If I could...I would

The other evening, I hung out at Barnes and Nobles with Lindsay and Jess. During the course of the evening, Lindsay reminded Jess of the time she (Lindsay) was pregnant and didn't have money to buy a new outfit and she was so tired of wearing the same thing to church for four months straight. Jess chimed in and said, 'And I came over to you in church and told you that if I had the money, I'd buy you a new outfit.' And Lindsay said, "And just you saying that made it all better. It was as if you had given me a new outfit."

Light bulbs went off in my head.

I said, "There is something to this!"

I told them a story of a little girl-I'll call her Kelli-who was adopted from another country when she was about four, I think. She's only 7 or 8 now. I was telling her class about Johann Sebastian Bach. He had 20 children and only 10 lived until they were adults. Five of his sons were also named Johann and two of his daughters were named Johanna. Almost every evening, his family would gather together and play numerous instruments while Bach sat in his chair, smoking a pipe, drinking a beer, and holding a Bach baby in his arms. "What's a Bach baby?" asked the children. "Well, it's like a Jones baby or a Smith baby," and I went around saying their last names. "Bach held his baby just like your parents held you." Little Kelli said sadly, "Not me," and she looked away and got teary-eyed. I wasn't sure what to do or say, but God did. A short time later, we were leaving the chapel, and I said to her, "Kelli, if I had been around you as a baby, I would have held you all the time." And a miracle happened. It was as if I had been around her as a baby and had held her all the time. She got happy and I think she's been more secure. She's been thinking alot about these things this year. She named her painted penguins, "Mrs. Hertzler and Kelli." She comes up and leans her head on my arm. She wants to be an art teacher when she grows up.

Just like Jess 'bought' a new outfit for Lindsay,
so I 'held' Kelli when she was a baby.
Just because we spoke the words.

Words are gifts to be used to tell people what we would like for them.
We paint words of hope with words.
We give comfort and joy.

"If I had..."
"If I could..."
I would.

If I had the money, I'd buy you that old car you want, Phil.
If I could, Susan, I would take this sickness away from you.
If I could heal your broken heart, my son, I would.
If I could go through this pain for you, I would.
If I could build you the house of your dreams, I would.

What gift can you give someone today, with your words?

God does this for us.

He tells us we were on His mind before the creation of the world
and that He's been holding us all this time.
We have always been held by God.

He tells us that He has a new outfit for us
and He clothes us with joy and praise.

He tells us that He has carried our griefs and our sorrows.

He tells us that He is building our dream house
so we can be close to Him.

He doesn't have to wish that He could do it for us.
He doesn't have to say, 'If I had the power'
or 'If I could do this for you, I would.'

He does it because He wants to.

Meanwhile, we do what we can
and give words of comfort
by using these little phrases,
"If I had.."
"If I could..."
I would.

And we pray to the One
who has
and can
and will.

Mary and Martha

Perhaps you've heard of the story about Mary and Martha.

Jesus came to visit them and Martha was busy setting the table
and cooking the food and Mary was just being with Him.

Martha said to Jesus,
"Would you please tell Mary to help me get some work done around here?"

And Jesus said, "Martha, you are a very busy woman.
Mary is busy in a different way. She is just sitting at my feet
and learning from me. I just can't take that away from her."

I am telling this from memory and I might not have
it verbatim, but the story line runs something like that.

I woke up thinking about this story this morning.

Mary and Martha were both worshiping Jesus.
Martha was active and demonstrative in her worship.
Mary was quiet and demonstrated her love in a
listening sort of way.

In the body of Christ
we have Mary's and Martha's
and lots of other folks as well.

Jesus never told Martha that she should worship Him
like Mary worshiped Him.

And He never told Mary to worship Him
like Martha worshiped Him.

What He desires is that the
Mary's and the Martha's
worship
Him in spirit and in truth.

When we try to make the Mary's into Martha's
and the Martha's into Mary's
then we are deciding for them
how to demonstrate their love for God.

I know how that makes me feel.

I wonder how it makes Him feel?

Notes from the Past

Today I was cleaning out my church bag and several pieces of paper escaped from my church Bible. About six May's ago, Phil had Philip and Michael write a Mother's Day list for me. Susan was too young to do it on her own and Freeman was away at school. Reading them again made me weepy and thankful and I decided to record them in case the precious lists fall out again sometime and get lost. Perhaps you fathers who read my blog would like to help your children bless your wife in this way. I was homeschooling the children at the time. Philip was 15 or 16 years old and Michael was 12 or 13. I must keep the spelling as is and not worry about spell check this time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael's list.

10 things I Love about you

1. wisdom
2. biblical standards and values
3. Loving
4. Beeutiful
5. you're almost always right about everything.
6. you give excellent advice and you help me understand
everything that doesn't make sense.
7. You're not a controlling mom.
8. When I do something stupid you tell me what I did
wrong and tell me how to do it right.
9. you always get whats best for me even though it's
inconvient for you. aka. School
10. you love my father, and you love me as much
as you love my brothers and sister.
11. I love you because you're my mom.

Happy Mother's day,
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And Philip's-
Ten Things I Love about my Mother-

1. I love her because of her unearthy beauty. :)
2. Her never ending kindness and Love.
3. The way she is always there for me no matter
what I am going through.
4. I also love her for being a Diffenbach,
because if she wasn't then I wouldn't know the
wonderful diffenbach family.
5. also for marrying my dad :)
because we all know that without dad
my brothers and I wouldn't look
half as good. :)
6. I love the way she can always smell
me from across the room.
(even though It might not seem like it)
7. I also love you mother for Punishing me
when I was bad because if you hadn't,
well I don't want to think about it. :)
8. I love when you care enough about all of us to
cook for several days straight before you leave
so we don't have to just eat ice cream.
(even though we don't mind ice cream)
9. I love you mother for letting me trap and hunt
instead of doing school
10. And last but not least, my dear mom,
thank you for supporting me in everything
reasonable that I have wanted to do in life!

I Love You!
Have a great Mothers day!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael just walked by here as I was sniffing my way through the typing of these treasures and he said, "You know what? I remember that. I remember Dad saying that if we wrote you notes about what we loved about you, that you would like that more than anything else. And the fact that you still have the notes and are doing this just proves that he was right!"