Marilyn's Mussings

This plant, bursting with potential, was delivered to my door before Christmas. It was my pleasure to observe the progress each day as it became what I knew was going to be beautiful blooms. The daily watch heightened my anticipation for what was to come. I was not disappointed.  There are numerous blessings that God freely gives to us before we know we need them. This year has been a constant reminder of that aspect of God's providence and we have prayed that we not take those precious gifts for granted in the future. But for some blessings, I think God waits for us to know we need them. He gives us time to feel the need and wrestle with our own inability. He waits for us to come to Him. We thought we did that months ago but have felt the need more with each passing day. We purposefully offer the sacrifice of praise. We continue with conviction and anticipation as we look to the One who every good and perfect gift comes from. We look to He who works all things together for good. W...

Many years ago, a dear friend of mine sang a Christmas chorus while we were busy about a task. I had never heard the song but the simple chorus caught my attention and touched me deeply. Some time later, we moved and became a part of a church whose tradition it was for the entire congregation to hold hands across the isle and sing a chorus of benediction at the end of each service. It was there that the same Christmas song came into my life again. We sang it every Sunday from Thanksgiving to the New Year. For all the years we worshipped there, tears rolled down my face each time we sang the chorus. Oh how precious Christmas is to us as believers! Click here to hear the whole song. CHRISTMAS ISN’T CHRISTMAS (Chorus) by Jimmy and Carol Owens Christmas isn’t Christmas Till it happens in your heart. Somewhere deep inside you Is where Christmas really starts. So give your heart to Jesus, You’ll discover when you do That it’s Christmas, Really Christmas for you. I love that chorus and while...

Have you ever watched someone with a baby? Oh, the faces, voices and sounds! The love that wells up in us for an innocent baby tends to make our response honest and vulnerable.  What then is our response to baby Jesus? God lovingly placed a star in the sky the night Jesus was born. Far away in the east, the Magi saw it.  Much of what they did involved the stars, so God put that star where they were looking. He meant for them to come. Scripture says they went straight to Jerusalem and asked where the baby was. It must have puzzled them that the religious leaders did not know about the birth of the new King. By now Jesus was no longer a newborn. The religious leaders knew the scripture but were unaware of the Savior.  With new information, the Magi headed to Bethlehem. As they began, that same star reappeared! They followed the star to the exact house in which Jesus lived. There, they bowed down and worshiped the Christ Child.  "Worship" in the ancient Orient, paints a...

I love nativity sets. I love each artist's depiction of Mary and Joseph with hearts to follow God, and the sweet baby they both look at adoringly. As we gaze with them, we are acutely aware of what Mary and Joseph knew then, and what the world did not yet know. This baby was the Son of God, Immanuel, Jesus the Christ. There was no fanfare in the city of Bethlehem the night Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph slipped in so unnoticed that there was not even a place for them to stay. Our Savior's first bed was a manger. It was a non-event for the city. People went about their everyday routine interrupted only by the activities of the day.  The fanfare happened in a nearby field with shepherds and sheep. It was unexpected and sudden. The shepherds found themselves standing in the midst of great light - the glory of the Lord, the manifest presence of God Himself. An angel appeared with a message. It was good news, the best of news, news of great joy for all people. "For Unto you is...

Have you ever thought that if God would just call you by name and tell you what to do, you would do it?  That’s what happened to Mary. She was a young, innocent teenage girl when God sent His angel Gabriel to her with a message. He called her name, eased her fear, and told her that God had chosen her to be the mother of the long awaited Messiah. She got important details. The pregnancy will be a work of the Holy Spirit. The baby will be the Son of God. His name will be Jesus. Mary's response was simple and full of peace. "I am God's servant. May it be as you have said." She got some personal information too. Her relative Elizabeth, who was way too old to have a baby, was six months pregnant. "Nothing is impossible with God." So Mary went to see Elizabeth. It was there, through Elizabeth, that God lovingly confirmed what He was doing in Mary. With the confirmation came more peace for Mary, so much so that it propelled her to song! God still speaks today. Not ...

Did you have plans? Then something unexpected happened? Joseph had plans. He was going to make Mary his wife and they would have a life like those around him. Yes, he was of the line of David, but so many others were as well. He surely had no idea how that detail would play into his future. And then he found out his anticipated bride was pregnant. In kindness he prepared to remove himself from her quietly, but before he could, an angel came to him in a dream and stopped him. The baby Mary carried was from the Holy Spirit. This was the sign Isaiah told us would come. Imagine the intimacy both Joseph and Mary felt when God revealed that long awaited sign to them personally. Oh, the hope that must have swelled in their hearts! And now that God-given hope would empower Joseph through the coming hurdles. With purposeful obedience amidst the hushed voices around him and the questions within him, he proceeded. He journeyed to Bethlehem with Mary, full term, and found there was no place to ...

