(Music by Yanni; lyrics by Renah)
Listen, I’ll tell you
Something you once knew
How halt you
Between two
Opinions of Me
When I set you free
From the power of sin
You cannot win
When you reject Torah for
Commandments of men.
Listen, I’ll tell you
Something you once knew
I gave Ten Commandments
The story is told
That they have grown old
Become obsolete
I will repeat
My Word endures for all time
With Wisdom sublime.
Chorus:
A double minded man
Is not the kind I can
Just open up My hand
And pour you out a blessing
Like Jacob you are wrestling
And now, behold, I’m testing you.
Repeat two stanzas
Repeat Chorus
So listen, I’ll tell you
Something you once knew...
Listen I’ll tell you
Something that you once knew
Listen, I’ll tell you
Something that you once knew.....
....Obey.....
****************************
11/23/2007
10/23/2007
Virginia Firebrand
He loves the smell of leaves in Fall
He loves Jesus most of all
With eyes ablaze, a voice that booms
He brings conviction to the room
He says we ought to go to prayer
He goes to Washington...Beware!
His daughters play the violin
He thunders loud, “Depart from sin!”
He loves Jesus most of all
With eyes ablaze, a voice that booms
He brings conviction to the room
He says we ought to go to prayer
He goes to Washington...Beware!
His daughters play the violin
He thunders loud, “Depart from sin!”
10/11/2007
Urge for Going
I woke up today to find
A frost perched on the town
It hovered on a frozen sky
And gobbled summer down
And when the sun turned traitor cold
And naked trees are standing in a shivering row
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
Yes, I get the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down
And winter closing in
I had a girl in summertime
With summer-colored skin
And not another man in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves came trembling down
And bully winds did push their faces in the snow
She got the urge for going
And I had to let her go
Yes, she got the urge for going
When meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down
And winter closing in
The warriors of winter
Give a cold, triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying
All that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
Straining and a flapping on before the snow
They’ve got the urge for going
And they’ve got the wings to go
Yes, they get the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down
And winter closing in
I'll ply the fire with kindling
Pull the blankets to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out
And bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so
But she's got the urge for going
And I guess she'll have to go
Yes, she gets the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire is falling down
And winter closing in.
Joni Mitchell
Dave Von Ronk version
A frost perched on the town
It hovered on a frozen sky
And gobbled summer down
And when the sun turned traitor cold
And naked trees are standing in a shivering row
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
Yes, I get the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down
And winter closing in
I had a girl in summertime
With summer-colored skin
And not another man in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves came trembling down
And bully winds did push their faces in the snow
She got the urge for going
And I had to let her go
Yes, she got the urge for going
When meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down
And winter closing in
The warriors of winter
Give a cold, triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying
All that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
Straining and a flapping on before the snow
They’ve got the urge for going
And they’ve got the wings to go
Yes, they get the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down
And winter closing in
I'll ply the fire with kindling
Pull the blankets to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out
And bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so
But she's got the urge for going
And I guess she'll have to go
Yes, she gets the urge for going
When meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire is falling down
And winter closing in.
Joni Mitchell
Dave Von Ronk version
10/10/2007
Blue Skies
Yesterday I took a walk at Culver Academies. What a gorgeous day! The sky was clear blue; not a cloud in the sky. Lake Maxinkuckee was shimmering in the sunshine; autumn foliage beginning to be brilliant. I visited the Huffington Library overlooking the lake. I plan to write from this “Inspiration Point.”
I also visited the horse barn. The indoor arena is undergoing renovation. Thomas, the black Friesian, greeted me at his stall door. He is my favorite, although there is a new Friesian named Zoolander just as beautiful. These horses are worth over $50,000 I have heard. They were donated. I am seeking the LORD about working with the horses at Culver part time. I am also considering donating my Haflingers. They would have a good home and I would enjoy seeing children ride them. Culver Academies consists of Culver Military Academy and Culver Girls’ Academy, college prep schools. My grandson, Austin, attended summer camp here and looks forward to attending next summer.
Pat and I and our two young children used to live just a mile from this place in 1977-78. I used to enjoy hearing the lap of the rippling current from my bedroom window at 802 Lake Shore Drive.
Blue Skies....reminds me of my dad’s sailboat. That was the name of his favorite sailboat. He used to race sailboats (Hustler and Indian class) at Squantum Yacht Club, Wollaston, Massachusetts. Blue was Dad’s favorite color. He often wore dark blue sweaters and light blue shirts. On summer evenings, we would sit outside at 1 North Central Avenue looking up at the blue sky. Dad taught me the names of the different types of clouds and I did a report on Clouds for a junior high class. I still enjoy blue skies and cloud formations.
