A Table and a Thankful Heart

The day before Thanksgiving, my wife, Carol, spent time at the Harris-Teeter grocery store in Aberdeen, N.C., and The Fresh Market in nearby Pinehurst.

She purchased three pies: pecan, pumpkin and apple. She also bought four 29-oz. cans of Margaret Holmes-brand “Greer Peaches, Southern Freestone” (distributed by McCall Farms, Effingham, S.C.) and some flour.

My late mother showed Carol how to make an easy peach cobbler. Our younger daughter, Suzanne – she and her husband, Chad, teach in elementary schools – always liked that dessert and asked Carol to bring one to their home in Raleigh, N.C., for Thanksgiving. This year, our older daughter, Janelle, observed Thanksgiving at home in Taylors, S.C., with her husband, Terry.

Carol rose early on our recent overcast Thanksgiving Thursday, poured four cans of peaches and other ingredients into a large flat pan and cooked cobbler. By 10:00, I’d loaded pies, cobbler and Daisy, our 8-year-old beagle into our Buick. In the car, I prayed for protection and a good day before Carol drove us away from Southern Pines. Just enough mist was falling to need windshield wipers, and at the first stop sign, I hopped out and took a few pine needles from under one blade. We motored 75 miles to the Chad and Suzanne's rental house in downtown Raleigh, a city with a 2010-estimated population of over 394,000.

Chad’s grandparents, Don and Lois, flew on Wednesday from Chandler, Arizona, where they retired 10 years ago. Chad met them at the Raleigh airport and had them in his home by 1:00 a.m., Thursday morning. Don, 83, and Lois, 80 slept on a “blow-up bed” near Chad’s dining room table.

As a teenager, Chad and his younger brother, Jared, lived with their mother, Barbara, who now lives in Wichita, Kansas. They often visited their father, Rod, and his wife, Kathleen, in Kansas City, Mo., and spent many summers with Don and Lois in Herington, Kansas (population 2,563 in 2000). His grandfather owned an appliance business and he let Chad work for him.

Carol and I arrived before noon, and Daisy greeted her old friend Lucy, Chad and Suzanne’s long-legged Plott Hound. Suzanne had bought our meal from Whole Foods, a “natural and organic” store. We saw turkey, dressing and gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, macaroni, rolls and cranberry sauce. We added our pies and cobbler.

Don and I sat in the living room and talked before eating. Don said he was a good high school shop student, learned about electricity and worked at an appliance store that sold Maytag washing machines before he served with the U.S. Army in Korea. There, he helped service motors and helped make roads during the conflict that began in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea and brought on a “police action” against the aggressors.

Paul, a Christian probably in his late forties, arrived to eat. He worked at a factory in California until it closed. He lost a home and moved to N.C. when a friend offered to help him find work. He ended up in a Wilmington, N.C., homeless shelter. Somewhere along the way he had a heart attack and has applied to receive “disability.” He helps with a Raleigh house for homeless men.

We gathered around a large wooden table, and Chad prayed. After our feast, Suzanne asked that each person give thanks for something. Chad began, mentioning his grandparents and his father, who made it through brain surgery last year. Don said he was thankful for his wife, Lois, who sat across from him. She said she was glad they were able to take care of each other during their retirement.

Paul’s turn came, and he said, “Well, I’m glad to be here.” Most of us smiled, realizing his heart attack could have taken him “out of here.” He then mentioned other things he was thankful for. Sitting beside Paul, I was next in line. I thought about recent times I’d whined to God about aches, pains, difficulties and situations. Carol and I had arrived at our daughter’s house in a car – not on a motor scooter such as Paul uses to get around. I’m older than Paul and have had no heart attack or lost my job. We haven’t lost our home. Humbled by Paul’s presence and thankfulness, I, with a new sense of gratefulness, voiced my thanks to God for Jesus and my wife and family.

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart…” (Psalm 111:1).

The Persecuted Church Needs Our Prayers

Christians around the world will remember their brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer for their faith this Sunday, November 14, as part of a global day set aside to pray for their fellow believers, according to the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN).

“Christian pastors are often imprisoned in countries hostile to the faith,” CBN states. “This affects not only the church congregations, but also the families of these leaders.”

The global prayer day movement began in 1996 though efforts of the World Evangelical Fellowship with the help of various denominations and faith-based groups. Today, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) mobilizes churches on behalf of millions of persecuted Christians worldwide.

With a core of 7,000 participating churches, the IDOP has grown to become the largest prayer day event of its kind in the world. This year, churches will pray and also discuss ways to help suffering Christians.

“Why should you pray this Sunday, or perhaps daily for persecuted Christians?” asks Gary Lane, CBN News Senior International Reporter. “Why not? They need and covet your prayers. Think about it. Here are just a few of the Christian persecution headlines CBN News brought you in just the past three weeks”:

--A Pakistani Christian is sentenced to death for telling Muslim co-workers that Jesus died for their sins…

--58 Christians are killed in Iraq as Islamic militants attack their church…Less than two weeks later, grieving Christians are killed by bomb attacks targeting their Baghdad homes…

--Eight months after his release from a North Korean prison, American missionary Robert Park – for the first time – speaks about the suffering and torture he endured at the hands of his captors…

--The People's Republic of China prohibits 200 house church leaders from attending the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism in Cape Town South Africa. Conference organizers fear computer hackers from the PRC were responsible for shutting down their website for the first five days of the gathering….

