Loretta, A Super Prayer Warrior

Prayer becomes more meaningful as we counsel with the Lord in all of our doings, as we express heartfelt gratitude, and as we pray for others. (David A. Bednar)


Do you have a special prayer warrior in your church? One of those people you better not ask to pray for something you want unless you're really sure you want the prayer answered because it will be. We have a prayer warrior like that in our little country church. Loretta is an example of faithfulness and love. 

We went to her house tonight to help her celebrate her 99th birthday that is coming up next week. At her age, you can celebrate every day for a month if you want to. Loretta told us she has been a member of our church for seventy-five years. She gave her life to Christ as a young teen before she married at age sixteen. She and her husband, who died several years ago at age 96, moved their membership to our church when they bought a farm in the neighborhood. She said they used to go all around the area and gather up children to bring to Bible School. Recently, she had been going through some of her things and found the worker certificates she received for working in Bible School in 1957 and 1960. She'd kept them all these years and had them to show us tonight.  

Another thing she has kept all these years is her devotion to the Lord. Every day she reads His word. Every day she prays for her family and friends and for her church. Every day she thanks the Lord for His blessings. Even on the hard days. 

This week is a good time to visit Loretta. To rejoice with her in a life well lived. She is the mother of five, the grandmother of many and yet she makes time to pray for the others in her church family. A true prayer warrior. 

As you read or listen to God's Word and spend time talking to Him in prayer, your spirit will eventually become stronger than your flesh. (Joyce Meyer)

That's where Loretta is now. Strong of spirit and not as strong of body anymore. But she's still remembering that the "knee" is an important part of the church family when it's bent in prayer. Proverbs 31 could be written about Loretta. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31:31)

I have been so blessed by Loretta's prayers for me. Do you know someone like Loretta? 

Almost 98 Years Young

Our church went to visit a very special member tonight. Loretta will be 98 next month. We were a little early with her birthday cake, but she didn't mind. She was quick to tell us the age on the cake was wrong. She was proud to claim that extra year even if it is a few weeks until her birthday. 

Loretta is an amazing woman. If her picture were in a church annual with Biblical descriptions, beside her picture would be all the good fruits of the spirit, faithfulness, kindness, love, joy, peace, patience and goodness. And on top of all that, she remembers everything about the old days and about the new days too. 

She's had some rough spots in her nearly 98 years. One of the roughest was losing her husband a few years ago after 76 years of marriage. But she soldiered on then and continues on today. Still living in her own house. Still cooking and cleaning for herself. Still sewing. She just made new cushion covers for her kitchen chairs and a new valance for her window. This is after having carpal tunnel surgery in December. At the danger of repeating myself, there is only one word for Loretta - amazing. 

But maybe the very best way to describe Loretta is to say that she is a prayer warrior who walks daily with the Lord. She reads her Bible through every year and prays for her family and for her church family too. She's one of those people you'd best not ask to pray for something unless you're sure you really want it to happen. 

A few years back, her youngest son found out he had a brain tumor. The doctors were not optimistic, but he was because he knew he had his mama lifting him up to the Lord. When the doctors were giving him only a short time to live, he told them, "You don't know my mother." And they didn't, but the Lord sure does. It's been several years since Joe's diagnosis and his journey hasn't been easy, but he's still on it. He's gotten to see his son graduate from high school. He's gotten to hold his grandchild and he gets to keep hugging his mama's neck. What a treasure she is to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and even a few great great grandchildren. And what a treasure she is to her church family and to me!

We love you, Loretta! You have blessed us with your prayers and your love, and we thank God for your example of faithfulness. 
 
Thanks for reading!
 

Another Favorite Sunday

~~What's your favorite way to spend Sunday? We had a good one here with a touch of Spring after the snow last week. Got up in the fifties. Felt like it had been July since it had been that warm. Well, October anyway. The thing about Kentucky weather is that it's changeable and so it's unusual not to have some pre-season warm days in January and February. We sneaked one in here on the last and it looks as if the kids in our county might have to go to school all week long. It's been a while since that happened.

~~So today I enjoyed the sunshine on a Sunday. And I thought about how I spend Sundays. Church, of course and tonight I went to hear my husband's Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet, sing at a church here in town. That's them in the picture. My husband's the one singing bass. Or since I guess it's a little hard to tell which one that is in a picture, the one on the right. I've spent a lot of Sundays at gospel music concerts.

