Leaving a Mark

Last week I hosted a vacation Bible school in my backyard called a “5-Day Club,” which is a ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship.  Many children came each day during the week and it was a lot of fun to chat with them and their moms.  However, each day the children left their mark in the way of animal cookie crumbs on the patio, donuts under the swings or purple, red and orange popsicle juice on the pool deck.

If you haven’t heard of Child Evangelism Fellowship before, they are an international ministry that shares the Gospel with kids.  The 5-Day Clubs are taught by teenagers during the summer after the teens are trained.  It’s really a fun time!

So last week I invited my friends and neighbors to come to my backyard for the 5-Day Club and, except for snack clean-up, it was a neat time.  Each morning the teenagers came and played games with the kids, sang fun songs, taught Bible lessons and shared the Gospel.  At the end of the week I invited the teens and their siblings to swim in our pool.  After they left I found two little handprints on the lower portion of the mirror in our exercise room where the kids had changed for our pool party.  Yes, the teens’ siblings left their mark just like the children had during the week.

But the teenagers left their mark, too.  The children went home each day with songs about Jesus singing in their heads, many of them memorized Bible verses that God can use in their lives and one of them even decided to trust Jesus as their Savior.  Now that’s the kind of mark that I want to leave.

We all leave our mark everywhere we go and in everything we do.  God’s desire for each one of us is to choose a relationship with Him and then to do good things that He has already planned for us to do.  That is what the teens did here last week.  Okay, so I know we can’t all spend our summers teaching children about Jesus, but that’s okay because God has a plan for each one of us.  Ephesians 2:10 is one of my favorite Bible verses, “God made us.  He created us to belong to Christ Jesus.  Now we can do good things.  Long ago God prepared them for us to do,” (NIrV).

So what mark will you choose to leave?  Will it be simply leaving cookie crumbs behind for other people to clean up or will it be choosing to belong to Jesus and following His plan for your life?  If you’re stopping by my backyard, I’d prefer not to find any more melted donuts under the swings.  Oh, and if you need some inspiration in encouraging your kids in leaving their mark, you can read my “Papa’s Plan for Buddy Bee” book with them!

Let’s make our mark for Jesus today!

Celebrating Marriage

My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in May!  As I think about being married to him over the last 25 years, I like this Bible verse, “…I found the one my heart loves…,” (Song of Songs 3:4 NIV).

I feel like we have been celebrating marriage a lot around here over the last year.  My daughter and her husband got married last summer and since that time two of my cousins and one of my nieces have gotten married.  And one of my nephews will be married very soon.

All of that means that I have been having fun giving bridal showers over the last year and sharing about marriage, which I have shared some of here on my blog.  If you missed them, here are the links to three of the posts:

Communication Mishap

Seeing Spots?

Making a Marvelous Marriage: Now and Later

But not only are we celebrating marriages around here, we’re also celebrating wedding anniversaries.  My daughter and her husband celebrated their first anniversary in June, my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in May, and my parents will celebrate their 50th anniversary very soon.  So in honor of celebrating marriage, let’s have some fun!

Maybe you’ve only been married for a short time.  You could share about how you met or what it was that you really liked about your spouse before you were married.  Or maybe you’ve been married for a while like my husband and me.  You could share a fun story about your marriage.  Or maybe you have been married for a long time like my parents.  You could share some wisdom with us.

First I’ll share some short thoughts for each one of those and then it will be YOUR turn!

It’s going to seem silly when you read this, but here is how my husband and I met and what I liked about him.

I remember when I first saw my husband.  We were at a family camp with our church.  At the beginning of the camp, they had the families that had not previously attended this camp go up to the stage at the front.  Then they invited the other families to choose a new family and invite them to have dinner with them to make them feel welcome.  That was when I saw him.  He was on the stage with his family and he was very cute.  I leaned over to my dad and told him that that tall boy with the blonde hair was really cute and asked my dad to choose that family to have dinner with.  My dad tried, but another family got the dinner.  However, my parents invited them to have dinner with us anyway.  That was when I met my future husband.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)  We were in high school then and we’ve been together ever since.  And he still is very cute!  Yep, that’s what I liked about him at first.  But now I know him better and he is a man that I respect so much.  I’m very glad to be his wife.

So, how did you meet your spouse?  What was it that drew you to him or her?

Now I’ll share a story about marriage.  I don’t know why this one came to mind – we have so many stories – but here it is.

One day a few years ago while we were eating dinner, my daughter observed something and shared it out loud.  She was a teenager at the time and we have two boys also.  I have no idea what the conversation was, but I remember what she said.  She noticed my husband and me discussing something, probably about something one of the kids wanted to do, I don’t really know, but she said, “You two talk to each other with your eyes.”  She was right.  We couldn’t discuss out loud whatever we wanted to say at the time, but that didn’t keep us from “talking” with each other!

I’d love to hear your stories about being married!

Now it’s time for some marriage wisdom.  I enjoy reading books about marriage and learning more every day.  It’s great to have a good marriage!  One bit of wisdom that I think is really good for everyone is remembering to forgive.  My husband and I attended the FamilyLife “Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise” a few years ago.  It was so much fun and we can’t wait to have the opportunity to go again sometime.  On the cruise we listened to several speakers and I sat there thinking that I wished someone had told us those things 20 years ago because we had to learn them all on our own.  Kirk Cameron and his wife, Chelsea, were two of the speakers.  Chelsea spoke about forgiveness.  She said that when we don’t forgive, we keep that person in that place of where they did something wrong.  They don’t want to be kept there.  They want to be forgiven and change and be the person that they really want to be.  We need to forgive them so that we both can move on.  I have a wonderful husband, but we all need forgiveness.  I’m glad that my husband is quick to forgive me!  After that cruise we were able to attend one of FamilyLife’s “Weekend to Remember” Couple’s Getaways.  What a fun time!  My other bit of wisdom is for everyone to attend that weekend.  The weekend getaways are held in many cities and you can even attend as an engaged couple.  My husband and I sent our daughter and son-in-law before they were married and they said that they were given a lot of great information to help make their marriage strong.

So, what is your bit of marriage wisdom?

I’m looking forward to reading your stories as we celebrate marriage!