Lillie Ammann's Blog, page 94

International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church 2014

The video below is from the Voice of the Martyrs for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. 

Warning: The video contains graphic images of what persecuted Christians are facing. Although it is extremely difficult to watch, I believe it’s important for us to know what is happening.

I hope you will join me in committing to pray for persecuted Christians and to support organizations that provide aid to our persecuted brothers and sisters.

Organizations that I support and recommend:

Love for the Least
Samaritan’s Purse
Barnabas Fund

National Authors Day

Today is National Authors Day, a day to show appreciation to authors. 

Creating great stories or sharing wonderful information to entertain or educate you isn’t easy. The only thing wrong with the photo to the left is that she is dressed far better than most authors working at home.

For most writers, many of our words end up in the trash can or the computer recycle bin. Writing a book involves a lot of rewriting, revising, and editing. It can months or years to produce a book.

Then comes the publishing process—submitting to numerous publishers or agents to find a traditional publishing company, dealing with a small press, or taking on the responsibility of publishing on top of writing.

So if you, like me, love to read and get pleasure from books, let your favorite authors know you appreciate them. Send them a note or email or post your thanks on social media. Believe me, you’ll brighten the day of every author you recognize on National Authors Day.

You can find many of my favorite authors on my book page—I am selective in taking on clients and love the books I edit. You can find others of my favorites by seeing what I’ve reviewed and rated highly on Goodreads.

Today I want to recognize all authors, especially those who have brought me so many hours of pleasure. 

Image: © Depositphotos.com/gemenacom

Pray and Vote

It’s time for Christians to stand up for religious liberty by falling to their knees and walking into the voting booth. Let’s pray for godly leaders and then get out and vote for leaders who will work to preserve and not take away our freedom of religion.

The following video is from the Presidential Prayer Team encouraging Christians to pray the vote.

Share this video with everyone. Before it’s too late.

Image: © Depositphotos.com/Qingwa

New Features for Share As Image

I wrote recently about my new favorite tool, Share As Image. Just a few days Share As Image added some great new features, making it ever more useful. 

Now you can select the size and shape of your image so the preview looks best on the various social media sites. You can also add as many text fields as you want, so you can place text anywhere you want on the image.

There is plenty of evidence to show that images elicit much great engagement on social media. For examples, images are 150% more likely to be retweeted than plain text. And the same situation applies to all social media sites. I can tell you from my own experience that I have gained new Twitter followers, and people are adding me to their circles and sharing my images on Google+. The only posts I ever make to those sites are my blog posts and my images, primarily Scripture quotes. My images are shared and commented on more often on Facebook than my text posts.

As a writer and editor, I’m a lover of words. But I recognize that eye-catching images help bring attention to the words I write. I’m really glad I found Share As Image. Hope you’ll find it and enjoy it as much as I do.

Note: The links here are affiliate links. I asked to become an affiliate because I am so happy with Share As Image. If you sign up for a year with the promo code LILLIE, you will receive a 10% discount.

Love Poems

When I read the love letters that Jack and I wrote each other during the school year between our engagement and our marriage, I was surprised at the poetry I found in my letters. I have never considered myself a poet, and I didn’t remember writing so many poems.

The boxes of letters also contained cards I had made for Jack for different occasions. One was a booklet with several poems, and the poems from that booklet follow.

To the best of my knowledge, these are poems I wrote during my senior year of college and are shown here exactly as they appeared in the booklet. I quoted various poets in my letters, but I always noted in the letters if the poems were original or mentioned the poet if they weren’t. Since I didn’t include any attribution on the ones in this card, I can only assume they are mine.

To Jack

The heart can feel more deeply than the intellect can express.

My love for you could never be adequately conveyed by words.

Yet I feel compelled to attempt to convey by love, and words are my only tools.

Though my attempts are feeble, they are made in the deepest sincerity.

So let your heart be your guide and know that I love you.

Love is not an accident;

Man is not wise enough to plan it—

Therefore, it must be ordained of God.

Love Is

Love is … the gentle holding of hands

the tender brushing of lips

the soulful gazing of eyes

It is … the simple expressing of care

the rich giving of self

the deep sharing of life

What If?

What if we’d accepted the tyranny of habit?

What if we’d been unwilling to change?

What if Time had dealt with us cruelly?

What if we’d dreaded the new and the strange?

Our lives would be empty and meaningless—

Full of nothingness, monotony, and void.

Alone we would be—not together—

If with Fate we had not toyed.

But, Darling, we never accepted

The shackles of our own past.

Fate timed our lives very gently,

And we have a love that will last.

