Last week, I wrote my last post for 2023 and signed off for the year…. or so I thought. Something miraculous occurred about 14 hours after I wished you all a Merry Christmas. Something too wonderful to keep to myself. Psalm 105:1-2 says,“Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness. Let the whole world know what He has done. Sing to Him. Sing praises to Him. Tell everyone about His great works.” That’s exactly what we wanted to do so, with the permission and collaboration of Blair and John Samuel, I want to share with you what we’re calling a Christmas miracle. 

Something most of you don’t know is my sweet Blair and son-in-love, John Samuel, have been trying to have a baby for years. They were married in 2017 and the natural progression of life is usually to start a family within a few years. This was their plan, too. They’d traveled, had their careers in a good place, and had settled in a new home. They decided they were ready for children.

One year passed. Two. Three. They watched their friends, one by one, get baby bumps and cut cakes or pop balloons to reveal the gender. They hosted baby showers in their home and visited friends on the OB floor of the hospital with gifts for the new additions. They’ve taken casseroles to their friends with newborns and wished them well and they meant every word. They’ve held friends’ babies and family members’ babies while trying to keep a happy face and fight back the tears it always seemed to induce. No matter how delighted they were for their friends or family, it was always a reminder of their own longing and the possibility that they’d never experience that joy themselves. 

As a mother, there’s nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. We’d rather bear any illness, want, crisis, affliction- we’d take any kind of suffering on ourselves to keep one of our children from feeling those things. For those of you who don’t know Blair personally, she is delightful. I know all mothers say that about their kids, but that’s truly her personality. Since the moment she arrived, she’s been bubbling over with joy and personality and her eyes twinkle with life and light. She even bounces when she walks and it just fits her sunny disposition. She laughs with her whole body. She is a joyful soul. A dear friend of mine, who’s been praying for their situation, recently told me Blair is still Blair on the surface, but she’s felt a hint of sadness in her the last few times she’s been with her. Like there’s something heavy she’s carrying. Of course, my friend knew exactly what that something was. There are few things more emotionally taxing than infertility. 

Going on four years, they’ve struggled with this. They’ve seen doctors, embryologists, had countless blood tests, dozens and dozens of ultrasounds, three surgeries, three invasive diagnostic procedures, two diagnoses, 74 hormone injections to date, and a previous failed cycle of IVF. Between the two of them, they were taking 50 supplements a day, made drastic diet changes to eat cleanly, and a lot of other things that are too numerous to list. John Samuel even worked a side job for a while to help finance all of it because fertility treatments are very expensive. I tell you all of that just so you’ll know the background and appreciate the next part of their story. 

During the Thanksgiving weekend, Blair started a second round of IVF. They’d prepaid for two cycles of IVF and the first round had failed about a year ago. Because of the cost, this would be their last try with this type of treatment, so they were excited and more than a little nervous. In some ways, this felt like their Hail Mary pass. John Samuel gave Blair the first shots of the series while they were here visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday. After more than a week of those, they went to the hospital on December 7 and the doctor retrieved her eggs. After putting their ingredients together in an incubator, they had 12 little embryos and were ecstatic. 

The usual course is to leave them in the incubator for a week, see how many survive, and chart their progress before freezing for implantation. For those of you who aren’t embryologists, for the first three days, they look for cell division. They should see compacting on the 4th day and expanding by the 5th or 6th day with the baby and placenta both visible. Isn’t that amazing? In a routine that was familiar to them from the last time, the embryologist would call every day and give them an update on how many embryos they had and their scores based on those expected milestones. 

Starting with 12 embryos, the number went down each day with each phone call. From 12 to 6 to 4. With every decrease in number, the parents’ spirits fell right along with it. By day 5, the embryologists were not seeing any activity in any of the embryos. They waited 24 hours just to be sure as they weren’t eager to make the dreaded phone call. Finally, after seeing no activity indicative of life for a whole day- no division, no compacting, no expanding- they felt confident that there was no hope of life coming from this final cycle. The last count was 0. There would be no embryo to implant. There would be no baby. The clinic called and broke the news and, given their situation and history, advised Blair and John Samuel to look into adoption or other options. There was nothing more they could do for them. 

We got word of the news and we were all devastated. Blair and John Samuel were grieving. They were trying to come to grips with the fact that they may never experience one of the most basic and taken-for-granted physical functions of having their own child- something that seemed to come so easily to others around them. Everyone dreams of seeing traces of their own face in another human being. Being told you might not experience something you’ve always assumed would happen is a loss that has to be faced and processed and mourned. Blair called and was sobbing. It was the kind of weeping that comes up from the deepest parts of the heart and it broke mine. This is where we were when I wrote what I thought to be my final post of the year. I was grieving for my daughter and my son-in-law and was writing therapeutically as much as anything. Something we’d all prayed for for so long was seeming less and less likely. Godly grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, great-uncles and great-aunts, cousins, second cousins, first cousins- twice removed, our close friends and circles, their close friends and circles. So many people had prayed for this. We know God is good, but -if I’m being honest- it wasn’t feeling much like that in the moment.

The next day, after 24 hours of crying and walking around in a daze, Blair got another phone call. They told her to sit down. The embryologist who looks at little embryos develop, all day every day, told her he didn’t know who they had praying for them, but he’d like to put some things on their list. The morning after their call to break the bad news, they’d done the required morning check on their embryos and still nothing. As a matter of routine, they checked again in the afternoon. He couldn’t believe what he saw. After sitting lifeless and unchanged for all that time, one embryo had divided, compacted, expanded and was hatching. All the things. Two days of growth and development had taken place in just a few hours. Just hours before their time was up, God did this miraculous thing. 

