If

If I had been in the van that day sitting where Julie was...

If Betsy had been thrown from the vehicle...

If Aaron had been wearing his seatbelt...

As Betsie ten Boom, who gave her life in a Nazi concentration camp, reminded her sister Corrie, "There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places" (The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill).

Though I start many thoughts with "if" I try not to finish them. Instead I trust my family to the God who cares more about them than I do.

NPO

Tuesday's contribution to the window series

O God, you are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you,

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1 NIV

NPO is the abbreviation for the Latin phrase nil per os that means, "nothing by mouth." It's the code posted outside Julie's door.

It means no food.

No juice or Jello.

No water.

No ice chips.

It means dry.

Desolate.

Deserted.

It means questions, especially the ones directed at God and beginning with "Why...?"

The doctors suspect Julie's gallbladder and pancreas are causing the pain she has experienced the past week. To give her organs a break she is limited to fluid through her IV. Betsy also experienced a time of NPO when she was in ICU. When they took her ice chips away Betsy cried because, "It was the only thing I had." NPO is tough!

A question

I was substitute teaching in a seventh grade math class when a girl in the back of the room raised her hand.

"Yes," I said, acknowledging her question.

"Do the Amish shave their armpits?"

Three dollars

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.   ~Wilbur Rees

How much of God do you want?

Lightbulb

How many guys does it take to change a lightbulb?

What is life?

A question

Impressions 5 Museum, 2007

"I have a question," one of my Sunday School students said. We were in the midst of a lesson from Ephesians about being adopted into God's family. "How does water from the faucet get hot?"

After a short discussion about water heaters, I steered the conversation away from whether the melting of glaciers will raise the temperature of the water in our houses, to the seal of the Holy Spirit that God places on our lives.

I love teaching Sunday school. 

Lights

Why do some people let their lights shine

while others simply burn out?

Poor in Spirit

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

Tree

If you were a tree

what kind would you be?

I think I would be one of these.

David was an olive tree

The Lover was an apple tree

The righteous man is a well watered tree

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree...

Poems are made by fools like me,

but only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer

Taste

If leaves were for eating

how would they taste?

Taste and see that the LORD is good Psalm 34.8 NIV