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How to Talk to Your Kids About “The Prince of Persia”

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Talking To Kids About Movies, tagged , , , on June 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Prince of Persia (2010) is based on a 1989 video game, so the obvious audience for the film is young teens—probably boys more than girls. Parents and grandparents who take their kids and grandkids will not be embarrassed or bored.

You will probably find it a diminished, postmodern Indiana Jones film, by which I mean lots of humor, snakes, whips, a beautiful but slightly treacherous girl, and supernatural weapons of mass destruction. Jake Gyllenhaal is not Harrison Ford, but Ben Kingsley makes a great villain and Alfred Molina has some very funny lines. The ostrich races are a great touch.

As you drive home from the film with the minivan full of kids, here are some conversation starters that might help the kids think about the film both intelligently and spiritually.  Remember, these are conversation topics, not lecture topics—oops, got a little preachy, didn’t I J!

  1. You don’t have to be born a prince to be a prince! Dastan was a street kid with nothing but a strong sense of justice and right. Then he was an adopted kid with lots of stuff, but no power or future. He continued to stand out and become the best of the brothers because of his courage and his character. Kids don’t all start out equal; many start with huge disadvantages, but all can become people who others look up to, people who do good and not evil.
  2. Beauty can be used for good or evil! This is a great topic for boys and girls both. The princess had great beauty which gave her both opportunity and power.  She had to make many choices of whether to use it for good causes that helped others or just for her own benefit. And sometimes her beauty got her into trouble. Beauty can’t be the goal; beauty is just a tool to be used for good or bad.
  3. Good people have bad things happen to them. Dastan did not try to kill his father, but he is blamed for it and has to run. The city of Alamut is conquered even though it had not rebelled. Life is not fair, so the only real question is what you do when you are treated unfairly.
  4. Stand up for what you believe to be right. In real life you don’t get a do-over! In the film Dastan knows from the beginning that attacking the city is wrong, but he lacks the self-confidence to speak up against his older brothers. In the film, he gets a second chance, but in real life that rarely happens. Teach your children to be strong and courageous and to not be afraid. Stand up and speak up for what is right—all the time.

If your teens are a little older and would like something really challenging, ask them if they know  the prince of Persia story in the Bible. Then when you get home, point them to Daniel 10 and let them think about the role of angels in spiritual warfare.  You won’t have the answers to all of their questions, but it’s a great chapter to open our eyes to the unseen realities of the world we live in as well.

Prince of Persia is a typical Disney film, very clean with just a touch of violence to rate it for older children. And by the way, don’t miss the small political jabs in references to taxes and WMDs.

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In Memory of Linda

Posted in Other, Uncategorized on May 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

Yesterday, my wife’s sister Linda died at home at the end of a very long journey with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.  She was just short of her 63rd birthday. Married for over forty years, grandmother of four, Aunt Linda to many nephews and nieces, best friend to many, and servant to everyone whose need she saw, we will miss her.

I only met Linda after Sherrylee and I started dating, so  I can’t speak to her early life firsthand. I do know that as the oldest child in a preacher family, she not only was the typical challenge to her parents, but the sparkle and glitter of their family’s life together. 

Linda and I were both in the freshman class of 1965 at Harding University. I didn’t know her because she had already met Don and was hanging out with the football player crowd. She was always a little embarrassed when Don told how they were both put on probation at Harding for leaving campus to go swimming with a bunch of friends–did I say “mixed swimming!!!”  She left Harding to marry Don the next year, so we never met until I met Sherry.

She and Don had two beautiful daughters, and she and Don were the backbone of the churches where they attended. Linda always had a heart for the underdog, a trait that perhaps frightened the parents of a teenage girl, but one which grew into a real servant’s heart.  She was extraordinarily sensitive to those in need. Twice in our life, Sherrylee and I have fled to their home for rescue–once living with them for six weeks. I know of many others who also received their love and generosity.

God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Linda’s illness and death were not our plan for her. While she did grieve, she did not blame, she did not whine, she continued to submit and to trust God. 

On Tuesday, I will lead the prayer at Linda’s funeral::

Holy Father, our Beginning and End, our Comforter, our Savior, only in You do we find Rest and Peace. Your Glory fills our lives from Beginning to End, everything Good we enjoy comes from your Hand. We offer to you our worship and praise.

