Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 166

Good Friday: there is nothing more to say

By now it was noon. The whole earth became dark, the darkness lasting three hours—a total blackout. The Temple curtain split right down the middle. Jesus called loudly, "Father, I place my life in your hands!" Then he breathed his last.
Luke 23:44-46, The Message Bible. 

Maundy Thursday: Are you part of the crowd?

But they kept at it, a shouting mob, demanding that he be crucified. And finally they shouted him down. Pilate caved in and gave them what they wanted. He released the man thrown in prison for rioting and murder, and gave them Jesus to do whatever they wanted. Luke 23:23-25, The Message Bible
Who were these people? Is it possible they were the same ones who just days before welcomed Jesus to their city with more than just open arms, but with palm branches and halleluiahs? And now they wanted him crucified? Surely someone in the crowd saw how wrong this was and stood up to the rest. Not hardly.
I wish I could believe that all of the believers had suddenly left Jerusalem that day, that the entire population had indeed been replaced with thieves and other criminals, people who would want another criminal released instead of a man of peace.  Wouldn’t that be easier to understand?
We still see the same thing in our society today. How often is it that the noisy few are the ones to be heard, the ones who quickly gather others around them?
I’m not a sociologist or any kind of professional in human nature. I don’t know why it is so hard to stand up for what you believe in. I don’t know why it is so much easier to cave to the few strong people around you, no matter if you agree or not.
All I do know is that somehow God was able to forgive them all. And that means that mankind still has a chance.  No, not an angry crowd, but a crowd just the same. A group of Maasai, and white volunteers, gather at Saikeri for their own mini-olympics. 

Holy Wednesday: May Your will be done

He pulled away from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?" At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face. Luke 22:41-44, The Message Bible
Since He had entered Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, Jesus knew what was coming this week, He knew how it was going to end. He knew that He would submit to His Father’s will.
None of us have ever endured anything close to what Jesus went through when He died on the cross for us. But even in our day to day lives, we still ask for problems to be solved, for our days to be easy, for a cure to what ails us. Don’t we usually pray, “God, just grant me what I want”, instead of “God, may Your will be done.”  

Holy Tuesday: Who would you die for?

Peter said, "Master, I'm ready for anything with you. I'd go to jail for you. I'd die for you!" Luke 22:33, The Message Bible
Jesus has warned His disciples that they are about to be tested. He singles out Peter, telling him that He has been especially praying for him. Peter is as passionate as ever, swearing that he would never betray his Master.
His words remind me of the song “Everything I do I do it for you” by Bryan Adams from the movie Robin Hood. “I would fight for you, I'd lie for you, walk the wire for you, I'd die for you”.
Who would you die for? Who would you give up everything for? Would you?
Peter swore that he would and yet within hours he denied that he knew Jesus. Not just once, not twice, but three times. He had three chances to be arrested as a believer in Jesus Christ, three chances to give his life for his Lord and he blew it. Would you? 
This is the prison at Ayacucho, Peru.   We went inside, only after we had been stamped and frisked and had turned in our passports. In all my travels I had never been so afraid.  I lived down that fear so that I could take this little boy, Wilmar, out of the prison where he lived with his mother, so he could spend a few hours acting like a regular kid. I also knew that I would get my passport back when I brought him back. Would I have been willing to step into that prison without that promise? Absolutely not. 

Holy Monday: More than a shared meal

When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, "You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God." Luke 22:14-16, The Message Bible
Jesus and his disciples have gathered in the upper room for the Passover meal. The disciples have no idea what their Master is talking about. Yet, they place their trust in Him. They have witnessed too much while they followed Him, and He has hinted at this in the past.
He blesses the wine and the bread, and offers it to them as His very body and blood. What must they have thought then?
It wasn’t until further in the meal, when Jesus tells them that one of them will betray Him that they question His words. “Who, Lord, who would betray you? Certainly not me,” they all respond and then they begin arguing amongst themselves.
How incredibly patient their Lord was with them, and how incredibly patient He must be with us, when we just don’t get the important stuff. We only get wound up when things directly involve us. How very much like those early disciples we are.
Instead of thinking of ourselves, we should be thinking of our Savior, turning our hearts towards Him.  Breakfast at Mosiro. What's more important? The meal or those you share it with?

The first Palm Sunday

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!”“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Blessed is the king of Israel!”John 12:12-13, New International Version
A king’s welcome. The humble teacher who had been traveling the countryside arrives in Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The crowd goes crazy! They are so happy to see this man, so willing to greet him with all the accolades they can.
But as we know, this week those accolades are going to spiral downward. In just five days those cheers turn to jeers. And much worse. And Jesus knows what’s coming.
How do you think he reacted to all that attention on that first Palm Sunday? Waving and smiling to the crowd, basking in the limelight? Or with head turned down, studying his hands as they grasped the donkey’s mane? Maybe he shook his head ever so slightly, thinking, “people, you have no clue”.  From my own PALM tree collection. 

