Grandmothers

 

Grandma & Granbpa Emmanuel

I hope that everyone reading this have wonderful memories of your grandmothers. My family is originally from Wisconsin. The upper midwestern personality is unique and incredibly special. My grandparents lived in Merrill, Wisconsin.

My father’s parents lived a few miles outside of town and owned a family dairy. My grandparents were
the only farm hands once their children moved away, so our family vacation each year was going “up there” during hay season to help bale and store hay in the barn for the coming hard winter. I am sure that my cousins and I were more often in the way than help, but we thought it was all fun.

Grandma & Grandpa Krueger

My other grandmother was a widow in lived in town. She worked at the local IGA grocery store, in the meat market. She did not have the farm work to do, so there was time to do more of what we wanted. She had two great treasures which I still hold dear, a collection of Reader’s Digests dating all the way back to the’30s. Each summer, I read them all. I only wish that I would have claimed them as my own when she finally passed.

The other treasure was made up of my mother’s record collection, several dozen old 78’s from the 40’s and 50’s. These I do have, and I still love the music from that period more than any other style or genre.

The point is that the houses and our time spent at each house was quite different, but each was a magical, memorable time, that I continue to cherish almost 60 years after it is gone.

This brings us to the reading for today, Proverbs 9:1-6. The passage is a personification of Wisdom. Wisdom is like a wise grandmother, who takes care of her house, prepares the meals so everyone is fed, takes care of their needs so that they feel valued, listening to anything that is communicated so that all feel heard. I am sure that my grandmothers heard every 6-year-old story of our previous year at school. They voiced the appropriate concern over the wrongs we suffered, rejoiced with our elementary achievements, presented us with gracious gifts from the local dime store, and offered us a place to be ourselves while encouraging us to grow into something grand.

What they both offered in their own way was unconditional love. A grandmother’s love and wise guidance have an impact on the mind of the young. As the children grow up to face various adult trials and challenges, hers is the voice that comes from deep within reminding us of acceptance, guidance, and showing us, in a very real way, the divine love of our Creator.

Now I am a grandparent myself. I remember clearly all the time they both listened to endless stories and provided comforting words. My grandmothers were the personification of wisdom itself, each of them in their own way. I can only pray that I might do something similar in the lives of my own grandchildren.

Rev. Craig C. Krueger

Squeeze It Tight

This picture is a sweet one of an 8 year old holding her mother’s hand. It is precious, but it is far beyond just being precious. It is Miraculous!

It is precious because the child’s hand is my granddaughter’s, and the adult hand is my daughter-in-law’s. It is miraculous because this picture is 8+ years in the making. It is a picture of hope --- hope of something that may yet be. It is the hope of what we hope will be. It is the first of something.

You see, Anabelle has been labeled as “Our Little Unicorn.” There is no name for the collection of symptoms she has. She defies description, medically. She has seizures and has had infantile spasms. All of these are under control as a result of a combination of keto diet and several anti-seizure meds. It is not that she is “low-tone” as they once thought. It is just that it takes incredible focus and repetitivesness to achieve coordination.

There definitely has been damage done developmentally due to the spasms and seizures she has survived. Her swallow reflex is an issue for her. There are many limitations: and yet there also have been some amazing accomplishments. She can prop up on her elbows to play with toys. She can make certain toys do what she wants them to do by manipulating them or pushing correct buttons.

She loves music and movement and rhythm and vibration. She is not as visually cued to recognition with people as she is by sound. For instance her grandmother made up a song for her, and she sings it to her when she first arrives to see her. Anabelle “knows” her more by what song she sings to her more than her appearance. Once she hears her song, then Anabelle lights up.

All of this to say that the picture with this article is a first. Anabelle has ben held, she has had people hold her hand, and she has had people carry her in their arms, but this picture is miraculous because it is the first time Anabelle has held someone’s hand in return. That brief squeeze is God helping Anabelle say, “I am here. I see you, I know you, and I love you.”

The next time someone holds your hand in return when you reach for theirs remember Anabelle, and thank God for the miracle of holding hands with someone you love!

Rev. Craig C. Krueger

The Dog I Didn't Want. . .