Beyond our tears of human grief, Father, see our joy and happiness that Linda has been relieved of her ill body and is restored to wholeness. We are grateful that she rests from her struggles.  You are above all Good, Father, and this we will proclaim.

Our prayer, Father, is for comfort and peace for Linda’s family, for the blessing, not just of memories, but of the recognition of the very real parts of our lives that are the result of living with and learning from Linda throughout her life.  May her children and grandchildren, may all of us  live such lives that we may join her around the banquet table of the Lamb, to laugh and recall, but more so, to praise your Name forever.

Through the Name of Jesus who crossed the threshold before us to prepare the Way, Amen.

 

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Can Boomers Redeem Themselves in Our Churches?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2010| 1 Comment »

I was in Abilene, Texas, yesterday for a conference with those who minister to retirees in our churches. The group was not large, but it was quite interesting. Much of the program was really sharing what churches are doing as they begin to realize not only the challenges of a graying population, but the potential for the kingdom.

Here are a few of the facts that drove ministers to this conference and should drive every church into re-thinking and re-visioning its ministry with members aged 55 and above.

  • In 2000, Baby Boomers (born between 1946-60) made up 28% of the U.S. population. In 2020 it will be 36%.
  • Boomers own 77% of all financial assets in the United States. They also account for 80% of luxury travel.
  • Boomers believe old age to start between 72-78. (They will not join any group with the word senior in it nor any other of our cute euphemisms.)
  • Boomers intend to stay active. Here is what Newsweek (2/16/2010) reported, “These days, baby boomers don’t see retirement as a withdrawal from activity but as a new adventure. Many seniors will travel, volunteer, consult, and remain active, in addition to leaving some afternoons free for golfing and spending time with grandchildren. “It is a generation that is far more comfortable and even addicted in some ways to change and newness and adventures,” says Dychtwald. “They are going to pioneer a lifestyle where people reinvent themselves again and again and again.”

If you want to think about how this applies to your congregation, then think about how your membership would look if 35-40% of your members were 65 or older.  This is where all of our congregations are headed—if we are not there already.

Most of us tend to think churches are dying if all we see is gray hair in the pews. As Boomers re-invent the retirement years, however, church leaders must re-vision the potential for good that retired Boomers have for the kingdom.  For instance:

If Boomers are going to travel and remain active, they need to be challenged to revision their retirement as the time for a new mission, a new faith adventure! Re-read the above paragraph from Newsweek and apply it to Christian retirees. What can your church do to focus this energy and wanderlust for God?   LST has seen a huge boom already in retired Christians going on short-term mission projects.

If Boomers own so much of the purchasing power in the U.S., they need to be challenged to be generous. You may be suppressing a cynical laugh at this, but let me suggest that instead of targeting the cash in their bank accounts, appeal to them to use their legacy, i.e., their estate, as an extraordinary resource for the kingdom.

And here is perhaps one of the most significant unknown factors that I can share with you:  the Millenials (1980-2000) have much more respect for Age than we Boomers did for those before us. The next 25 years are a great opportunity for multi-generational synergy.  We have an opportunity to escape things like worship wars that are driven primarily by generational differences, and, instead, see whole families—extended families, led by the grandparents sometimes—serving God in active and generous ways.  The Millennials like the old and the Boomers want to relate to the young because they don’t think of themselves as old!  What can you do with that phenomenon??

God knows we Boomers as a group have brought a lot of sin into the world. Perhaps these next twenty-five years are our opportunity for redemption.  Wise church leaders will take advantage of this.

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A Review of Letters To Juliet

Posted in Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

In celebration of our first anniversary (April 1972), Sherrylee and I drove our little Chrysler Simca down the autobahn from our home in Munich, Germany, to the city of Verona in northern Italy. It was just far enough away that we could do this on a long weekend and a short budget. And since both of us were English majors, well what more needs to be said.

Perhaps this is the reason that we saw Letters To Juliet last night when we could have seen Robin Hood. We don’t go to much fluff, having avoided all the latest round of Nicholas Spark tear-jerkers and their lookalikes. Perhaps it was that we had my in-laws with us, and they hardly go to the movies at all. When both of you are in your 80s, I suppose you have seen everything!

Nevertheless, we entered with low expectations and left having thoroughly enjoyed one of the best fluffy movies that I have seen in a long time.