Blue Skies....reminds me of this poem by Annie J. Flint (1919)...a favorite of mine:
What God Hath Promised
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.
God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
*********************************************
I also visited the horse barn. The indoor arena is undergoing renovation. Thomas, the black Friesian, greeted me at his stall door. He is my favorite, although there is a new Friesian named Zoolander just as beautiful. These horses are worth over $50,000 I have heard. They were donated. I am seeking the LORD about working with the horses at Culver part time. I am also considering donating my Haflingers. They would have a good home and I would enjoy seeing children ride them. Culver Academies consists of Culver Military Academy and Culver Girls’ Academy, college prep schools. My grandson, Austin, attended summer camp here and looks forward to attending next summer.
Pat and I and our two young children used to live just a mile from this place in 1977-78. I used to enjoy hearing the lap of the rippling current from my bedroom window at 802 Lake Shore Drive.
Blue Skies....reminds me of my dad’s sailboat. That was the name of his favorite sailboat. He used to race sailboats (Hustler and Indian class) at Squantum Yacht Club, Wollaston, Massachusetts. Blue was Dad’s favorite color. He often wore dark blue sweaters and light blue shirts. On summer evenings, we would sit outside at 1 North Central Avenue looking up at the blue sky. Dad taught me the names of the different types of clouds and I did a report on Clouds for a junior high class. I still enjoy blue skies and cloud formations.
Blue Skies....reminds me of this poem by Annie J. Flint (1919)...a favorite of mine:
What God Hath Promised
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.
God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
*********************************************
10/07/2007
Sukkot Joy
Feast of Tabernacles 2007 was partly joyful. Pat helped me build our “suggest-a-sukkah” which consists of a few oak branches forming the foundation of a sukkah at my “prayer closet in the woods” where other Sukkot celebrations have been held in the past with family and friends. Interest has waned over the years as the grandchildren got older and no one we know locally embraced the Messianic/Torah perspective.
I sang this silly “Sukkot Song” I made up....
We come a-rejoicing
Boughs of goodly trees we bring
We will dance and sing
Feast of Tabernacles
O hear the fire crackle.
I am feasting all alone
In my woods, at my home
Wishing for some other friends
To be feasting with me
.................................
[After a settled squabble...]
I’m not feasting all alone
In my woods, at my home
“Bring a chair, Take II” I said
Pat says he is coming
Well now my heart is humming.
After the brief squabble in which the RV was parked out front for sale, Pat and I took it to Potato Creek State Park for part of three days. It was enjoyable. We rode bikes. Pat fished with our grandson, Dakota. I hiked a beautiful trail. We read Scripture. We met a nice man and had a pleasant conversation. How wonderful it would be if the campground were filled with like-minded believers next year, with special speakers at the “Campground Circle” and lots of kosher fun, kosher food, and the laughter of children. I can only hope.
I sang this silly “Sukkot Song” I made up....
We come a-rejoicing
Boughs of goodly trees we bring
We will dance and sing
Feast of Tabernacles
O hear the fire crackle.
I am feasting all alone
In my woods, at my home
Wishing for some other friends
To be feasting with me
.................................
[After a settled squabble...]
I’m not feasting all alone
In my woods, at my home
“Bring a chair, Take II” I said
Pat says he is coming
Well now my heart is humming.
After the brief squabble in which the RV was parked out front for sale, Pat and I took it to Potato Creek State Park for part of three days. It was enjoyable. We rode bikes. Pat fished with our grandson, Dakota. I hiked a beautiful trail. We read Scripture. We met a nice man and had a pleasant conversation. How wonderful it would be if the campground were filled with like-minded believers next year, with special speakers at the “Campground Circle” and lots of kosher fun, kosher food, and the laughter of children. I can only hope.
Sukkot Sorrow
Well, it did not happen. Tabernacles 2007 has ended....and a certain gentle, polite, godly young wordsmith did not push his somewhat eccentric yet faithful friend on the swing in the woods while talking of Torah. That man did not manifest as hoped. Delightful children did not dot my campground with laughter and song. Twin spirits did not collaborate and become partners in rhyme. Stimulating conversations and theological discussions among like-minded friends did not transpire.
Maybe next year...LORD willing.
Maybe next year...LORD willing.
