Tidbits and Pearls

As a thirteen-year-old girl in July 1958, I attended church camp at the idyllic Silver Falls State Park near Silverton, Oregon. It was my summer vacation, the one week when I took a break from fieldwork where I picked strawberries, raspberries, and beans for local farmers.

At the nightly chapel service this entreaty was given: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” (Isaiah 6:8). My response, though filled with fear and trepidation, is as fresh in my memory as though it happened yesterday: “Here am I. Send me.”

As a young girl, the base of my fear was that God was going to send me as a missionary overseas to some country—any country—where there were snakes. That He did not do.

I married and became a wife then a mother. It was then He issued this charge: “All I have asked you to do is live your life.” Silently, I nodded my head in assent, as though I understood exactly what was meant. Even though I was an adult by then, nothing could have been further from the truth.

God’s desire is to have a friendship, a relationship, with those He created. He wants us to have rich, fulfilled lives, and He wants to be a part of that. He longs to share Himself with us, for us to share our lives and ourselves with Him. It is our choice to include Him or exclude Him. The very work of Christ as Redeemer and sacrificial Lamb was brought about in order to make it possible for each of us to enter into the presence of God and to live there.

Entering into any kind of relationship, whether it be as friend, parent and child, marriage, or business partner, brings with it expectations, hopes, and preconceived ideas. However, it is in the reality of the day-to-day circumstances of actually living life together, of working together, that we learn to know others. That is when we discover what they are really like, if they can be relied upon, if their word has value, whether or not loyalty is part of their being. It is no different with God.

My walk with God began as a very small child. I had no thought or concept of being brought to the place where I would sit at His feet, getting to know Him as He reveals Himself to me, being taught by Him, experiencing daily life with Him at the helm.

Personal experience is a valuable instructor, and God is the Master, designing experiences for each of us as individuals. The greatest of teaching tools, those experiences can neither be taken from me nor can they be negated. They are mine and mine alone.

Learning at the hand of God, I was taught not only how to live life but how to live it well by living it with Him.

In my late sixties I began writing, the result of being propelled by the need and desire to tell others of God, His love, and His involvement in everyday life. He sent me to the world with that message—to those who believe and those who do not; to those who are open, to those who are closed; to those who are in a church, to those who are not; to many, to but one.

In this compilation of essays and musings taken from a blog written over a period of four years, I share with you some of those personal experiences in my life. My desire is that you will be pointed to Him and Him alone. May you be provoked to think, to consider things in a new and different light. May you be encouraged, knowing there is a point and purpose to all things. And may you know you are loved and cared for, that you are not alone in this journey called “life.”

“Here am I. Send me.” And send me He has.

“That you might know me, the One and only true living God.”