For Val

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” From: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
How can you not love Dr. Seuss? My daughter Val got the book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as a graduation gift. What a great book! What wonderful inspiration!
It doesn’t matter if you are graduating from high school or college, or taking a new job or relearning an old one. It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are – the world is out there, yours for the taking. You can be anything you want to be, you can go anywhere you want to go.
And don’t let anyone say that you can’t!
“You can get so confusedthat you’ll start in to racedown long wiggled roads at a break-necking paceand grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.The Waiting Place…”
And if you end up in that useless place, don’t stop, just race through to the other side. And remember to learn something along the way.
“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.”
But you’ll move nothing by just sitting there. So go for it!

The PALM tree room

In early 1993, my first husband moved out. In the spring my dad died and that fall my sister was diagnosed with cancer. Can you say “stressful”? I’d rather say it just all stunk. Two good things came of that year. Pebbles and Bam-bam came home to live and in the summer my sister Pat and I started to finish my basement.
I had a computer sitting upstairs on a table in the living room. Pat and I were both writing then, and I longed for an office of my own. We came up with the brainstorm that she and I would build two rooms in my unfinished basement, a playroom for the kids and an office for me.
I remember that first day. We worked for hours and then looked around and it didn’t seem like we had accomplished anything, maybe a few sheets of drywall were up. We looked at each other and said in unison, “Dairy Queen”.
Somehow we got the office finished. Nearly. I mean it sure wasn’t perfect, but I was happy. The playroom, on the other hand, well it’s my husband’s man-cave now, so it is perfect for him. 
 This picture was from 2011 when I was actually doing most of my writing upstairs at the dining room table. I had just cleaned up the old office and made it my craft room - as if I craft.
 Here's the office in the basement, being used as an office. It is where all of the edits on my book took place.
 Here it is a nearly empty room. The desk was moved upstairs to Val's old bedroom. So what did this room become?
Well, Val's bedroom, of course. And where did the palm tree theme come from? In 2000, a year after Pat died, I started a Relay for Life team in her honor. Her initials spell PAL, so add an M for memorial and you have the PALM team. Over the years, I collected a few palm trees which we decorated our Relay for Life campsite with. What a better place for these PALMs to reside now.

Separation

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 New Living Translation
As I go through each week, I am constantly on the lookout for blog material. Earlier this week, when I learned that my husband’s aunt had died, I thought, “ah, ha, a funeral. That should provide me with good material.” (I thought that only after I felt bad for the family and sent up a prayer that God was with them. Honest.)
Saturday morning, as I was sitting in the church, looking around, listening to the eulogy, humming along to the songs, I wasn’t finding anything in particular that I could write about. Then, bless her heart, one of the cousins stood up to share about her aunt and she used the verse above. What a great verse for a funeral, don’t you think?
(I got my little notebook out of my purse right then and wrote down Romans 8:38 so that I wouldn’t forget. And my husband gave me one of those looks.)
There are so many bad things that happen to us as we go through our sinful lives. It’s so easy, when things are going wrong, to ask, “Where is God? Why has He abandoned me? Doesn’t He love me?” But He will never abandon us, He is always there for us, He loves us no matter what. We just need to remember that and seek Him first. He’s there. Always. I promise. And more importantly, He promises.
Thank you, Lord God, for always being there for us, and for sending Your Son to take away our sins. Help us remember to turn to You first in every time of trial. Amen.
 Can the wide expanse of Lake Superior separate us from God? Nooo.  Can we fly so high in an airplane that we are separated from God?  Nooo. Can a cage at the zoo separate us from God? Nooo.

Another Dimension in Book Reviews

Do you sign up on every blog you can to win the free stuff the author is giving away? I am always tempted to do that, but then when the free stuff comes – which is almost always a book – I feel obligated to drop everything, read the book and then give it a glowing review. I know that is just the nagging guilt in my head, and that book reviewers always close their article with, “I did not give this book a good review just because I got it for free.”
Sigh. What’s a girl to do who has a penchant for free stuff, who does all her shopping at Goodwill and won’t shop in a regular store unless she has coupons?
So here we are with another book review to write. With a buildup like the one above, you are probably thinking that this book stunk. It really didn’t.
I won “Seventh Dimension – The Door” by Lorilyn Roberts by commenting on someone else’s blog. It is a Christian young adult fantasy and actually I had wanted to get it to share with my Kinship kid (that has yet to happen, but hopefully this weekend I’ll remember to give it to her).
Maybe it was because of the genre, but I really didn’t know at first if I could finish this book. When the animals started talking, I said to myself that I don’t have time for this. But I hung in there and I’m glad that I did. Like I said, it took a while to get into it, but by the time I was half-way through, I couldn’t put it down. I just couldn’t see how this was all going to get wrapped up into a satisfying ending. But it did.
The book tells the coming-of-age story of Shale Snyder who gets pulled into a world far from her own. Or is it that far away? The more I read about her adventures, the more comfortable I was in her new environment – a place which I have read about many times.
Putting my prejudices against talking animals aside (and this is actually explained later on in the book), I would give the book 4 out of 5 stars.