The doctor was sure to communicate that this is not how this usually works. This is not how it normally goes. Things do not typically happen this way. This is not the standard pattern of development. That’s why they were so certain it was time to break the bad news that it was over, the previous day. Looking at it through a scientific lens, it was over. But God. I believe if it had happened in the usual, normal, typical, standard way, we might have been tempted to give credit to modern medicine or gloss over God’s role in it all. We believe God stopped all life processes in the embryo and then started them again to remind us He is the Giver of life and He is able to do far more than we could ever imagine. He, alone, has the final say in all things. They were able to freeze the very healthy embryo for implantation in February and we give God all the praise. 

I know what you’re thinking- there’s a lot of distance and time and hurdles to clear between a frozen embryo and the birth of a viable child, and you’re right. But, to get to this point is huge for them and we choose to have faith that if God put life into that baby where there was none, He will keep His hand on it all the way. That is our prayer for the new year- that Blair and John Samuel will be holding their miracle in the glow of the Christmas lights next year. If you would give us the honor of adding it to your prayers, too, we’d be humbly grateful. 

Thanks be to the One who didn’t come to us at Christmas in a typical, normal, standard, ordinary way. He has given us hope and invigorated our faith, this season. 

Merry Christmas, 

JONI 

We’re back from our trip and had a wonderful time! Actually, we’ve been back from our trip- it’s just taken me a minute to get back in the groove. We flew into Portland, Maine and meandered up the coast to Acadia National Park- stopping at towns, harbors, and lighthouses all along the way. After a few days in beautiful Bar Harbor, we drove over to Woodstock, Vermont and took in the beauty around there. We stayed in a most charming inn but, sadly, Bob Newhart wasn’t working the front desk. Apparently, because of a hurricane and an extra-rainy summer and fall, it wasn’t the greatest year for fall foliage, but it was still prettier than a Mississippi fall and we really enjoyed (or I really enjoyed) the cooler weather. 

A couple of weeks before our trip, my family got together at our house. My little brother, Lee, was set to leave for Africa about the same time we were going to Maine. Lee, just being Lee, was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was asking about his trip and he started asking about ours. He wanted to know what we were going to do and I listed our simple goals of enjoying the leaves and cool weather while taking in the rocky coast and lighthouses. He nodded slowly with a hint of sympathy in his eyes and pursed his lips as if he was waiting for more- like…. and after that we’re going to bike the Appalachian Trail through Maine, do a polar bear plunge in the Atlantic, and run in the Boston Marathon before heading home. It was then I was reminded that there two kinds of people in this world. Those who climb mountains and those who look at them. There are those who think vacations are a time to challenge themselves and live on the edge and those of us who are content to tank up on the hotel breakfast and enjoy the scenery (from elevations that don’t cause hallucinations without supplemental oxygen. True story.) We are not the same. 

Well, the first hint of fall is set to blow in here on Saturday. Of course, as a Mississippian, by fall I mean highs in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s which will steadily climb back into the 80’s until the next wave of cool air arrives and we repeat the same process. When temps get too low to make cheese toast on our dash, it is considered autumn here and y’all know how I get. This is my time. The air is about to get crisp. The sky is already a ridiculous shade of blue. My steps are peppier. My voice is laced with more excitement. My outlook is brighter. I’m ready to sit around the firepit and drink hot chocolate while wearing a sweater. I kept my mouth shut and took summer on the chin. All 5 months of it. I’ve waited so long and endured so much for a chance at some chili, football, and chill bumps. And, yes, I’m even going to say it- I can’t wait for a gray, overcast, blustery day that’s not fit for anything but staying home in pajamas with a book and a bowl of soup. Yes, yes, yes!

Davis and I are taking a trip to Maine and Vermont in a couple of weeks to enjoy a real fall. You know- those places where the leaves actually turn beautiful, vivid colors before falling off the trees and not just brown from being fried to a crisp by the sun. I’ve bought sweaters and am already working on my northern fall ensemble which is quite a different thing from the southern fall line. 

While we’re down here waiting for the temps to drop on Saturday, Davis has killed a copperhead in our yard. I suppose they’re looking for a place to bed down for the winter. We’ve given up on the grass. It’s just a brown, crunchy mess at this point. Even my mums and pumpkins on the porch are droopy and  looking at me like…”um, are you sure it’s time for us? …it doesn’t feel like it’s time for us.” And still, we wait. Just because Brach’s has delivered their third shipment of mellowcreme pumpkins and autumn mix to Walmart does not the cool weather bring. But, only 60 more hours until it’s here. I can do this. I can do this.

I know not everyone has the same seasonal preferences. I know some of you enjoy torment and affliction and prefer summer and that’s ok, too. Bless your heart. God made us all different. I do love how He keeps things constantly changing. Just about the time you think you can’t take another cold and rainy day, the daffodils pop their heads out of the frozen ground. When you feel like you can’t take one more day of sweating through your clothes, you feel a cool breeze blow across your red face. We can always, always, always count on the seasons to change.

It’s usually like that in life, too. We go through seasons when we think we can’t handle another day just like the several dozens before it. Maybe it’s another day of separation or sickness or waiting and waiting. Day in and day out, nothing changes with our situation and we just want to see some movement in a more favorable direction. Sometimes, we’re in a season we just absolutely love. The climate is just right for our liking and we can’t imagine conditions being any more perfect for us. But, because life is the way it is, we know it can’t go on like that forever. Kids grow up. We age. Parents die. People leave. Jobs change. So, we make the most of our time. 

