Honey, Trust Me

HONEY, TRUST ME

Do not plot harm against your neighbor who lives trustfully near you. Proverbs 3:29

"I was about five years old when my mother took me into the back yard. She played a game with me that a lot of parents play with their children."

The woman telling me this story was about fifty years old. She was a patient in an alcohol rehabilitation program and was visiting with me to discuss issues of faith and recovery. Part of our work together was to explore how God could provide the strength she would need to become and remain sober. Another important aspect of our work was for her to identify incidents from her life that caused her pain and shame. That’s what she was doing now.

"My mother took me into the backyard to play a game with me and teach a lesson about life. She taught me a lesson that was so profound it is still with me. I haven’t been able to shake it in all these years. It still haunts me."

"Mom lifted me up on a rock wall we had in our back yard along the cement sidewalk. It was several feet high. Since I was a little girl the wall seemed like a mountain."

"‘Ok,’ mom said, ‘Jump!’"

"Jump? You want me to jump?" I asked my mother?

"‘Of course I do, honey,’ mom said. ‘You jump and I’ll catch you.’"

"But mom, I’m scared! I’m up high!"

"‘I know. But I want you to learn about trust and faith. You jump and I’ll catch you.’"

"Are you sure, mom? Will you catch me?"

"‘Of course I’ll catch you honey. You can always trust your mother!’"

She was intense, this lady. Her voice was subdued, her eyes cast down, but her pain was inescapable. I couldn’t understand why the retelling of this little game was evoking such extreme emotion in the woman. She continued.

"It took considerable prompting but I finally trusted my mother enough. I jumped."

She paused and wept silently for a moment. Then she said, "My mother was standing there with her arms out, smiling, encouraging me to jump. She promised to catch me. But when I jumped, mom lowered her arms, stepped back, and let me fall on the concrete sidewalk. As I lay there crying my mother leaned over me and said, ‘I did this to teach you a lesson. Don’t ever trust anyone. They will always let you fall and you will get hurt.’ Then she walked off, leaving me crying in pain. And I have been in pain ever since."

The jarring of her bones and the tearing of her knees couldn’t compare to the jarring and tearing of her heart. This woman learned her lesson well, and never trusted her mother or any man after her fateful jump. She spent her adult life yearning to be valued by someone, to be held, to be cherished, but she could never hazard the risk of trusting someone to experience love like this. The closest she came to real love was her relationship with a bottle, and it was killing her.

But something deep in her psyche convinced her that this was not the way life was supposed to be. This poor woman knew she had been violated by her own mother, and that good and pure desires and needs had been twisted by her. She wanted to experience life in a new, fresh way. She wanted to love a man and trust that he could really love her.

She knew the first step was to seek help for her drinking, to trust that someone would care enough struggle through the grueling process of recovery at her side. Most of us will never know the superhuman effort required for her to take that first step at a meeting and say to a stranger, "Will you help me?"

Do not plot harm against your neighbor who lives trustfully near you, or against your own spouse or children who live in your home. Trust is a key ingredient in any relationship. Violate it intensely or frequently enough, and you destroy any opportunity for happiness and relationship.

As a child this woman was intentional battered to discourage any faith and hope in other people. Yet we need to trust others, even with their failings, so we can enjoy connection with them. This woman is learning that, and she progressed in recovery and slowly learned to trust others, largely because she was learning about someone who would never let her fall: God.

If you experience an inability to love and trust, because arms that promised to catch you did not, take heart in another verse from Proverbs: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart" (Prov. 3:5). He will never let us fall.

Warren Baldwin

ONLY ANGELS ARE BULLETPROOF

ONLY ANGELS ARE BULLETPROOF
by Emily Ann Benedict

Novel reading has not been regular fare for me. After graduate school over twenty-years ago I went on a Louis Lamour and James Michener binge. I enjoyed the temporary break from heavy theological and historical reading. During that time I also read a few classics, but shortly after returned to commentaries and language works.

