Alabama's Future: It's a Gamble

Alabama is my home state. I have never lived anywhere else. I was born in Marshall County and lived there for most of my childhood. I went through the Guntersville Public School System for all 12 years of school. I did not attend kindergarten. There were a few years of my very early childhood in which my family lived in Oneonta in Blount County where my dad had learned the trade of stone masonry. I also spent a good bit of time in Cullman County visiting my grandparents in Holly Pond. My mother grew up on a farm there with 10 other siblings and remembers picking cotton in the fields alongside the rest of her family and a few hired hands. I remember running through bells of hay and playing in my grandparents’ barn and swimming in their pond. There was water skiing on Lake Guntersville and going hiking and caving all throughout the Tennessee Valley. I took dance at Jane Kohl School of Dance growing up and ran track in high school. It was a humble beginning, and I honestly can’t say it was all good. But, that's where I come from.

For college, I went to Jacksonville State University located in Calhoun County. After graduating, I worked in Gadsden and spent a couple of years there in Etowah County as a reporter. That was my first real brush with politics. My News Director at WAAX radio, Dave Fitz, sent me to interview Congressmen and Gubernatorial Candidates, judges, mayors, and anyone else of importance who came through our town. This all made me quite nervous as a young girl just out of college, but I remember Dave telling me, “Well, they pull on their pants one leg at a time just like you do.” That gave me the confidence I needed to do my job well. I learned so much working there about how a community is run and the issues that are important to people. And that’s where I met my husband, Rick, who was doing the morning show on the FM side of our AM News/Talk station.

It was a Gadsden preacher who helped Rick and me see that we needed a firm foundation in Christ for our marriage. Rick Cagle married us at the First Baptist Church in Gadsden. My parents had only taken me to church sporadically during my childhood, never setting down roots anywhere but hopping around and visiting all sorts of different churches mainly in the Baptist, Holiness, and Church of God range, and there was even a tent revival or two. I remember sitting in the Von Braun Civic Center at a Billy Graham Crusade as they came through Hunstville. I don’t remember much of what that great evangelist said that day, but I sure do remember that my aisle was empty during that alter call. I think I may have been the only human being still sitting in that entire row.

I remember vacation bible school and learning the books of the bible and the Ten Commandments. And, I remember God really pursuing me throughout my childhood. I even went down to the altar at one church to ask Jesus to save me, but I’m not sure that was my real salvation experience. It was certainly the beginning of lots of trials and tests from the Lord, many of which I failed. But one of the fondest memories I have of childhood church experiences was when we joined a little country church at a baptism service out in the woods where the preacher man was baptizing people in the river. I remember the sun shining down through the trees on a long line of people ready to go down into that water to wash their sins away. It was just like the old song, “Yes, we will gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river; Gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God.” Of course, the song is talking about the River of Life in heaven, but something about it just seemed the same.

Even so, somehow, along the way I went off the path of God and went my own way, but I knew I was wrong and that God was right all along. I was just selfish. On the day I married Rick Burgess in that beautiful old church in Gadsden, I felt God calling me home. I felt his hand upon me that day anointing and blessing and forgiving and changing everything.

I only worked one year as a television news reporter in Anniston before I decided to begin my first years of married life with a little more normal schedule, so I took a job with the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce. When Rick’s radio station decided to move to Birmingham, we had a hard time leaving Lakeview Baptist Church in Oxford where I had finally put down some religious roots. It was there that I was baptized into the Lord at the age of 26. And it was there that I began a lifelong love relationship with the Word of God. All the questions I had as a child like, “I know Jesus died for my sins, but why did he have to die?” were answered. Through bible study everything was becoming clear. “Oh, that’s why that happened.” And, “Oh Lord, you really do love us, don’t you?”

In Birmingham, I worked a couple of years at Fox 6 as the Community Affairs Coordinator before I had my first sweet baby, Brooks. Motherhood has been my full-time job ever since. I helped raise my two step-children, Brandi and Blake. I have buried one baby, a son. But, I still have two precious boys at home. Losing Bronner has taught me more than anything ever has, and I feel that what God has taught me through it all is meant to be shared. So, I see a new ministry forming in my life as a result of that great test of faith, that, by the way, I am not failing this time. But, I have asked God this question, “How do I keep a heavenly focus, looking to the clouds eagerly awaiting the day my Savior appears there, when my feet are firmly planted on the ground?” Two chapters of the bible help answer that question, Romans 12 and Colossians 3, which I hope you will take the time to read in their entirety on your own.

But, I will say that Romans 12 teaches that we are to abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. It tells us to overcome evil with good. And these are the reasons why I believe it is important to preserve what is good in the world. I believe that my home state of Alabama is good. We certainly have had our ups and downs as a state just like each individual has. Slavery and racial inequality will forever be the shame of our state’s history. But, I ask each of you if you aren’t as guilty before a holy God? It is only through grace and mercy anyone, regardless of their race or background, could stand before Him. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and my state, Alabama, has certainly sinned and fallen short of the God she has always claimed. But, Alabama’s conservative Christian values at present need to be acknowledged regardless of her past.