If you’re in a good season, savor each day and the people in it. Thank God for His blessings and ask how you can use them for His purposes. If you’re feeling stuck in a season that isn’t one of your choosing, trust God to walk you through it until that welcomed change finally comes. No one can be trusted more than the One “with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” He is faithful even when we don’t understand His plan. 

“The seasons change and you change, but the Lord abides evermore the same, and the streams of His love are as deep, as broad and as full as ever.” -Charles Spurgeon 

Bundle up. It’s gonna get chilly. I feel a change a-comin’. 

Night, 

JONI 

I walked up to the front desk with no makeup on and was feeling a little self-conscious. Some women can pull that off with no problem, but I looked like I was there to audition for The Walking Dead. A sweet and generous friend had given me a couple of gift cards and I was at the skin care clinic to redeem them- one for a hydrafacial and another for something called a dermaplaning. The first one sounded nice, but the second one had a painful ring to it. I pictured a power washer for the facial and a belt sander for the planing. I wasn’t really sure what all the treatments involved, but I was down to have them done at 1:00 at the skin care spa. 

For starters, I was told by the lady at the desk that I was on the wrong side of the building. I’d gone in the plastic surgery door by mistake but was wondering if that might actually be the best door for me, after all. Maybe I was past the help of a power washing and a belt sander and needed something more invasive. This drooping neck thing could really use some attention. And I’m to the point where I have to practically smile just to get my frown lines to straighten my mouth into a horizontal line so, even when I think I’m smiling, I just look mad. Anyway, my gift cards were not for plastic surgery, so the nice lady escorted me to the skin care side of the building, where I was welcomed with a friendly greeting and a clipboard full of paperwork. 

With relaxing music in the background, I filled out sheet after sheet. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The forms made me swear I hadn’t used retinol in 7 days because bad things could occur during the treatment. I started to doubt myself and wonder what would happen if I’d actually forgotten and used retinol one day. From the serious sound of it, my face might just combust into flames in the middle of the treatment or my skin could slide right off my face. They asked for an emergency contact number- I assumed in case my face did explode, they’d need to let Davis know. I finally convinced myself that I definitely hadn’t used retinol in a week and I signed the forms promising as much. 

The young girl came to get me. My esthetician, I believe they call them. This is all new lingo to me as I’ve never been a spa type of girl. Remember, I grew up between brothers and I’m pretty low maintenance in the beauty routine department. I mean, I think I do ok and clean up all right, but hair appointments and sporadic manicures are as far as my beauty rituals go. Anyway, the first thing she did was ask me verbally about the retinol. My goodness- that retinol combined whatever they were about to do to me must be worse than mixing fire and gasoline or pills and booze- but I, again, confirmed I hadn’t used it in a week. 

The sweet girl took me back and asked if I had any concerns. Sure, I had some but they’d  probably need to be addressed on the other side of the building, so a simple no was given. Why bother the young, twenty-something girl whose face was still unscathed by Father Time. She asked me to describe my daily skin routine starting with morning and then night. “Oh, I was afraid of this,” I thought. “Her head will explode when I tell her my low-grade skin care regimen.” I went through what I do in the morning and night and may or may not have been a bit elaborate in my description of the imported Equate brand exfoliating facial wipes and anti-aging cream selected from among the finest brands that the drug store offers plus whatever comes in my Clinique free gift, a couple of times a year- you know, without trying to sound too bragadocious. Since she was a professional, I looked for any sign of judgement, but there was none. She was likely just thinking- well, bless her heart. 

She told me to stretch out on the table and put a wedge under my knees. I was very comfortable. She explained that the planing would remove all of the old skin and facial hair I might have. I thought to myself how she was about to have the limits of dermaplaning tested. One thing I can pride myself in is the ablilty to grow some facial hair and menopause has only strengthened this God-given gift. She planed and planed and planed. Nobody has ever planed longer or harder. I doubt Noah planed more while working on the ark. It was oddly relaxing to have my face scraped down to its original surface. I asked her if I had a lot of stuff coming off and that’s when she used the words, a little fuzzy. She was being kind as I know other words like lower primate would’ve probably been her first choice. She finally got done and asked if I’d like to see what she’d removed. Well, I wasn’t leaving there without seeing that! She pulled the paper around so I could get a look and there it was in a clump in the middle. A ball of fur that looked like a small animal curled up on a winter day. Not as large as a mongoose or skunk but more like a mole or gerbil. I reached up to feel my face and it was as smooth as glass. I was sure it hadn’t been that smooth since the day I emerged from my mother’s womb. 

She finished off with the hydrofacial and it was so nice. She showed me the collection jar from that, but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the collection of gerbil hair from the planing. I thanked her for the very relaxing experience and for her kindness and I added I’d likely tack this onto my simple list of beauty routines since I enjoyed it so much. 

As women, we do have a lot of pressures to stay young looking. Marketing from every direction tells us to fight it with everything we have. We’re the worst about comparing ourselves to each other and basing our confidence and self-worth on the results of those internal matchups. We’ll always be able to find women who are more _________ (fill in the blank with whatever you’re insecure about with your appearance.)None of us wants to show our age. But, hello. Aging is natural, inevitable, and, as they say, a blessing that many are denied. 