During the first 25 years of my life I had a single dog. Her name was Taffy. She was a Beagle, and she died from Cancer on the night I graduated high school. I didn’t own another dog for seven years.

However, since that time I have owned close to 100 different dogs, the vast majority of them rescues. There is a family picture of my wife and I, our blended family of 5 children, and, at that time, 2 spouses. The special thing about this picture is the dogs in the picture outnumber the humans. All of the dogs are Boxers!

Over the years, we have rescued Boxers, Greyhounds, Great Pyrenes, Boston Terriers, Akbash, Anatolians, German Shorthaired Pointers, Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Staffordshire Terriers, what I call “Dust Mop Dogs, but mostly mixed breed.

They have been adopted from shelter, off the track, picked up from the ditch, rescued from the median of I-45, the shoulder of I-35, and from the exit ramp to Perkins Rd. in Memphis, TN. Yes, her name became Perkins!

Currently, we have thirteen, but today I want to tell you about the one I didn’t want. His name was Ozzie, and he was a Boxer. I first saw Ozzie running loose through Ennis, Texas. He had jumped the fence at his owner’s house and creating a traffic jam from motorists trying not to run him over.

Over the next few day, I would discover that his owner was my secretary at First Presbyterian Church in Ennis. She was looking for a farm on which Ozzie could run free. I did not know at the time, but there was a conspiracy between my secretary and my wife to relocate Ozzie to my house. My response to the request for rehoming was a solid, “No.” That settled the matter until the day I came home and found Ozzie sunning himself on my deck.

Not only was he there to stay, but he decided I was going to be his human. I didn’t own him; he owned me. He didn’t stay in my fence either. He ran across 35+ acres. He enjoyed life. Since nobody seemed to know his birthday, he decided we would share mine. Yearly, we would go through a Whataburger and sit by a lake to share lunch. He became the guardian of our house, the most loyal creature I have ever known. He would go to the office with me. If you wanted to wrestle with him, he would take you down and stand over you until I told him to let you go.  And, best of all, the dog I did not want and tried to ignore, shared 17 birthdays with me before he passed, making him, at the time of his passing, the World’s Oldest Living Boxer. Though he has been gone for several years, I miss him still. 

Blessings,

Pastor Craig

Becoming a Christ!

I am to become a Christ to my neighbor and be for him what Christ is for me.[1]

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.[2]

What does it mean to be Christ to someone else? Our answer must be with the full knowledge of what Christ has done for us. Only as we know who Christ is and what Christ has done for us can we truly become Christ for our neighbor. We find our "job description" as we experience Christ within our own being.

The Holy Spirit has prepared us in exactly the way we need to minister to those people drawn across our path. You are equipped! You are able!

Have you been alone and without friends in a strange place and had to rely on the relationship with Christ alone? If the answer is yes, then your command is to be Christ to the lonely and those without friends.

Have you been afraid and wanted comfort more than lecture about your fear? Then your presence is the Christ you bring to those in fear.

Remember when you made such a mess of some decision in your life? What you wanted was someone to listen as you expressed your frustration rather than remind you of what their advice had been and how it had been the opposite of what you decided. Knowing that, are you able to be present as a pastor/caregiver before you put on the role of professor, teacher, or corrector. 

How did you want Christ to be present for you in your time of need? More than likely, that is how you may need to be present for the person standing before you in their moment of need.

Yes, Christ does come to us at times as the corrective person when we have gone against his command for us. Yes, there are times when we are called to pull a sibling in Christ aside and, with the same compassion Christ would have used with you, issue that corrective word to another member of the family of God. Yet, it is always with the full compassion of Christ that we come to this moment. We begin and end with compassion. We always seek to restore the brother or sister to their place in the family. We show forth Christ in our life in such a way to draw others to Christ, always prepared for the person and the time when we are called to demonstrate how present Chris is within us.

 Pastor Craig

---

[1] Martin Luther

[2] 1Peter 3:15

Love Without Limits

I just finished reading a book by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel. The story takes place during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution. If this wasn't one of those "had to" books somewhere along the way in your education, I would encourage you to read it.

