Month: April 2014

Just sitting here thinking about how things have changed since I was little.

I’m originally from a small town in Indiana called Knox and Grovertown. They are only separated by a bridge if I remember right. But back then, and it has been a long time, things were simpler.

When we wanted to do something fun we would go outside and play. My grandparents had chickens, pigs, ducks, horses and whatever else. They lived off the land pretty much. So if we were hungry my grandparents went outside to kill either a chicken, duck and pick the veggies from the garden. They had a huge one. So we never went hungry.

Things weren’t very sanitary where my grandparents lived. We had no running water, used outhouses and walked around barefooted. They would dump whatever garbage they had in a hole, quite literally. Eventually it became a mound. We didn’t have hand sanitizer or anything to protect us for the millions of germs that had to be lurking around every corner.

What got me thinking on how things has changed is McDonald’s of all things. When we go to a restaurant, we are use to get portions that are enough to feed a number of people. My friend Lisa and I were talking about how an actual serving for an adult would be the size of a kids meal. We were satisfied and happy.

Now, we are living in an up-sized world. Drinks are 44 oz or so. And many drink a number of them a day and there are unlimited refills. We have buffets where you can eat all you want and at times the belt has to be loosened. There are appetizers before meals, because many restaurants don’t want you sitting there idly and being impatient. Plus they make a lot of money off of these appetizers that are in itself a size of a meal or two. After 15 minutes of snacking, drinking and chatting with friends, here comes the main course. Which is most of the time a large serving. No wonder we are becoming larger around the waistband. We are eating enough for 4 people in one serving. Then comes the desserts. Yep, you have to have dessert. It’s UN American to not have a bowl of ice cream, pie Ala mode or cheese cake.  And the apple cobbler with ice cream at Cracker Barrel is to die for. But way big… I won’t go into the whole how much frat and calories there are in this one meal.

In my family we only had a soda once a week and we had to share a can of soda. We never had TV dinners. My dad did once in a great while for lunch, but that was it. If we were thirsty we drank water or we had Koolaid at meal times. Never at after 6 pm and we always had something for breakfast. Even if it was just toast and milk.

All of these thoughts ran through my brain as I was ordering my grandson a Kids Meal at McDonald’s. In JJ’s Kids Meal he gets 4 chicken nuggets, milk, apples and a toy.  In this picture it shows the fries too, but he doesn’t like them. He doesn’t like fries. And then the rest of us order and then I realize that we are so conditioned to bigger is better that we are all getting bigger and not better.

But this is my Epiphany for the day and it all came about because Lisa and I were talking about McDonald’s and how much a serving really is… Thank you Lisa, now I think I should be ordering Kids Meals, lol… Which may be better and a smarter choice.

This is the first year that we did our Christmas and Easter together. Overall it turned out really good and everyone seemed happy with what they received. There was way too much food and not too many left overs. Which is a good thing, lol. We did invite friends to our dinner and it was nice to see they enjoyed their meal. We always invite friends to dinner on Christmas Day, so why not now?

My daughters and their families came over after church and we all opened gifts. It was just like Christmas, but at Easter. Many of the gifts were Christ centered. Since we don’t do the whole Easter Bunny and Egg thing, they did receive little book bags filled with fun things that were all Christian oriented. I guess our family does things a bit different from most. Christmas and Easter are the most important days of all the holidays. We don’t really worry about the other ones. For me they are just too commercialized and the candy and flower shops are the ones benefiting.

We don’t really do Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Valentines and all the others. If my husband is home we may go out. Since he is a truck driver, we just do whatever. So when I told my husband and kids, they weren’t really shocked that we will do Christmas at Easter. I don’t think that Christ would have minded. And it was nice to focus on Him instead of all the other stuff. Even though by looking at all the gifts, you would have thought we bought out the toy store, lol. Because we had our Christmas at Easter, we were able to get great deals and closeout deals on Christmas items. So I saved a bundle doing it this way and it was less stress for everyone and our pocketbooks.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to go see ‘God’s Not Dead”, you should. The show is about a college student who is told if not demanded to proclaim that God is Dead, and he refuses to do that. His professor is an atheist and wants the students to get it out of thier head that there is a God. Since Josh refused, he had to prove in class that there is a God. He then decides to put God on trial and he is his defense attorney of sorts and the professor is the prosecutor. I won’t go into a lot about the movie since not all have seen it. But there is one thing that I had to ask myself. And that is, would I have the strength and ability to stand up the way Josh did to his professor? Or would I take the easy road and just opt out of the class? Since there was no way I would ever write that God is Dead.

On the way home from the movie, we were talking about this point of the movie. And it is hard to know what I would do in that same situation. I would hope I would be like Josh and stand before the class and try to defend God. Realistically I also know that debate isn’t my strong point. But I do know that we are told in Matthew 10:16-33 “When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time.”

I honesty can say if I had to do what Josh had to do, I would be scared to death because I’m not a public speaker. I remember at my church when we first came to St. George Community Church, they asked me to be a lay leader. I had no clue what that was. I knew that if God put it on their hearts to ask, then I should say yes. About a month later, they called me and told me that it was my month to be the lay leader. Now I ask questions, lol. I should have before. My duties meant I had to go up front, read the Bible verse for the sermon, make announcements and so on. Panic took over. I did do it, but I was in a panic the entire time. Most of the times the lay leader took about 10 minutes. I was done in three and I was back in my seat. Now, some may have been happy since we got out of church early, lol. But I was petrified to do that. I’m fine if I’m on the same level, but not all eyes on me.

I would say that if I had to do what Josh did, I would be a coward and opt out of the class. Even though I think we all can be a witness for Christ by our words by confessing Christ before others. God wants us to speak for Him and share the gospel with others. I have absolutely no problem witnessing to others about what Christ has done in my life and what He can do in their lives. I do believe that we when we share our experience and can be a powerful witness that nobody can refute.

Most of us won’t have to stand before an professor and class to defend God. And most of us wouldn’t be arrested for our faith like Pastor Saeed and Aisa Bibi and the thousands of others in the world. But we might have to stand before others and speak up for Christ. We may have to try to explain to others why we won’t lie to cover up something that was morally wrong. I have had to stand my ground on a number of things at my work because I don’t celebrate Halloween. I ran a kids program and most of the activities in October were based around witches and other things. I chose to do harvest things instead. I had to tell my boss that I had problems with doing Halloween activities for the kids. Thankfully he understood my stand, but I had to let him know before taking that position where I was at. I also refused to dress up at work and such. So I never worked that night. It was a personal thing for me and I know many Christians that celebrate the night though harvest festivals and such.

As Christians there will come times that we need to speak up and be confident that God is with us, guiding and helping us proclaim the truth without fear. God will give us the words to say when we stand before others.

There was one other part I want to briefly share and that is the part where the mother to the man that is a lawyer came to visit her. She had dementia and he asked her why is it that she is the sweetest and nicest person and she is suffering the way she is. And then went on to say how horrible and uncaring of a person he is. He doesn’t understand how the God she loves could be that way. When she said ‘Sin is like a jail cell except it’s nice and comfy and there doesn’t seem to be any need to leave. The door is wide open until one day it slams shuts.” I found that very profound and true. Why would we need God if we have everything else given to us and life was easy?

Question to ask yourself: If God would give you the correct words to say when you needed them, what difference would this make in the way you live your life?