Through the years I may have read a few other novels, but not many. It was only a couple of years ago that I read an article by a historian (many of whose works I read) encouraging the reading of novels that I started reading them again, this time with deliberation and purpose. This author’s favorite novel writer was Charles Dickens, so I read a couple of them, and have since reread one of them (Great Expectations). I’ve also started reading a few historical novels and even mysteries.

Why? A well constructed novel has several positive features: it teaches, it ignites the imagination, and it encourages creative thinking. Some very heavy historical, political and theological issues can be dealt with in novel form that people will read, whereas they might not plow through a heavy treatise on the same subject.

In Only Angels are Bulletproof Emily Ann Benedict deals with several important issues, including faith and the problem of evil. Her male protagonist, Scott, is a highly ethical and conscientious agent with the FBI. When called upon to solve a crime, he naturally resorts to the standard techniques of law enforcement: gathering evidence and interrogating witnesses. Both of these approaches are scientific in nature in that they follow a standardized routine designed to lead the investigator to a reasonable and demonstrable conclusion.

But something happens to foil his normal routine after a crime. Scott is a witness to a robbery that goes awry. A young woman is taken hostage by an armed robber, but rather than calmly acquiescing to his demands, she resists him. The robber shoots her several times but she doesn’t die. In fact, she makes an escape, successfully eluding even the FBI agents on the scene. Now begins a chapter in the FBI agent’s life, even in the life of the whole department, that is without precedent. Normal investigative techniques won’t work to figure out this crime and a string of others it is related to. To solve this case Scott is going to need something he hasn’t resorted to before: faith.

The author of Only Angels are Bulletproof is Emily Ann Benedict, an author from the Central Valley of California. Emily Ann has graciously responded to several questions I posed to her. (My questions are in bold italics)

What motivated you to begin a writing career?

The funny thing is art actually started my writing career. I wanted to be an illustrator for years and started writing children’s stories with the hopes that would start my career in the art world. The more I wrote, however, the more I wanted to write. I never did more than a few sketches before I decided to take a shot at writing a full-length novel. At the time I was reading stacks of Agatha Christie novels, so I decided to start with writing a mystery. Even though it took me several attempts to get a story I felt was even worth reading, the more I wrote the more I fell in love with the craft.

Do you write full time? Please give us an idea of your schedule of writing.

Becoming a published author actually completely redefined my schedule. Before I was published I could write however much I wanted to, but now I have to put as much time into marketing as I do writing. My mornings are usually filled with blogging, creating new contacts, and trying to build interest in my writing. I do always have a writing project going because I know the more I write the better my writing will be. I try to get in at least an hour a day of writing. Honestly, the more writing I get to do the better the day is.

Writing as a full-time career takes a while to actually achieve, but I’m learning through books on marketing and other authors how to do this.

How did the idea for Only Angels are Bulletproof come to you?

The idea came from a FBI TV show about a bank robbery. I really enjoyed the episode and was dissecting all of the little plot points. I asked myself if I wrote a bank robbery mystery how I would do it. For some reason I decided it would be much more interesting if a hostage situation occurred and from there the whole story snowballed into existence. The first draft was completed in about three months, but it took another two years for me to gain the confidence to submit the manuscript.

This is not an ordinary murder-mystery novel. It has the distinct element of Christian faith. Ironically, faith is something FBI agent Scott Malkin does not have, but definitely needs not only to solve the case but to understand the main female character and her faith in God. How did you get the idea to develop a novel on this platform of faith?

I think a major motivator in the decision to write Christian fiction were all the people in my life who aren’t Christians. It’s hard to talk to people about Christianity sometimes, especially when the individual has made it clear that they do not want to discuss the issue. In writing, I could at least put down ideas I wanted to share with people.

Another motivator was the large percentage of people who refer to themselves as Christians, but have never really been taught what that means. This was certainly the case in my own life and lives of many of my family members. Sometimes we just need to have a clearer voice.

What do you hope your readers take from a reading of Only Angels are Bulletproof?