~~When I was a little girl I spent most of my Sundays playing with my cousins as our parents took turns visiting back and forth. We had a ball and in fact that's when I started writing. I made up a story with me and my sister and my cousin as kid detectives solving a mystery out on the farm. That was fun. And started me down the writing path that I'm still going down all these years later. It's a path that's been frustrating at times but one I've never considered stepping away from. That's because I love stringing words together to tell stories. Even when it's hard. And it is hard a lot of the time. But then there are times when the characters come to life and the stories come together and then that sweet reader somewhere tells you that favorite line "I couldn't put it down."

~~But I've not spent too many Sundays writing except for a few hours doing journal entries. Another kind of writing I enjoy and one that is never hard because in a journal anything goes - as some of you who have been reading this on-line journal surely have noticed. You probably wonder what bunny rabbit I'm going to chase after next. And if you stick with me on those rabbit chases, thank you. If you don't, then you're probably not reading this. But that's another great thing to do on a Sunday - read. That's a great thing to do any time. And be with family. We did that a lot when our kids were little. They got to grow up playing with their cousins the same as I did. And now I go see my Mom on the Sunday afternoons I'm not traveling with the quartet to wherever they're singing or my own kids aren't here visiting.

~~I guess I think of Sundays as days for church and family. Good days. I hope you had a good Sunday today and that you can think back to many Sundays of good times. If you've got a minute, it might be fun to hear your favorite Sunday times.

My Little Church

Today is Sunday. I go to a small country church where I play the piano - badly. It just so happens that nobody who is a member there can play any better or at least they haven't admitted it if they can. I am limited on my song selections and I can only play out of the hymn book. Sometimes I think I can only play because the Lord takes pity on the church people and helps my fingers land on the right keys - most of the time. When I first started playing the piano for the church several years ago, I would get so nervous that my fingers shook. At least that gave me an excuse for hitting the wrong keys. But now I just plunk along and don't get too uptight when I mess up. That's because I know the people in my church are going to forgive me. They might wish I practiced a little more or that a better piano player would move his or her membership to our church, but they love me anyway in spite of my failings.

That's the best thing about having a church family. Knowing that you are in fellowship with other Christians who will forgive you and who will love you and who will pray for you. They'll rejoice with you when good things happen and cry with you when bad things come along. My church is very small. If you've read my Hollyhill books, you know sort of what Goshen is like because I based my Mt. Pleasant Church in the book on Goshen the way it was back in the sixties. Except of course, only the devout and good members were based on people in my church. And that's really true.

On most Sundays, we average maybe 40 or 45 now. When I first started going there, we averaged 60 or 70 and there were a lot of families and children. Those kids grew up and moved on to other neighborhoods, other churches. Now we are an aging congregation and we only have a few young families. So we treasure each baby or young child who comes our way. We don't have the youth activities that the big churches have. We don't have a youth minister. Our Sunday School is struggling due to lack of enough committed teachers and few young Sunday school students. But my children grew up in that small church and while they didn't have as many activities as the youth in some other churches in the area, they did learn a lot about the Bible. At the same time I think youth activities are great and I wish our church could do that. I wish the big churches would open their doors to youth from little churches and I'm sure many of them do.

But the really good thing I like about my small church is that everybody is the same as family. This morning when I came out of Sunday School, our oldest member who is about 88 was holding our youngest member who is about two months old. He's a cutie. Well, she is too even at 88 because she always comes to church with a smile on her face even though walking is getting increasingly difficult for her.

Today it was hard for most of us to keep smiling. One of our deacons has been sick for a few weeks. Last Friday he got a diagnosis of advanced abdominal cancer. The doctors give him a short time to live. He's struggling with how to accept and handle that kind of news and so are we. He's our brother in Christ. And it made me wonder whether it's better to know or not to know. If you know you can get your affairs in order, but it's hard to count down the days. Especially when one is so sick. Pete's a committed Christian believer, but he also has much he loves here. So we're praying for him.

On a lighter note, I went back to help out with the twins a couple of days last week. They are doing very well. Eating and sleeping and pooping which is what babies do. Along with just a little crying, but not much. I'm still planning to post a picture of them on my website in the next few weeks - if I can get the photos together and sent to Susie who takes care of my website for me. She lives in the Keys and says they got a lot of wind and rain from the tropical storm, but was grateful it didn't turn into a hurricane.

