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As for God, his way is perfect:
    The Lord’s word is flawless;
    he shields all who take refuge in him

Psalm 18:30 (NIV)

REFLECTIONS ON THE SUNDAY SERMON

February 16, 2025

Pastor Cliff Werline, Speaker

“Lord, be my shield,” I prayed as I started my car at 6:15 am on a cold Friday. Since my retirement from teaching in June, I hadn’t needed to be out in the winter’s morning hours, but today my daughter needed me. Living with a condition known as “iron-deficiency anemia”, Bonnie requires iron infusions every few months to bolster her red blood cells. Usually, her husband is able to take her to the series of five infusions over three weeks, but Jared was unable to get off today. I was happy to help.

But driving when it is still dark out is not something I do lightly. I have a visual disorder called keratoconus which causes double-vision and “halos” around lights. Still, a mom does what a mom has to do.

“Be my shield and my buckler!” I said as I drove the twenty minutes to her house. “I take refuge in you, Lord!”

God is perfect. As Pastor Cliff pointed out on Sunday, there are very few “perfect” things in the world. Among those scarce things are the Word of God and the Sacrifice of Jesus. Nothing else is truly flawless. While the pearl in John Steinbeck’s book, The Pearl, is said to be “perfect, reflecting light and refining it,” only God and his law are perfect.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.

Psalm 19:7

As any of my ninth-grade high school students could tell you, having the “perfect pearl” did not work out so well for Kino and Juana.

How much better to trust in the promises of God! God is always faithful to his promises.

God treated me to a beautiful view of the sunrise on my drive, and as I pulled up to Bonnie’s house, I thanked God for his protection and faithfulness. God, however, wasn’t finished. He had something else in mind to gladden my heart.

Bonnie and I were sitting in the waiting room at the hematologist and we started talking about her brother, Allen, an adult with autism spectrum disorder. Back in October, I’d done one of the hardest things a mother could ever have to do: I committed him to a psychiatric hospital because his autism mixed with traumatic grief had spiraled him out of control.

“He’s come a long way since the hospital,” my daughter commented. “When he calls me every day, he actually has a conversation with me.”

I nodded. People at church also mentioned that Allen was more engaged during and after services.  Finally agreeing to medication, my son was adjusting to a life in which he had more control. “He wants to learn to cook more things,” I told my daughter.

Just then, a woman sitting in a chair across from us broke in.”I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said. “But are you talking about someone with autism?”

I told her it was my son and she told me she had a niece on the spectrum. We conversed for the next few minutes as Bonnie went into get her infusion, and I reached into my purse and pulled out a card that had the link and QAR to my blog. “I write about autism, ” I told her, “among other things. Maybe you would be interested in reading it.”

She took the card. “I am signing up now!” she said. And she did. We talked for a few more minutes, sharing the knowns and the unknowns about the spectrum disorder,  until she, too, was called back.

Among the many reasons I retired–and I had a hundred!–was the desire to write more about autism and widowhood combined with faith. And I had just had the opportunity to reach one more person.

 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

II Corinthians 1:20

This world, Cliff reminded us, is just a shadow of what we will one day experience. Yet if we allow ourselves to, we can experience the glory of God wherever we are, even in a waiting room.

Where can you find God today?

Linda Cobourn also writes at  Quirky: Because we’re all a little different

 

Reflections from the Sunday Sermon

Todd Bezilla, speaker

February 9, 2025

 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

Mark 12:30-31

It was a very chilly 52 degrees in the house when I woke up on Sunday, January 12. I sighed, pulled myself out of bed, and went to the basement to try and cajole the old heater into surviving one more winter. I had a lot of practice at this, so I banged it a few times in strategic spots and waited for the clanking noise.

Nothing.

I sighed and ran back upstairs to get ready for church, knocking on my son’s door as I headed for the shower. Unlike the heater, he responded.

“Cold today!” I warned him. “Get dressed quick! I turned the electric firelog on!”

We left for church shortly after; I prayed my heater might decide to function while I was absent from the house.

I, like you probably, am used to such things as heat and running water. I tend to think of myself as a physical being, concerned with the physical needs of myself and my son. My spiritual self is just a part of me. But Todd Bezilla’s sermon on this past Sunday, February 9, caused me to think of myself in a different way.

I’m a spiritual being.

The words of the prophet Jeremiah in 1:5 make it clear; God formed us as spiritual beings. 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew  you,

    before you were born I set you apart;

    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. 