I look around in the Birmingham and Hoover Metropolitan Area where I live and can count scores of wonderful, thriving, large and alive churches, mine being just one of them, and my church boasts of 5,000 members. That’s nothing compared to Church of the Highlands who has set national records in church growth. I love to listen to the passionate preacher of the Church at Brook Hills, David Platt, who everyone agrees is just anointed as a preacher and a teacher, no matter where they go to church. Then there’s Hunter Street and Briarwood and Dawson and so many others where God is alive and working and thriving in the hearts of men and women He calls His own. So, I see our city as that shining city on a hill that Jesus talked about shining our light, the light of Christ, to the rest of our state, and our state to our nation, and our nation continuing its place as the light to the rest of the world.

You do realize that American missionaries have spread the gospel by far more than any other nation ever has, excluding the Hebrew nation of Israel through which we even have the gospel. My church alone sends out missionaries all the time. Our members have spanned the globe teaching and helping and spreading the message of hope and salvation through Christ’s shed blood on the cross as payment for the sins of the world, and almost every Sunday I see someone from China being baptized into the faith right there in our baptismal at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. I’ve never seen so many Chinese people as I’ve seen go through that baptismal. And, my friend, Kristi, told me just yesterday at lunch about a week she spent in some community in the former Soviet Union several years ago that at the time she just felt hopeless for. She didn’t think they were making one bit of difference by being there. The people were just so superstitious in this particular community she said. But, she and her husband went back after a year or so had passed to that same community, and the man who had been their interpreter was a Christian pastor with 30 people in his congregation. How’s that for not making a difference?

Dr. David Jeremiah in What In The World Is Going On? writes, “God has blessed America because we have been the launching pad of the world’s great missionary movement. In the aftermath of World War II, Americans started 1,800 missions agencies and sent out more than 350,000 missionaries. And as a result, today 95 percent of the world’s population have access, not only to some portion of Scripture in their language, but also to Christian radio broadcasts, audio recordings, and the Jesus film. That achievement is due largely to the missionary zeal of churches in the United States.”

We know from scripture that a nation who stands for God is in the palm of His hand. We are who we are as a nation only by the Hand of God Almighty. Even Communist China knows this. I have a book called Jesus Comes to Beijing written by the former Beijing Bureau Chief for Time magazine, David Aikman. This is how it begins:

“The eighteen American tourists visiting China weren’t expecting much from the evening’s scheduled lecture. They were already exhausted from a day of touring in Beijing. But what the speaker had to say astonished them.

‘One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,’ he said. ‘We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.’

This was not coming from some ultra-conservative think tank in Orange County, California, or from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was a scholar from one of China’s premier academic research institutes, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, in 2002.”

What China knows about America, America has forgotten. I look at the optimism in the faces of my children, and it makes me want to help America remember. Remember where you have come from and ask yourself where are you going as a nation? Will you turn your back on the God who made you what and who you are? Sometimes I think Americans feel guilty that they have more than anyone else in the world. But what do we really have? As the Apostle Peter told the crippled beggar, “Silver and gold, I have none, but what I have I give to you.” What we have, my dear friends, is Jesus. Jesus. That’s all we can boast about. That is all. We, here in America, have never really felt persecution for our faith, but we are feeling it now, aren’t we?

What is happening in our government nationally and locally is an assault on Christ. We all know our current President has claimed that we are no longer a Christian nation, but I will say to that that he hasn’t been to my church lately. When the BBC came here to do a special on some London teenagers who were staying with some friends of ours from church, they were blown away. They had never seen anything like it. Our church service was joyful. The house was full. The people were glad to be there from infants to the aged. One of the BBC workers sat in front of our family that Sunday in church, but he didn’t have a bible. So, I gave him one from our family. It was a new but small leather bible I had bought for Brooks just a week or so before that Sunday morning service. I believe it was the first bible this man had ever owned. He told us that the churches in England are old and stuffy and what little people who still go to them are old too. He had never witnessed a young person singing praise to God. But thankfully, Blake was behind him, so that is certainly no longer the case. That son of ours isn’t ashamed to belt it out on a Sunday morning.

Many people in England see themselves in us. England was the home of the Great Awakening and the birthplace of the protestant reformation, but now they have left their first love and turned to other gods. Israel did it. England has done it. And now, America looks like it’s on that same path. What will we do as Christians to stop it? First, care. Second, know. Third, do. Care enough to get informed about what is happening in state and federal government. If you have a heart for God and for this nation, you’ll want to do something about it.

We all know that this next election cycle is critical as to the direction our nation will take as a nation. Will we stand for religious freedom and take measures to stop this assault on the biblical standard of living? Our President says he doesn’t know when life begins. God tells us in Psalm 139. See, people are looking to the world for answers, and they’ll never find them there. Only God knows these things. Only God can tell us infallibly about anything. But, there’s just no love for the Word of God anymore. We don’t know, because we don’t study God’s Word. There are answers to all of life’s questions there. Is homosexuality a sin? Yes!!! It is so clear that homosexuality is an abomination to God. He loathes it. He detests it in the same way He detests divorce and infidelity and murder and lies and all other sins. God hates sin! He is holy! The angels cry out holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Holiness means to be set apart, to be different. It is a characteristic of God and it should be a characteristic of His people as well.