I thank God daily for blessings

That fill my life day by day.

And the greatest blessing, My Darling,

Is God sending you my way.

I Believe

I believe in beauty,

for I have seen the beautiful;

I believe the truth,

for I have known the truth;

I believe in faith,

for my faith has been restored;

I believe in hope,

for my hope has been fulfilled.

I believe that life is good,

for life has been good to me;

I believe that wishes do come true,

for my wishes are coming true;

I believe that miracles do happen,

for miracles have happened to me;

I believe that love is real,

for my life is filled with love.

The beauty I have seen is in our love;

The truth is in it too.

You have restored my faith, My Love,

And my hopes are fulfilled by you.

The goodness of life you have shown me;

My wishes are all about you;

The miracles I know are you and our love;

And the love that we share is true.

Miracle

Fairy tales are possible;

Dreams—they can come true;

Wishes are to be fulfilled;

And mine came true in you.

You have made the impossible possible;

You have made the unreal real;

You have given hope to the hopeless;

You have taught the unfeeling to feel.

It is you who loves me,

And you are the one I love;

You are my inspiration—

My miracle from above.

Fairy tales, dreams, and wishes,

Mine came true in you;

Please believe in me, My Love,

As I believe in you.

Because of You

Because of you, my world is filled with kindness;

Because of you, my life is filled with joy;

Because of you, my dreams are filled with hope;

Because of you, my heart is filled with love.

Life is beautiful, because of you;

Joy is eternal, because of you;

Dreams are attainable, because of you;

Love is real, because of you.

Looking Back

I looked back, and what did I see?

A life of meaningless drudgery,

Empty relationships, hopeless dreams.

Then I met you.

Now I look back, and what do I see?

I see a life of meaningful activity,

Beautiful relationship, fulfilled dreams,

For I love you.

Promise

I’ll love you forever—

From now until eternity;

Darling, I’ll be true.

A devoted help-mate ever,

Your constant companion I’ll be,

For I love you.

My soul fills with emotion,

Tears of joy down my cheeks flow,

For your love.

Time lessens not my devotion;

Daily my love will grow,

For you I love.

Clergy Appreciation Day

Today on Clergy Appreciation Day, I thank God for all clergy, especially those at All Saints Anglican Church: Father Chip Harper, Father Isaac Rehberg, and Deacon Marcus Tinajero.

Image (without text): © Depositphotos.com/prudkov

Love Letters

Jack and I met on my twentieth birthday, June 20, 1966, the day I started my summer job in the office where he worked at Kelly Air Force Base. His divorce was in progress but not yet final, so we didn’t have our first date until mid-August after he was officially divorced. In the meantime, he had driven my sister and me to and from work every day, and Jack and I had spent every coffee break and lunch hour together in the cafeteria.

We had one real date before it was time for me to return to school. After that date, he took me to his house (the house I still live in to this day) and, after a tour of the house, we sat side-by-side on the couch as I excitedly told him my future plans. When I stopped to take a breath, he looked at me and asked, “When are you going to marry me?” I said, “When are you going to ask me?” He asked, I said “yes,” and we planned to marry the following summer after I finished my last year of college.

My parents, especially my father, didn’t approve of our relationship. Jack was thirteen years older than me and divorced; in fact, my sister had told my parents I broke up his marriage. Of course, that wasn’t true, but you can imagine my parents’ reactions. On top of all that, Jack was a “city slicker,” unthinkable to my farmer father.

To keep my folks happy, Jack and I agreed to limit our visits and phone conversations. So for the first few months of the school year, our main communication was by mail. I know it will be hard for young people to imagine this, but we hand-wrote long letters to each other six days a week to ensure that we each had a letter every day mail was delivered. What a disappointment when a letter was delayed, and we faced an empty mailbox, but what joy the next day when we got two letters! Those first few months, we routinely wrote six to eight page letters, sharing our daily activities and saying how much we loved each other.

Later in the year, the letters were usually shorter as we saw each other almost every weekend and talked on the phone occasionally. Phone calls were limited because, hard it is to realize in today’s world, long-distance calls were expensive, and there were only two phones in my dorm for fifty or so girls to share. Sometimes Jack would call all evening and get busy signals constantly on both phones, or I would stand in line for an hour or two to get to the phone, only to reach the head of line at 10 PM curfew when the phones were cut off.

Jack and I both saved our letters, and two boxes—one of his letters to me and one of my letters to him—have sat on a shelf in my closet for 47 years. On the second anniversary of his death, I decided to re-read the letters for the first time in all those years. First I combined the two boxes, sorting the letters by postmark date, so I could read all the letters in order. Then I started reading, and I read for the better part of three days.

