Two little girls opened wide the front door and warmly welcomed us to Journey, one of our church's means of making a big church small. Noise and chaos filled the house along with scents of comfort foods shared at the potluck supper. Children were everywhere!

The Journey leader gathered adults and children into the family room. Though we like to say there's always room for one more, well, there wasn't a chair or much floor space left. Our host explained that we would sing a few songs, take turns reading a Psalm and then the children would leave for their special worship time while the adults discussed the morning message. Some of the children immediately waved their hands, hoping to be chosen to read one verse of the Psalm. As we turned in our Bibles, the leader encouraged us to be ready to thank God for one blessing as we prayed sentence prayers after the Psalm reading. Emotion welled up inside of me as I listened to the children read, some experienced readers and some bravely trying out their new reading skills. And then the prayers - one right after the other from the mouths of these precious children: Thank you God for my Sunday School teachers; thank you for dying on the cross; thank you for being with us. . . Then two adults took over twenty-five children into another room to share Bible truths with them. As the adults discussed the morning message, there was little noise coming from the children's room. These parents are doing something right in teaching their kids how to respond to such teaching moments.

Journey gathering reminded me of the promise God made to Abraham so many years ago. Chuck often says that God took this elderly, childless man for a walk under the stars. He pointed out the vast universe and proclaimed that one day Abraham's family would outnumber the stars in the sky. As if that wasn't enough, God pointed to the sand on the beach and exclaimed that Abraham's family would outnumber the grains of sand. It's hard to get our hands around these numbers but every time the children of God gather, it's fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. God continues to keep that promise and last night Chuck and I had the privilege of seeing the physical evidence in our own little world once more.

Oh, these precious, precious children. The memories they are building as they gather each week with their extended covenant family will sear into their hearts a sense of belonging and family that we hope will keep drawing them back to their spiritual legacy. They may not remember all the Bible stories or verses that their parents use in the children's worship time. But God is using all their senses to imprint the value of their spiritual family on their little hearts. I believe many of them will embrace such covenant family time as non-negotiable, as important in their lives as eating.

This week I carry the picture of little girls and boys experiencing grace as covenant families gather with hopes of being equipped, energized and encouraged for their own life journeys. What I experienced encourages me to keep on keeping on. I'm looking forward to Journey next week. How about you? Where is your Journey taking you?

In His Grip,
Sharon

I first heard the term "ever growing ever green" used by a friend to describe my father. She had just learned about Daddy and his long history of building churches and Christian schools, serving as an elder in his local church and generous support of numerous ministries. I was intrigued by the scripture reference and concluded that I wanted to be just like my father when I grew up (I was in my early fifties at the time).

Last week, my 84-year-old father was on his way to Idaho where he will join my sister and her family. Just the description, 84-year-old father, might imply that he is a fragile, elderly man, limited by age and physical ailments. Not so. A day after his arrival, they will begin a trip that will culminate with an Easter Sunrise Service at the Grand Canyon. Daddy described some of their itinerary, a different hotel every night with sight-seeing along the way and I got tired thinking about all the travel.

Sometimes when I call him, I'll ask, "And where are you today? Texas? Kentucky? Ohio? Idaho?" He chuckles and often responds, "Well, I'm home right now but tomorrow, I leave for..." Or, "I'm in Texas visiting your sister..."

My father is a self-made man, one of the Greatest Generation. After coming home from World War II, he started his own contracting business. There is a development in Middletown, Delaware, USA, called Sharondale. Yes, his construction company built it and he named it after me when I was about five years old. Through the thick and thin days of running his own business, he didn't waver from his core values. Many of his seven children and their future spouses as well as grandchildren worked in his contracting business where we inherited his strong work ethic.

My father is a churchman. When the church doors were open, he expected his children to attend. His experience in church life equipped him for what would be his business focus in later years: building churches. Missions captured his heart but he never saw himself as a missionary. Instead, when he was in his fifties, he told me that one day he wanted to use his church-building experience to help build churches for mission works in poor countries. A few years later my mother was diagnosed with life-threatening congestive heart failure that transformed her active lifestyle into months of bed rest and years of physical limitations. Though she forged ahead when she felt well, my father's dream of the two of them traveling to remote areas of the world to build churches had to be set aside. Instead, my father poured himself into helping local churches make the best use of their resources to build houses of worship that would train missionaries and church planters. He's well known in our region as a church builder and is still sought after by churches who know they can trust his churchman mentality and experience to help them get the most from God's money in their own church-building campaigns. Last year he began the process of retiring from his family business and turning the reigns over to my brother and his sons. More than a business, my father gave them the legacy of his name and highly-respected reputation. Priceless.

My mother died at Christmas, 1998, after a long illness. As I observed Daddy after her death, I concluded that in several important aspects, she had prepared him for her absence. Though always stoics when it came to death and grief, when our son, Mark, died, my mother realized that our way of grieving was far different than she had ever experienced. She read the same books on grief that I was reading and told my father he needed to read them, too, because, "Chuck and Sharon are not reacting to Mark's death in a way that we would and we need to understand them." (More on that in a later post.) I think her example influenced his response to her death. Instead of stoicly hiding his sorrow, my father openly grieved for my mother. He was unashamed of his tears or to admit that he cried every day in her absence. I think my mother prepared him to grieve openly because she embraced our grief journey though open grieving was foreign to her.

Because of her illness, Mommy was unable to attend many family and church activities but she always made my father go without her. We thought it was because she wanted him to report every detail to her but I often wonder if she was sacrificing her own needs so that when she was gone, he would continue this practice of participating in ministry and social activities. She didn't want him to be alone.

Unlike many widowers my father doesn't hesitate to attend any activity that connects him to family and church family because over the thirteen years of my mother's illness, he became accustomed to attending such activities without her. He sometimes attends three church services on Sundays in three locations in order to see children and grandchildren who attend those services as well as long-term friends in his home church. He keeps his church friends posted on his widespread family (over 100 grandchildren and great grandchildren) and like me, they have a hard time keeping up with all of his travels and projects.

Yes, my father is ever growing and ever green. Over the next few weeks I hope to share some of the lessons my father continues to teach me as he continues to walk by faith in the pathway God has marked out for him.

Yes, I want to be just like my father when I grow up.

In His Grip,
Sharon