7/29/2007
7/26/2007
My Testimony
Prepared for Gideons' Pastor Appreciation Banquet, Milford, IN, August 1991:
TESTIMONY
My first exposure to the Bible was as a nine-year-old raised in a Catholic home. One day I took out the Catholic family Bible which was kept in a box on the bookshelf. No one ever read it. It was purchased, I think, in a fund-raising drive by our parish to build a parochial school. I opened it up, and the first thing I read was that a 300-day indulgence would be granted to those who opened this Bible up to read it. I asked my mom what an indulgence was and she said that it was time off a person’s sentence in Purgatory (which was some sort of nebulous holding cell between Heaven and Hell.) The next few pages contained Catholic prayers, each with an assigned “indulgence”—some of the longer ones were worth 1000 days. My grandfather had died and I was told he was in Purgatory suffering, so I began to take this Bible out every day and read these prayers, hoping to read him out of Purgatory. After a week or so I got discouraged, thinking I’d be reading these prayers for years and he’d still be in Purgatory. It was easier to light candles at church. I never got as far as the actual text of the Bible itself.
I was a good Catholic girl, attending Mass regularly until I was 16 or 17 when I started to rebel. By the time I was 18 I was drinking and using drugs and had forsaken my Catholic religion. I was part of the hippie scene for several years, and along with experimenting with amphetamines and LSD, I experimented with a few new religions. The Jehovah’s Witnesses left Watchtowers at my apartment. I read those. I listened to Herbert W. Armstrong on the radio. Somebody gave me some Rosicrucian literature. I heard that Baha-Ullah was a great prophet, equal to Jesus, and read his writings, which were the basis of the Bahai religion. I read humanistic philosophers such as Spinoza. During these two years of spiritual searching and hunger I don’t remember anyone ever handing me a tract or inviting me to church. By the time I was 20 I was married with a child and so spiritually confused that I gave up religion altogether and settled down to a family life void of God. My children grew up without Bible stories, Sunday school, or any Christian influence whatsoever.
As the years went on, my only relationship with God was an occasional “Oh God help me” prayer. But who was God? I had difficulty believing in a personal, loving God who answered prayer. My philosophical searchings had left me with a vague notion of God as a force, an energy to tap into. I became an agnostic, and eventually I became so anti-Christian that I was repulsed to even hear the name of Jesus Christ. I had heard John 3:16 but I didn’t know what it meant. I blasphemously paraphrased it to say:
For God was so sadistic that He allowed His own son to die a hideous, horrible death on a cross, that whosoever believes this preposterous fable (the Gospel) shall no longer have any fun in life but shall become a holier-than-thou, goody-two-shoes hypocrite, and beyond the grave will sit on a park bench listening to harp music forever and ever.
How could a reprobate like me ever be saved? Only by the sovereign grace of a merciful God.
In 1981 my 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter were invited to a Wesleyan church by a friend at school. The boy’s father, who was the Sunday school superintendent, would faithfully pick up my children for church when they wanted to go. My husband and I thought it was great to get the kids out of the house for a few hours while we enjoyed our favorite pastime of drinking beer. We tried to fill the spiritual emptiness in our lives with an alcohol-induced euphoria, and by this time we were drinking three cases of beer a week.
My conscience began to bother me as I’d watch my kids go off to church while I opened another beer. I started to think about God and religion for the first time in many years. I began to watch the television preachers on Sunday mornings, trying to understand their “Protestant” religion so I could counteract any religious influence the Wesleyan church might be having on my children. I didn’t mind them going to church, but I didn’t want them brainwashed. I would turn on the TV, open another beer, and argue with the preachers from my supposed superior, enlightened mind. But after a few weeks I found myself thinking, “Some of this is beginning to make sense.” As I listened to one evangelist preach, I began to come under conviction. I heard the plan of salvation, and that one must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I still had great difficulty with that. I was not ready to acknowledge the Deity of Christ.
In April of 1982 I watched a Phil Donahue program featuring born-again Christian celebrities. The testimony of Dean Jones stirred me. The peace and joy that radiated from his face was something I yearned for in my life. He was so happy. I was so miserable. He was an intelligent and articulate man, yet this born-again Christianity satisfied him.
One night, three weeks later, I sat at my dining room table drinking beer, alone and depressed. I was trying to get high, to attain that euphoric state of transient happiness which was the only kind of happiness I could find. Yet this night, after eight beers, I was still sober. I thought, “What is left. I can’t even get high anymore. How can I ever be happy? Is there anything that can fill this emptiness within me?” I thought about my kids and my husband and what a terrible wife and mother I had become. How had I grown so mean and selfish? I looked in the mirror and the face I saw was evil and vacant of life.
I went to bed in tears and found myself crying out, saying “God, I’m sick of being bad. I want to be good. I give up. Please help me.” I wasn’t sure I even believed in a God that heard and answered prayer. But I guess we all instinctively cry out to “the unknown God” when we’re desperate.
