“Think about your day yesterday. Did you build your priorities around the truth of repayment at the resurrection? Or were you, like so many well-intentioned believers I know, operating on the assumption that work for God now equals compensation from God now?
If so you are seeing only the glare of the temporary where Jesus hopes you’ll see the galaxies of eternity.” Bruce Wilkinson, A Life God Rewards
Pastor Wrinkles’ wild and crazy days as a youth pastor are gone but not forgotten. Someday I may even receive a reward in Heaven for being willing to wear this costume at a youth convention in front of 1100 teenagers.
Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t be sad that it is over be glad that it happened.” For me that is true of so many things.
It is different now but I still cherish the years I have known this lady.
Above is the photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers a flash fiction challenge offered up by Rochelle. You can find her response to the challenge and those of her contributors at:
The days which followed the ice were dark and cold not because they were dark and cold.We had no lights, no heat, no refrigeration, no phones, no computers but all that was expected. The felling of 10,000 trees had cut us off from the rest of society. It was the loneliness that nearly drove us mad.
It was a week before we heard the chain saws coming up our road. Someone in town hall had remembered we were out there and thought we might need help. That was the year Daddy stopped being a doomsday prepper and moved us into the condo in town.
The Daily Post has asked, “If your furniture, appliances, and other inanimate objects at home had feelings and emotions, to which item would you owe the biggest apology?”
I wish to apologize for my behavior over these last several months. Please know what was done was not done with premeditation or malice of forethought in any way shape or form.
Really I didn’t know that dog urine stripped varnish and he really is just a puppy and the other two were just following suit. And to be fair I did thoroughly clean up the mess using lots of that pet spray. What’s that you say? Oh that strips varnish too? Who knew?
Please know that I had only your best interests at heart when I sealed the hole the squirrels had gnawed through the shingling. I certainly didn’t want them chewing through your fine wooden outfits anywhere else in the house. I did try to make sure they were all out before I sealed the hole. How was I to know Mrs. Squirrel was stuck inside? I am sure you won’t smell like this forever, and really everyone blames me anyway. You are in the clear on this one even if you do stink.
As to the carpets I know they are old and perhaps I do not vacuum them enough but did you really have to cause my vacuum cleaner to burst into flames on Thanksgiving weekend?
I hope this letter will go the distance of restoring peace between us Mr. Floor. Let’s just say I won’t be putting together the new vacuum I bought until I have a satisfactory reply from you.
Sincerely,
JE Lillie
P.S. I know it has been my habit to walk all over you. In the future this will probably not change. I hope that does not offend too much.
The Daily Post has asked us to describe the last time our lives mimicked the quote, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens
It is amazing to me that I can think of the worst times of my life so easily and it seems more than a little bit odd that I have a hard time remembering the best times. I am not sure what that says about me and perhaps it cues a desire to change my inner thought processes.
The mixing of those moments though is indeed hard to whittle out of the block of wood that has become my past.Maybe I am still too stunned by some of my recent worst times to see much good in them, though God knows I have tried. Maybe too, it seems almost inappropriate to say that certain of my worst moments could have any redeeming qualities at all; So maybe the difficulty is not so much in finding a moment that holds the best and the worst but in finding one that feels safe enough to speak openly about.
I am reaching for a moment in my distant past now (25 years or better). I was a newlywed. How could it get any better? We had married and moved in with my parents for a two month stint before our apartment opened up in Phoenixville PA.
It was the weekend before the New Year, 1988. The Uhaul was rented and loaded with all of our earthly belongings. My Father-in-law drove the van and Tina and I drove our car. What should have been a six-hour drive turned into twelve hours when we got lost on the NJ Turnpike and overshot our exit.
I noticed as we came down the I76 out of Philadelphia that the lock had come undone to the moving van and the back doors were threatening to spill open. Anybody who has ever tried to pull over on that particular road heading out of Philly will understand my pain; But pull over we did. We managed to fix the door only to become separated from each other as we made our way past the Allen Town Extension. These were the days before Mapquest or GPS systems.My father-in-law had never been to the campus. But we serve a God of miracles. We somehow found each other at the light before the turnoff to the college and upon arrival my father-in-law did not insist his daughter get back in the van to take her away from her new whackadoo husband.
We walked into our new apartment. The walls were a neon blue. The rug was a thick shag in the brightest of oranges. Someone else’s couch lined our wall. A window pane had been knocked out of the bedroom and someone had stolen the shower head right out of the shower. Then my wife noticed we had no oven and what amounted to a hot plate to cook off of.
My mother-in-law gripped her daughter’s hand as she looked up dubiously at the walls and said, “It’s amazing what soap and water can do Honey.”
By the following day we had a new shower head and the window had been fixed. The tenant who had stored his couch in our apartment came to get it and we were completely settled into our new place (well as settled as you can get when your walls are blue and your carpet is orange). My in-laws had said a tearful good-bye and Tina and I had begun the first chapter of our lives together. The best of times and the worst of times.
His name was Bobby. I took him out to the island on a Tuesday and left him there after digging a well for fresh water and tilling a garden and leaving him plenty of seed to sow. I bought him a flock of sheep, after all shepherding while a lonely work is full of spiritual benefit. Bobby desperately needed that. I also left him a fishing pole so he could learn to fish and a Bible so he could learn to fish for men.