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30 When I think of some of the most beautiful women I know, all kinds of faces come to my mind. Old and young and in between- very little of my perception of them has to do with their looks. The things a woman may see in herself- crow’s feet, a new sprinkling of gray hair, or a couple of pounds added since last year- they don’t keep her from being regarded as beautiful by others. The beauty is in the way she makes other people feel. How she carries herself and walks into a room. The way she handles difficult situations. The words she chooses. How she conducts herself. The way she loves people who need it most. How she dispenses grace. How she reflects God’s joy and light. Those are things that make a woman beautiful and those things don’t ever fade, shrivel, wrinkle, or droop. 

So, let me get off of here and go smear on my drug store night cream and squeeze out the rest of the eyelid serum from the sample tube, but may I always give the most time and attention to making my heart beautiful. Let’s be beautiful women today! 

JONI 

This is my third attempt in as many months to write this and, until now, I’ve hit delete, closed my laptop, and moved on to do something else. For a blog that touts “laughing matters,” I didn’t want to seem like I was going negative- not that I think it’s necessarily negative to acknowledge problems that exist in our world. I think that’s a belief that Christians and the Church have bought into and it keeps us from talking about some really important things. There’s a reality we live in and sometimes reality isn’t pretty. At times, it’s just downright ugly and, if something comes to my mind repeatedly as this has, I figure it’s for a reason. I promise we’re going to land in an encouraging place before it’s all over so just sit tight.

For the last couple of years, I’ve become more and more aware of the decline of personal responsibility in our society. I’d bet you have, too. It seems to be a problem that really presented itself during the Covid lockdowns and has just kept growing. Kind of like Gorilla Glue does. I keep up with national news pretty closely, so I know it’s not a local issue or isolated problem. You likely don’t have to go far from your own home before you see some aftermath left behind by people who made a decision to push their problem onto someone else. Doesn’t really matter who- anyone but themselves. “Let someone else deal with my inconvenience” seems to be a popular option for managing things, these days. We can see it in everything from trash on the side of the road to litters of puppies abandoned in parking lots to children who aren’t cared for- there are so many problems that can be traced back to someone who refused to take responsibility for something that was theirs to handle. 

Most of us can’t even wrap our brains around the lack of conscience and absence of concern it would require to throw a bag of trash out on the side of the road or not give our children any kind of moral guidance. Maybe some decisions are based on financial situations or mental illness that can’t be helped, but I’d say laziness, selfishness, and spiritual emptiness account for most of it. Whatever the reason, there seems to be a growing number of people who refuse to do the most basic things expected from any able member of society and we’re all living with the consequences. 

Probably the most stressful occupations, today, are those that have to deal with the effects of the growing responsibility issue. Teachers. Police officers. Human and social services. Animal control and rescue. Medical personnel. Waste management. Those are just a few. They’re frustrated, overworked, overwhelmed, and work dangerously close to the edge of total burnout, each day. I suppose there’s only so much sadness, chaos, grief, and frustration a person can take on themselves-  especially if no progress or end is ever visible to encourage them to keep on going. 

But, I’d say the professionals who deal with the aftermath of societal problems aren’t the only ones who are getting weary. As Christians- as God’s Church- as ministers- as responsible citizens- we can also get to a place where we’re exhausted from ministering in the places where Jesus is desperately needed. We can become overwhelmed in our work to undo some of the harmful consequences of apathy and irresponsibility. We can lose heart in the massive size and scope of the aftermath of sin and inaction. We may even be tempted to label “those people” as the source of all the problems and give ourselves a free pass from any responsibility. If we’re not careful, resentment and anger will creep into our hearts and attitudes. 

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Different translations say it in different ways- grow weary in doing good- get tired of doing what is good- become discouraged in doing good- lose heart in doing good. We’ve all felt that way. As with anything, we usually start a project, a ministry, a calling, a job with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. We see a need, feel a calling, and energetically get to work. In time, no matter how you want to word it, we can just get worn slap out in doing good- the southern translation. It doesn’t happen quickly or all at once. It gradually creeps in when we’ve been at it a while and we start to question how we’re really making a difference. The verse tells us to just keep going, not give up, and trust God with the harvest of results. Hebrews 6:10 says, “God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them.” 

So, as you put on your law enforcement badge, head to your classroom at that high risk school, look for homes for abandoned animals, work with the prison ministry, volunteer to pick up trash, prepare a sermon for a discouraged congregation, go to your prayer closet for revival in our country, clock in for the night shift at the ER, work at that after school program, or whatever beautiful calling God has placed on your life- do not grow weary or tired or discouraged or lose heart in doing good. God will not forget your work and how you’ve helped His children. Keep on keeping on. He sees you. “Work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…”

Y’all have a great weekend! 

May your football team win on Saturday! 

JONI 

Whew! July and August have been busy months! This is less of a blog post and more like another written excuse. My latest reason for being out of circulation is my little Mama had hip replacement surgery and I moved in with her for a few days to be her primary caretaker. You know everything is outpatient, these days, so they deposited her, still half drunk, into the backseat and we were on our way with our list of instructions, precautions, and prescriptions within just a few hours of arriving. 

Since then, we’ve navigated everything from showers to exercises to wrangling her into those compression stockings each day. Those compression things are really a team building exercise as well as excellent cardio for the one to whom they’re not being applied. Through it all, I’ve only wanted to throw her out into the yard once, twice max, and I’d say those are pretty impressively low numbers for a mother and daughter who are together 24/7 in a painful and taxing situation. I haven’t asked her how many times she’s wanted to throw me outside, because it might hurt my feelings. 