I had a very dramatic conversion experience that night. I found myself acknowledging and confessing my sins as one by one they seemed to flash before me. I saw my childhood sins, all the heartache I had caused my parents as a rebellious teenager, all the neglect I’d given my husband and children, and the borderline alcoholic I had become at 32 years of age. And then I was shown my greatest sin—pride and unbelief—thinking that I could live without God, that I could manage my life on my own. I became acutely aware that I had offended God very deeply. I wept with remorse. A great burden lifted as God forgave me of my sin. I felt clean.
I thought about surrendering my life to God. A battle for my soul took place as the Devil tried to deceive me and show me that surrendering to God and serving Him would be very unpleasant. He put absurd thoughts in my mind and almost had me believing that I would have to leave my family and become a nun and live in a cold, isolated convent in the mountains of Eastern Europe.
But the Holy Spirit fought for me, reminding me that God is good. I thought, “Yes, God is good. Good can’t be bad. Whatever God does with me will be good.” It seemed like hours passed during which this struggle took place. I counted the cost of full surrender and commitment and began to pray. “Oh God, I surrender to You.” ....And then.....I heard God speak to me, saying, “Go on.” It was like the voice of many waters as the Bible describes. I was awestruck! My doubts vanished as I realized there really was a God who was hearing my prayer and communicating with me. God wasn’t a “force.” He was a personal Being who speaks! I trembled in His presence.
Suddenly I had a vision of myself on a cliff. Someone whose face I couldn’t see stood across a gulf on the other side reaching out to me, ready to catch me. I was fearful to jump yet fearful to stay where I was. I saw in the vision the letters J U M P. I heard God speak to me again in the depths of my soul, “Go on,” impressing upon me what I needed to do. I struggled within myself several minutes. Why was it so difficult for me to do this? I thought, “I don’t understand why I need to do this.” God spoke again saying, “You will in time. Let this be your first act of obedience.” It was so hard to say the words God was prompting me to say. With halting speech I began: “I....accept....Jesus....Christ...as my Lord....and....Savior.”
Immediately the gulf was bridged. I had jumped from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. All of a sudden every trace of tension and torment vanished. I was filled with a deep, comforting peace. I felt like a newborn infant. I drifted off to sleep in the strong and gentle arms of my Heavenly Father. In the early morning hours of April 27, 1982, three months and three days before my 33rd birthday, I was born again.
For several days afterwards I was filled with an indescribable joy and peace. The whole world seemed brand new. Everything was more intense. The grass was greener. The sky was bluer. I was acutely aware of the birds singing and the warmth of the sun. It was as if I had just come alive, as if a pilot light had been ignited in the furnace of my soul. I was empowered by Love. I loved my family. I loved washing the dishes. I loved working in the garden. I loved the potatoes I was planting and asked the Lord to bless each one as I put them in the ground. That was the best crop of potatoes we ever had. I walked with God in intimate fellowship in “heavenly places” and then, gradually, I came “down to Earth.” I did not tell anyone what happened to me, not even my husband. The experience was too precious to be mocked. I did not know of anyone who would understand it.
Soon after this, I hungered to know more about Him whom I had met. What exactly had happened to me? What was the significance of accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior? How should I live now? Has God ever spoken to anyone else? Has anyone else ever had an experience like mine? I had so many questions and no one to ask.
Just then my fifth-grade daughter came home and said, “Look what we got at school today.” She was holding a little red book, a Gideon’s New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. I said, “Let me see that.” It became the most precious book in the world to me. I began to read it, and three or four days later I had read it cover to cover. I immediately identified with Paul and his Damascus Road conversion. He knew the same God I knew! I had no doubt that this King James Bible was the Word of God.
I had a compass now. I had a Bible that gave me guidance, instruction in righteousness, and comfort. I read words that confirmed my faith:
I love the LORD, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. –Psalms 116:1,2
One thing I noticed as I read this Gideon’s New Testament the first time through was that something seemed to be missing—namely masses, purgatory, devotion to Mary, praying for and to the dead, rosary beads, novenas, indulgences, etc. I assumed all that must be in the Old Testament. Nine months later I began to read the Old Testament. After reading the Bible from cover to cover I discovered none of that was there. In fact, many Scriptures refuted and contradicted Catholic doctrine. Eventually I totally renounced Roman Catholicism and was set free from that religious bondage.
Where would I be without this Book? As the months went on, God did not speak to me in audible words, but through the pages of Scripture. It would be a year and a half before my husband would trust Jesus for salvation and we would begin attending church and fellowshipping with other Christians. These Scriptures nourished and sustained me during that vulnerable time.
