Honoring Fathers

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12, ESV).

     The fifth of the Ten Commandments and the first with an expressed promise teaches us that we are to honor both our parents.  “Honor” involves love, respect, appreciation, looking up to and accepting the leadership of.  And, of course, parents are to lead lives “worthy of respect.” 

     Did you know that there are some 70 million fathers in the United States?  Many of these are responsible adults and are seeking to rear their children well.  But many, unfortunately, are “absentee fathers” who have abdicated—or never accepted—responsibility for children’s upbringing.

     A little history of Father’s Day shows that Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington suggested a day to honor fathers in 1910.  She wanted to respect the memory of her own father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War Veteran who reared six children, herself and five brothers, as a single parent after the death of his wife and their mother.  She suggested to her pastor that a day be set aside to honor fathers, much as Mother’s Day.  That was done first in Spokane in 1910.  The day was pushed somewhat by President Woodrow Wilson and by President Calvin Coolidge.  It was not until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson signed a Father’s Day presidential proclamation. Then in 1972 President Richard Nixon made Father’s Day officially the third Sunday in June by proclamation.

     Like Sonora Smart Dodd’s father, my own dear father lost companions to death and reared two “sets” of children after their mother’s death.  He manifested great faith, love, patience, endurance and example, and I am the beneficiary.  I am so grateful for a godly father. 

     Dr. B. B. McKinney, noted hymnologist of the last century, wrote this prayer in his hymn, “God Give Us Christian Homes”:  “God give us Christian homes! /Homes where the father is true and strong,/Homes that are free from the blight of wrong,/Homes that are joyous with love and song,/God give us Christian homes!/God give us Christian homes!”  May his words be our prayer for this Father’s Day!  And Happy Father’s Day—all you wonderful fathers who might read this!  -Ethelene Dyer Jones  06.16.2013

Light for the Journey

Many times in my life God has spoken to me through His Word.  Just when I seemed to need special encouragement and assurance from God, the Spirit led me to certain Bible verses that applied to the very situation I was facing.  Here I will give you three very personal examples.

The date was November 16, 1993.  My husband Grover had already received extensive cardiovascular tests and was in Atlanta Medical Center (formerly Georgia Baptist Hospital) awaiting bypass heart surgery scheduled for the next day.  I had a guest room in the old Georgia Baptist School of Nursing dormitory (the school being then closed out).  The dormitory was on the top floor, but reached from a sort of tunnel passageway  that went from the lower level of the hospital across and to the dormitory.  In 1993 it was a place for family members of patients to board.  Knowing that Grover faced serious surgery the next day, I was naturally concerned.  Settled into the room and ready for bed, I took my Bible to read and pray.  I opened to Psalm 118, the psalm with the recurring refrain:  “O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good because His mercy endureth forever” (Ps. 118:1; see also verses 2, 3, 4, 29).  Then verse 17 seemed to stand out as a special message for the occasion:  “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”  I felt the verse was a promise from God given in anticipation of successful surgery and recovery for Grover from the next day’s heart surgery.  After claiming that promise and praying, I slept well and awoke the next day very early, ready to see Grover before he was taken to surgery and to share with him the verse the Spirit had led me to claim for his health and well being.  The surgery was successful and he made a good recovery from it.

The date was August 28, 2007.  I was in Middle Georgia Medical Center, Macon, Georgia undergoing extensive cardiac tests and awaiting decisions about whether I would have heart surgery.  My daughter was a long distance away on vacation, as was my son.  My granddaughter, Crystal, had taken me to the hospital and was my “family member” standing beside me during this period of stabilization and decisions about surgery.  On August 30, 2007 I had five bypasses heart surgery.  Prior to the surgery, I remembered Psalm 118:17, and going through my mind, too, was all of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd…”  I was unafraid.  I knew that if anything went awry I would go immediately to be with the Lord, but if I survived it would be assurance that God “had not finished with me yet.”  When my daughter and my son returned from the places they were at the time of my admittance to the hospital, I was already through with heart surgery and up and taking those first halting steps to exercise in post-surgery therapy.  “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

The dates were May 31 through June 6, 2013.  Son Keith was in Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, with too-rapid pulse rate and other electrolyte imbalance symptoms.  Stabilization and tests occurred for several days and on June 3 he had heart catheterization and two stents.  Still there were episodes of too-rapid heartbeat and he was kept for observation and more tests.  On June 5 he had another probe, this time of the veins, and two ablations were performed to mend the areas where the heart’s “electrical” system was out of sync.  The procedure worked, and he was able to return to his home on June 6 after having been “an interesting case,” not the usual heart-attack, diseased arteries and other cardiac ailments with which the specialists deal.  Remembering Psalm 118:17, I read it and claimed its promise.  I read another and also claimed it for Keith’s recovery:  “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14).

God provides light for the journey.  Search His word and find reassurance…and pray. 

                                                                                                            -Ethelene Dyer Jones  06.09.2013

Privileged Visit

“Let not your heart be troubled:  ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In My Father’s house are many mansions:  if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there may be also.”  -John 14:1-3 (KJV).

Several books have been written recently on near-death-experiences in which a person dies for a little while, is transported to heaven, and returns to earth to tell the story.  A friend has suggested that instead of “n. d. e..—near-death-experience,” this journey could be called “privileged visit.”  Here are some of the books that tell of the “privileged visit,” and the return of persons to earth to tell about their journey to the extra-dimensional spiritual realm we call heaven—the place Jesus spoke of so positively and with such anticipation of having all believers gathered into that place of heavenly bliss.