But we forget to be holy, set apart for the Lord, and we take up the things of the world and place them in a place of importance where they should not be. God’s people aren’t being different enough. We’re like everyone else. You can’t spot us anymore. We divorce and gamble and squander our money on things that don’t mean anything. It’s certainly not unheard of. God’s people have always strayed from him. The big question is “Will we come back?” Will we turn from our evil ways and seek a holy God? I pray that we will for our children’s sake. I don’t want my children to grow up and find their world a place inhospitable to them as children of God. If it is God’s will, it will happen, but as a parent, I need to know I’ve done all I can to prevent it.

We need to be aware of things going on right here in our backyard like this gambling thing. The operators of casino style gambling have their hearts set on Alabama, and they’ll do anything in their power to get us. They’ll lie, and pay off politicians, and let’s not forget that their whole business is one of robbery. Gambling preys upon the weak and the poor. There are countless stories of men and women who’ve gambled away their last dime. This is what they want. The chairs in casinos are ergonomically designed so that people can sit comfortably for long periods of time. There are usually no windows or clocks. They want you to sit there, losing all track of time, until they’ve got everything you have.

People ask, “So what’s the problem? If they want to blow their money, it’s their business, they’re not hurting anyone.” Oh, really? What about the child whose dad just gambled away his lunch money for school the next day? Gambling is a known addiction in the same way cocaine is an addiction. There’s a hook, line, and sinker for every fool who ever gets started.

My pastor was away on a mission trip to South Africa a couple of weeks ago and had one of our members, Joe Godfrey, a former Baptist preacher who now works for ALCAP, which touts itself as Alabama’s Moral Compass, fill in for him. Godfrey’s sermon was from Judges 14 in which Samson makes a wager and loses. He had bet thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, a very expensive wager. Of course, when you want to get to Samson, you go to his wife, which is what they did. The people he had bet against enticed Samson’s wife to find out his riddle, and when they did, Samson had lost his bet. He couldn’t pay it, so he went to a certain town and struck down thirty men and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle.

Godfrey said, “It happens all the time. People committing crimes in order to pay their gambling debt.” The crime rates in cities where casino style gambling is allowed are through the roof. The crime rate in Las Vegas is around 2000% higher than other vacation spots around the nation. They have even legalized prostitution there. Is this what we want for Alabama?

Again, I say Alabama isn’t perfect, but whatever good left in her should be preserved. Why? I believe we can look to our state flower, the camellia, that blooms when nothing else is blooming. Let’s bloom for the Lord when nothing else is. Let’s shine the light of Christ to the rest of our nation, so that our nation will turn back to the Lord.

I heard a man from Colorado say, “We as Christians living in other parts of the nation are looking to the Conservative Christian South for leadership, and we are not finding it.” Rick and I believe that Alabama as a state suffers from poor self-esteem. We don’t see ourselves as a leader on the national scale. We should. But, we have to protect our Christian way of life from outsiders like those who want to change the face of Alabama into something vulgar, unholy, and that which leads to all kinds of sin. Gambling is nothing more than a love of money. It stems from hearts of greed and idolatry. The bible teaches that games of chance are nothing more than idols, and our friend, Joe Godfrey, pointed out that if that is the case, then gambling goes against at least three of the ten commandments.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image, or idol.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his servant, his ox, donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

We could probably go ahead and add 8. You shall not steal. And in Samson's case, we could look at 6. You shall not murder. You could likely make an argument that gambling goes against the very fiber of the ten commandments as a whole.

The love of money leads to all kinds of wickedness. And, if the poor guy doesn’t feel right to go and kill or steal from someone else if he’s lost everything, many times he’ll kill himself.

Gambling is a sin. Period. It is rooted in greed, and I advise that we take note of these politicians within our state who are promoting gambling as something good for our state, people like Troy King. If you’re promoting gambling here in Alabama, you’ve likely had your pocket lined lately. Does anyone remember Larry Langford? When I first moved to Birmingham and worked at Fox 6, I met the former mayor of Birmingham. He was then the mayor of Fairfield, and I really liked him then. He talked about God and his love for God, and I thought we were of kindred spirits. I think that maybe we were, but the love of money and greed and the lust of the eyes got him. And now, he’s in jail. I was saddened by his fall.

I love my state, and I know you do to. Let’s promote, protect, and preserve what is good in Alabama from the evil that is always lurking so close behind.

Native Alabamian,

Sherri Bodine Burgess

Rediscovering Joy

So sorry I haven’t written a post these past two weeks. I have thought about you so much and have so much to say, but everything I’ve had these first two weeks of March I left in Pleasant Grove, Alabama and Douglas, Georgia, two communities in which I’ve spoken at back-to-back women’s conferences these last two Saturdays. But, what a blessing for me to be with such wonderful groups of women! I have to say that the women at the various churches where I’ve gone to speak these past two years are all quite unique yet in so many ways they are all the same, the same in such good ways, like the fact that we are all one body of Christ. Everywhere I’ve gone, it seems like I’ve known the sweet ladies there all my life, like we’re family, distant cousins I share a history with but are just getting to know. And, that’s the way it should be, because we are family. I love them, and they love and care for me. I know them, because we are the same. We have the same Spirit. We all have the same hope. We are looking for the same person, Jesus, eagerly awaiting the day the trumpet sounds for all of us to meet Him in the air. What a day of rejoicing that will be, as the old hymn says!!!