There are three types of people in the book. People who don’t believe in God. People who believe in God, but that belief does not affect the way they conduct their lives. And people who strongly believe in God and allow their belief to change the way they live. In a lot of ways the book is meant to ask questions about each type of person. One of my favorite quotes from author Beth Moore is, "There’s a difference between saying, ‘I believe in God,’ and ‘I believe God.’

Of course I also hope my readers enjoy the story and the characters. A lot of people tell me they never expected the twists the book takes. That always makes my day.

What are your current writing projects?

I have several new projects currently on my laptop. I hope to have another novel published in the future, but a lot of editing is needed before I get to that step. I’m also working on several short stories for smaller publications.

Improving my blogging is another goal for the year. Blogging was one thing I was sure I’d never get started in, but expanding horizons is a huge part of being a writer as is trying to write in new formats.

Please share anything else you would like to about your faith, work or life.

There are a lot of things in life that shape faith, but in my case one of the greatest things I’ve learned is the difference between "religion" and "relationship." I grew up believing that if you attended church and read a certain number of books in the Bible you were automatically a Christian. The rules and regulations we lived under made God seem cold and distant. I believed He existed and I needed Him in my life, but practicing religion merely made me aware of my guilt. It seemed like the "Victorious Christian Life" was something only extremely spiritual people, like missionaries and preachers, ever achieved.

Thankfully, God not only wanted to save me from my sins, He wanted to let me know He loved me. Oddly enough, after years of reading the Bible religiously, when I started wanting to know who God really was I often found myself saying, "I didn’t know the Bible said that."

Religion put me in bondage. God set me free.



Thank you for being a guest on Family Fountain today. And God’s blessing on the rest of your faith-based writing.

Warren Baldwin

Emily's blogspot: http://emilyannbenedict.blogspot.com/
Emily's website: http://www.emilyannbenedict.com/

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

I was very blessed last week to have three people review Roaring Lions, Cracking Rocks and Other Gems from Proverbs last week. I not only felt blessed, but honored. I want to thank Emily Ann, Lori, and Rosslyn for taking the time to read Roaring Lions and offer their comments about it.

Below are links to the three blog reviews. I don't mean to call undo attention to Roaring Lions, but I do want to acknowledge these three posts and thank these three reviewers.

Emily Ann has a book out, Only Angels are Bulletproof, and I will be posting a review of this on Thursday. Rosslyn is in the process of publishing a book, and I look forward to making you aware of it on this blog. I don't know if Lori is writing a book right now, but she keeps up two blogs and does a lot of reading and reviewing! Thank you all!

Bennedictions by Emily Ann Bennedict: http://emilyannbenedict.blogspot.com/2010/03/roaring-lions-cracking-rocks-part-2.html
(This is actually part 2; you can link to part 1 of this review/interview from this page).


Lori's Book Reviews by Lori Kasbeer: http://laurelwreathsreflections.com/lorisbookreviews/roaring-lions-cracking-rocks-and-other-gems-from-proverbs-by-warren-baldwin/


Inhorn Blue by Rosslyn Elliot: http://inkhornblue.blogspot.com/2010/03/roaring-lions-cracking-rocks.html

*** *** ***

Steve Smith asks that we remember his wife Kathy in prayer right now for her health. You can read his post about that here: http://godahavefaith.blogspot.com/2010/03/please-pray-for-my-wife-during-this.html

Many of you know Kathy as Kat of Heart2Heart.

Thanks for visiting and reading.

Warren

UNDERSTANDING BILLY

UNDERSTANDING BILLY

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

"You just have to understand Billy. He doesn’t intend to be mean or destructive when he throws rocks at cars, pushes smaller children down, and talks back to adults. He has always been like this and doesn’t mean anything by it. He just has a lot of energy and a mischievous spirit. But, people don’t even try to understand him. It really isn’t fair to Billy."