Anyway, she’s bounced back amazingly well to be an almost 81 year old. She’s walking perfectly with her walker and is practicing with a cane. It really is something how quickly they can get you back up and going. Her physical therapist said she was doing well enough that I could come home and just go over and help her with some chores every day, so that’s where we are now. With this new hip, I’ll be struggling to keep up with her once she’s fully recovered. As one of my brothers says, she’s got a lot of charge left on her battery. The three of us are awfully blessed to be hers. 

Before I go, y’all know by now that this is a special day for me. It’s the eve of the very last day of August. In just a little over 24 hours, we can put the long, miserable summer trilogy to bed and declare victory over its multiple attempts to kill us. This summer has been particularly vengeful. I know it will still be hot in September and even October, but this day is a psychological victory for me. I don’t like to wish my life away, but I do make an exception for the summer months. I’ve got plans to transform our house into something resembling and smelling like an autumn eruption this weekend. College football and September, you are most welcome here! 

Next week, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be back to our regular programming. I hope y’all have had a good week and enjoy a long, relaxing weekend. Stay safe if you travel and we’ll talk soon! 

JONI 

Birthdays are a big deal at our house. When the kids still lived at home, we’d start the day with some kind of pastry with a candle in it and drag them out of bed to eat it among the balloons and streamers adorning the breakfast table. There might be a small teaser gift for what was to come later and always a round of “Happy Birthday” croaked out in our morning voices. They’d have a card and special snacks in their lunchbox or we’d go to lunch at their restaurant of choice if it wasn’t a school day. There were parties with friends, maybe cupcakes at school, cake with grandparents, and some special activity they weren’t treated to very often. Basically, from sun up to midnight, we had a full-on celebration of the birthday person’s big day and, most of the time, it would spill over into the next day in order to fit in all the fanfare and fuss. Yeah, birthdays were/are a big deal here. 

We celebrated our August birthdays, a couple of weekends ago. Blair, John Samuel, and Anna Kathryn, Carson’s girlfriend, all have birthdays in this, the hottest month of the year. Yes, I still make a big deal out of their birthdays and I don’t mean grown-up, more sophisticated celebrations for the full-grown people that they are. No, birthdays still call for paper streamers and balloons and hats and restaurants of choice. I’m a firm believer in plates that say Happy Birthday, a lot of helium inflation, and everyone seeing their name written in icing once a year. When they come home for their birthday celebrations, we’re always stocked with their favorite everything from coffee to ice cream. Birthdays should make you feel like a kid even if you’re far from being one. Even after having celebrated her earlier, I drove to spend the day with Blair on her actual birthday, this week. She had the day off and a home decorating project she wanted to work on, so I couldn’t resist spending her birthday afternoon doing some of her favorite things for old time’s sake. It was a fun day with my girl. 

I’m not sure why I’ve always been so determined to make birthdays a memorable day. I wouldn’t say my kids were spoiled on very many days out of the year, but birthdays were always one of the exceptions. They mark the very beginning of God’s plan for each of us. The Giver of life customized our personalities, selected our strengths, trusted us with specific gifts, allowed certain weaknesses, and wrapped them all in a body made with His creative hands that would be born on the day of His choosing. Our birthdays. He gave each of us everything we’d need to accomplish His purpose for our lives and then gave us the keys of free will. We could take what He’d given us and the days He’d measured out for us and go in any direction we’d choose from there. Birthdays are good days to evaluate ourselves and what we’re doing with what we’ve been given and they’re really great days to celebrate the beauty of God’s creativity and how He’s made each person inimitable. Now, that’s something worth celebrating! And in a big way! So, “Happy Birthday to you”…..and you…..and you. 

I’d like to sign off by pointing out how much restraint it has taken on my part to make no mention of the truly horrendous, excruciating, agonizing, torturous heat and humidity that have fallen over us. I’m trying to be a big person about it and not whine. I know you, summer people, are in your element and you’re having your turn. You and I are not the same. And your turn seems way longer than my turn. I’m struggling over here to find the energy to do much of anything (as you may have noticed) and I really think my brain has powered down. I am not ok. Send a cold front. A breeze. A cloud. Anything. 

Thanks, 

JONI 

Growing up in Mississippi, the question was never if you went to church but where. We are, after all, the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. On Sundays and Wednesdays, there were only a handful of places you could possibly be- church, hospitalized, or so sick at home you were unable to stand on your own power. My family belonged to a blonde brick Baptist church at the end of a boulevard. It’s where I spent much of my young life. My Daddy was a deacon and both of my parents were Sunday school teachers. They also sang in the choir, which meant they had an elevated and unobstructed view of my friends and me during the service. My Mama, especially, seemed to have an eagle eye when it came to spotting any talking or note-writing activity. She would then send me nonverbal messages with her eyes from the choir loft. A furrowed brow meant- I see you laughing and you have until exactly right now to stop it or I’ll tell your Daddy when we get home. A slight shake of the head meant you better get that gum out of your mouth and put it in that offering envelope you’ve been using to doodle. If her eyes narrowed and started to take on a red glow, that meant- I see you whispering and I hope you don’t think you’re going anywhere but school this week. 

The blonde brick Baptist church on the boulevard is probably the first place my parents carried me when I was new to the world. I went to Sunday school and kindergarten and Bible school and GA’s and training union there. I sat in little wooden chairs and made crafts and learned songs. I colored on construction paper with coffee cans full of broken crayons and ate crackers and drank fruit punch. I skated, played foosball, pulled cold bottles from the coke machine, and slid down the banisters when no one was looking. I’d go home with friends for the afternoon on Sundays and they’d bring me back to the night service. The next week, they’d come home with me to run in the sprinkler, play a round of croquet, or something as riveting as that.