But, the women in Pleasant Grove were absolutely the most responsive group I’ve ever been with. I always do an alter call at the end where I ask the women to just come pray to the Lord whatever God is stirring in their hearts, and I think the whole church came down at Pleasant Grove First Baptist. When I got back up to the podium to close us in prayer. I looked up and saw empty pews everywhere. They were all face down at the altar, except for those who had to stand in the aisles to pray for lack of room for them at the altar. Just amazing! I even had a little doggie come down, definitely a first! It was Margaret Feinberg’s little dog, Hershey, that she just didn’t know what else to do with when she went down to pray. What a cute and sweet and bubbly and fun and smart sister-in-Christ we have in Margaret who also spoke that day. She flew in from Colorado to be with us. None of us had ever met her before but felt that Rocky Mountain girl who had also braved a few years in Alaska fit in with us Alabama girls just fine.

Now, the Douglas women’s most identifiable characteristic was that they had a double portion of joy. They were so joyful they were overflowing with it. It was an unmistakable characteristic of this community of believers, and I believe the cause of so much joy down there in South Georgia may be because of the infectious personality of one woman, the same woman who invited me to come down in the first place and had signed her e-mail to me joy, joy, Joyce. What a fun and positive person to be around. All of my interactions with Joyce Ashley were so filled with hope and joy that I just couldn’t help but be excited to go there and meet her, but when I got there I realized that everyone there was just like her I believe because Joyce’s brand of uncontained joy is contagious. She bounced around the place with all the intensity of the sun on a hot August day in either Alabama or South Georgia, and the other ladies who greeted me and my friend, Linda, at the airport were maybe even more excited that Joyce. One of them, Amber, just couldn’t contain her joy that I was there, since she was the one upon whose heart the Lord had put my name. She said she knew that I was supposed to come to their enJoying the Journey Women’s Conference.

I told them I didn’t know whose idea it was to ask me to speak on joy but that I had thought whoever it was was either a little loopy… or maybe… just crazy like a fox. ’Cause if a person like me could stand up there and tell them I still had joy in my heart after all that has happened to me, then anyone can have joy. I remember so well in those days right after Bronner went to heaven when I felt like all joy had left me, that there was just none left in my heart. I was still alive but just barely really. It wasn’t living. I felt like I was going through the motions of life, living only for my children and my husband. I ate but only to keep up my strength to be able to care for my remaining family. But, one night, I was reading a little booklet to my children as their bedtime story. It was called Scripture Confessions For Kids, and on its pages I read these words, “No one can take my joy from me, for Jesus is my joy and His joy makes me strong.” I got up from reading that, went to the kitchen, and ate a piece of chocolate. Now, no one eats chocolate for any other reason than for the pure joy of it. Chocolate is pure pleasure. It had been the first thing I had done for myself since my baby went to heaven. That night was the beginning of a little ray of hope that I might, maybe, just maybe be able to make it.

Then, I remember three of my dear friends who were specifically praying for my joy to return. They came to my house one day and read the beginning of Isaiah 61 over me which says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” (vs. 1-3)

I told them no. I wasn’t ready for any oil of joy on me. No, not yet. I pointed them to James 4:6-10, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

I told my friends that I felt God calling me to humility, that I was being humbled by the mighty hand of God, and that for a season I needed to weep and mourn, to let my laughter be turned to mourning and my joy to gloom. And, I did, and I was. I felt so humbled, like nothing at all but a reed tossed in the wind with no strength of my own. At that time, I wasn’t sure my joy would ever return. I lent myself over to mourning and weeping. I went into a season so filled with tears, so many days spent out by Bronner’s grave, missing him, desperate really for him, but I did feel God’s presence with me. Some days it was comfort, and other days I’m not so sure. I remember being at the farm where we stayed for the first three months after Bronner went to heaven, and such a thunderstorm came that I thought we were going to die. A crash of thunder so loud it sounded like it had hit our house, woke me up to the thought, “Well, this is it. I’m going to be struck by lightening. That’s how I’m going to die.”

Rick and I got up, went to the living room, and sat the rest of the night on the couch together bewildered wondering what God was doing. What was He saying to us? I certainly felt like He wanted us to know that it was Him that night in the thunder, that He was in control, that He had a plan that we may not like but that He was going to carry it out. I stood in awe of Him that night, awestruck at His power and His might, that He was so superior to us, that He was the only one who gives life or takes it away. I really felt so insignificant in comparison to Him, and we were afraid. We really were. So many nights Rick and I just clung to each other. We were so hurt, so brokenhearted, and really dumbfounded by what had happened. We never imagined life could be this bad. We never imagined the baby of our dreams, precious Bronner, so filled with life and light and joy and spunk and pure sunshine, could die. It didn’t seem right. We knew it wasn’t right. Nothing about death is right. And, we had to learn why. We had to be reminded in such a completely harsh way that the world isn’t what it was meant to be, that the world is fallen and cursed, cursed by God as punishment for sin. I had to learn there is nothing right about this world. Nothing.