“If anyone tells you that militant Muslims and communists are becoming more tolerant of Christians, don't believe them,” Lane says. “As I travel the world to meet with suffering believers and listen to their testimonies, I can tell you persecution is not lessening, it's intensifying. Why? I don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s because Christians are doing a better job of sharing the gospel these days. Maybe it’s because television and the Internet are helping to bring Jesus to many societies previously closed to other beliefs and faiths.”

Lane says Christians around the world – perhaps 200 million or more – will pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters this Sunday.

“Believers in America and most Western countries know very little of the fires of persecution,” says Katherine Britton, News and Culture Editor of Crosswalk.com. “But our lack of experience doesn't have to be a lack of empathy. In Galatians 6:2, Paul tells the church to “carry each other’s burdens” to keep each other from stumbling…I think those of us who don’t endure life-threatening persecution can still partner with the persecuted church in this way. If we pray for believers we’ve never met…chances are we'll never know the impact those prayers have. And yet we can enter into their suffering in a small way when we pray for them.”

James tells us “the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective,” indicating that God uses prayers offered through Christ in ways we can’t imagine, Britton says. “And when we don’t know how to pray for other believers? God takes care of that hesitation as well in Romans 8:26: ‘…The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.’”

Saint Paul asked for prayer so that “utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak,” Ephesians 6:18-20).

Pray often for the many Christians who are being persecuted.

Grace Writers

After David Pratt, the “small groups pastor” at our church, encouraged me – and my wife, Carol, and our daughter, Suzanne, prodded me – I decided to start a church “writers group.”

I majored in art education and minored in English in college but didn’t write much until I was 50 years old and began submitting articles and letters to the editor of our local newspaper, “The Pilot” of Southern Pines, N.C. I next worked for almost four years, in the early 2000s, as a part-time religion reporter for “The Pilot.“

A few years ago, I attended a writers’ workshop led by Marlene Bagnull, a Christian author. She used this verse as a theme: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Write my answer on a billboard, large and clear, so that anyone can read it at a glance and rush to tell the others’” (Habakkuk 2:2).

In her book, “Write His Answer,” Bagnull says, “I believe God is calling us to write his answer. It’s time to boldly step out in faith and to write the words that need to be written – powerful words, winsome words, anointed words that will come only by allowing him to speak to our own hearts.”

Bagnull says she once gave the Lord excuses as to why she might not succeed in writing to honor him. She says she felt God answered her with these words: “Write out of your life experiences. Make yourself transparent and vulnerable so others can see what I have done, and am doing, in your life.” She adds, “I began to write about my life as a wife and mother…I sensed the most difficult things for me to share could be the very words someone else needed to read.”

I recently helped launch Grace Writers Group for our church, Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C. The church holds two Sunday morning services and often sees over 1200 people attend those combined services. On two Sundays, Pastor Pratt let me host a recruiting table that stood alongside nearly 60 other small-group tables. About 11 people signed up for our group.

Six people gathered for our first meeting on September 15, 2010. (We meet on Wednesdays from 7:00-8:30 p.m.) Linda Martin, a lady in her fifties, wrote about our first class, saying, “I started the class on writing last night (Wednesday). Who would have thought I would be in a writing class – me, the person who’s been told many times to ‘write my story’ over the years and who has resisted each time…I have a hunch Steve’s gotten into more than he’s bargained for.”

I was not sure what I had “bargained for,” but I have been blessed by powerful writings produced by group members.

George Hunt, 77, is an Air Force veteran and a member of our group. He worked 30 years for Hughes Aircraft and now serves as the director of the Moore County (N.C.) Veterans Office. He touched hearts when he read to our group a writing called “A Day I Won’t Forget.” Here is his story, which is appropriate for Veterans Day (November 11):

“It was a hot July morning in 1944, and my father was in the Army somewhere in France. I was ten years old. My two younger brothers and I had decided to go swimming with our cousins in the creek near our Grandpa’s. We were having a great time splashing and playing in the water.

“Around noontime, I heard a car coming down the dirt road from the direction of Pinehurst, N.C. It was very unusual, with gas rationing, to see a car that far out in the country. Then I saw the TAXI sign on the side of the car, and my heart dropped, for a TAXI meant a death notice from the government, and there were only two houses on our road.

“I called the others and ran for home, hoping and praying that it wasn’t for our house. But when I got home, the driver had already delivered the telegram, which turned out to be about my father. All it said was he had been seriously wounded in France. That was all we knew for several months. No one knew if he was alive or dead. My mother went to the Red Cross to try and get some word, and they were unable to find out anything for us. Finally, a letter came from my father from a hospital in England. He was on his way home. What a great day that was. After months of no news, Dad was coming home.”

You will find more Grace Writers Group stories at www.gracewritersgroup.blogspot.com.