My love and appreciation for the Bible has not diminished over the years. The Word of God has become my sword as I earnestly contend for the precious faith delivered to me. My husband and I have recently put together a monthly newsletter for this very purpose of contending for THE faith amidst so much error in the Church today. We also have a ministry of distributing Bibles and Bible Pathways each month. I believe that my love and reverence for the Word of God, which has impacted my life so greatly, is a direct result of receiving that KJV Gideon’s New Testament in the earliest weeks of my conversion. Today my husband, mother, father, sister, uncle, son, and daughter have all come to the knowledge of salvation, and their lives are impacting others. One “little red Bible” has gone a long way in changing lives.
During the past two years I have experienced some of the most difficult times in my life with the death of my father, my mom’s serious health problems, my daughter’s rebellion, and other sorrows. Yet the Word of God has sustained me, given me comfort, hope, and direction. What can separate us from the love of God? Certainly not the difficulties of this life if we are trusting in Him. I have seen amazing answers to prayer, and I’ve learned many spiritual lessons and grown through what has happened. Jesus Christ truly is all I need, for I have found Him to be a very present help in trouble, whose presence brings joy even in the midst of sorrow. I love Him with all my heart and I give Him all my obedience for He has caused me to delight in doing His will. The LORD is so good.
I would like to thank the Gideons once again for their faithfulness in placing the Bible that changed my life.
August 16, 1991
TESTIMONY
My first exposure to the Bible was as a nine-year-old raised in a Catholic home. One day I took out the Catholic family Bible which was kept in a box on the bookshelf. No one ever read it. It was purchased, I think, in a fund-raising drive by our parish to build a parochial school. I opened it up, and the first thing I read was that a 300-day indulgence would be granted to those who opened this Bible up to read it. I asked my mom what an indulgence was and she said that it was time off a person’s sentence in Purgatory (which was some sort of nebulous holding cell between Heaven and Hell.) The next few pages contained Catholic prayers, each with an assigned “indulgence”—some of the longer ones were worth 1000 days. My grandfather had died and I was told he was in Purgatory suffering, so I began to take this Bible out every day and read these prayers, hoping to read him out of Purgatory. After a week or so I got discouraged, thinking I’d be reading these prayers for years and he’d still be in Purgatory. It was easier to light candles at church. I never got as far as the actual text of the Bible itself.
I was a good Catholic girl, attending Mass regularly until I was 16 or 17 when I started to rebel. By the time I was 18 I was drinking and using drugs and had forsaken my Catholic religion. I was part of the hippie scene for several years, and along with experimenting with amphetamines and LSD, I experimented with a few new religions. The Jehovah’s Witnesses left Watchtowers at my apartment. I read those. I listened to Herbert W. Armstrong on the radio. Somebody gave me some Rosicrucian literature. I heard that Baha-Ullah was a great prophet, equal to Jesus, and read his writings, which were the basis of the Bahai religion. I read humanistic philosophers such as Spinoza. During these two years of spiritual searching and hunger I don’t remember anyone ever handing me a tract or inviting me to church. By the time I was 20 I was married with a child and so spiritually confused that I gave up religion altogether and settled down to a family life void of God. My children grew up without Bible stories, Sunday school, or any Christian influence whatsoever.
As the years went on, my only relationship with God was an occasional “Oh God help me” prayer. But who was God? I had difficulty believing in a personal, loving God who answered prayer. My philosophical searchings had left me with a vague notion of God as a force, an energy to tap into. I became an agnostic, and eventually I became so anti-Christian that I was repulsed to even hear the name of Jesus Christ. I had heard John 3:16 but I didn’t know what it meant. I blasphemously paraphrased it to say:
For God was so sadistic that He allowed His own son to die a hideous, horrible death on a cross, that whosoever believes this preposterous fable (the Gospel) shall no longer have any fun in life but shall become a holier-than-thou, goody-two-shoes hypocrite, and beyond the grave will sit on a park bench listening to harp music forever and ever.
How could a reprobate like me ever be saved? Only by the sovereign grace of a merciful God.
In 1981 my 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter were invited to a Wesleyan church by a friend at school. The boy’s father, who was the Sunday school superintendent, would faithfully pick up my children for church when they wanted to go. My husband and I thought it was great to get the kids out of the house for a few hours while we enjoyed our favorite pastime of drinking beer. We tried to fill the spiritual emptiness in our lives with an alcohol-induced euphoria, and by this time we were drinking three cases of beer a week.