It’s where my friends’ mamas became like my mamas and mine became like theirs. I learned the words of hymns and they became ingrained so deeply that I’ll remember them until I die. We delivered gifts to nursing homes, glued popsicle sticks together, recited Bible verses, and rode many miles on the church bus and van. We’d sit in a semi-circle around the teacher who’d tell us about Joseph’s mean brothers while holding a large picture of the atrocity for us to see. There were lock-ins, revivals, bake sales, movie nights, and ice cream socials in the fellowship hall with fancy cookies from the bakery. I knew every nook and cranny of the blonde brick Baptist church on the boulevard. Every closet, piano, bathroom, hiding place, television, secret door. I felt as at home there as I did at my own house. And, on the most special days, I’d walk down the aisle of the church. To profess Jesus as my Savior, don my cap and gown on graduation Sunday, stand by my friends on their wedding day, and to marry Davis on the arm of my Daddy. 

I’m not sure if church is a major hub of social activity for as many kids as it was then. They have so many other outlets and organizations they’re involved in now. But, back in my day, church was where we spent so many of our hours that it was the pool from which we drew a large portion of our friends. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sweetly reminded of just how many of those friends from the blonde brick church on the boulevard still remain in my closest circle. Maybe friendships that take root in our earliest years have longer to grow and they become strong enough to withstand the test of time. Maybe friendships that form with Jesus in common are able to endure the harsh elements of life and remain intact. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful for the friends made in those little wooden chairs who’ve stayed with me through Mary Jane shoes, acne, ugly bridesmaid dresses, and still walk by my side today in the hot flashes. Their mamas are still like my mamas and mine remains like theirs. Of all the gifts that blonde brick church on the boulevard gave me, I’d place them only below the One who brought us together. 

Well, I’m checking in to let you know I haven’t forgotten I have a blog. I guess I’m kind of unofficially taking the month of July off even though I didn’t announce that ahead of time. I’ve been busy doing what we do here in the South this time of year- trying to manage heat-induced impatience and putting up vegetables. It’s the time of year when everyone wants to know if you’d like some squash just as you were about to ask them the same thing. No, no one in the South wants any more squash. We’re up to our eyeballs in it. Peas? Well, those are another story. We’ll run you over with our car to get a bushel of those. So, we’re just down here looking up new squash recipes, swatting at flies, and counting the days until cooler weather and college football arrive. Not that the two are, in any way, synonymous, but looking ahead has kept us going.

A couple of months ago, a semi-truck delivered a massive load of bricks across the street. A few days earlier, the framers and roofers had finished their jobs and the windows had been installed. It was time for the bricklayers. A new house was being built in the place of one that burned last year. The new house is two-story and pretty large, so there were a LOT of bricks. The bricklaying crew arrived and they started with the very first row. Day after day after day, I’d watch them work, but they seemed to gain very little ground because of the large scope of the job. The area to be covered was just so great and the bricks were just so small. The guys would work a full day and, from my shady front porch, it would look like they’d made a very insignificant dent in the formidable work to be done. In addition to size of the house, they had so many corners, windows, and doors to navigate. From where I sitting, it was painfully slow work and it seemed like the final result would never be achieved. 

Last week, I passed a highway crew at work. Nobody likes to see those orange signs and a long line of taillights indicating road construction ahead. I’m always perplexed at the painstakingly slow process of building roads and highways. The projects are long and winding and the end is never visible. Day after day, month after month, those people work on their lengthy projects in small half-mile increments. There are so many layers and steps to finishing a road. When they’re done with one small section, they just move on to start it all over again, so they can gain just a little more ground. Again and again and again. Mile after mile after mile of work to do and progressing just a little stretch at a time. The end goal is always somewhere out there beyond the horizon. Out of sight and seemingly unreachable. 

I have to say I really admire the people who can do those types of jobs. Maybe that’s why I notice them as they work. I’m amazed by them. Those people who can work so faithfully for weeks and months and years and still remain so far from their finished project. We’re all wired differently. I don’t know if it’s my self-diagnosed attention deficit or just my restless and impatient nature, but that kind of work would drive me absolutely mad. Maybe it’s why I chose work where I could make a lot of visible progress in one day and look back and get some sense of achievement from my obvious headway. If I feel overwhelmed by the impossible magnitude of a task, I’m more likely to throw in the towel long before I’m done. I don’t really like that about myself, but maybe there are a lot of us who are that way in our work life and our spiritual life, too. 

As Christians, we’re kind of feeling that way about the world these days. I know I am. Surely, I can’t be the only one. If you’re not, you must live in a hole and I’d love to come visit you there. Here in my town, we had a harsh reminder, last week, that hit really close to home for me. A reminder that we live in a world that’s sick with sin and there’s nowhere we can go to run from that. It’s not about our zip codes or street address, because there’s not a nook or a cranny anywhere that evil hasn’t found to trespass. This was also just another indication of how long and deep and wide the issues are in our society. The problems are massive. They stretch on and on and on. One broken thing leads to another broken thing which feeds another broken thing. Sometimes, even our “solutions” create more problems. Homelessness, crime, drugs, moral decay, lack of personal responsibility, government dysfunction, family breakdown. If we listed all the challenges, it would be as overwhelming as paving a coast to coast highway or bricking a skyscraper. 

It’s easy for us to see problem stacked upon problem, throw our hands up, and declare the whole thing is useless. It’s just too much. It’s too far gone. It’s more work than we can handle. Even if we worked day and night, we couldn’t make a dent so why bother. It’s tempting for us to just walk off the job. 

