely no life experience is able to understand the intricacies of television and know that it is all make-believe?  One of my daughters had nightmares for years after watching the Wizard of Oz, because of the Flying monkeys! Flying monkeys, for goodness’ sake! Who knew! Certainly not me! How much more frightening must be portrayal of real people doing awful things. Our babies’ minds are such precious things. We need, need, need to protect them, and do it diligently!

 Am I urging an absolute absence of television? I am not, though some choose that path. Time marches on, and so does technology. There are great programs to be found there, for children and adults alike. But just as we are careful to dress our kids appropriately for the weather, we need to filter what can reach their minds.

The truth is that God charmingly limited their understanding, placing the responsibility of caring for them upon us. The way a baby will crawl happily toward a hot surface or toward the edge of a bed is a perfect illustration of their total innocence of the consequences of going over the edge. We grab them.  

We need to be just as protective of their minds, that they not fall over the edge or be scarred by burns.  Grab them.

Norma Stockton