The hero is one Sir Percy Blakeney. It has been said that Sir Percy was the inspiration behind Batman. He is the original, superhero in disguise.

The story tells of Lady Blakeney, who has grown tired of her husband. He is an aloof socialite, if there can be such a thing. He is labeled as a large buffoon who just happens to be the wealthiest man in England.

Lady Blakeney’s heart belongs to a dashing hero, The Scarlet Pimpernel, who risks death to save the royalty of France from the guillotine. He uses his own money, a masterful ability to disguise himself, and a razor sharp mind to remain a mystery and escape the clutches of the French Republic.

Lady Blakeney has a brother who happens to fall captive to the forces of the French Republic. Her brother is offered in exchange for her discovery and betrayal of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Since Lady Blakeney knows everyone in society, her position makes her the one who can most likely find out the true identity of our hero. 

She efforts to save her brother leads her to information concerning times, places, and meetings for our hero. She turns these over to her blackmailer in an attempt to spare her brother from   the guillotine. She is unaware that the person she is condemning to death is her own husband, a man she would never suspect of being the dashing Scarlett Pimpernel.

Upon discovering her betrayal, she uses all her resources to save her husband, whom she has now decided is worthy of her affections.

The point of using this book for this writing is to illustrate the fickleness of the heart. Affections that were dead, have sprung to life once Lady Blakeney the hero is her own husband. She will go to great lengths, endure tremendous danger to try and save him whom she hardly talked to before. That is not the lesson the author intended. However, it is one of the things that comes out of the story.

How many times do we have little interest in a person until they, suddenly, do something interesting, something that makes them “worthy” of our time and effort? How many have we cast aside because they were not "useful" to us?

Christ offers to us, and requires from us a love much sturdier than that which follows our most recent items of interest. He offers us a love that holds up in tough times, and he asks us to give to one another the same.

Pastor Craig

Risky Relationships

Below is a FaceBook post by a girl who spoke no Romanian to another girl who did not speak at all. The two could not exchange words. Yet, they communicated in ways few people can. When Christ is present, sometimes no words are needed.

Maria Cleopatra was a precious girl I met while I was in Romania volunteering at a clinic. She lived to be almost five despite the fact that she had hydrocephaly. It was not expected for her to live this long, and some doubted her ability to understand or relate; however I knew different. She laughed at the sound of another person's laugh, and she cooed and stretched as you rubbed her back or head, places that were hardly ever touched due to her fragile condition. Maria, you will be so very missed, and I am glad you are no longer suffering. ♥

Today is Easter. It is a day we are reminded of the awesome work Christ did for us, the risk, if you will, God took to secure a relationship with Him. Most of us risk so little. We are afraid of the hurt we know accompanies so many relationships. Rejected affections. Broken promises. Betrayed confidences. Yet there are those who seem to risk so much, who are committed to love even when they know that hurt is on the way.

In one sense there is no risk here. The volunteer knew she would return home in a couple months. She knew the child was given “No chance” by medical staff there in Romania. It is a situation made for heartbreak. You know it will happen. You just don’t know how soon.

Have you ever thought how Jesus felt about laying down His life for you and me? He knew we were unfaithful. He knew we would quickly run after some other affection, something else that would attract our eye oh so quickly. Yet, He jumped in boldly. He held nothing back. He let us stomp on Him, beat Him, spit on Him, curse Him, and nail Him to a tree and crucify Him. It was a most serious path, leading to this wonderful day of resurrection, a day that moves us beyond language, a day that cements relationships with the bond of Christian kindness, compassion, grace, and forgiveness.

We follow the example of our Savior when we jump in boldly, giving little or no thought for ourselves, simply committing our hearts to one another, as Christ gave His life for us. When we sing They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love this is the kind of love we are singing about. Christ is Risen! We are loved. We can love in return.

 Pastor Craig

Exceedingly & Abundantly

How much would you pay to be healed? What is your health worth? What is it worth to you to maintain your relationships and be in community?

On the negative side, we won’t stay there long, we read about a murder in east Tennessee because someone “de-friended” someone else on Facebook! Granted, this is unhealthy form of relationship to say the least, but it serves to illustrate how desperate some people are to have friends and be in community.