My conscience began to bother me as I’d watch my kids go off to church while I opened another beer. I started to think about God and religion for the first time in many years. I began to watch the television preachers on Sunday mornings, trying to understand their “Protestant” religion so I could counteract any religious influence the Wesleyan church might be having on my children. I didn’t mind them going to church, but I didn’t want them brainwashed. I would turn on the TV, open another beer, and argue with the preachers from my supposed superior, enlightened mind. But after a few weeks I found myself thinking, “Some of this is beginning to make sense.” As I listened to one evangelist preach, I began to come under conviction. I heard the plan of salvation, and that one must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I still had great difficulty with that. I was not ready to acknowledge the Deity of Christ.
In April of 1982 I watched a Phil Donahue program featuring born-again Christian celebrities. The testimony of Dean Jones stirred me. The peace and joy that radiated from his face was something I yearned for in my life. He was so happy. I was so miserable. He was an intelligent and articulate man, yet this born-again Christianity satisfied him.
One night, three weeks later, I sat at my dining room table drinking beer, alone and depressed. I was trying to get high, to attain that euphoric state of transient happiness which was the only kind of happiness I could find. Yet this night, after eight beers, I was still sober. I thought, “What is left. I can’t even get high anymore. How can I ever be happy? Is there anything that can fill this emptiness within me?” I thought about my kids and my husband and what a terrible wife and mother I had become. How had I grown so mean and selfish? I looked in the mirror and the face I saw was evil and vacant of life.
I went to bed in tears and found myself crying out, saying “God, I’m sick of being bad. I want to be good. I give up. Please help me.” I wasn’t sure I even believed in a God that heard and answered prayer. But I guess we all instinctively cry out to “the unknown God” when we’re desperate.
I had a very dramatic conversion experience that night. I found myself acknowledging and confessing my sins as one by one they seemed to flash before me. I saw my childhood sins, all the heartache I had caused my parents as a rebellious teenager, all the neglect I’d given my husband and children, and the borderline alcoholic I had become at 32 years of age. And then I was shown my greatest sin—pride and unbelief—thinking that I could live without God, that I could manage my life on my own. I became acutely aware that I had offended God very deeply. I wept with remorse. A great burden lifted as God forgave me of my sin. I felt clean.
I thought about surrendering my life to God. A battle for my soul took place as the Devil tried to deceive me and show me that surrendering to God and serving Him would be very unpleasant. He put absurd thoughts in my mind and almost had me believing that I would have to leave my family and become a nun and live in a cold, isolated convent in the mountains of Eastern Europe.
But the Holy Spirit fought for me, reminding me that God is good. I thought, “Yes, God is good. Good can’t be bad. Whatever God does with me will be good.” It seemed like hours passed during which this struggle took place. I counted the cost of full surrender and commitment and began to pray. “Oh God, I surrender to You.” ....And then.....I heard God speak to me, saying, “Go on.” It was like the voice of many waters as the Bible describes. I was awestruck! My doubts vanished as I realized there really was a God who was hearing my prayer and communicating with me. God wasn’t a “force.” He was a personal Being who speaks! I trembled in His presence.
Suddenly I had a vision of myself on a cliff. Someone whose face I couldn’t see stood across a gulf on the other side reaching out to me, ready to catch me. I was fearful to jump yet fearful to stay where I was. I saw in the vision the letters J U M P. I heard God speak to me again in the depths of my soul, “Go on,” impressing upon me what I needed to do. I struggled within myself several minutes. Why was it so difficult for me to do this? I thought, “I don’t understand why I need to do this.” God spoke again saying, “You will in time. Let this be your first act of obedience.” It was so hard to say the words God was prompting me to say. With halting speech I began: “I....accept....Jesus....Christ...as my Lord....and....Savior.”
Immediately the gulf was bridged. I had jumped from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. All of a sudden every trace of tension and torment vanished. I was filled with a deep, comforting peace. I felt like a newborn infant. I drifted off to sleep in the strong and gentle arms of my Heavenly Father. In the early morning hours of April 27, 1982, three months and three days before my 33rd birthday, I was born again.
For several days afterwards I was filled with an indescribable joy and peace. The whole world seemed brand new. Everything was more intense. The grass was greener. The sky was bluer. I was acutely aware of the birds singing and the warmth of the sun. It was as if I had just come alive, as if a pilot light had been ignited in the furnace of my soul. I was empowered by Love. I loved my family. I loved washing the dishes. I loved working in the garden. I loved the potatoes I was planting and asked the Lord to bless each one as I put them in the ground. That was the best crop of potatoes we ever had. I walked with God in intimate fellowship in “heavenly places” and then, gradually, I came “down to Earth.” I did not tell anyone what happened to me, not even my husband. The experience was too precious to be mocked. I did not know of anyone who would understand it.