It was a bittersweet experience. The letters brought back wonderful memories of the early days of our love. Every letter expressed our eager anticipation of the day we could be married and be together “forever.” The tears came with the reminder that our “forever” is over, in this life, at least. We talked about feeling so incomplete when we were apart and so complete when we together, reminding me that I have been incomplete for two years.

At one point, we discussed the drowning death of one of my classmates. We were reminded then that one of us would die one day, and the other would be left behind, and we wondered how we would survive. I have survived the past two years, but the first year in particular was incredibly hard. Yet the joy we experienced for 46 years (45 years of marriage and that wonderful year of anticipation shared in the letters) is worth all the pain that came when it ended.

The picture I had made for our engagement announcement was in a cardboard frame that opened to stand, and I wrote a poem for Jack on the blank side of the frame. He wrote in his letters of carrying that picture from room to room as he went from the kitchen to the den to the bedroom every day so he could see my picture and read the poem wherever he was. Late in his life, he loved the picture of the two of us in this post. He had copies of it throughout the house—on his computer as a screensaver, on a calendar beside his computer, on the coffee table in the living room, on the wall by his chair in the den. Time never lessened our devotion to each other—in fact, our love always increased.

We said the same things over and over again in every letter, but occasionally one of us expressed our love in a slightly different way, and those are the comments that really struck me.

If I had only one wish come true in my life, it would be you.

I love you so much I can’t even figure out how much.

When we’re not face-to-face, we’re heart-to-heart.

There is simply no way I can tell you how much I love you, for I cannot understand the very depth of my own love for you. The depth and complexity of such perfect love is beyond human understanding and comprehension. My love for you reaches depths unknown to man and heights beyond even the wildest imagination. Its breadth is wider than the entire world and even more. There is no capacity to describe the vastness of love in simple words; it can only be described in action. Even action of any and every kind cannot adequately describe my love, for there is no action wonderful enough to describe this feeling.

No matter how long we’re married, it won’t be long enough.

No, 45 years wasn’t long enough. Yet I thank God every day for those 45 years and all the love that filled them.

Disability Employment Awareness Month

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Employers find that individuals with special needs can make excellent employees. Often they are content and effective in jobs that others find boring. Most disabled people are enthusiastic about having a job and are dependable and trustworthy.

My first experience with disability employment was a quarter of a century ago when I owned an interior landscape company. A state rehabilitation agency contacted me about my hiring needs and offered incentives for me to hire one of their clients—a young lady who was totally deaf. The agency representative spent a lot of time discussing what I needed and what accommodations we would have to make–primarily structuring the job so the worker would not go into public alone. If she helped with an installation, another crew member would handle all contact with clients.

The agency provided a sign language interpreter during the new hire’s training period and helped with the adjustment. Although Janie learned most of her duties well and quickly, she just couldn’t seem to get the watering right. She poured way too much water into the pot, over-watering the plant and making a mess on the floor. I decided my staff wasn’t doing a good job training her (which was not the norm), and I took over that part of her training.

I demonstrated watering all around the plant to evenly moisten the soil, then I made motions to indicate she should pour water into a particular plant. She poured until water overflowed the saucer. On the next plant, I motioned when it was time for her to stop pouring water. She looked at me with a puzzled expression and pointed to the dry saucer. The supervisor training her had emphasized to the interpreter that Janie needed to water plants thoroughly. “Pour water until it starts coming out the drain hole, then stop.”

A few seconds after I told Janie to quit watering, enough water came out the drain holes to dampen the saucer. We went through the process several more times before I finally realized the problem. Without even recognizing it, I and everyone who worked for me, depended on our hearing to water plants correctly. We heard the water bubbling through the soil, and from experience, recognized when it was almost through the pot. We actually quit pouring several seconds before the water reached the bottom of the soil and the drainage holes. Not being able to do that, Janie had to depend on her sight, and by the time the water was visibly draining, too much water had been added to the soil.

So … we made an accommodation. The duties of the installation/greenhouse crew were divided differently. Rather than dividing up the work by sections of the greenhouse, with one worker performing complete maintenance on all the plants in his or her section, Janie cleaned and groomed a larger shared section, and a coworker watered the same plants. Janie did just as much and equally important work as her coworker, and everything was done, and done well. All it took was a little time to understand Janie’s special needs and a willingness to make a few changes.

