Carol is a novelist and freelance writer. With a degree in Recreation Therapy, she’s worked with autistic students, an experience that inspired her to write Lake Surrender.
She speaks at writing conferences as well as MOPS and other women’s groups.
Carol is married to her husband John who she calls her “muse” and has four grown children and eight grandchildren. Currently, she and her husband John, live in North Carolina.
(NIV), it says “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not us.” Hidden inside of us God has placed His gem, the indwelling of His spirit in our earthly bodies. The container may have dents, cracks, and chips. Part of the glaze may have worn off of the exterior but God still sees us as treasures. Isn’t it just like God to rummage through a dusty coat closet and haul us out to be used for His purposes? He doesn’t want to waste anyone’s life stuffed in some gloomy dark storage area. And not only does he use us for His plans, He also takes great joy in passing us around to be admired as His treasures. To God, we are His “classics”.
Going across the Linn Cove Viaduct is a pleasure only intensified in fall. This engineering marvel begun in 1979 was finally finished in 1987. It positions a road hung onto the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Down below is a deep gorge, often called the East's Grand Canyon. One of the most complicated bridges ever built, its view below stuns even the jaded fall foliage connoisseur as the shimmering yellow and rusty orange leaves paint a panoramic view. I don't know which inspires me more, the drop-off level or the magnificent colors. One is our heavenly father's creation and one is man's ingenuity. When both come together we have a marriage of beauty and practicality.
The bridge completed the final section of the Blue Ridge Parkway which meanders through the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's one of those drives most people put on their bucket list for seeing fall beauty. As one drives over the viaduct he or she has the sensation of being suspended in air. Somehow the engineers who constructed this bridge have suspended gravity as the 1,243 foot bridge snakes around Grandfather Mountain. What an awesome creation.
In the above passage from Romans we sense the excitement as the Apostle Paul states how God's creation, all his hills, mountains, seas, plains, meadows are eager for a new earth. The woodland animals, jungle creatures and marine beings hold their breath as they wait for the Messiah's return. They seem to comprehend even more than us humans the shortness of life with its death and decay. As we humans spend time focusing on our daily "to do" list, we miss the beauty of life today as well as the jaw-dropping magnificence of the return of our Lord. More than the beauty of this season, the creation knows that there is a greater season to come.
As we rejoice in the change of seasons, let's not forget the final season still to come. His return will reduce the glowing colors of autumn and the amazing structures of men to a child's paint-by-numbers picture and a Legos structure that will soon be put back in its box.
That is what the Scriptures mean when it says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."
1 Corinthians 2:9
That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imaginedwhat God has prepared for those who love him."*
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
I grew up thinking my father was the coolest guy around. Being in the insurance business, he never met a stranger. At six feet four inches, everyone remembered him. He had a repertoire of corny jokes and loved to play pranks on the family. His favorite one was yelling for us four kids to "Hurry and get out of bed, because I just saw an escaped elephant in our backyard." As we got older his announcement was, "Oh look it snowed." Snow was almost non-existent in Northern California, but he knew it was the best way to get us out of bed in the winter. When we did have snow, he was outside in his Bermuda shorts, messing around with snowballs that he aimed at the first person out of the front door. He never quite grew into his grown-up shoes.
He could cook and whipped up gourmet meals before it was chic for men to show up in the kitchen. He had majored in hotel administration in college and because of his major, he had to learn to cook. It opened the kitchen to my father's creativity. We were so proud when he was featured "Cook of the Week" in our local Palo Alto Times and had an entire page with all his exotic recipes such as Swedish Meatballs and Chicken Curry. (Remember this was the '50s and '60s.) I have early morning memories of him getting up before anyone else, putting on coffee and reading the paper. I'm sure he cherished a few minutes of quiet in our cramped little house. By the time we kids were up, he had chocolate chip pancakes or eggs and bacon frying on the electric grill. I know my father invented chocolate chip pancakes because it was years before I saw them listed on a restaurant menu.
Even with his gourmet bent, my father would eat anything. Many a night I remember him snacking on a Velveeta cheese, mayo, and peanut butter sandwich. I shudder to think how that might have contributed to his premature death of heart failure. And I gag, thinking what a horrible combo of foods to stick between two slices of white bread.
As lighthearted as he was, he had strong feelings about politics. The one big talk I remember him sitting us down for was to explain the horrors of communism. We knew it was a serious subject as he called us all into the living room for counsel. Dad was rarely serious.
One day, the pedestal cracked and my father tumbled down. I saw my father as a mere human. Somehow he had hidden the unhappy in his marriage to my mother and decided to divorce her and marry another woman. Heartache followed all of us as we knew our family would never be the same. It took many years for our mom to move forward.