Heaven Is For Real is about little Colton Burpo, not quite four, who went to heaven and returned to earth to tell in his extraordinary way about whom he saw there, persons he had never known in his life, like his grandfather who died before Colton was born, and his little sister who did not even make it to birth because of his mother’s miscarriage.  Colton’s parents began to take notice of his astounding story and his father wrote a book about what Colton told them of heaven.

To Heaven and Back by Dr. Mary C. Neal is an orthopedic surgeon’s story about dying in a kayak accident while cascading down a waterfall in Chile.   She encountered the peace, beauty and angels in heaven but was sent back because her work on earth was not finished. She became much more aware not only of God’s providence but of her purpose in life.

Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon, is by a doctor who did not believe in God or life after death.  He said that those with near-death experiences only had fantasies produced by the brain under severe stress.  Then he himself had a terrible brain illness and was in a deep coma for seven days.  About the time the doctors decided to declare him dead, he awoke.  His life was never the same after the experience.  While he was in the after life, he was accompanied by an angelic being who guided him to super-physical realms of existence.  He met the Divine.  In addition to his book, he now speaks widely and declares that “true health can be achieved only when we believe that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of life but a transition.”

Don Piper’s story is 90 Minutes in Heaven:  A True Story of Death & Life.  His life, too, has been one of positive impact as he tells the story of going to heaven and returning with a message and mission.

Two books from the Grahams are not of near-death experiences but of looking forward in faith to Heaven.  Billy Graham’s Nearing Home and Ann Graham Lotz’s Heaven, My Father’s House  are permeated with joy in anticipating heaven and finishing well the earthly journey so the Lord can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy reward” (Matthew 25:21).

Honoring Mothers

Much has been written in the course of time regarding mothers.  Here, at Mother’s Day, 2013, I add my few thoughts to wish all mothers—and all those who honor their own mother and other significant ones who have been in a “motherly” role in their lives a “Happy Mother’s Day.

We see mother mentioned early in Genesis when God created Eve to be a helpmeet for Adam.  He instructed Adam, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife…” (Genesis 2:24, ESV).  Later we read of Adam naming Eve, and of her role as  a mother:  “”The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).  In the course of time, God gave a commandment concerning the role of children in relationship to parents:  “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Genesis 20:12).  This commandment had a promise for those who obeyed--long life.  I remember my dear grandmother who so honored her parents and other elders that her days on this earth numbered nearly 102 years. The Psalmist joined in praise of mothers, saying, “He (God) gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.  Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 113:9).  The writer of Proverbs added his praise to mothers, saying:  “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old…Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice!” (Psalm 23:22, 25).  In Mary’s “Magnificat”, her Song of Praise soon after the angel’s announcement to her that she would be the mother of the Lord, in the Spirit she said”  “For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name” (Luke 1:49, ESV).

Having a day set aside to honor mothers has a long history.  We can trace its roots back into Greek and Roman times when Greece honored Rhea, wife of Cronus and in Rome Cybela, a “mother” goddess.  “Mothering Sunday” was begun in England in the 1600’s.  In America, Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” wrote a Mother’s Day Proclamation as early as 1870 in Boston.  Anna Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia is credited with starting Mother’s Day as we know it, with the first official Mother’s Day event in 1908 to honor her sainted mother, Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis who had started work with mothers to teach them sanitation and better health practices after the Civil War.  Julia Jarvis’s petitions for a special day finally reached the ears of President Woodrow Wilson who signed a resolution May 8, 1914 making the second Sunday in May officially “Mother’s Day.”  Later, Anna Jarvis rued the commercialization of the day, for that had not been her intention.  She wanted to call attention to the important role of mothers and to set aside a day to say thank you to them.

I had an honored and loving mother to whom I am grateful for my early rearing, up through age fourteen.  At that tender teen-aged time in my life, I lost her to a serious illness.  My life was never the same afterward, because I at that age became a sort of surrogate mother to my then eleven-year-old younger brother.  But my having to grow up in a hurry taught me responsibility, appreciation and a sense of developing in maturity and insight that I may not have had otherwise.  I am very grateful that I am privileged to be a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother.  On Mother’s Day let us honor those faithful women who have made a difference in who we are today.

Needs vs. Wants

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.  Amen.”  -Philippians 4:19-20 (ESV).  “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” –Hebrews 4:16, ESV. 

Oftentimes a great gulf exists between what we need and what we want.  Webster defines “need” as “a lack of something requisite; a condition requiring supply or relief.”  On the other hand, “want” is defined as “to have a strong desire or inclination for.”  In the cited verses, the Lord does not promise to supply our wants but our needs, not to fulfill our desires but to provide what will be best for us while at the same time bringing glory to the Father.  It is through His mercy and grace that our needs are met.  In Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004, p. 132), the author has Jesus saying, “Come into My Presence with thanksgiving, for thankfulness opens the door to My treasures.”  This is reminiscent of what we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV):  Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  Even in our direst needs, if we can find the grace to give thanks, then we are fulfilling God’s will.  And the thankful heart, even while awaiting God’s blessing and anticipating that the need will be met, can, as Young so aptly states, “relax in the knowledge that the One who controls your life is totally trustworthy” (Young, p. 132).