A few years after we initially hired Janie, I had a stroke and was in a wheelchair or scooter for five years. I carried on my business just as effectively as I always had, though we had to make a few accommodations for the wheelchair. My boss (me) thought the small time, effort, and expense required to make the office wheelchair-friendly was well worth it to have such an outstanding worker (me, again).  But I had learned that lesson years before when we hired Janie and discovered she was an excellent employee—hardworking, dependable, and loyal—well worth making a few changes in how the installation/greenhouse crew did their jobs.

The video below shows a successful business with a number of special needs employees.

Image: © Depositphotos.com/iqoncept

New Favorite Tool: Share As Image

Recently, I read a couple of different blog posts about tools to add text to images. Both posts listed several different apps, but I was disappointed when I checked out the websites. The apps were complicated to use or the choices of images were limited or … something wasn’t right.

Although I wasn’t happy with the recommended sites, I loved the concept.  So I did a search and found Share As Image. Incredibly easy to use, the app offers all the features I want. I was already sold on the idea of adding text to photos, but if you wonder about the value, Share As Image says this: “According to Kissmetrics, photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-throughs than text based posts.”

Although I started out using the free version, I changed to the paid version very quickly. Not only does the Pro version offer a wider choice of photos (or you can upload your own), but you can also add your own branding to the images you create. When my images get shared on social media, my URL is part of the package.

Share As Image understands customer service. When I joined, I got a welcome email from the founder, and on the rare occasions I have had questions, I have received prompt, helpful responses.

I am having a lot of fun with Share An Image, and I think you will, too. My readers can receive a 10% discount on a year’s subscription by using the promo code LILLIE. 

Note: Links are affiliate links. I do not recommend Share An Image because I am affiliate; rather I am an affiliate because I recommend the app.

God, I’ve Got a Problem, Part 2, by Ben Ferguson

This is Part 2 of the post from Ben Ferguson, author of God, I’ve Got a Problem, about why and how he wrote the book. Part 1 appeared last week.

LONG DISTANCE SHEPHERD

My role in the ministry is communicating with the chaplains and providing a listening ear when they hit the emotional, physical, and spiritual wall. During frequent email conversations, a couple things became apparent rather quickly.

First: Many conversations we have revolve around life’s issues and struggles the young warriors face when thousands of miles from home. The conversations chaplains are having with their young warriors take me back thirty-plus years to similar conversations with members of my congregation, so my copy of the first edition is getting dog eared, and many notes are written in the margins.

Second: One chaplain said, “Chaplains have the same struggles, issues, and problems as their soldiers.” Then he asked, “Who wants to talk to a depressed chaplain?” When chaplains began to feel comfortable with me as a resource outside the chain of command, they began sharing personal issues, struggles, questions, and their real feelings, without fear of it affecting their career. I realized some of the conversations we were having mirrored the feelings and struggles I experienced as a young pastor with no one to share my hurts, questions, feelings, and insecurities. I wanted to be the “pastor” to them I didn’t have many years ago. When a senior chaplain started calling me “chaplain to chaplains,” I was honored and humbled.

PLAY IT AGAIN

Word about rewriting the book began to spread, and someone asked, “Are you going to make more money than you did on the first edition?” Really! Anyone who ever writes a book knows writing a book, especially a Christian book, to make money is on a fool’s errand.

I began thinking about rewriting and updating the book but was content to write excerpts to chaplains and be a sounding board until one wrote as he was ending a tour in Afghanistan, “You have been a life preserver in an ocean of emotion.” I mentioned to another chaplain friend, CH Jerry Sherbourne, that I was thinking about rewriting the book. He introduced me to Lillie Amman, a member of the congregation he served as a civilian pastor, who had edited some of his work. I knew finding a good editor was a critical issue that was now resolved…no more excuses.

I began the rewriting process and made good progress until an obstacle got in the way—my day has only twenty-hours. A decision had to be made. At the time I was teaching an adult Bible class, we had over one hundred chaplains downrange, and my inbox was overflowing every morning. The chaplain’s needs and issues were now while a book could be helpful a year from now. I decided to give up teaching the class, put the rewrite on hold, and focus all my energies on caring for chaplains.

The drawdown of troops from Iraq in 2011 reduced the number of chaplains to the point I was able to split time between communicating with them and writing. By the summer of 2013, the long gestation period was over, and Lillie delivered my “baby” to the printer.

The toil and struggles of writing were rewarded when one chaplain who walked through the valley of the shadow of death alongside warriors said:

In the fog of war there are no quick fixes or easy answers. However, this book offers a resource that with clarity and conciseness applies Bible stories to assist when life stories meet crisis points. It’s a cargo pocket just-in-time training tool. The chapter summaries nail it. ~ CAPT O. J. Mozon, Jr., CHC, USN (Ret)

The book is available in print or Kindle version.