But, as I think of this verse in the book of Daniel, my memory of my father is warm. He was a flawed human and did damage to our family, but right before he died he told me he had made peace with the Lord. God is merciful and forgiving. I know I will meet Dad in heaven. I'll find him playing practical jokes on St. Peter and inventing unusual sandwiches.
The night before my wedding, my mother-in-law stood up at dinner, clinked on her water glass and made a small speech. As she looked around the long white banquet tables, she recalled how her West Coast son had called her in Indiana to let her know he was marrying me. The baby of their family had chosen a wife, someone she had only met twice. But for a woman sold out for God, she didn’t miss a beat. Taking a big breath, she paused before saying, “... and I had a great peace.” It was the best wedding present she could have given us.
Great peace she had - and not because of me. Dorothy’s peace was portable as she carried it inside. Everyone in my husband John’s family knew that when she arrived on the scene things would calm down. Divorces, depression, sick babies and homes for sale ... any problem took a new perspective when my mother-in-law flew through the door. After a flurry of kisses and a predictable cup of coffee in her hand, the delicate china cup with the thin gold-rimmed lip and “Mom” engraved on the side, she settled down to the serious business of encouragement.
Amidst my four unruly children and a kitchen floor that begged for a sweep, she tackled any domestic crisis. Like sunshine on a February day, she flung open the curtain of hope and dragged me to the window to admire the view. No pity parties here.
“Yes, I know your husband lost the big sale,” she’d console, “and you miss your family, but have you seen the beauty outside? Take a whiff of that clear air you’ve needed to breathe.”
Raised by a single mother as an only child, she had little support in her life. She learned to encourage first herself, and then others. When, as a young mother, she asked Jesus into her heart, she learned what true peace she could have in her life. Not a particularly outgoing woman, she still managed to share the good news to many in her small town.
Dorothy hauled that great peace to the emergency room ward where she worked as triage nurse. No surprise that she became a nurse, getting her GED, driver’s license, and nursing degree after age 50. She soothed her families troubles, healing people’s bodies seemed a natural extension of her gift. She worked rings around younger nurses until into her 70s.
Even as she wasted away after intestinal surgery, that remnant of peace steeled her family together. And today I can still picture looking inter her determined deep-set hazel eyes and seeing the unshakeable conviction that God is in control. I think of her when I read the quote that hung in her living room:
“He will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him.”
Chains are chains for one reason—they keep one object tied to another. We understand their usefulness with inanimate objects whether it means securing bicycles to a hitching post or keeping a gate locked at night. But when we feel bound to our circumstances, imaginary chains become a point of frustration. Perhaps one spouse is tied to selling a house while the other has to move ahead to start a new job or a married couple has been called to the mission field and they need to sell their house to help fund their ministry. Maybe we feel imprisoned in an area we don’t like but because of situations with family and jobs, we are not free to leave.
When writing how his imprisonment had given him opportunities to share his faith, the Apostle Paul refused to fight his chains. History tells us that every four hours Paul was chained to a new prison guard and many became believers. The Bible tells us that as a result of what happened to Paul, the gospel was advanced.
Seeing our life chains as a way to anchor us to God, helps us stop chaffing against them. Those miserable, weighty iron links that seem to hold us down might be necessary to make us stop and do something we might not have done otherwise. When we are stuck in one place with few options, God often does his finest work. Being pinned to one place gives us time to think about our lives, to pray more, to communicate with others in our current community, and spend quality time worshipping our Lord.
God might even have a special project for us that we wouldn’t have seen while flitting around in our previous life. A few years ago my husband and I found ourselves unemployed while trying to sell our house. Fourteen months of showing a house in a down market seemed like an eternity when we wanted to move on, but I have a 70,000 word novel to show for my time of house arrest.
Are you bound to your present circumstances? God may have you anchored for a reason. Look around you. Is there someone God wants you to befriend in order to share the good news? Release from anxiety often comes when we respond to our current situation while looking for opportunities to make good out of it.
When we quit fighting our chains, we may find a greater purpose in wearing them.
Adapted from the book Changing Zip Codes: Finding Community Wherever You're Transplanted available from Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. Used by permission.
Carol G. Stratton is a freelance writer from North Carolina. She is married with four adult children and two grandchildren. She speaks to MOPS groups and has a website, www.ChangingZipCodes.com, to help women who are moving keep their family and humor intact. Her first book is a forty-day Devotion, Changing Zip Codes: Finding Community Wherever You're Transplanted, published by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and based on her multiple moves. Send Carol your comments.
