In His Image

I doubt that there is any one who is still reading this due to my long absence, and maybe the content or ability of this writer.  However I have not forgotten this blog, but have resigned myself to the fact that in the scheme of Christian life and fatherhood, there are other responsibilities that must come first.

One of the thoughts that have been going around my head is this;  There is such a strong connection between the image we have of our earthly father, and the way we see God.  I have often seen this in other people but only recently come to realize what I leaving to my children.

Take for instance the woman who had a very angry father and rarely, if ever, heard praise or expressions of love from him.  She is very prone to see God in the same light and finds it hard to reconcile the God that she reads in the Bible, who loves her and cares for her personally, when the only earthly example she has is giving her a drastically different picture!  This is just one case in point but you get my drift.  The children of a loving, adoring father, have a hard time coming to grips with the unswerving justice and judgment of God, etc.

My questions that keep running through my head are these.  Why would God choose such failing creatures to imprint a picture of Him onto the soft impressionable hearts and minds of our children?  You heard the old adage, “Children never really grow up, until they become parents.  Then their children ‘raise’ them.”  I have made so many blunders already that I wonder if I will ever be able to show them more accurately who their Father REALLY is!!  It really can put the weight on you to make sure that you always walk straight and true to God’s truth!  Just this afternoon, I found my eldest son again emulating one of my baser struggles.  When he did not get his brother to comply with his wishes by asking in a normal volume of voice, he ratcheted it up a notch and used a tone that stated loud and clear that he was not going to be trifled with in this issue!  I reprimanded him for it but found myself realizing afresh that my children are learning daily, that which I do not seek to teach!

The second question is this, since I have and earthly and imperfect father, how do I overcome the somewhat skewed picture I have of God?  I have read the Bible for many years and have found the Lord to be most precious on many fronts, but I still keep coming back to that same tinted glass view of what I think God is!  I seem unable to see Him from the “other” perspective, or if I do catch a glimpse, it is always secondary to my original view!  Is this the way that God wants it to be?  Is this the heritage I am destined to leave my children? 

I so long to see God for who He really and truly is and to then do my best to exemplify Him to my children.  And if I find what God shows me to be a “better” way, how do I implement that without hurting my earthly father or thinking less of him for his humanness?

Truly the weight of fatherhood is not to be taken lightly, but it pains me so to see the imperfect shadow that I am leaving behind and that they will have to walk in!  Oh God, help me walk true!!

Lee Justin Hess (23) of Trail, MN died in an automobile accident at 10:40 P.M. on Dec 19, 2006. He was born in Centralia, IL on January 24, 1983.

Lee assisted his family in grain farming in Northwestern MN. He was a member of Kitchi Pines Church near Pennington, MN. He has participated in mission and relief projects in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Thailand on several occasions.

He is survived by parents, William L. and Carol J. Hess, two brothers, Philip (21) and Kurt (16), three sisters, Judith (13), Laura (11) and Pearl (9). He is also survived by paternal grandparents, Oliver F. and Dorothy M. (Witmer) Hess of Russellville, KY and maternal grandmother Elva (Keens) Martin of Kell, IL. He was preceded in death by his maternal grandfather Elmer G. Martin.

Viewing will be on Dec 26^th from 6-8 P.M. at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Bemidji, MN. Funeral services will be on Dec 27^th at 10:00 AM. at the same location followed by interment at the Wildwood Cemetery near Pennington, MN.

This is the time of year when we think back to the very first Christmas, when the Three Wise Men — Gaspar, Balthazar, and Herb — went to see the baby Jesus and, according to the Book of Matthew, “presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

These are simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an important, yet often overlooked, theological fact: there is no mention of wrapping paper. If there had been wrapping paper, Matthew would have said so: “And lo, the gifts were inside 600 square cubits of paper. And the paper was festooned with pictures of Frosty the Snowman. And Joseph was going to throweth it away, but Mary saideth unto him, she saideth, ‘Holdeth it! That is nice paper! Saveth it for next year!’ And Joseph did rolleth his eyeballs. And the baby Jesus was more interested in the paper than the frankincense.”

But these words do not appear in the Bible, which means the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics:
1. They were wise.
2. They were men.

Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. This is not just my opinion, this is a scientific fact based on a statistical survey of two guys I know. One is Rob, who said the only time he ever wraps a gift is “if it’s such a poor gift that I don’t want to be there when the person opens it.” The other is Gene, who told me he does wrap gifts, but as a matter of principle never takes more than 15 seconds per gift. “No one ever had to wonder which presents daddy wrapped at Christmas,” Gene said. “They were the ones that looked like enormous spitballs.”

I also wrap gifts, but because of some defect in my motor skills, I can never completely wrap them. I can take a gift the size of a deck of cards and put it the exact center of a piece of wrapping paper the size of a regulation volleyball court, but when I am done folding and taping, you can still see a sector of the gift peeking out. (Sometimes I camouflage this sector with a marking pen.) If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh’s body would be covered only by Scotch tape.

On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My wife, like many women, actually likes wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. If it were possible, my wife would wrap each individual volt.