I really had loved my life before. I felt happy and blessed and favored by God. I was overflowing with joy before Bronner went to heaven. We certainly had had spiritual battles before, trials and persecution, but nothing like this, nothing potentially faith shaking. We had fought our battles before and won! We worked very hard and felt we were overcomers, but there had never been anything like this. We realized that the trials we had before were just that, trials, battles to be won, but this was a test of faith. Would we remain faithful in the midst of such devastation? This was no battle, and there was nothing we could win back. I thought about it, though. I had hoped that maybe Bronner could be resurrected. I thought it all out in my mind. I wanted to go to his grave and say, “Bronner, come forth,” just like Jesus had when He raised Lazarus from the dead. Rick convinced me not to do that. He told me he felt in his spirit that that would be wrong, that God had a plan and a purpose in our baby’s dying, and no plan of God’s can be thwarted.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” He didn’t want us to live our lives for this world but for the next, for the one coming that would be perfect and beautiful and free from sin and death. I loved my life before, and I lost it. I lost everything about it. My happy little world was over, but something new started to bloom. I knew the Lord before, and I had served Him the best way I knew how. But, God was taking me to a place far deeper with Him than my happy and blessed life could have ever imagined. I realized God had not taken my baby out of anger or as punishment for some sin I had committed, but He took my baby out of love for me.

One of those three friends I was talking about who wanted my joy to return told me, “You were chosen for this, not because God doesn’t love you, but because He does love you and trusts you with such a great test of faith.”

Over time, I realized Angela had been right. Abraham had been called a friend of God, and God was making friends of Rick and me. We were becoming so intimately acquainted with Him and His ways, so far above our ways that He is almost incomprehensible, but we were beginning to see. We were beginning to comprehend God’s ways. We were beginning to look first through God’s eyes instead of our own.

One day, I received a book in the mail, and on the back, there was a bio of the author. It said he was pastor at such and such place, he went to such and such seminary. He had a wife. I can’t remember her name, and four children, one of whom has gone on to be with the Lord. His son had drown just like ours had.

I read that and burst into tears, and I started pleading with God to tell me why. Why the children? Why so many children? Why do you take the children of people like this pastor who had given his life in service to you, God, and why Bronner, a baby who couldn’t have been more loved or more wanted in this world. Why? Why the children? And I said, “God, there is nothing worse than losing a child! Nothing!”

"I know you lost your son, but you got him back after three days. Three days!"

And he said to me, “But what about the others? All my children I have to send away from my presence for eternity. You’re going to get a glorious reunion with your son, but not all of my children will I see again except on that day when they rise again only to die a second death.”

We’re all God’s creation. It’s His breath that gives us life. We’re all His, and God saw fit to take my happy life away from me - for a time - in order that many lost souls would be turned to Him, that he wouldn’t have to send them off to die a second death, but that through the testimony of a small child named Bronner, they would live forever.

See, ’cause death has a way of waking people up to the reality of itself. And they start asking questions like “What if that had been my child?" Or, "What if it had been me? What would happen to my soul if I died today?"

I was learning not only that God had a plan and a purpose in my baby’s dying and that I had to get on board with it so I could help carry on to completion what God had started, but I was learning that God considered me a friend. He trusted me, and He did love me. And that’s why He took Bronner. He knew Rick and I would search out the scriptures for the Why? He knew we would listen for His voice. And He knew we would obey. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I would have told you I could have never endured such a thing as losing my precious, precious Bronner, but now I see I haven’t lost him at all. I know exactly where he is, and I know, I know, he will be in my arms again. I don’t doubt it one little bit. And I’ve watched the other children grow like crazy these past two years and have felt the time fly by reminding me of how brief a moment we’re here. It won’t be long now, sweet baby. I’ll be there before you know it. And, my joy will be full.

This Christmas, I didn’t order enough Christmas cards, so I made a New Year’s card to send out to the people I hadn’t had enough Christmas cards for. I started going through my pictures from 2009 to select a few to put on the card, and to my surprise, I saw so many smiles. I went through those pictures of our past year and saw life and purpose, and I saw joy. To my surprise, joy had crept its way back into our lives.

My New Year’s card said, “Surprised by joy in 2009!” And inside it said, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” (Isaiah:61:1-3)

Joy to the World! The Lord has Come!

Joyfully Yours,

Sherri

An Explanation

On my last blog entry, I gave you Romans, Chapter 8 to ponder and consider for yourself, because that Chapter of the Holy Bible has had a profound influence in my life. I hope it will in yours as well. It was Romans, Chapter 8 that taught me how to go on after my child, my baby, went to heaven without me. I was studying Romans 8 in Community Bible Study when our tragedy happened, a gift, more than a gift, an explanation for what had happened.

Unknowingly, I had been living a double life before Bronner went to heaven. I lived for God, but I also lived for myself. True, I attended bible study every week. I taught Sunday school. I sent my children to a Christian School where I was a very active parent. But, the flesh has a strong pull, as do the things of the world. God made me see through Romans, Chapter 8 that life in the flesh and lived for the desires of the flesh and the pleasures of the world brings death, and, in fact, is death itself, because any life lived not according to the Spirit of God isn’t life at all.

The morning after my darkest night I laid on my couch in shock and horror and disillusionment. I tried to read my bible searching for answers, but I couldn’t read. I physically couldn’t do it. My eyes couldn’t focus on the page. My stepdaughter, Brandi, came and sat on the other end of the couch. She didn’t know what to say, but she was there. So, I handed her my bible and asked her to read Romans, Chapter 8 to me, and she did.