The plot is absolutely predictable: a young woman (Amanda Seyfried) goes to Verona with her fiancé on a pre-honeymoon, where she becomes involved with the local women who respond to lovers’ notes left under Juliet’s balcony. She discovers a note that has been hidden for over fifty years, answers it, which leads to an older British woman (Vanessa Redgrave) and her grandson (Chris Egan) coming to Verona to find Lorenzo!

You can imagine much of the rest, so I won’t spoil it for you, but let me tell you what made the film delightful. First, Vanessa Redgrave does an amazing job of not letting her character—the woman chasing love lost 50 years ago—become schmaltzig. Instead she plays her role with extraordinary sensitivity, perhaps more than the film deserves—but it makes her character believable and sympathetic.

Amanda Seyfried may have started as a Mean Girl (2004), but most recently she has taken on roles that exploit her very blonde innocence—and I don’t mean that disparagingly. I enjoyed her in Mama Mia and again in this film, where she manages to pull off a very tricky role. Her character Sophie has to show disappointment in love, ambition, intelligence, abandonment, but most of all vulnerability. With only a few exceptions, I thought she was fun to watch.

Her counterpart is Chris Egan, playing a stuffy, British prig who is captured by Sophie’s winsomeness. Franco Nero, the famous Italian actor, enters on a white horse….yes, it is true—without any damage to the film whatsoever.

It is a very clean, little romantic comedy—nothing that embarrassed my in-laws at all—and some scenes that are quite funny.  (I do wish they had just said the word “marry” once.)The beautiful Italian countryside and the scenes of Verona and Siena are just about worth the price of the tickets alone.

For a light, fun, clean night out, you won’t be disappointed with Letters To Juliet.

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Thoughts About Pepperdine

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 8, 2010| 6 Comments »

If you are one of the people who have never thought well of Pepperdine, well, shame on you!  Let me tell you about Pepperdine University from my experiences with it.

Yes, Pepperdine has one of the most beautiful campus settings of any university in the nation. That’s what people see on the surface. And, yes, Pepperdine has a national reputation, being mentioned in the same breath with much larger, private universities, a reputation which it no doubt deserves. But this is not what I want to tell you about.  I want to tell you about the well-being of the Christian faith at Pepperdine, specifically with regard to its relationship to churches of Christ.

Pepperdine is a place where you can send your child to school and they will be taught by people of faith. Our three children and two of their spouses graduated from Pepperdine in the late 90s. While they were students, their faith was tested, their faith grew, and their faith was affirmed.  One was an English major, one a history major, one a biology major, one in sports medicine, and one was a religion major. Some were members of fraternities, one played collegiate sports, some were active in the campus ministry, and others were not particularly.  All of them graduated with a stronger commitment to serving God in better ways because of Pepperdine people who inspired them.  Even that occasional faculty member who does not share our faith tradition and who challenged my children were an opportunity for them to prove their faith. They learned not to be afraid.

Pepperdine actively seeks to serve churches of Christ with whom it has always had a strong relationship. We have just finished the Bible Lectures at Pepperdine—and it was a spiritual feast. The gathering of thousands on the campus each year is a highlight for Christians from across the country.  At these lectures, the best speakers/teachers in our fellowship gather. Classes are offered from 8am to 10pm, almost non-stop and the only bad thing is, so many are addressing issues, questions, methods, challenges, and ideas among our churches that it is impossible to be everywhere at once.

The evening venues are filled with a capella singing groups from throughout the country—and they are always packed. Next week, Pepperdine hosts one of the most unique conferences in the country, called “Ascending Voice” which is a celebration of a capella music from many traditions.

Conferences and opportunities are offered to California ministers, to families who want to grow in faith. Pepperdine just opened a Center for Restoration Studies, which is a repository for rare and valuable Restoration Movement pictures and documents. You really do not have to mine the Pepperdine website very much to find lots of events specifically for building up and serving Christians.

The very openness of the conversation at Pepperdine and the fact that a small percentage of its undergraduate students are from our fellowship make it suspect to some. My children thrived here as Christians for these very reasons. They found a real world environment that did not artificially protect them, but rather helped them learn to live as ambassadors for Christ in a way that did not alienate those they were living among. Sounds like the first century, doesn’t it, when the earliest Christians lived in favor in their community.