Also I took advantage of a quiet day alone Friday (Darrell's group, the Patriot Qt went to Missouri to sing this weekend) to read over the first draft of my new Shaker book. And I think it's going to be an okay story. It read well and the characters seemed to have life. That was a big relief. Now I'll have to work it over chapter by chapter and line by line to see if I can make it read better and weed out spots where I was too wordy or said the same thing too often.

Hope you all have a wonderful week. And keep Pete in your prayers.

A Loving Church Family

Hi, everybody. Here it is Sunday again. Do you ever feel like the weeks are only three days long instead of seven? I know one thing - I try to shoehorn in about ten days of work into those seven days and it's going to get worse for me before it gets better on the work front. The garden is coming on with bushels of beans and there are blackberries out in the field. I love blackberry jam, but those berries don't jump in the pot by themselves. Then I still have that deadline for my next Shaker book, tentatively titled The Believer, flashing up in front of my panicked mind every once in a while. Actually I'm not panicked yet, but I can imagine getting there. My goal is to have the first draft finished this month, but I rarely ever meet my writing quota goals. Probably because I don't set realistic ones. I always think I'm a faster writer than I actually am. But with this book, I need to hit my goals or at least stay very close to them because the twins are on their way. About three weeks away or so my daughter-in-law hopes.

The doctors measured them last Thursday as they can now before they are born with their magical instruments. Their measurements had the babies weighing 4 lbs 11 oz each. That's a lot of babies to be carrying around for three more weeks or longer. Needless to say my daughter-in-law is tired and feeling heavy and ready to have those twins discover America! We're all anxious to see our newest family members, but it will be better for them if they wait a few more weeks.

At any rate their birthday still promises to come about the same time as the release date for my new book, The Outsider, August 1. I'm looking forward to that too. It seems to be selling well prior to publication. I can only hope and pray that all the readers who are ready to take a chance on the story will be happy they chose my story to read. The Shakers were an odd group with so many contradictory ways, but yet you have to admire their devotion and their ability to create communities that demonstrated their idea of heaven on earth and to keep them going for years as a celibate people who had to get all their converts from the "world" they so wanted to shut away from them. Romantic Times Book Review Magazine gave the book a great review and chose it as one of the "Top Picks!" for Christian fiction. That was good news. I can't keep from reading reviews and taking whatever the reviewer said to heart, so it's good when the reviewer has good things to say. Makes me second guess myself if someone doesn't like my story or my writing. It shouldn't, because we can't expect everyone to have the same point of view or like the same kinds of stories. Still... as a writer, I want everybody to like my stories. I might not really expect that to happen, but I do want it to happen.

I've gotten far afield as I often do when I'm journaling. Our preacher calls it chasing rabbits. I start at point A and before I take a breath, I've zigzagged to point G or maybe point T or even point Z. But what I planned to write about when I started was my church family. I dedicated The Outsider to my brothers and sisters in Christ at Goshen Church. We're a little church and I do mean little. A big crowd for us is anything over 50 and we have dipped lots lower than that. This was one of those dipping mornings when we didn't quite have 25 there. It's been months since we were that low, but everybody was doing something else today or not feeling well. But we had what we call an "eatin' meeting," a potluck meal with yummy homecooking and time for fellowship. We have lots of those meetings and it helps us grow closer as a church family. But as any family does, we also have our conflicts and this or that person will fall away because of hurt feelings or personal problems. That might not be noticed so much in a big church with hundreds, even thousands of attendees, but boy, we notice it at our church and we miss those brothers or sisters who for this reason or that stop coming. And we rejoice when they step back into our fellowship.

My church family has always been loving and supportive of me and my writing and that's why I dedicated this new book about the Shakers, a different kind of religious family, to the many brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I have shared worship over the many years I have been going to Goshen. A lot of great Christian people who set good examples of faithfulness for me as a young Christian have moved on up to heaven. Others moved out of our church community and others are still there at Goshen. I love a small church like Goshen where everybody is family and we enjoy eating and praying together. I hope you all have a church family just as loving.

Enjoy the week. Maybe I'll put some quotes on this week about relaxing. Believe me, that's advice I need. :)