Have you ever pondered exactly when Ruth became a believer? Naomi had two daughters-in-law. Scripture is clear that they both had a good relationship with Naomi. She was special to them in that she was the mother of their husbands. But upon the death of those men, they were forced to walk together through a tragedy like none other. The shared grief must have fostered a unique kind of closeness between the three women. When Naomi decided to go home to Bethlehem, she encouraged the two young women to go back to their own homes in Moab.  "May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband." (Ruth 1:8b-9 NIV) Scripture says that she kissed them but they wept aloud as they protested. After some discussion, the one daughter-in-law, while weeping, kissed Naomi and left. She loved her and maybe it was hard, but she left all the same. Ruth stayed. Scripture says she clung to Nao...

When Ruth said to Naomi, "Your people shall be my people," neither of them were thinking about where they would spend Thanksgiving or which traditions they would hold on to for Christmas. But those decisions have the potential to crumble mountains in some families. Decisions about the holidays may be the hardest "in-law" test for new couples and their parents. From what I have observed, the mothers-in-law that navigate holidays the best are those who had the most heartache as daughters-in-law. The difficulty they experienced seems to make them the most gracious to the new couple. Holidays are hard. My first thanksgiving with my husband's family was a bit of a shock. Everything was completely foreign to what I knew and I wanted to cry. Every couple's prior holiday experiences are different and both assume that what they came from is the right way. They will need time to adjust and figure out what their own holidays will look like. I came to appreciate the Joh...

Entreat me not to leave you, Or to  turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people  shall be  my people, And your God, my God. Ruth 1:16 The many years of history you shared with your son have built the relationship you have with him now. The years were full of happy, caring and loving experiences, as well as hard experiences. You went through them together. You also had misunderstandings the two of you wrestled with and resolved. That combination fostered the strong, trusting relationship you both enjoy. You know his heart and he knows yours. Communication at this point in your lives is easy.  Your time with your son's wife is obviously quite a bit shorter and is at least in some part filtered through your son. As much as you may want it, your relationship with her will never be what she has experienced with her own mother. You just don't have that history. Still, your relationship with her ...

Autumn is peeking in my window and while the air is crisp and cool, my heart is warmed at the sight. The beautiful trees that have been slow to cooperate with the calendar show vibrant colors that contradict the loss of life within. It is the rhythm of the seasons and it reminds us that our sovereign God controls the universe.  There is a rest in Autumn unlike the other seasons. It is as if the activity of summer stops to regroup and shift gears, carving out a time of quiet that is full of expectation. The stores declare that Christmas is nudging its way in, but we refuse to listen. We need the sabbath of Autumn. The change in season doesn't last long but if we want it, Autumn offers a time of relative calm, and renewed perspective. The season itself prompts us to look outward, beyond ourselves, and forward to all that is coming. The sights and smells stir up the heart's memory and bend us toward thankfulness. One of the constants in our life, no matter how we have celebrated i...

Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Ruth 1:16 NKJV During the late 1970's and early 1980's, this was a much loved scripture chosen many times to be read at weddings. As a young woman, I too loved it and thought it to be romantic. The fact that it was in the Bible made it all the better. While these words are beautiful when read aloud and are certainly fitting for a wedding, the context of the scripture is not about a marriage relationship at all. They are words spoken by a woman to her mother-in-law. The life story of that woman, Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, is written in the Old Testament book of Ruth. God used the lives of these real women to tell about the coming Christ, our Redeemer, who would come years later from the lineage of Ruth. Naomi, her husband and two sons found themselves in the midst of a fami...

From the moment they put him in your arms, he captured your heart. You wondered how it was possible to instantly love him so much. But you did, and it was wonderfully satisfying. You were forever a willing captive to that love. You took that precious blue bundle home and showered him with love, kisses and snuggles. The two of you began a journey in which your lives would forever be intertwined.  By the time he was a toddler, he was your little man. You cared for him, prayed for him and supported him in every aspect of his life. You were there when he fell off his big wheel, kicked the soccer ball and struggled with his math facts. When he asked Jesus to come into his heart, you were there too and you got to watch him grow in his faith. You prayed him through middle school and prayed for the woman he would marry. In what seemed like a blink of the eye, your little man became a responsible, accomplished grown man.  Somewhere close to the same time that you were snuggling with yo...

While I was teaching at Jacksonville State University, students many times would wait after class to ask questions. One day a young man approached me with quite a different question. "You are a Christian, aren't you?" he said. During the conversation that followed, I learned that he too was a believer in Jesus Christ and we formed a friendship. He had an elderly grandmother who lived in Gadsden, where I lived, and she was a member of Twelfth Street Baptist Church, where my membership was. She had been a shut-in for some time and I had never met her.  A few years after John graduated, his grandmother died and I went to the funeral home hoping to see him and offer my condolences. I walked into the parlor where her family was receiving friends and did not see John. I had not so much as seen a picture of her or any other member of the family. I suddenly panicked and wondered if I had walked into the wrong place! That's a little bit how I felt this morning when we went to ...