Has Pepperdine presented itself on every occasion appropriately; have any of our Christian universities? Are there faculty members who cross lines? Do some of the students do things that offend our sense of right and wrong?  Aren’t we just asking if it is full of people, some Christian, who don’t always do the right thing?

I love Christian education. I graduated from Ft. Worth Christian High School and from Harding University; I taught twenty-four years for Oklahoma Christian University. Over the years, LST has had much to do with Lipscomb, ACU, York, OVU, and many of the Christian colleges. I am proud that Pepperdine University is tended and supported by our fellowship.

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The Game of Death

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, tagged , , on April 16, 2010| 2 Comments »

On the drive to work this morning, I listened to a radio commercial for a fire ant treatment that made me cringe. In a typically ironic way, the voice was warning fire ants to prepare for excruciating pain, horrifying deaths, mass murder, and violence beyond compare.  Now I’m no friend of fire ants, but something about this commercial offended me greatly. It seemed the emotional appeal of the commercial was to a violent, sadistic pleasure that someone believes is common enough among people to sell their product.

Then I remembered a report in March on a French documentary called Le Jeu De La Mort (The Game of Death) that explored the same idea.  Eighty participants were recruited for what they believed to be a TV game show. With gala décor and typically sexy host and hostesses, these “contestants” were asked to inflict electrical shocks to another contestant when a wrong answer was given.  The intensity of the shocks increased until the tortured contestant quit screaming and simply went limp—died—maybe.  The tortured contestant was an actor and no real shocks were administered, but the eighty contestants did not know this until afterwards.

Of the eighty contestants, only sixteen refused to inflict pain. The others followed the instructions given them and inflicted pain on the victim to the point of death.  Unbelievable!

I wanted to dismiss this as filmmaking—smoke and mirrors—but then I had a flashback to psychology classes at Harding, and with the miracle of internet, I found reference to the Milgram Obedience Experiment in the 1960s, which in a more controlled environment and with a more scientific protocol performed the same experiment in the same manner. The only real difference was that instead of a TV host telling a “contestant” what they should do, it was a “scientist” in a white jacket giving the orders at Yale.

In the 60s, sixty-two percent of the people administered electrical shocks to the victim. In 2010, over 8o percent complied.  The frightening fact is that we live in a world de-sensitized to torture and horrific violence through every form of mass media that we experience.  From Jack Bauer to anime to computer gaming to WWF, inflicting pain and suffering is as common as . . . turning on TV.

If we laugh at an innocuous commercial about insecticide, how far are we from pulling the torture switch ourselves?

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On Thirty-Nine Years of Marriage

Posted in Other on April 9, 2010| 3 Comments »

If we make it to Sunday, Sherrylee and I will have been married thirty-nine years.  It was a beautiful Easter Sunday April 11, 1971, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.  My best man—my brother Gary—got sick from the ham at the rehearsal dinner, so he was violently sick during the wedding and could not participate.  This left us one groomsman short to walk out with the bridesmaids, so we replaced Gary with Joe Earnest–Sherry’s high school boyfriend—and a good friend to both of us then and now.

Well, Joe didn’t have any dress shoes, having just come from the beach, so we borrowed Don Samanie’s shoes in an effort to make him my brother-in-law.  He sat at the back of the church in sock feet throughout the entire service.

These are the funny things. At little earlier that morning, my so-called friends Randy Bostic and Roger Lamb “stole” my car while I was at breakfast.  Unbeknownst (a KJV expression from the 60s) to them, Sherry’s wedding dress was in the backseat of the car, so they had fun driving around and hiding from us—but Sherry wasn’t able to get dressed until they showed up again!  She still hasn’t totally forgiven them for that!

Sherry’s father Max, the preacher for the Ft. Walton church, was performing the ceremony. She and I had gone over all the do’s and don’ts with him. We did not want all the clichés, we did not want a sermon on marriage, we wanted something spiritual but personal, etc—typical kids of the 60s.  He did a great job!  He first addressed me personally and told me some things—which I hope I have practiced although I have forgotten what they were—but when he got to Sherry, his youngest daughter, he started with, “And, Sherrylee . . . and that’s as far as he got before he choked up.  I love him for that.

