"I thank my God every time I remember you."

The title comes from Phillipians 1:3, one of my favorite verses. A couple years ago I thought I had spent my last years at Merom Conference Center as a camper, and I sat down to write a poem about the place where I found God and some of the closest friends I have today. After only a short time, this is what I came up with.

Merom

There are no words to describe a place
In between heaven and God’s sweet grace

A place where you’re free to live and to love
A place where no one snickers, but always laughs at your jokes

A place where all colors run white together
And starts those little moments that last forever

A place where nothing ever seems to end
And a place where the end of the road begins

A place where the people don’t seem like people anymore
But rather someone you’ve always known before

Before you were born, and before you ever knew
That God was always there, and He had plan for you

In that plan he wrote a note for me
To look at you and see Him smiling back at me

You can go to Merom’s website at www.merom.org . Merom Conference Center is located in the small town of Merom, Indiana. Last summer we had our first young adult camp called ‘Common Ground.’ It runs from August 9th-August 13th, just send an email their way for a brochure. It is a chance for young adults to get together and just have a good time while really focusing on their faith. I have attended since I was in the fourth grade, and wouldn’t miss a year for the world. There isn’t a better place to come right before school to just relax and have a great time. People always ask me, “So that is one of those camps where you run around a sing hymns all day and do churchy stuff right?” Wrong...in fact, pranks happen to be one of our favorite pastimes. One year I tied all of Derek’s clothes to the balcony overhanging the second floor, and I’ve also received a dead squirrel that was neatly wrapped in a box and I was told it was a present. Yeah, so I opened it…call me naïve. The truth of it is I’ve learned more, laughed more, cried more, and had more fun at this place every year in one week than I can probably account for in the entire rest of my life.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward loveand good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are inthe habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all themore as you see the Day approaching.-- Hebrews 10:24,25

Love is Enough

I saw the first sign of Christmas around the corner today, as the snow began to fall outside my window when I woke up. I smiled in anticipation of all the good movies to see, all the wonderful food, and being at home with those I love the most and who have taught me so much in my life. I thought about the two new and beautiful babies the Lord has blessed my family with. For being such a cold time of year, sometimes winter brings the most warmth. I thought back to a time late in my high school years, in which I learned a valuable lesson about giving.

There was a time in my life when I thought Christmas was all about me. I would wake up at 4 a.m. greedily sitting by my presents on Christmas morning, shaking the colorful boxes and wondering what I was going to get (even though I already knew). The green one was a new power ranger toy, the package with the golden paper was a new Nintendo game, and the big blue and silver one had to be my deluxe remote control car with power steering and airbags (for the other toys of course). So my closet diving in November had paid off, but year after year of finding out that I could ask for anything (except a broadsword)…and sure enough come Christmas morning it would be waiting for me in an ornately wrapped present, was beginning to lose it’s magic. Now I realize that it is because what I felt in my heart wasn’t magical at all.

Around Christmas my junior year my mom told me that she and Dad had decided to do something different this year for Christmas. There was a family that were patients of theirs who weren’t going to be able to afford Christmas presents for their kids, and together we were going to go with the two kids and buy them presents for their family and for themselves. My mother asked me to go along with her, dad, and three of my sisters. To be honest I dreaded the idea of going along. Now I get tears in my eyes every time I think about the first time I saw them. We met the kids at the office early one evening; they walked in an introduced themselves very politely. The girl appeared to be about 10 or 11, the boy a couple years younger. She was wearing torn up jeans, an old baggy sweater, and shoes that had holes and didn’t fit. The boy’s clothes were in the same condition, if not worse. They both had brown hair and shining brown eyes, they were beautiful kids, very full of life. We took them to Wal-Mart, and first things first we decided we needed to get them clothes. After trying on what seemed like 20 outfits and putting them in the carts, it was time for them to buy presents. The funny thing about it was, they had the choice of shopping for themselves first or their families first, and the both chose their families. They picked out things for their sisters and brothers, and eventually they got to choose a couple things for themselves.

After eating dinner and going back to the office, their ride showed up shortly to take them away as quickly as they had arrived. They gave us all hugs and the most sincere thank-you I believe I’ve ever heard, with tears in their eyes, or the tears might have been in mine, I don’t really remember.

Somewhere in between I had realized what a profound thing my parents had done, and what a blessing it was that instead of thinking about what presents I was going to get, I could think about how it felt to give myself, and what God looked like in a child’s big brown eyes.

A year later, a month before Christmas, I was asked to give a sermon for our church’s youth Sunday service. The special offering was to go towards us being able to take two needy families Christmas shopping instead of one. I sat down and wrote every last detail that I could remember about my experience the Christmas before and the impact it had on my life, but I was worried that we wouldn’t get enough money. At the end of the service we were surprised to find that we had raised a few thousand dollars to spend for the two families. We took both of them at separate times, one boy was an only child. The other boy had nine or so other family members, but they both bought things for everyone else before picking out things for themselves. One of the boys you can see in the picture above. The other boy in the picture learned an important lesson about becoming a man.

Giving is a fascinating thing. C.S. Lewis, one the greatest Christian authors of the twentieth century wrote:

"For in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rythym of not only all creation but of all being" --The Problem of Pain

I was reading an article in Christianity Today about how Lewis was remembered after his death. A good friend recalled how Lewis would frequent the pubs in England, making friends wherever he went and telling stories such that people would gather round and often be in tears from laughter by the time he left. One day he and Lewis were walking to a local pub and a beggar stuck out his hand to them and asked them for change. Lewis, without any hesitation, dipped into his pocket and gave all that he had in it to the man. His friend walked on until Lewis caught up. “Now why would you do that?” his friend asked him. “You know he’s just going to spend it on booze anyways.” “Maybe so,” replied Lewis. “But so was I.” Lewis received a lot of criticism for frequenting pubs and talking about salvation at the same time. I have gotten the same for talking about God when I go to parties. Maybe it is a buzz kill, but the unsaid lesson I’ve learned from Lewis is that you better be sure either way where your heart lies, because the stakes are always high.

There are a lot of things I have trouble believing, and a million things I am unsure of. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a Bible just to read it, and many people would argue that it is just words. But to those people salvation is just words too, and that I have trouble believing. Words come alive when they become a part of you; they live on love alone. Love’s meaning isn’t conveyed with the letters that form it, but rather in a giving heart and a child’s beautiful brown eyes.

A man draws a line in the sand and stands in front of an adulteress lying in the street. The people want to stone her. “Let you who has no sin cast the first stone.” Slowly the stones drop, and the people walk away. "Woman, where are your accusers?" he asks. "Didn't the men condemn thee?" "No man, Lord." "Neither do I condemn thee, go now and sin no more."

Think of an image in your head that you can’t describe with words, this was mine. That, my friends, is love. And love is the greatest gift of all. With Christmas nearly here, I'm joyful at the thought of giving my nephews their first Christmas presents. Of anything I can think of: a toy, a book, or something new, I think no matter what...love will do.

“There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”
--Proverbs 11:24

"Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but one who turns a blind eye will get many a curse"
--Proverbs 28:27

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
--1 John 4:7-8

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
--Psalm 37:3-4

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”
--Romans 12:9

“Is not my word like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces?”
--Jeremiah 23:29