I’ll check back with him in a few years on Wednesday. If he isn’t stark raving mad he should be a better person for it. Maybe next time he won’t reject my invitation to church Mwahahaha!
I stood by the western wall of Blarney Castle staring at the twisted roots, remnants of the growth that had once encased the castle in its strength. The image took me back to my own family whose roots were not in Ireland but in a place just as rocky, some would say barren.
I grew up just South of the New Hampshire border smack dab in the middle of Massachusetts. I was third generation conservative Republican in one of the most liberal states in the union. My father was a small business man and civically minded citizen in the seventies, fully ensconced in the small business world, strongly favoring the free market economy while standing firmly against every philosophy of the “liberal pinko commies”, as he called them. Both Dad and Gramps served in town leadership throughout their lives choosing to ply their minority political stance wherever they could.
Dad was a hard man and I was his soft son. We were as different in manner as two men could be. He spent his days practicing his shot on ants in the back yard. I collected the little critters in jars trying to save them from my dad’s quick draw.
I began my spiritual journey early in life. At first I was fascinated by witchcraft. As a young teen I studied with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and then followed the bread crumbs God left me into the Pentecostal church my Uncle attended. My father an avowed agnostic (which really just means he refused to make any decision at all) instantly declared me crazy.
Maybe it was just teenage rebellion but I ran rather than walked deep into the church. Dad and I had many arguments over that and over my subsequent decision to become a minister. But when Dad became sick in the early nineties I left Bible College and came home to help in the business. After he died suddenly I launched into an eight year stint in the business world working newspapers and other management positions before finding my way back into the church.
I have served as an assistant pastor in the town I grew up in since 1996 and recently I was appointed to a town board in that same town. Somewhere along the way I seem to have captured my father’s sense of humor (something I didn’t even know he possessed when I was growing up) at least that’s what people tell me. I also captured his politics though I am sure he would probably think I have some “pinko commie” leanings were he still around. Somewhere in my journey I got a little tougher which tells me that maybe somewhere in his journey my father was a little bit softer and maybe he and I weren’t so different after all. Maybe we were just at different points of growth in this rocky New England soil.
This week’s Sunday Still Challenge is all about the circuitous paths we take. Find out how other photographers have interpreted the theme of THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD at
This is Thanksgiving week, my favorite time in the entire calendar year. In honor of this auspicious day Cee has asked her contributors only one question.
List at least 50 Things You Enjoy.
So here are a few of my favorites things:
1. The privilege of having a relationship with the God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through the atoning death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Freedom from a life of sin, guilt and shame
3. a lifestyle of worship
4. My daughter Amanda.
Us on the way to Ireland.
5. My daughter Melanie.
I walk Melanie down the aisle.
6. My son,Joe.
Joe and Gramma Lillie after the wedding.
7. And my son-in-law James.
My daughter Melanie married the man of her dreams last Saturday
8. My ex-wife Tina (how many men can say they still have a good relationship with their ex? I am forever grateful for this).
9. I am thankful for the relationship I have with my mom.
10. And my sister.
11. I enjoy the privilege of sharing the Good news with people as a minister.
Me preaching for Special Touch Ministries
12. and the church family.
13. I enjoy having two church services now so that I can lead worship in one and be involved in prayer in one.
14. I enjoy art…
15. And artists.
16. I enjoy music…
17. And musicians.
The band Cloverton played to a nearly sold out house in our church last week.
18. I love writing…
19. And writers.
20. I enjoy cooking (which is good since I am in charge of the Thanksgiving meal).
21. I enjoy being busy.
22. But I enjoy those quiet moments when I can just sit and hear the voice of God as it comes across the landscape.
23. I enjoy travel.
24. I enjoy a good book.
25. I really enjoy a good cup of coffee. Though in a pinch I will even drink a bad one.
26. I enjoy blogging.
27. I enjoy reading blogs.
28. I enjoy being part of this blogging community.
29. I enjoy my little dogs.
30. I enjoy a good movie. Anyone seen the new Hunger Games movie?
31. I enjoy a good concert. I am going to see the Piano Guys on Dec. 8th with the pastor who officiated at my daughter’s wedding
32. I enjoy photography.
32. I enjoy exercising.
Me reclining after walking up the “Rocky” stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum.
OK that might be stretching the truth a little.
33. In enjoy singing.
34. I enjoy playing the piano, although my hand injury is still limiting this a bit.
35. I enjoy playing the flute (an old instrument I recently picked up again after many years).
36. I enjoy eating out.
37. I enjoy my gardens.
38. I enjoy a good laugh.
39. I enjoy studying the Word of God.
40. I enjoy a night at home watching TV.
41. I enjoy working with people on projects.
42. I enjoy pizza.
43. I enjoy a good grinder every now and then (hoagie, sub whatever you may call them)
44. I enjoy the ever-changing New England Seasons
45. I enjoy the fact that I now have a snow-blower as the season is about to change to winter tomorrow according to the morning news.
46. I enjoy peace-making.
47. I enjoy the fact that after a season of incredible busyness I am settling into a season of quiet.
48. I am enjoying writing again.
49. I enjoy life.
50 I enjoy eternal life even better!
Now check out how Cee’s other contributors have answered at