When she finished, I asked her to read it again, so she did. And, when she finished the second time, I said, “Again. Read it to me again.” I wanted to hear it over and over again, because in it were answers, lots of answers. It told me that God wasn’t condemning me. He hadn’t taken my baby out of judgment or punishment for some sin, because He tells me in the very first verse of that chapter that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And then it said, “Don’t set your mind on things of the flesh but on the things of the Spirit.” My baby was now spirit. He was no longer flesh. He was in heaven with God. And heaven became so much more real to me. I knew Bronner. I knew what he looked like. I had touched him and kissed him and loved him. I knew he was real. I just couldn’t see him anymore. And, that made me realize that God and heaven and everything the bible talks about was just as real as Bronner had been to me the day before.

We get so caught up in our lives here on earth even as Christians that we think that heaven is so far away. We know that it’s coming someday, but it seems so distant to us and even unimportant. Isn’t what I’m doing right now for God what I should concentrate on? Maybe, but never forgetting to eagerly await and hope for the glory that is to be revealed to us at the second coming of Christ. God was taking me to a new awareness and a deeper understanding of Himself, of heaven, and what my life’s focus should really be about.

I had thought that because I was Christian, I was exempt from pain and suffering. Stupid, I know, because there’s nothing in scripture that indicates that. I just thought I was protected and blessed and special. I really felt special to God. Sometimes, I felt like it was just me and God and that’s it. I still don’t understand how He can have such a personal relationship with me, so real that I can feel His presence, and have that with so many others as well. God is so incomprehensible even as we learn more and more of Him. He is magnificent and giant and so far above us that His omnipresence and omniscience and eternal nature are almost unfathomable to us.

But, here in Romans 8:16-17, I am hearing something very different from what I had thought before, and if you don’t pay close attention, you might miss it the first time around. I had. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Did you catch it? “provided we suffer with him” If we are truly children of God, then we will suffer, and if we want to inherit with Christ the earth when God makes it new again, we will follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and the Lamb was slain. I felt slain, stabbed right in the heart, broken, confused, with excruciating pain that no one could relieve. But these words were.

It says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Not worth comparing? Are you serious? That’s got to be good stuff for this not to even matter. But, I am learning that it is. I look forward to heaven and to Christ’s appearing in the clouds more than you can even imagine. I long for that day when I step into the gates of heaven. I pray for Christ’s quick return everyday. “Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly.” But with eager expectation, I wait with patience. This is exactly what it says to do. “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (vs. 23-25)

I pray every day for God to give me patience, to help me endure the absence of someone most precious to me. Everyday, I need help to get through the day, and God provides it. I miss my baby every single day, and it doesn’t get any easier. I had tasted life with Bronner, and I knew it to be good. I am keenly aware of what I’m missing out on, and it’s hard.

Every day is hard. Every one of them. So I need help from God. I have to have Him with me, or I couldn’t do it. I wake up every morning asking God for help. It’s usually a very short and direct prayer at my waking moment, “God, help me.” “God help me make it through today, because I want to be obedient to the work you have called me to and to be here for my other children and for my husband and for my friends, my church, and my family. But I need Your help. I cannot do it on my own.”

And He answers “Yes” everyday. So far. He promised He would, and He has. He says right here in Romans Chapter 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (vs. 35) “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.” (vs. 37)

So, I am not separated from God. And, with His Spirit, I can see Bronner. My mind’s eye still sees, and I even catch his scent from time to time. I feel that somehow, I’m already there. That what I see here right now on earth is the apparition, and what is real, what is really real, is there. It’s all there. My citizenship is in heaven with Bronner. My treasure is there. My hope lies in it. And more and more, I feel like a foreigner in my own country, like I really don’t belong here. But, I know that what is going on here right now matters for eternity, forever. I feel like this is my opportunity to work. There, I will be happy. There, I will be free. But, here, with my burdens laid down and my hope securely fastened around me, I do what God asks of me here in this world. He’s asked me to teach and to write and to go and to raise and to love and to help and show and to speak on His behalf. And, I count it a privilege, an honor, to serve my Lord.

I feel like a warrior, a soldier, going into battle where nothing is about pleasure or worldly gain but about justice and peace, defending the weak, helping the oppressed, teaching the lost, and bringing hope to those who have lost all hope. I think about America when she finally got into the war, World War II. She didn’t want to fight. This wasn’t her battle. She was at peace, but she saw that so many were not at peace, so many were being held captive, and so many were dying. So, she got in the game and did her part to free those in bondage and to bring about peace.

I believe that is why God has left me here, why He took my baby. It was so I would die to myself and live for others. He knew that I would. And in His infinite wisdom, He did what would have been unthinkable to a mere human, but His perspective is so much larger than ours. He sees the big picture, the future, and everyone, not just me and my happy family. I’ve learned that, yes, I am special to God. Yes, He loves me, but He loves so many others as well. He loves us all and desires a relationship with each person He created. It is His breath flowing through each of us that has given us life. He is our creator, not just mine, but everyone’s. So, He has chosen to use me and my family to bring others to Christ. And, I know because of Romans Chapter 8 that all of it is working together for good, because I love Him.

