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A Digging Deep SpecialA Digging Deep Special Tradition In Worship: Are We Too Bound? Listen Now! Part 1 Part 2 Direct Link on Talkshoe - Digging Deep in God's Word http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/112808 *This podcast is for women, by women. Also available on iTunes.

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SPRING WEDDING SPECIAL!SPRING WEDDING SPECIAL! If you are like the Colleys, you have several wedding gifts to buy or make this spring. Lots of Colley House customers are ordering multiples of the marriage book "You're Singing My Song" for wedding showers this year. So here's a little help: Spring Wedding Special! You're Singing My Song Buy three copies and get...

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NEW Book on Homeschooling NEW Book on Homeschooling Available NOW! First of all, it’s not an indictment against those who have made or will make another choice. Secondly, it’s surely not the work of an author who thinks she has arrived at the pinnacle of the homeschooling climb. (How can anyone ever think she knows everything about a phenomenon that’s as old as...

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Digger Doug’s Underground Rocks by Apologetics PressDigger Doug’s Underground Rocks by Apologetics Press Songs written and performed by Caleb Colley. Digger Doug’s Underground Rocks is not for worship/devotional use. Join Digger Doug and Iguana Don for a rockin’ treat! Digger Doug’s Underground Rocks, a new music CD from Apologetics Press, is a collection of fun songs about science for kids. Twelve original songs...

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Picking Melons and Mates by Cindy ColleyPicking Melons and Mates by Cindy Colley Here it is! The children's book that's for toddlers and teens about choosing wisely. It's especially about using godly wisdom when it's time to choose a mate for life. The best thing about this book is that it has a three-week Family Bible Time Guide in the back that any parent can easily follow. The first in a Family Bible...

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Digression

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 17-01-2013

Category : Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tags: , ,

I digress from the Parable of the Talents today for something I have to do every now and then to clear my mind and refocus. I have to reflect on and speak about the moral climate in which my children will be forced to raise my grandchildren. I wonder how the Father can continue to delay the coming of the Son even as his wrath must wax hot against America and the world. My adulthood has certainly witnessed the unraveling of the moral texture of our young nation. It is simply unfathomable to me that I can turn on the Country and Western radio station and hear a song (a hit!) about having a beer with Jesus! Does Thomas Rhett really want to talk to Him?…Well,  he will one day, and it will not be in a bar. It will be amazing beyond what he can now imagine when he comes face to face with God to hear the Lord pronounce His eternal destiny and he will deeply regret making light of the One who said “Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,” (Psalm 20:1).

Then I switch to the pop station and hear the number one song on the Billboard charts…the most popular song this week in America: “Locked out of Heaven”  by Bruno Mars–a sacrilegious parody comparing sex to worship and heaven. I know immorality has always existed in our country, but there was a time not long ago when we were a bit ashamed of it, when we spoke publicly against it and certainly mainstream America did not revel in the blasphemy of mixing sensuality with the sacred. I have to wonder how the God of Cozbi (Numbers 25) can possibly find appeasement for His indignation in 2013? Can He?

I scanned the newsfeed today and read the ABC report from Brussels, Belgium in which 45 year old twins were lethally injected with a serum to end their lives, according to their directives, because they were going blind. This scene occurred at Brussels University Hospital on December 14th, 2012:

The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into a hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL.

“They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering,” said Dr. David Dufour.

“They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and was a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful,” he said. “At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.” (http://news.yahoo.com/deaf-twins-going-blind-euthanized-165500992–abc-news-topstories.html)

Really? This country, Belgium, which was about 17 years behind our own in legalizing the  taking of innocent human lives in the womb has taken such a leap into the legalization of euthanasia that it has legalized and normalized the deliberate ending of adult life, even when no terminal disease is present? Do not be fooled into thinking we , as Americans, are far behind in witnessing this atrocity in our own hospitals. Physician-assisted suicide is already perfectly legal in the states of Oregon and Washington.

AgendaI am attending a baby shower this week-end and I love a bargain. But I’m not going to buy this onesie found on the clearance “rack” of the Obama campaign site. (I don’t think my friend would find it useful.)