Bill has lived in every community I have, and with him there has been a mom (and sometimes a dad) that has worked very hard to make everyone around Billy overlook his misbehavior and accept him as he is. This mom darts from church to school to the baseball field to the cub scout meeting trying to convince the minsters, teachers, coaches and den leaders that the problems they have with Billy really aren’t the fault of Billy. It is their own lack of understanding and intolerance.

At first I was sympathetic with Billy’s mom (all of them). I assumed that the mom had some insight in to her son’s psychological make-up that accounted for his disrespect for adults and lack of regard for his peers. If I just observed the boy long enough I would pick up the psychological cues, would indeed understand, and would be able to help others tolerate Billy’s rudeness and misbehavior. Further, I might even be able to help Billy better adjust.

How naive.

Of me.

After observing several such disobedient sons and protective parents it dawned on me that Billy’s main problem was he was simply a badly behaved boy who needed time behind a woodshed.

It further dawned on me that I didn’t need to understand anything more about Billy than what was already clearly observable: Billy misbehaves and no one in his life expects him to do better. Instead, they expect everyone to accept Billy as he is, without administering any corrective measures.

The truth is, Billy needs to understand me. If he is an eleven year old boy in my congregation, my classroom, my cub scout den or on my baseball team, he needs to understand that I am the adult, I am in charge, and he better behave. And if he doesn’t, he can expect some kind of discipline.

To expect adults (and other kids) to just understand and accept a disrespectful and disobedient child is unfair to the adults and the other kids. Further, it is terribly destructive for the disobedient child. For the rest of us to understand Billy and overlook his poor behavior means, first of all, that we need to honor Billy as the center of the universe. Does Billy’s mom really expect churches, school systems and community athletic programs to revise their rules to accommodate a little boy who has no regard for anyone? Everyone else’s feelings and rights are to be set aside in the interest of the little tyrant. What a recipe for future criminal behavior on the part of Billy and all the other children like him.

Secondly, for the rest of us to have to understand and accept aberrant behavior means Billy will always be right, no matter how disorderly he acts. If he trips another child, sasses the teacher, disrupts a Bible class, mocks his teammates, and organizes a gang of other badly behaved children to vandalize school property, it simply isn’t Billy’s fault. When Billy’s behavior is wrong, every other social system (and eventually, the police department and judicial system) is out of line. Everyone else is at fault except the one person who misbehaved!

Finally, to force everyone else to understand and comply with Billy’s bad behavior guarantees that Billy will never grow up. He will never mature and assume his place in life as a responsible adult. He will always expect everyone to overlook his offensive speech and actions. After all, ever since he was a small child his mother lectured everyone in his life that, "Billy isn’t a bad boy even when he does bad things. You just have to understand him." Raised with that kind of overprotective care ensures that Billy will be frozen in his delinquent behavior, even when he is thirty years old.

Billy’s Mom is wrong. Instead of trying to get everyone else in his world to understand Billy, she needs to make her son understand the adults. Her goal is to help Billy mature as a man and become like the responsible adults in his life. To do that, he must learn to understand the adult world or he will never progress into it.

For too long society has been trying to understand Billy instead of making him behave. That has to change for Billy’s sake. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.

Warren Baldwin

SWIMMING LESSONS

SWIMMING LESSONS

I thought this video was cool. Even in the animal realm parents are protective of their kids and nurture them in the ways of life. What an amazing instinct God has instilled within us.




Blogger and writer, Emily Ann Benedict, has a review of Roaring Lions, Cracking Rocks on her blog today. If you would like to link over there it is on her blog Benedictions.

Emily is the author of a Christian mystery, Only Angels are Bullet Proof. I will have a review of her book on this blog in a couple of days.

Warren

MATTHEW FOR EVERYONE

Matthew for Everyone

Tom Wright has done us a great favor with his For Everyone seriews. Tom is a minister (the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England), teacher, N.T. scholar and prolific writer. I recently finished his wonderful book, Jesus and the Victory of God, a treatise on how the eternal intentions of God have been enacted and fulfilled in Jesus and is being continued today in and through the church. A great read!