Romans Chapter 8 was read at Bronner’s graveside the day he was buried. Brandi read it that day, because I was still to weak to speak or to read, but I did read it on the 1^st anniversary of his death standing at the wailing wall in Jerusalem surrounded by Jewish women shushing me. On that day, my feet were planted like the roots of a strong tree, and nothing or no one could stop me from reading that Chapter of the Bible even though many would have liked to it seemed. And as I read, I felt the power of its words grow stronger and stronger until it crescendoed into its paramount last verse, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, not things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8

Life in the Spirit

1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Heirs with Christ

12So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Future Glory

18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

God’s Everlasting Love

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right had of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Submissive Wife

(adapted from a speech I did last February for a marriage conference)

Rick can tell you what it looks like to be the spiritual leader of his home, but I want to take on what it really means to be a submissive wife and why being submissive doesn’t have to mean that you lose your say or your identity. As Christians, we are all under authority. Children are to obey their parents. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Husbands are to obey Christ and follow His example, and Christ, Himself, even submitted, not only to God, The Father, but also to the authorities of His day.

So, how did being a submissive wife become a bad thing? Isn’t it a command of God? But when people turn away from God, nothing He says or commands makes sense to them. The women’s libers who tried to make women into men, and even worse, into God controlling their own destinies and futures and not leaving that to God or His standard but only what “feels” right and good to them at the time just didn’t get. They couldn’t understand God’s ways, His commands, or anything else His Word had to say, because they weren’t looking through the unveiled eyes of a person filled with the Holy Spirit.

And what is so sad is that their worldly ideas have become the norm in our society. Even among Christian women, the prevailing thought is still that being a submissive wife means being inferior to your husband in some way, but that’s not what God’s word says at all.

Genesis 1:26-28 says this:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

I see nothing in this passage that tells me I’m inferior to Rick in any way. Sounds to me like we’re exactly the same in God’s eyes. We’re both man, according to this. We’re just male and female. We were both created, according to this passage, in the likeness of God.

Then in Genesis 2:18-25 we read in more detail how it is that we came to be male and female.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

That’s beautiful. How I wish they would have stayed in that state. Death would have never entered into our world. Sin would have never entered. I wish they would’ve obeyed. But they didn’t, so that leaves us here in this fallen creation learning what it takes to get back to the garden of God.

But, the passage says, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” so God created “a helper fit for him.”

Women, do you realize how important you are to husbands? He’s walking around with a piece of him missing. You’re his missing rib. He’s not complete. He’s not whole without you. He needs you. You’re his helper.

God gave Rick a dream, and in it, Rick was battling a demon. It was this woman dressed like a gypsy, and Rick fought with her and screamed at her passages of scripture until he grew tired. Then, in his dream, I stood up and started battling her, the demon.

God revealed to Rick in that dream that I’m here for him. I can help him battle all these demons that want to tear him down, that want to render him useless to God. And you know what, ladies? I’m not gonna let that happen to my husband. No, when he’s tired, I will help him.

It’s not just cooking dinner for him, or having sex with him. It’s giving him good ideas and advice on his work, on his relationship with God. I’m here for Rick. Anything God reveals to me, he may have just as well revealed it to Rick, because Rick’s gonna hear it. I tell Rick everything. If I learn something new from scripture, I’m telling him, because I’m excited about it and can’t wait to tell him.

So, where do the problems begin for Adam and Eve? We all know they ate from the tree God told them not to eat from. They were given a test to see if they would obey God, and they failed. They didn’t listen to the voice of God, they listened to Satan, and so they sinned.

That meant that they had to be punished. They were sent away from the garden and not allowed to eat from the tree of life. Now I do want to say here that in the last book of our bible we find out who will get to eat from that tree, which is in the paradise of God. Jesus said, “To the one who conquers.” (Revelation 2:7) Conquers what? Sin, by the free gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, we’ll see in Genesis 3:16-21 the punishment God handed down to Adam and Eve.

“To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

Well, here we see that Adam was gonna need a helper, ‘cause life was gonna be hard, and to Eve he said, I’m going to multiply your pain in childbearing. Life wasn’t going be as sweet for them as it could have been, but God did provide a way out. He told the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the women and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

That’s Jesus Christ we’re talking about here. He’s the one that’s going to crush the head of the serpent forever, and, in fact, has already delivered the crushing blow by providing salvation for man. Here in this passage we also see God taking responsibility for his creation, man, and providing skins to clothe them with. This was the first sacrifice. God had to kill an animal in order to provide those skins for Adam and Eve, so their sin in the garden had been atoned for, but they still had earthly repercussions for their sin.

Here in verse 16 we see a mystery unfolding. “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children.”

In 1 Timothy 2:15, Paul says that women will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Now, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense until you think it though. Women are not saved through childbearing but through the redeeming work of the cross just like men are. Christ saves us if we believe, so what’s Paul talking about?

I believe there’s some symbolism going on here. The man and his wife represent the relationship between God, The Father, and Christ, the Son. They are the same. They are equal, yet one is the head of the other. God the Father and God the Son are equal, but one takes a submissive role to the other willingly. Hmmm…

So, if Adam is the head, and Eve was to take a submissive role, then she was going to have to suffer to get her most prized possession, her babies, just like Christ was going to have suffer to get his most prized possession, the church.