My point is that gift-wrapping is one of those skills like having babies that come more naturally to women than to men. That is why today I am presenting:

Gift Wrapping Tips for Men:

* Whenever possible, buy gifts that are already wrapped. If, when the recipient opens the gift, neither one of you recognizes it, you can claim that it’s myrrh.

* The editors of Woman’s Day magazine recently ran an item on how to make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring and liquid starch. They must have been on something really bad. If you’re giving a hard-to-wrap gift, skip the wrapping paper! Just put it inside a bag and stick one of those little adhesive bows on it. This creates a festive visual effect that is sure to delight the lucky recipient on Christmas morning:

YOUR WIFE: Why is there a Hefty trash bag under the tree?
YOU: It’s a gift! See? It has a bow!
YOUR WIFE (peering into the trash bag): It’s a leaf blower.
YOU: Gas-powered! Five horsepower!
YOUR WIFE: “Give me a break!”
YOU: I also got you some myrrh.

In conclusion, remember that the important thing is not what you give, or how you wrap it. The important thing, during this very special time of year, is that you save the receipt.

Author Unknown (but definitely male)

For what it’s worth, I offer free gift wrapping for any sewing machine sold in my store.  Guess who gets to do it?

I want to thank all of you for your prayers for our little niece, Regan.  I just got a call this afternoon from Loren, her dad.  The lab at Johns Hopkins found that the tumor is a “poly???  ?????.” I repeated the words to him several times but couldn’t get them right and don’t want to confuse you here.  The tumor was neither malignant, nor benign.  They did another CAT scan today and everything looked really good.  There is still a little more fluid in the brain sack than the doctors like, but it probably took a long time to build up, and will take a while to shrink back down.  They will NOT have to leave a stint in for drainage!  This is a big blessing since that would have been a major source for potential infection. 

As far as Regan goes, she is on the road to a rapid recovery.  She spent quite a while today walking around the halls pushing a little toy shopping cart.  Loren said that he believes that her peripheral vision is better now than it was before the surgery in the fact before, she would often walk into things, counters, tables and such, and now, she avoides them with ease.  She went up to the therepist today and they said to take her home and keep letting her do the things she has been doing and she will get along just fine.  The only thing that she made need help with is a speech therapist for some of her slurred words.  That may disappear on it’s own, but they are not sure.

Loren said that they were getting ready to go home this afternoon and we praise the Lord for that!!  The doctors are pretty sure they got the whole tumor but she will have to be watched regularly for the next 20 years.

Loren doesn’t know that I am going to write this, and if you don’t tell them, they won’t be the wiser.    As many of you know, Loren and Kendra felt God leading them to move further south and buy a farm earlier this summer.  I know personally that their strength, endurance, and finances have been stretched to the max.  I asked him the other day if he had any way to pay for this incident and he said that they were still a part of a brotherhood aid and they would be helping to pay for most of it.  However I know that they had to hire help for the farm while they were gone, and numerous other expenses of being gone for a week from the farm.  If you would like to help them out financial, please email me for their address, or if you want to use a credit card via PayPal, please send it to my email address of jaimee@paulbunyan.net and write a note to be included with the gift.  I will then download it to my bank and send them a check.

Thanks again for all your prayers!!  Loren testified that they could feel God’s presence with them the whole time.! PTL!

As I sit here this evening, I must confess that I am somewhat disturbed in my spirit and some feelings are welling up inside me in a way they never have before or at least for a long time.  I struggle to grasp the significance of what is going on in the lives of those so precious to me.

As you can read in the post before, my little niece, Regan, at the ripe old age of 4 develops a tumor on her brain that turns out to be, larger than a golf ball but not quite as large as a tangerine.  They had surgery today, less than 36 hours after it’s discovery.  The ongoing treatment and what caused it are unknown at this point.  She made it thru the surgery safe and for that we are most grateful!

Then we heard from my Grandfather that my Grandma’s bone that broke was caused by her having bone cancer.  Yet the doctors are unable to figure out were it is coming from so right now, they are unsure how to proceed with treatment.

I talked to a good friend of mine in Ohio who knows of two children close to them there, who have come down with cancer and the one is given a 25% chance of survival and if he makes it thru the first year, they raise the odds to 50%.

I have put up a sign at my store that reads thus;

#2 Question:
“Is today the day
I die?”

I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that life and what we we know of it here, is so short lived.  To see these loved ones face the ultimate trial of life, to stare death in the face and realize that we have no promise of tomorrow, brings home the reality that this life is only the prep course.  We were born to die.  The only difference between those who have cancer and those of us who are “healthy” is the fact that they have a better idea of when they might die.  We both will, it’s just a matter of when. 

Our greatest fulfillment will never happen on this side of the grave, but will happen when we see our Saviors face.  I long in a greater way tonight for the rapture.  To see my loved ones suffer, makes me long for the day that there will be no pain, no more cancer, no more life and death struggles!  I long, not for my own comfort this time, but because so many around me are hurting.  Like the saints under the alter I ask, “How long?”

So to conclude, the young lady asked me the other day, “If that’s the number two question, what is number one?!” 

“Am I ready to die?”