OK, quickly to the positive side. If you could pay a sum to take away an illness that impacted every aspect of your life, how much would you be willing to pay? How far would you go? How much of your material goods would you be willing to liquidate to be healthy?

In the Old Testament passage of II King 5:1ff, it seems that Naaman left home with over $400,000 dollars in silver, more than $4,000,000 dollars in gold, and ten changes of clothes. I think it would be safe to say that the clothing was not something he selected from his wife’s Good Will box that was about to be donated. Namman expected to pay top dollar and he came with the money in hand.

It is impossible for us to put a dollar value on our health. Most of us, if we had the money, would spend almost any amount if we felt that we could beat cancer, overcome heart disease, or recover from AIDS. Some families go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt with experimental treatments and drugs to grab a few more years, or maybe only a few more months, of life.

A friend of mine, who at one time was one of only a handful of people in the world being treated for a particular form of cancer,  said, “After my insurance maxed out, I quit reading the fine print at the bottom of the forms I signed telling me that I would be entirely responsible for the bill. What difference did another $10,000 make when you already owed a sum you could never pay back?”

Now, imagine the title of  our message for today – EXCEEDINGLY AND ABUNDANTLY. The exceeding part and the abundant part have nothing to do with stress and anxiety. They have to do with blessings. Imagine, buried alive under debt, stress, tension, anxiety, fear, and worry, only to have the dirt shoveled away and to feel the rush of cool, clean oxygen filling our lungs. It is an experience most of us have nothing to compare with. Yet, it is the very experience God gives to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Exceeding and Abundant love, mercy, compassion, grace, and life!

Pastor Craig

My Summer Vacation

In just a couple weeks most of our kids will be back to school. I don’t know if this is still something grade school children and youth do at the beginning of the term, but it certainly was a ritual when I was growing up so long ago. It was the writing of the What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay.

Let me preface this by saying I grew up in a small North Georgia town with one older sister. My parents had moved there from Wisconsin in time for me to start Kindergarten and my sister to start first grade. This meant all our relatives were, literally, a thousand miles away. So, guess what our summer vacation was each and every summer?

Yes, you would be correct. We travelled the long, non-interstate route to Wisconsin to visit both sets of grandparents in Merrill, Wisconsin and to help my paternal grandparents do the backbreaking work of hauling in enough hay to last through the Wisconsin winter on their dairy farm.

My essay was the same each and every year. Oh, there were highlights – the summer I got to start driving the tractor; the summer my cousin and I unloaded the whole trailer of bales by ourselves (a feat my grandfather praised us for even though I am sure he had to restack many of those bales we just couldn’t seem to get in there tight enough); playing my Mother’s old 78’s on the record player she used to have at my other Grandmother’s and learning to appreciate the music of the 40’s and 50’s which I still dearly love; learning to ride a bike on the farm; going to summer concerts by the town band at the local band shell; getting a new boomerang that sailed out over the local lake and did not come back!

Other kids went to Disneyland or the new and closer Disneyworld. I went to Wisconsin – land of Holsteins and cheese. Each and every summer, this is what we did, that is until my Grandmother got sick and could no longer help my Grandfather. The farm was sold. They kept a small portion of it and built a house there. Now I watched someone else go and come from that farm house, but they were city folks and didn’t really know much about dairy farming.

We did finally head to new destinations. We went out West, with Grandparents in tow, to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. We went up the East coast to Cape Cod. And, finally, yes finally, I got to go to Disneyworld. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but for all the excitement, it couldn’t beat either of my Grandparent’s houses for it was there that I learned how to drive a tractor, ride a bike, appreciate music, and live in relationships even if throwing a boomerang is still not something I have mastered.

It was there I learned that I was loved and could be forgiven, something I only found out later that many people never realize. It was this love that made it so easy to understand the love and forgiveness of God for me in Jesus Christ because I had already seen unconditional love everyday of my life through my parents and grandparents. Sure, the other destinations of my classmates could entertain, but they all fell short of teaching the things that made me who I am today.