In the For Everyone series Tom writes a guide on the books of the New Testament. He provides a translation of the original text followed by discussion. While the book is somewhat like a commentary, Tom doesn't spend extensive discussion on individual verses like most commentaries do (and should). Instead, his approach is much more conversational, providing historical background, theological insight and contemporary discussion. This book is good for ministers writing sermons, Sunday School teachers preparing lessons, and for anyone for private devotion (which is how I am using it right now).

The first book in the series is Matthew for Everyone, part one, and covers Matthew chapters 1 through 15. I highly recomment it.

Kristin

We are taking Kristin to the heart specialist again. As I wrote recently on FB, doctors thought she had Mitral Valve Prolapse (MVP) and Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVC). She may still have some degree of PVC, but the latest specialist we saw does not think she has MVP, but has Vasovagal Syncope (VS). As I understand it, her legs are not pumping the blood properly back up her legs to her heart. So, her heart is blood starved, depriving her brain of oxygen. Thus, she has chest pain and gets light headed, even faint. If it is VS, the doctor said she should grow out of it over time. The short term remedy is to drink tons of water and eat lots of salt to keep her body fully hydrated. We appreciate prayers!

Warren

GO GRANNY!

Go Granny!

What spunk!

DEBT SLAVERY

DEBT SLAVERY

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." Proverbs 22:7

I don’t think I like Solomon’s wisdom here. To be a servant to someone means you are in their employ. Actually, in some contexts, the term "servant" can be quite demeaning. The term servant may indicate more than just being employed by someone, it can mean you are under their control. If you are someone’s employee you can just quit if you want to. But if you are a servant to them, you may be deeper in their grasp and aren’t free to quit.

I think that is the idea Solomon has here. If you owe money to a bank or a finance company, you can’t just quit your "relationship" with them. You are a servant to them. You are in bondage. You can’t walk away from the money you owe. You must pay it off. "The borrow is servant to the lender."

The Message by Eugene Peterson may capture this idea with greater clarity. "The poor are always ruled over by the rich, so don’t borrow and put yourself under their power." (Colorado Springs: NavPress Publishing, 1996). If debt is so binding, so demeaning, so slave-making, why do we let ourselves get so mired in it? Let Dave Ramsey of "Financial Peace University" explain: "Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can’t even envision a car without a payment, a house without a mortgage, a student without a loan, and credit without a card. We have been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks cannot conceive what it would be like to have no payments. Just as slaves born into slavery can’t visualize freedom, we Americans don’t know what it would be like to wake up to no debt." [Dave Ramsey, The Total Money Makeover (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), p.19]

In short, for most of us servicing four, five or six different debt payments is as common and acceptable as eating out every Sunday. It is even accepted to add that Sunday meal to our growing credit card debt and pay it off over the next several months! Debt is an accepted and expected way of life. If you want to challenge that statement, just tell some of your friends that you have definite plans to be out of debt in eighteen to twenty-four months, and that you plan on staying out of debt for the rest of your life! Be prepared for some ridicule.

Ramsey continues: "I have found that a major barrier to winning (over debt) is our view of debt. Most peple who have made the decision to stop borrowing money have experienced something weird: ridicule. Fariends and family who are disciples of the myth that debt is good have ridiculed those on the path to freedom." (Ramsey, p.19)

If you owe very much money, you know the emotions of slavery: feeling trapped, experiencing desperation as you worry about getting financially free, fearing college costs for your children, dreading retirement, lying awake at night as visions of credit cards dance through your head, buying into money-making schemes, arguing with your spouse and getting short with your kids. "The borrower is servant to the lender."

But you don’t have to stay a slave. Ramsey not only excoriates against debt, he teaches the way out of it. I recommend his book. Even more, I recommend his thirteen-week class. Debt slavery is self-imposed; freedom from debt is achieved through self-discipline. With some determination and hard work, we can all wave good-bye to the lender and enjoy financial, and emotional, freedom.

Warren Baldwin