 

If we were truly physical beings, we’d have only dust to look forward to!

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,

    and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

Dr. Todd gently reminded us that we are all just TEMPORARILY housed in a physical form. Our bodies are not designed to last, how ever well we treat them. And if we spend time caring for our physical bodies–as we should, because they shelter the spirit–then we ought to spend even more time working on our spiritual selves. We need to make sure we are growing in our spirits. How? Well, we know an apple tree is doing what it should if it produces apples. We should, as spiritual beings, produce fruit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

This involves a change of mind-set. What we endure right now–such as my heater issues–are temporary. They are merely physical problems. But if we focus not on the CREATION, but on the CREATOR, we can become more like Jesus. Well, a little bit more, anyway. We can

to be made new in the attitude of our minds

Ephesians 4:23

I’ve changed my mind about my heater. It continued to defy my gentle and not so gentle cajoling, and within days I found myself not only installing a new heater, but also new gas lines and new electric wiring. These were safety issues that may have existed way before we moved in. And they could have caused many problems. My son and I stayed in a hotel for three days while people who know about these things were at the house.  During that time, however, I was able to realize how blessed we had been. We were safe; we were warm. We took a break from the world, played card games, watched movies, ate take-out, and watched the snow fall outside.

You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,

    because they trust in you

Isaiah 26:3

Was it perfect peace? Well, not yet. I’m still working on it. And that’s okay, because growing your spiritual self takes time.

Whatever it is that is keeping you tethered to the physical world today, do not make it your top priority. 

Commit to the Lord whatever you do,

    and he will establish your plans

Proverbs 16:3

 

Doesn’t that sound better than kicking a heater?

What do you need to do today to work on your spiritual self?

Dr. Linda Cobourn is a writer, editor, and teacher. To learn more about Linda’s faith journey as a spousal caregiver, a widow, and the mother of an autistic adult son, you can follow her on https://lindaca1.substack.com/

Valentine’s Day can be tough for widows. Last year, a student asked me what I thought I would get from my husband for Valentine’s Day. She hadn’t realized he had died because, she said, “You always talk about him as if he is alive.”

It was a lovely compliment that got me thinking about the years since Ron passed and how each Valentine’s Day has become a little less painful. I am still a widow, but I have come to learn the true meaning of love.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

I Corinthians 13:4-8

What is the true nature of love? It is impossible for human beings to live up to what the Bible describes as “love.” Ron and I were married for almost 44 years. We had a good, solid marriage despite the two decades Ron was ill, but we fell short of these ideals often. I know I was not always as patient as I wanted to be, and I know that Ron often envied other couples who had more material wealth than we did.

It is only God who can live up to the ideal of love. After all, he created the emotion within us. He sets the standards for it. The verses we think of as “the love chapter” were not intended by Paul to be romantic, but rather the foundation of all things.

The church at Corinth struggled with immorality, idol worship, and self-interest. Paul wanted to remind the church that whatever they did, it did not matter if it was not done in love. These verses are full of 15 action words that constitute real love. I’ll look at just two in this post.

1. Love is patient. Truth. Loving Ron was not always easy. In 1994, he began having mental issues and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For years, he swung on the pendulum between manic and depressed. There were many nights I heard him playing basketball on Allen’s court in the backyard at 3 AM. There were other mornings I awoke to find him gone with a note hastily scribbled on the kitchen table. Ron’s bipolar was difficult to explain to others outside our family. In a way, his car accident in 2000 made it easier, because people understood physical maladies in a way they could not fathom mental illnesses.But I made the choice to love Ron. Not because it was easy, not because he was always lovable, not because I was necessarily a good person. I did it because I had taken a vow to love him. I had made a commitment, the same commitment God makes to us.
2. Love is kind. We should always react with goodness and kindness, but it’s a hard thing to do. There were times Ron blamed me for his illnesses, yelling that if I really loved him, I would cure him. Of course, curing Ron was beyond my human power. I did the best I could by taking care of him, taking him to doctors, working extra jobs to pay the medical bills not covered by insurance, and trying to understand that he needed someone to blame and I was handy. In the early years, I tried to reason with him. Eventually, though, I would just pat him on the shoulder and turn away.God never turns away from us. God always responds to us with love, even when we are dead wrong.

Have you ever found it difficult to love someone, even when you knew it was the right thing to do?

Want to read more about Linda’s life as a widow and the mother of an autistic adult son? Check out her blog at Quirky: Because we’re all a little different. 

