When you turn on Country music radio, how long does it take to hear the word baby?
“I don’t feel like rocking since my baby's gone, so don’t rock the jukebox play me a country song” "Better baby your baby, cause if you don’t, one day your baby will be gone” One of the games my dad would play with me and my sister in the erra of the 1978 Ford Courier “The Little Blue Truck” the one with holes in the floor boards, going over puddles in the road, he somehow knew which hole to cover- a well practiced routine. Other than Country Music’s prolific use of the word baby, it dawned on me recently that the only difference between it and opera music, is that one is in a language I understand. Both tell stories. Some stories are glamorous, include suspense, resolution and heroism. Some stories include pain, loss and fear. This is why we love Country, it intertwines with our lives. Also, doesn’t every girl want to be called baby by someone she loves? “When you're rolling down a two-lane highway And you turn your radio on, Tell me which one hits you, baby Yeah, what's your country song?” This Month, each day unfolded another chapter to my story, some days were thrilling, some days were mundane. So, how do you know if it’s a good Country song? - if it tells of love, loss and life, for each of us are living these stories.
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I asked Betty once if she ever went a day without makeup?
“No, I don’t. I’ve worn it every day since I was 14.” She even offered me the brand and color name of her lipstick. I’ve since forgotten if it was Revlon, Maybelline or L’Oreal Paris. Betty is 100. Tonight in our Bible Study we looked at Luke 2, where Anna (around 100 years old) lays eyes on Jesus. Betty reminds me of Anna in so many ways: they were both widowed young, both listening to the Holy Spirit’s leading, and active in the work of the Lord. Luke 2 says of Anna “she did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.” At the end of her life Anna could look back and see that what others probably called a waisted life (waiting for the coming Messiah) was a life well lived in eager anticipation of what God was going to do. Here, at the end of her life, Betty can look back and know that all these years serving God and others in the church is not only not wasted, it is a full and fruitful life lived for her Maker. Every day lived for Jesus. Every day with lipstick on. I remember when I first heard your heartbeat, it had only been eight weeks. Standing there staring at that screen was the first time you ever scared me. - Brett Young
Planned or unplanned, every pregnancy is scary. Hundreds of questions and fears. Ultrasound is the window into the womb. And every time the ultrasound detects a heartbeat, with fear there is hope. Hope because that heartbeat, tiny and strong, belongs to a new life - and where there is life, there is hope. New life is scary. Terrifying, even. But it is beautiful. Recently, a woman told me she had been forced by her boyfriend to have an abortion. He wouldn’t go with her to the clinic, and later that night he threatened her life, and left her. Fear, fear again, and more fear. We live in a broken world. A world where babies with tiny and strong heartbeats are killed. A world where a man takes advantage of a women, takes a life and leaves a life. We are right to grieve. But there is hope. Hope that came in the form of a baby. I am sure Mary was terrified when she found out she was pregnant. But that tiny heartbeat inside her body was God made man - Jesus, who’s heart would later be pierced for our transgressions. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” - Isaiah 53:4-6 There’s a little place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where all you can hear are geese, trains, and the wind in the birch trees. Where you can’t remember if it is 1912 or 2021. Where there are presumably trout in the lake, and where the company is first class. Where is motherhood born?
Although it begins nine months before, it most certainly culminates in the intensity of the labor room. The place where blood, sweat, and tears are present in agony and pain. The place where the shadow of death seems to pass over a woman’s body to bring the joy of new life into the world. This is where the whisper of “mother” is first heard. There is a reason why the Bible uses language of birth to talk about Salvation. A mother‘s figurative death and resurrection in childbirth is a beautiful picture of Christ‘s real death and resurrection which gives us new life. The way in which an infant is welcomed into the world represents the way we enter into spiritual life- through the blood, sweat and tears of Another. I am thankful for all the mothers who display this beautiful picture to us. Your sacrifice represents the greatest sacrifice ever made. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism in to death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.” -Romans 6:4 Kelli, you are a beautiful mother to this sweet new life, you and Ben have gone through this last month with so much grace, patience and many sleepless nights. One of the biggest sacrifices for one of God’s sweetest gifts! |
Naomi JoyI was born a month early, and to the surprise of my parents, I was a girl! Archives
June 2023
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