But, in delving out all that punishment, God also told the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Now, here’s where the women’s libers come back in. It’s in our nature to try to rule over our husband. We want to be in control. That’s part of our punishment, but God says, no, take the submissive role to your husband. That’s hard for us women, so hard, in fact, that it’s impossible to do without the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit brings with Him, power. What kind of power? The kind of power that can prevail over sin.

See, God told us to be submissive to our husbands, but it’s in our nature to try to rule over him.

Now, there’s a battle.

It’s the battle between sinful flesh and the Spirit of God.

We are to live by the Spirit everyday. Now, that’s impossible for someone who doesn’t have the Spirit of God. You must be saved in order to have access to the Holy Spirit’s power, comfort, guidance, and help.

But with Christians, it’s still a battle everyday. Are we going to listen to the Spirit of God within us or are we going to give in to the sinful desires of the flesh?

Yes, it is our desire to rule over our husbands, but it’s God’s desire that we not, that we willingly put ourselves into a submissive role.

Don’t you want to be obedient to God? I do. I want to serve Him completely, and that means I am my husband’s helper. He’s the one in the forefront, and I’m the one in the background offering him any kind of assistance that will bring forth more fruit for God.

Because you know what? It’s not about Rick either. It’s about God. We, together, are to bring glory to the Father in heaven.

Maybe some of you are saying, “Well, it’s easy for her to be submissive to Rick, because he is living for God. He is a model of a Godly, Christian man.” I know people think that, because they’ve said it to me before. So, what then? What if your husband isn’t being the spiritual leader that he should be? Well, God’s got an answer for that, too.

He says, in 1 Peter, Chapter 3:1-6:

“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives—when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”

Win your husbands to the Lord by your conduct this says. Set an example for him. If he’s not doing it right, you do it right, and just maybe, he’ll follow. There’s no telling how many stories of men coming to the Lord because of their wives there are. That must a countless number that only God knows, but I bet you, it’s a big one.

But, at the beginning of that chapter we see the little word, “likewise.”

Peter tells us “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands…” Like what? Well, what had he been talking about before? Servants and the ultimate servant, Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:18-24:

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Wow, that just makes me want to fall on my knees in gratitude for what Christ did for me. I was so blind before I knew God. I was straying like a lost sheep, but the shepherd came and got me. He rescued me from darkness and has brought me into the light, and I’m so thankful to Him.

That thankfulness is more than gratitude. I owe Him my very life. Any hope I have is because of what Jesus has done. I am nothing without Him, and I understand that all His ways are right and just. He is infinitely wise and has given us of His wisdom through His Word and His Spirit, so I can believe and trust that His commands and plans for my life are better than anything I could come up with on my own.

I can trust Him, so when He tells me to submit to my husband, I will. Because, I know in doing so I am crushing the head of the serpent along with Him. I become more and more of a conqueror over sin and death and Satan with every obedience to Christ. So, I seek out His truth. I seek and find what is right and good in His sight, and with everything that I am I intend to follow Christ not out of obligation but for the joy of it, because I love my Lord. I love Him with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my strength. And as I love my Lord Jesus more and more, I love my lord, Rick, more and more. And one day, Rick and I will sit together at the marriage supper of the Lamb with Christ celebrating His bride, the church, Rick and I included. I hope you will be there with us on this grand occasion.

And to sum it all up, we look to Ephesians 5:22-33:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Well, profound, it is. But, I can see that throughout our marriage Rick and I have been one. His thoughts are my thoughts. We agree on almost everything. We have the same values, opinions, ideals. We have the same spirit. We are one. He is me, and I am him in a very profound way. If you sin against Rick, you’ve sinned against me. Because I love him as I love my own body. If you say anything against me, you’ve said it against him, because the two of us have become one flesh.

And see how this intertwining of ideals, hopes, desires is a picture of Christ and His church. Let me tell you, if anyone says something against Christ or Christianity, it makes my blood boil. It makes me mad, because I love Christ. I’m protective of His name. If anyone’s out profaning Christ, I don’t like it. And you know, He doesn’t like it when someone comes against and attacks me either.

I have no doubt that Satan’s punishment for the death of my son will be severe. Don’t get me wrong, I know God is the only One who can give or take away life. And more and more I see that God orchestrated the whole event for the power it would have in bringing about truth not only in my life and Rick’s life but in countless others. God’s sovereignty isn’t in question here, but the vehicle through which death, all death, came will be punished, and that was Satan.

But all of this, our marriages, our trials, this life is for our sanctification to make us holy, set apart for the Lord, because nothing unclean can enter into heaven. Nothing.

So let’s commit our lives, our marriages, and even our trials to God, submitting to his authority in our lives, and saying “Not my will, but Thine, Oh, Lord, be done.”

It may not make you happy, at first, to be a submissive wife, and you may hear me say this again and again, but one of the greatest lessons God has taught me through my trials is that life isn’t about being happy, it’s about being holy. And when you reach that, holiness, there will be joy. And joy is greater than happiness, because it is lasting. Our joy is forever if we belong to God.

So choose submissiveness, choose holiness, and choose to love.

God bless,

Sherri