But there was no information so we continued and arrived at evening, not a moment too soon. Finding the place, it was (as you may say) satisfactory.

The Magi find no information at the tavern. The Birth has been largely unknown. It was almost two years before the Magi found Him; He was known to most as only, “the carpenter’s son.”

Modern creches often show the Magi at the scene of the manger, but we have two verses in the Bible that tell us otherwise. The shepherds came to the manger and found a baby: “And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a manger” (Luke 2:16). But the Magi find not a baby, but a child: “And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary, His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him” (Matthew 2:11).

And it was, as Eliot says, “not a moment too soon.” The Magi were close to the point of breaking. They had journeyed for almost two years, dealing with cold, hunger, lack of shelter, stubborn camels, and servants running off. Here at last was the end of the journey.

And it was “satisfactory.” Only “satisfactory.” To come such a long way, to survive so many trials, and to find a humble home and a very human child. It was not what the Magi had expected. Yet, they hadn’t really known what to expect when they began their search. Were they, used to opulent lifestyles, disappointed with the ordinary trappings? Perhaps. Nonetheless, what they saw and felt was enough that they fell to their knees and worshipped Him.

There may not have been any fireworks involved in TS Eliot’s conversion, but whatever he found with the Church and Christ was enough for him to remain a dedicated Christian until his death.

In retrospect, I realize my husband’s death was, “not a moment too soon.” I was exhausted and depleted during those last nine months, seldom sleeping and constantly worried. I now know that God took Ron Home at just the right time.

REFLECTION:

When has something happened in your own journey that was, “just the right time”, when you had run out of your own resources and needed to rely only on God?

Then we came to a tavern with vine leaves over the lintel, six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, and feet kicking at empty wineskins.

TS Eliot, Journey of the Magi

This stanza of TS Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” is rich in Biblical allusions. The vine leaves are a reference to Jesus as the vine (John 15:1-7) while the lintel reminds the reader of the blood spread on the doors of the Israelites, allowing the Angel of Death to pass over their houses (Exodus 12). In this passage, the Magi stand on the threshold of conversion. The choice is clearly theirs: to step in, or to stay out. It is a choice we each make on our own.

It has been a painful journey for the Magi, arduous and long. But the journey has been one of purification, required as they shed the entrapments of their former lives and enter into the Kingdom. While Eliot continued to maintain he had no “conversion experience”, it is clear from his poetry that the ideas were fermenting in his mind for years. In The Four Quartets (1943 ), he wrote:

Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,

And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,

And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,

The surface glittered out of heart of light.

This is a lovely illustration of both the Magi and Eliot on the edge of conversion, moving from the “dry pool” into running water.

The last lines of this passage are also a foreshadowing of the end of the story: Judas’ betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15), the parable of the wineskins (Matthew 9:14), and the soldiers dicing for the Robe of Jesus (Matthew 27:35).

The care of a chronically ill spouse ends in one of two ways: recovery or death. 70% of marriages with an ill spouse end in divorce. As Ron’s ongoing illnesses continued to steal him physically and mentally, I was forced to see the likelihood of his death. In those hours after his funeral, when the family had all gone home, I knelt by my rocking chair and said, “Thank God, it is finally over.” Five years later, and I am still not sure if I was thanking God for the end of the horrible day, or the end of my years as a spousal caregiver.

REFLECTION:

It is not easy to contemplate the death of a loved one. It was not until after my husband died that I became familiar with the term, “anticipatory grief.” In a way, it helped prepare me for what was to come, a foreshadowing of my future as a widow. What has helped you to see or accept an inevitable end? How has it strengthened you?

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

“The angel answered me, ‘These are the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world.” (Zechariah 6:5)

The color white generally stands for righteousness; the horse galloping away probably symbolizes death to the old ways with the coming of Christ. In Eliot’s own life, his conversion also symbolizes his own new life in Christ and the passing of his old ways. Despite the long journey, the poet finds the trip worthwhile.

The Magus had the rare privilege of seeing the Old Order pass away with the coming of the Savior. As they exit the spiritual desolation of their former lives and enter into the verdant valley, they know that they were right to ignore the voices that whispered, “All is folly.”

Now that I have passed four years of spousal caregiving, I sometimes ask myself if the journey was worthwhile. It was hard; it was long. What did I gain from it? Not only did I fulfill my marriage vows, but I also learned that God was capable of supplying the strength I needed at the exact moment I did.

REFLECTION:

What insights have you gained from your own difficult journey that can move you forward to the next journey?