Our wedding party sang “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” as our recessional–of course, with the seven-fold AMEN!!  Great reception with Aunt Grace playing the piano—and then we left—married—for thirty-nine years.  I lost my wedding ring the next day in the ocean. We rushed out to buy another one at Edisons for $29.00! We had our portraits done in pastels in New Orleans on our honeymoon.  When I look at that picture, which has always hung in our bedroom, I think of how young we were, how innocent about life—but how thankful I am that God created our marriage in heaven.  A good marriage is a gift from God.

Well, thank you for letting me share a nostalgic moment with you.  Maybe I’ll be more reflective later, but right now it feels good just to smile.

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If You Like 24, You Will Love MI-5!

Posted in Other, tagged , , , on April 5, 2010| 1 Comment »

On May 24, the eight-year run of 24 will come to an end.  Since November of 2001, U.S. viewers as well as millions around the world have watched Jack Bauer save the world one more time—and all in a twenty-four hour time period.  The fast-paced, twisting, often tortuous plots kept audiences returning week after week, sometimes even after long pauses between series. How will we survive without 24???

Sherrylee and I discovered  MI-5 a couple of years ago, and through our Netflix subscription have rented seven out of the eight series made. Let me recommend it to you as replacement therapy.

MI-5 is the U.S. title for the British series produced by BBC One titled Spooks.  (MI-5 is the counter-terrorism group of the Special Intelligence Services (SIS) in the UK.  James Bond worked for MI-6—the international branch.) First airing just a few months after 24 began, it met with the same kind of reception in the UK, but not always for the same reasons.  Since you are undoubtedly familiar with 24 if you are reading this, let me mention some of the key areas where MI-5 is different.

MI-5 is not constrained by the ticking clock. One of the reasons for the demise of 24 is the ticking clock. The show has always strained credibility because everything had to be accomplished within twenty-four hours. Kim was kidnapped two or three times in the first 24 hours. Jack is often shot and tortured and must recover instantaneously for the clock to continue.  Freeing the scripts from this artificial restraint allows for much greater complexity.

MI-5 develops more deeply the personal lives of the characters. The attempts to give Jack feelings and/or romantic involvements have been mostly just distractions from the action. MI-5, on the other hand, actually uses the virtual impossibility of serious relationships with anyone outside of the spook business as an artful way of developing even secondary characters and making the audience care about them. From the first season until the last, the private lives of characters are played out against the backdrop of terrorist threats to Great Britain in a very satisfactory way.

MI-5 is an ensemble of characters, not just a support team for one main character. In certain episodes of MI-5, it might be the Jack Bauer counterpart Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen) or Adam Carter (Rupert Penry-Jones) that the plot revolves around, but other episodes will focus more on the Director of MI-5 Harry Pierce (Peter Firth) or it might even be a lesser character like Jo Portman (Miranda Raison). More interesting characters provide more storyline possibilities, which are exploited very effectively in MI-5. And since danger is at the heart of the profession, the series continues then courageously, even when major characters are suddenly. . . . killed.

MI-5 explores more realpolitik. 24 has been good with exploring some moral questions that combatants always face, i.e., can bad things accomplish the greater good, the use of torture for obtaining information, the question of personal responsibility to do right in the face of orders to do wrong?  MI-5 explores all of these topics as well, but is also able to ask questions about specific government policies, like extraordinary rendition, covert operations of terror in other countries, political cover-ups, even economic policies and their effect on international relations. Some of the most interesting episodes have been the racial conflicts reflected in UK society, especially home-grown radical Islamists.

I will warn you that Americans, often referred to as the Brits “special friends” or their “cousins,” are rarely portrayed in a favorable light. If you are squeamish about how even our foreign friends really feel about us, you might best stick with reruns of 24. On the other hand, if you can bear it, it is an interesting lesson in perspective.

MI-5 is currently running on many PBS channels, but I suggest you either purchase the series online or get it through a subscription service like Netflix.   My one piece of advice, however, is to use the subtitle routine on the disk, at least until your ear becomes accustomed to the accents.  I do believe the British series will do a brilliant job of weaning you off of Jack Bauer—so you can survive to fight another day!

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Tips for Having the Perfect Day!

Posted in Other on March 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

Yesterday, Sherrylee and I had the perfect day at a theme park with our two California granddaughters Anna (7) and Olivia (5). Such days are rare, so I thought I’d share with you some tips about what happened that contributed to this perfect outing. You can extrapolate from the park to life or faith if you want.