When we’re overwhelmed with what’s going on around us, we can only do what we know to do. Jesus hasn’t returned for us, which means it’s not quitting time yet. No matter how discouraging the world is, we have to keep doing what we know to do. Go, teach, love, share. One brick at a time. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 If we persevere even when we feel like we’re not making any progress, He promises results. Our efforts will not be in vain. “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2 The answer to every one of our world’s problems is Jesus. There are so many people who just need Jesus. If they only knew how He could change the trajectory of their lives. “But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?” Romans 10:14 

God, help us to keep on doing what we know to do. Even when. 

JONI 

 

This week, we’ve all heard a big deal being made about the first day of summer and summer solstice. We, Southerners, hear talk about the first day of summer in late June and we just shake our sweaty heads and mumble angrily to ourselves. Down here, summer arrives before all the Easter chocolate is eaten. Basically, it's the same reaction we have when we hear them announce the arrival of fall in September with hot cocoa and wool sweaters on TV, while we still have mosquitos buzzing around our heads and have sweated through our clothes. 

Yeah, we've been having summer here for quite a while now and, next week, it’s really supposed to kick it up a notch. We already have to get about 8 miles down the road before the car A/C can even think about overcoming the heat in its climate control battle. And we don't think about parking in the sun unless there's no other choice available— or we have some foil wrapped potatoes and a chuck roast in there that we want to cook for supper. After turning off the car in the parking lot, we have approximately 4.6 seconds to exit the vehicle before anguish and life threatening conditions ensue, so preparation is always the key. We know how to get our things and get out. 


There's been a fly buzzing around in each Southerner’s house since early May. They almost always hang around in the kitchen if they know company is coming. Each housefly is assigned a home to torment until it falls victim to the swatter, at which time, his replacement is sent. Mosquitos will take you apart faster than a school of piranhas if you stay out near any accumulation of water, in the shade, or just about anywhere if it's close to sundown. Wasps, horseflies, gnats, and all of hell's other winged messengers, have been unleashed for months now. And we don't open the doors at night unless we want to hear beetles banging their heads on our lampshades for hours on end. 


Snakes are crawling and we've been watching our step since Valentine's Day when we were told they were up and at 'em already. Down here, we like to share postmortem pictures of the snakes we kill in our yards on social media and that's been going on for weeks now. We all enjoy a good game of 'What Kind of Snake Is This?' more than anybody. Snake posts have been on the rise, this year, so we must continue to step with extreme caution. 


Our glasses are fogging up when we get out of our cool cars. Everyone looks like Marcie from Peanuts staggering around in the parking lot for a couple of minutes. Tis the season for sunburn and razor burn and sand burn and chafing. And depending on our hair's texture, it's either frizzed up like Kaepernick or flat to our heads like Pee Wee Herman. Neither, a good look. We can leave home all fresh and clean and, an hour later, look like we're on the highway crew and are just getting off work. Our hair is wet and sweat’s rolling down our backs, our necks, our red faces and we are just not a pretty people right now.
We can comfortably enjoy our decks and patios and porches between the hours of 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. and plan all our outdoor events accordingly. A restaurant’s outdoor seating is only occupied by the very bravest among us. The hot, humid air is as thick as our Mamas' pie filling and as heavy as a bad biscuit. It's hard to breathe and even harder to want to. The will to live is in its most tested season. Sometimes, we go to Hobby Lobby, walk right past their 4th of July section, and just sit amidst the pumpkins and scarecrows to renew our hope that there will be better days ahead- in just 4 or 5 more grueling months.    


Upon entering any building, we've been using our proper summertime etiquette. Our first greeting to those inside is always a reference to the oppressive heat. It’s our way of saying hello. “Boy, it’s a hot one today.” This is expected upon arriving at the bank, a store, church, salon, or even funeral home. No matter where you are or what the occasion, heat and heat indexes are always appropriate summertime topics in the South. Rain chances are also a popular choice, this time of year. If you mention impending rain chances above 50%, it gives hope to all who hear and a crowd will start to form around you. 


It’s about now, “the first day of summer,” that the flowers on our patios start looking distressed. We don’t try any heroic measures. We just let them go. They’re DNR. They want to go over the rainbow bridge or whatever it's called for plants and we give them our blessing to go in peace. We know we wouldn't want to have to sit out there in this and try to look pretty.


So, go ahead and celebrate the first of summer. While much of the country is marking that sweet milestone in their low humidity, we're down here just trying to survive our first trimester of summer. We are hot and we are irritable and we are not ok. 

 It's that time of year again when churches on every corner have banners and advertisements up for their Vacation Bible Schools. Most of the churches around here go all out for Bible school just as it should be.  The decorations, themed snacks, very involved crafts, and over the top props are just so elaborate. The kids love it and how could they not? The grown-ups just spent 3 solid weeks at the church with table saws and scaffolding creating a near-exact replica of the solar system in the sanctuary. 

I was looking through some pictures on Facebook that a church posted and I couldn't help but think how different it is now from when I went to Bible school. You know I'm all about some nostalgic strolls back in time so here goes.

Back then, there were three kids who were selected to hold the American flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. They were the big dogs for the day. As the pianist played a "marching in" song, everyone would file in behind the chosen three. I remember sitting down on the hard, creaky pews- my legs sticking to the varnished wood. Bible school was one of the few occasions when we could wear shorts to church, so it was beyond awesome.  