Soon after this, I hungered to know more about Him whom I had met. What exactly had happened to me? What was the significance of accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior? How should I live now? Has God ever spoken to anyone else? Has anyone else ever had an experience like mine? I had so many questions and no one to ask.
Just then my fifth-grade daughter came home and said, “Look what we got at school today.” She was holding a little red book, a Gideon’s New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. I said, “Let me see that.” It became the most precious book in the world to me. I began to read it, and three or four days later I had read it cover to cover. I immediately identified with Paul and his Damascus Road conversion. He knew the same God I knew! I had no doubt that this King James Bible was the Word of God.
I had a compass now. I had a Bible that gave me guidance, instruction in righteousness, and comfort. I read words that confirmed my faith:
I love the LORD, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. –Psalms 116:1,2
One thing I noticed as I read this Gideon’s New Testament the first time through was that something seemed to be missing—namely masses, purgatory, devotion to Mary, praying for and to the dead, rosary beads, novenas, indulgences, etc. I assumed all that must be in the Old Testament. Nine months later I began to read the Old Testament. After reading the Bible from cover to cover I discovered none of that was there. In fact, many Scriptures refuted and contradicted Catholic doctrine. Eventually I totally renounced Roman Catholicism and was set free from that religious bondage.
Where would I be without this Book? As the months went on, God did not speak to me in audible words, but through the pages of Scripture. It would be a year and a half before my husband would trust Jesus for salvation and we would begin attending church and fellowshipping with other Christians. These Scriptures nourished and sustained me during that vulnerable time.
My love and appreciation for the Bible has not diminished over the years. The Word of God has become my sword as I earnestly contend for the precious faith delivered to me. My husband and I have recently put together a monthly newsletter for this very purpose of contending for THE faith amidst so much error in the Church today. We also have a ministry of distributing Bibles and Bible Pathways each month. I believe that my love and reverence for the Word of God, which has impacted my life so greatly, is a direct result of receiving that KJV Gideon’s New Testament in the earliest weeks of my conversion. Today my husband, mother, father, sister, uncle, son, and daughter have all come to the knowledge of salvation, and their lives are impacting others. One “little red Bible” has gone a long way in changing lives.
During the past two years I have experienced some of the most difficult times in my life with the death of my father, my mom’s serious health problems, my daughter’s rebellion, and other sorrows. Yet the Word of God has sustained me, given me comfort, hope, and direction. What can separate us from the love of God? Certainly not the difficulties of this life if we are trusting in Him. I have seen amazing answers to prayer, and I’ve learned many spiritual lessons and grown through what has happened. Jesus Christ truly is all I need, for I have found Him to be a very present help in trouble, whose presence brings joy even in the midst of sorrow. I love Him with all my heart and I give Him all my obedience for He has caused me to delight in doing His will. The LORD is so good.
I would like to thank the Gideons once again for their faithfulness in placing the Bible that changed my life.
August 16, 1991
7/04/2007
I Remember Tandi
I picked him out as 20 horses stood sandwiched like sardines on an open stake truck fresh from a sale in Missouri—his spotted rump like powdered sugar gleaming in the midst of bays and chestnuts, pintos and greys. I was 14 years old, one of the “barn girls” at Blue Hill Riding Academy, Quincy, MA. “He’ll be my lead horse, I determined.”
The horses did not unload, but went to another barn for quarantine. We usually lost a couple to shipping fever, but several weeks later, “Tandi” reported for duty, alive and well. He was a coarse, rangy, 15.3 hand Appaloosa, probably with Thoroughbred as well as draft blood in him. He was a red roan with an oddly blazed face, a nice blanket with a few peacock spots, black roached mane, and wiry black tail—nothing much to look at, but there was something special about him, something that attracted me to him like no other this horse-crazy girl loved before. I had written a little song about him:
Tarlin, Tarlin
Tarlin, my darlin Appaloosa
Tandi is his real name
But I think he is worthy of
Tarlin—it means he’s very good
He does just what he should
Tarlin, I wish that he were mine
We’d live in the woodland forest
And Tarlin would be mine.
They called him Tandi—short for Tandakiya, a Sioux Indian chief. He looked like an Indian horse. I couldn’t wait to ride him for the first time. He already had a reputation as a nervous jigger, but I would be Tandi’s trainer and he would be perfect for me.
