No Greater Joy

My favorite sympathy card arrived today.  I had the biggest, silliest grin on my face as I read it.  There was nothing silly about the card, but the joy I found in that card was so overwhelming that I couldn't help but laugh with delight.  And pretty soon, as I continued to think on it while washing dishes, my eyes began to tear up. 

In his third epistle John says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth."

My goddaughter quoted a hymn for me.  Only four stanzas because that's all that fit on the back of the card.  "All Christians Who Have Been Baptized ...."  Oh my goodness!  What better hymn when a person faces death -- her own or the death of a loved one? And there were so many awesome bits of her note.

But the best part of all?  The line on the card said, "May friends comfort you, faith uphold you, and loving memories heal your heart."  She crossed out "loving memories" and wrote in "Jesus."

[Oh, shoot.  Now I'm starting to get misty-eyed again.]

She said she didn't like the part about loving memories bringing healing.  So she adjusted the wording. 




John's right.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth.

So What Does "Forgiveness" Mean

"Forgive the shooter."  Those were the final words of the man who was shot in a murder spree a couple of weeks ago. 

Charlie Sykes (one of our favorite talk-radio guys in our area) didn't understand.  "How could he say that?  I couldn't do it.  Does that make me a bad Christian?  What does it mean to 'forgive'?!"

"Peter from Sussex" called in with a very good answer.  He got to say a lot.  (The set-up and the conversation with Pastor went from about the 5-min mark to about 13-minutes.)  Then Charlie continued the topic with other callers, as he struggled to understand forgiveness.  Now Charlie should come to Didache.

The Passing of a Homeschooling Era

This morning I purchased postage stamps.  The artwork is exemplary.  Half the sheet is full of quotes and history-tidbits. 

And nobody will say, "MOM, let ME see!!"  "No, me first!"  "Wow!"  And my favorite: "You aren't going to put those on letters and send them AWAY, are you?  Do you HAVE to?"

This morning was a huge reminder of a life that's been left behind.

If Your Heart Condemns You

I never noticed how those two verses work in tandem.

John tells us (1 John 3)
If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.

A condemning heart? No problem.  God is right and our heart is wrong.
A confident heart?  Again -- no problem. 

John isn't giving us a message of "Buck up and stop letting your heart condemn you, you pitiful weakling of a doubter."  Quite the contrary.  John says, "No matter how you feel, no matter what kind of accusations the devil hurls at you, Jesus' forgiveness takes care of it all and we are safe in Him."

It sure is great to have somebody who can point these things out to me ... even though it seems so obvious now that I wonder how I never saw it before.