We were living in Japan in the Fall of 1967 and Billy Graham was coming to Tokyo. The whole church buzzed with excitement. As they made plans to take a group each night, I made plans to invite my friend Maya. Maya did not attend our church, her family was Catholic, but she was a good friend and I loved her. She was as excited as I was at the prospect of an adventure to Tokyo and ran into her house to ask her mother if she could go. Maya's mother said yes, but with one requirement. She had to go to confession first. My 11 year old mind was puzzled. Not knowing the mind of her mother, I still wonder if she wanted to make sure Maya was all "confessed up" before going to a religious gathering, or if it was such a bad thing to go hear the protestant evangelist that she needed to confess ahead of time. So I dismissed the whole priest thing at that point and decided that was for Catholics and the Old Testament.  You can do that for a while...until you read Hebrews. God began app...

It was Leah's birthday and her big present was a new desk for her room. Stephen was four and very excited to be in on the secret. We emphasized over and over that he was not to tell Leah about the gift. That evening, the cake was set before her and the candles were lit. Before we could sing the first note of "Happy Birthday," Stephen blurted out "We got you a present and it's not a desk!" Kids are easy to read, so much so that many times there's no reading involved, just listening. Adults, however are much more savvy. Knocks in life teach us to hide thoughts and feelings that might make us vulnerable. Even in our inner dialog, we may question, spin, and justify motives until we have masked the truth from ourselves. God knows, but a busy life is fertile soil for not acknowledging Him in those matters. Hebrews 4:12 is a verse we all love and many have memorized.  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It speaks of the p...

Being a mother is a journey. The responsibility is huge, but the joy is even greater. At the outset, our lives are immediately and forever changed because our hearts are involved in a different way than ever before. The change prepares us for the trip but also makes us vulnerable along the way.  As we go, we bask on the mountaintops of exceeding joy and struggle through the valleys of difficulty. The shared adventures of happiness, sadness, laughter and tears, provide a strong bond for the family of origin. When our children marry, our journey changes but is not over. It is enriched, first by their spouses, then by their children. Just as the mother's family multiplies, so does her love. The heart has a great capacity to love. Our children's spouses are a treasured part of our family and we receive them with joy. But the excessive and outrageous love one feels for a grandchild is a mystery. Mixed up in there somewhere is the inseparable love for their parents. Where one stops ...

Before I began writing about mothering mothers, I survey between forty and fifty young mothers. I asked them to tell me what they need from their mothers and mothers-in-law. They were to include both things they need and have, and things they need but do not have. I found their comments to fall into four general categories: Affirmation and Encouragement Boundaries Help Unconditional Love By far the most comments were about unconditional love. What a great reminder. The unconditional love that flooded our hearts when we became mothers is still what they crave most. A fresh reading of 1 Corinthians 13 as the mother of a mother is powerful! Love and pray for them as they make decisions and establish their own traditions. Support them as they blend two new families in a world that differs from the one in which they were raised. Loving them unconditionally through this process will provide them not only affirmation, but security also. Offer them advice when asked but tell them often ...

I remember the first time I took my sixteen-month-old grandson to lunch. It was our first excursion for just the two of us and I was so delighted to spend time with the little man. But oh my! I had forgotten how much was involved. It began with me juggling Jonathan, money, and mandarin oranges at the cash register, and ended with renegade milk leaping into the air while I grabbed for my running toddler! Mothers need help! But asking for help is sometimes difficult. In What Every Mom Needs , Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall recognize that "most of us go to great lengths on our own before actually asking for help."  The reasons for this are varied but most boil down to a feeling of guilt. Somehow we as mothers think we should be able to do it all, that other mothers do it all, and we are expected to do it all. We reason, "we've made the choice to be mothers, and now we will deal with whatever motherhood throws our way." Life situations from unexpected pregnancy ...

The powerful influence of a mother in a woman’s life cannot be overstated. She longs for your affirmation and will receive it partly in how you exhibit trust in her by respecting the choices she makes as a mother. It is important to remember that God has entrusted your grandchild to his parents. They are a team, responsible to each other and to God. When they make decisions that differ from their family of origin, no judgment or criticism should be implied. Just as we stood on the sidelines cheering them on as they worked together with sports or academic teams, encouragement and support from us is most effective. They are directly involved in the "game" and God Himself is their "coach." While we resist the temptation to correct or criticize the parenting style, if the child’s well-being is in danger she should be told. She wants that. One mother said "Tell me if I am making a horrible mistake!" However, most of what we want to share is preference an...

Unlike the workforce, being a mother has no purposeful time-line for evaluation and the little ones who say thank you, do so at her direction. If you are a woman of influence in a young mother's life, tell her how proud you are of her as a mother. Acknowledge how hard she works. Tell her often and be specific. Empty flattery is worthless but a casual observation of this young woman's day yields plenty to highlight. Find out what mode of communication the young mother in your life enjoys. A note in the mail or words on her facebook wall might be just the pick-me-up she needs. An encouraging text message straight from the scripture is always good.  I was busy at home one day enjoying a sweet memory of my last visit with my daughter and grandson. He was less than a year old, but as she corrected him she talked to him about making good choices. My heart swelled as I thought about what a good mother she was. Then I suddenly realized that more than enjoying that warm fuzzy feeling,...