February 22, 1964 I mounted the big Appaloosa in the ring, and off we went at a brisk trot. He wanted to trot, so trot we did, round and round the large arena. He was a big, bold traveler. I had the best forward-seat saddle the stable owned on him—what a thrill to post his steady, rhythmic, ground-covering trot! Finally after about ten minutes, he settled into a walk, and I had to put him away and exercise another one.
It came time to take out a group on a trail ride with him. Would he “jig” all the way home, making me sick to my stomach as others who had ridden him reported? As we turned towards home, he started to jig. I caressed Tandi’s long, smooth neck and said, “Easy boy, it’s OK.” He settled into a flat-footed walk and almost never jigged with me from that day on. Everyone else who rode him, however, experienced the sickening nervous jigging. Because of this habit, he couldn’t be rented out, the other lead riders didn’t want to ride him, and he became my lead horse, just as I predicted.
I felt so good when I overheard the stable manager tell the owner, “Maureen gets along with that horse better than anybody.” I was known as the timid rider, not trusted to ride the hot horses or the ones who needed discipline. But this horse needed a quiet, reassuring hand and voice to settle him down, and I could ride this one.
I’ll never forget the lovely Spring day I took out a group of 5 or 6 young girls, all beginners. I had one little girl on a lead and the rest were on quiet horses. We got to the bridge at St. Moritz pond when we met another group headed back to the stable. One of my girls’ horses turned around and started following the other group. She couldn’t get him turned around again. What was I going to do? I already had one girl on a lead and couldn’t let her go—her horse would be too much for her. So I grabbed the curb rein of the wayward bay and took him on a lead on my left side. This meant I had no hands left for Tandi’s reins, which I had dropped on his neck. I squeezed with my legs and said, “Walk, Tandi” and off we went down the trail, my trusted friend completely obedient to my voice and legs. What a joy to have such communication with my equine partner!
Tandi and I enjoyed many wonderful trail rides together. I remember the steep Craven Mountain trail, the grass trails, the night rides. The highlight was the three-day, 50 mile competitive trail ride in New Hampshire. We didn’t place because Tandi sensed my competition nervousness and jigged himself into a lather the first day. We both settled down after that and had a great ride in some very scenic country.
In September, I heard that the owner of our stable was planning to sell my beloved Tandi. He hadn’t worked out at their summer riding camp, he couldn’t be rented out at our stable, and no one could ride him but me. I begged my parents to buy him for me. Dad said it wasn’t the price of the horse but the board every month that he couldn’t afford. I talked to the owners and they agreed to reduce the board if I used him to take out groups. But it was still too much for Dad. September 23, 1964 Tandi left for his new home. He would be a “lead pony” at the race track. Tears filled my eyes as I watched the truck and trailer head down the road. I watched until Tandi’s powdered sugar rump disappeared from view. I was consoled with the thought that the new owners said I could visit Tandi any time.
When I came to visit, I found Tandi (Candy Man now) well cared for but up for sale again. It seems he had not endeared himself to his new owners when he kicked and killed their small dog who had gotten into his stall, yipping and nipping.
Several weeks later I was at a horse auction, and who had a number slapped on his spotted rump—my Tandi! I begged the owner of our stable to buy him back, and he did put in a bid, but the final bidder was a riding stable in Plympton, MA, many miles from home.
I tried to forget Tandi, but I never could. I rode better horses than him, but none meant as much to me as he did. Years passed. I graduated from high school, got a job, and developed other interests besides horses.
One lovely early summer’s day I got a notion to take a drive to Plympton Riding Academy and find out whatever happened to my beloved Tandi. I arrived at the pleasant home and stable and talked to the owners. “Oh, yes, we know the horse. We still have him. Take a walk out to the pasture, you’ll see him.” As I rounded the bend and stepped into the clearing, my heart leaped as I saw my old friend, happily munching the green grass in the apple orchard as the birds sang and the bees buzzed. Tandi looked at me, but didn’t seem to recognize me. He went back to grazing the lush pasture.
I thought to myself, “Should I buy him? I have a job now. If I scrimped, I could afford to board him. When would I ride him? Just weekends is the best I could do. I work full time. He’d stand in a dark stall all week and then I’d ride him one hour on the weekend. No, he’s happy here. He’s 18 years old, he’s in a green pasture, and he’s happy here.” I said my goodbyes to Tandi. It would be the last time I would ever see him.
Tandi was a very special horse to me. There was a bond between us. We had many pleasant times together in the seven short months I knew him. I had written another song for him:
Never go away Tandakiya
I love you and I need you, Tandi Sioux
There will never be any other horse
I’d like better than you.
But he went away. I’ll never forget him.
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