Anyway, there were no palm trees made from paper mache or larger than life jungle animals cut out of plywood or two story rocket ships made of foam core board like there are today. I don't recall any twinkly lights, large boulders fashioned from crumbled Kraft paper or beach scenes on the stage complete with an umbrella, Adirondack chairs, and wave sound effects. No, as I recall, there were just the preacher, the music minister, and the podium. Oh, but if you walked in and saw the slide projector set up, you knew it was going to be a really exciting day. 

Just below the chosen three were the six kids, who were picked each day to take up the offering (aka the change we found in between the vinyl car seats and in the bottom of our Mama's purses that morning.) These offering takers were the kids, who were runners up to the flag holders in the complex Bible school hierarchy system. I, myself, never submitted my name to be considered for any of these spots. I was really shy as a kid and had no interest in the front of the room. 

After we said our pledges, sang our songs, and took up the mission offering, it was off to our classroom.  We headed down the hall and there was no grassy pathway cut from indoor/outdoor carpeting leading to the room and our names weren't perfectly penned on laminated, themed shapes hanging from the ceiling.  There were no freshly cut stumps to sit on and no real tents set up in the room in which to have our lesson by lantern light. No, we walked in and the teacher was like, “You see those brown, folding chairs set up in a semi-circle facing the bulletin board? Go sit in those.....and don't run." Oh, those metal chairs were so cold on your bare legs, so you'd put your hands under them until it got warmed up.  

We didn't pretend like we were all on safari riding in a jeep and we didn't sit around a faux campfire made with a few logs and tissue paper flames, while we had our lesson. The teacher wasn't wearing a cowboy hat, didn't use a black light, and didn't bring in any live amphibians for us to pet. There were no stuffed monkeys hanging from the ceiling and no thoroughbred horses out in the parking lot for us to sit on. No, she just sat there in the brown folding chair with her Bible in her lap and those old school pictures that she'd pin to the bulletin board behind her when the time was right. Something like these might have, very well, been your only visual for the whole day, so you had to glean the most you could from it.
 
After we finished our story, it was time for crafts. Not the kind of crafts they do today. No, there was no going to another decorated room where supplies were laid out for some HGTV worthy craft....like building a coffee table or blowing your own colored glass or something. Back then, it was "Ok, now pick up your chair and take them back over to the tables, where we will have our craft. Do not slide the chairs because we don't want to disturb the class below us!"  

This was my favorite time in Bible school. I was all about some crafts. The same teacher would reach into the cabinet and get out a stack of construction paper, a few bottles of glue, some popsicle sticks, and a pack of those foil star stickers. On a really good craft day, we'd all be issued a baby food jar and maybe fabric scraps or a tin can and some old wallpaper sample books from which we'd fashion some really attractive keepsake. Something our mothers would feel obligated to display somewhere.  

On the days that the teacher would mix up the powder tempera paints, we'd be given a man's old shirt turned paint smock to protect our new summer shirts bought down at Sears and Roebuck. The teachers were always sure to warn you to be careful not to drip paint on your Buster Brown sandals, too. And if you finished your craft before everyone else, you were given a mimeographed coloring page and an old coffee can full of broken crayons as a time filler.  
 
While the beautiful crafts dried on another table, it was on to snack time. Let me tell you......there were no Pinterest-worthy snacks there. No, sir. No themed snacks for us. No bird nests made from chow mein noodles and jelly bean eggs. No edible Noah's arks fashioned with icing, graham crackers, and animal cookies. Not even any gummy fish suspended in blue Jell-O and served in clear cups.

We were old school.  "Ok, everybody go sit down and we'll pass out the butter ring cookies and the Dixie cups of tepid cherry Kool-Aid." There was nothing organic and nobody asked about food allergies or gluten. As the week would crescendo, you might get a chocolate sandwich cookie......not an Oreo, mind you, but a store brand chocolate sandwich cookie. Finally, the snacks would peak on Friday as the teacher would pass out the twin pop popsicles. There was no color requesting, though, because there just simply weren't enough reds to go around. Someone had to get orange and it might as well be you. Then, there was that year our church bought the snow cone machine.  Can you say Christmas in July?
 
Before it was time to go home, there was only one more stop.  Recreation.  Again, no themed games, because, well, there were no themes for our Bible schools back then except Jesus and, well, there aren't many games that can be played with a kickball that emulate Jesus. I suppose it's hard to take away any measure of spiritual growth, while attempting to hit other children in the head with a rubber, inflated ball in order to acquire points. There's nothing "Jesus" about that. So, what they did in the 70's, you see, was say, "Here's a ball. Go play and we won't try to draw any parallels between this and the lesson we just covered". This gave the teachers time to sit and visit and eat their vanilla ice cream cups with the wooden spoons, the upper echelon of snacks reserved for the teachers only.

After we all worked up a sweat and smelled like a herd of goats in a summer rain, it was time to gather our things to go home. We'd go check to see if the glue and paint on our craft had dried sufficiently to take it home. Oh, you always prayed it was so. There was nothing worse than having to leave your craft behind to dry.

I have fond memories of Bible school. I looked forward to that every year. It wasn't as fancy and decked out as it is today. I suppose if we did it the old school way now, these iPad/Xbox/iPhone kids would likely fall out of their unadorned chairs and hit their heads on the undecorated floors- completely overwrought with boredom. I guess you just have to rock along with the times.  

Either way, working in Bible school is a big job and whether you did it back in the days of paste jars, felt boards, and butter ring cookies or you're doing it now with your cellophane waterfalls, crape paper jellyfish, and choreographed songs, you're doing important work!