  1. Allow plenty of time.  We left the house at 10:45 and the park didn’t close until 10pm. We didn’t have to rush the girls out of the house, and we decided not to start home until we could do it without any disappointment.  At 8:30pm, we said, “Are there any other rides, and both the girls said, no, they were done!”  Perfect.
  2. Set reasonable financial boundaries at the start. I have to admit that I am often the one who spoils days like this because I reach my mystical spending limit before anybody else. After that critical point, either I’m unhappy or they are unhappy. This time, on the way to the park, I said to Sherrylee, “You’ve got to help me keep the spending down because these tickets were not cheap!” She agreed, so we did not go into souvenir shops, we ate our main meals outside of the park, and we did not play arcade games. Rather, we stopped twice for snacks and only once did I pay $2 for a little game so Olivia would have something to do while Anna was riding a roller coaster too big for Olivia. Perfect.
  3. Make your first answer “YES”—so that the few times you have to say no are accepted easily.  We rode the splash ride four times—even after dark when it was pretty cool, retraced our steps several times (as opposed to an orderly approach to the park!), and drove through both McDonalds AND Taco Bell for lunch—just a few examples of saying “yes” instead of imposing my own sense of what should be done!
  4. Do the most important things first! Olivia had always been too small to ride a roller coaster, so her single goal for the whole day was to be big enough to ride one. Fortunately, of the several roller coasters at the park, the SideWinder, the first one we encountered would allow her to ride with an adult. And fortunately for Olivia, Sherrylee loves roller coasters, so off the three of them went.  Instead of spending all day anxiously searching for the mountaintop experience, we accomplished the main goal in the first 15 minutes in the park.  The ecstasy of the goal fulfilled carried through the whole day.
  5. Know when to rest! About 3pm, we were getting hot and hungry, so we planned a strategic stop to snack on popcorn and peanuts and watch one of the park musical shows in an air-conditioned venue. The 30-minute break revived us and kept spirits high for about another three hours, when we stopped for ice cream sandwiches–which kept us going until the end of the day.
  6. Finish strong! About 7pm, I signaled to Sherrylee that I was about ready to go. She, wisely, said, “Let’s make sure we have the most fun here at the end!”  So we asked the girls what their favorite ride was—and then rode it two more times!! Fortunately, the lines were very short by then, so we could make them doubly happy very easily!

I’m sure that other days would not have turned out perfectly, no matter what we did—we don’t have that much control in this world—but that is all the more reason to give thanks for those times when we are allowed to taste perfection!

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Thoughts After Our Ninth Grandchild’s Birth

Posted in Other on March 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

Our ninth grandchild was born just hours ago. I thought I would just take a moment and share with you some thoughts.

1.  With each grandchild, I think I became more aware of the inherent danger of childbirth to my daughters.  We hardly think about this anymore, but have you noticed how in the old western movies, it is always the old men who are looking for a young bride. Historically, one woman died in childbirth for every 100 live births. It was a fact of life.  Some think that was part of the curse at the fall. We are blessed with great medicine now, and in developed countries, the dangers are handled almost routinely. In sub-Sahara Africa, one woman in 16 will die from childbirth.  Thank you, God, for every safe delivery of every new life.

2.      God has a plan for this child. I am strong believer in the Psalmist words 

“My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

            16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
            All the days ordained for me
            were written in your book
            before one of them came to be.  (139:15-16)

This means for me that there are no children who are “surprises,” that each is on a path from Day One, and that God is the Guide. For me, this insight took away much of the fear involved with “what if I am not a good parent.” This is God’s child first and foremost. It is His Will that this child has everlasting life, and He will do everything necessary for this child to be saved.

3.     A Plan does not mean Protection from every evil. Two of our nine grandchildren have needed medical intervention in their first days of life in order to keep them alive. There is no right to life. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

 4.     Some grandparents are very influential; others less. With each grandchild, my role may be different—I don’t know and it is usually not my decision—but whether for more or less, I want my impact to be for God. That is the only legacy that really matters.

5.     The ninth one is just as exciting as the first one! Now Sherry’s dad and Opal have 33 grandchildren, so I don’t know if this holds true for everyone. The creation of life from nothing is perhaps God’s greatest work. Our oldest grandchild has been born again! It’s the same miracle.

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