I guess I missed it when it was $20.00 during the campaign, but now it’s half price for any two dads who want to put this on their truly pitiable little tyke (https://store.barackobama.com). This just turns my stomach…that the societal mores in our country have ebbed away from righteousness to the point that the leader of the free world was elected while this was in his campaign store. Is this incredible to anyone else but me?! Again, I say, the nation cannot long stand. We can but peruse the annals of history to be fairly certain that our nation is on the brink of falling from within. It’s not rocket science to figure out that the Romans 1 kind of society cannot long prosper. To dress an innocent baby in a onesie that promotes homosexuality, to read him stories that make him accepting of a perversion of sex before he even understands what sex is, to normalize that which is against nature itself BEFORE he is even aware of the deep ramifications of sexuality in the human experience is just an egregious injustice to the innocent. It is not temperance. It is not social justice. It is a brainwashing the likes of which any religious speech in our public forums never approached.

The bottom line is that the things which divide us as a nation are deeply spiritual. The songs, the doctors, and the onesies aren’t the problems. The problems are not even the biggie-sized soft drinks in New York or the guns in Newtown. We know what the problem is: It’s a grievous void of personal responsibility due to the absence of faith in the hearts of American people.

You may be thinking that assessment is an oversimplification. But I say that problem is anything but simple. It springs from a religion that America embraced back in the days of the reformation– a religion that abandoned any human accountability for salvation. Even religious people then became comfortable with spiritual apathy (after all, if God is going to save me by grace alone regardless of any work I may do or leave undone…. What’s the point?). From the abandonment of human culpability in religion sprang a society of people who have no sense of personal moral (or fiscal) accountability. And thus, we’ve come full circle to a society that has neither studied, believed, or taught our children the principles that save souls and make nations prosper. It should not surprise you when the onesie for sale on the presidential campaign site is promoting pedophilia or even bestiality. When we decide there’s no absolute moral standard, what’s wrong with sex of any kind? What’s sacred about any human life? What’s inherently good or bad about any moral choice, for that matter?  Expect lots more Newtowns and fear for your personal safety and that of your children. (You are already afraid to let your kids walk alone in your neighborhood and you are a bit apprehensive about their safety at school.)  If you are a Christian, expect ridicule and prepare for outright persecution. But remember every day that life is short and eternity, where there is no fear for the saved, is…forever.

Let’s Just Edit God Out

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 17-05-2012

Category : Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tags: ,

On Monday of this week, according to Matthew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Council, Judge Michael Urbanski, a U.S. District judge in the Western Virginia district, offered a compromise in an ACLU vs. Giles County Board of Education lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the school board for allowing a privately funded display of the ten commandment to be a part of a 12-document display highlighting the documents that play key roles in United States history. Included in the display, but not targeted in the lawsuit, being heard by Judge Urbanski, are the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

Of course, secular textbooks and historians who admit the glaring truth that the Ten Commandments, as listed in Exodus 20, played a huge role in the development of western culture and in United States history, are abundant. In fact their principles and even their author, God, are mentioned in several of the other documents included on this wall in this high school. Therefore, I think the battle that the ACLU is waging, here and in other places against the Ten Commandments, is less about content and more about authorship. It just incenses this organization for our culture to give credence to the Good Book as having emanated from the mind of God. Giving that credence, you see, infers that He exists and that we have His Word. And–oh dear–if we go down that path, then there are all sorts of obstacles to get over to legitimize immoral behavior. Absolute truth is a big stickler for adherence and this Absolute Truth inconveniently gets in the way of homosexuality, abortion, pornography, infanticide, euthanasia, etc….So the ACLU finds itself situated uncomfortably between the truth that this document is foundational to the culture we enjoy and their expressed need to rid our public buildings of references to it’s author.

So Judge Urbanski has ordered the case to mediation, suggesting a compromise. Judge Urbanski has asked the ACLU if the ten commandments can remain on the school’s wall if they become the six commandments instead of the ten? What if the first four–the ones that mention God–are excluded? Did you get that? Let’s just clip the document in half to get rid of any mention of authorship!

Seeing how this case is resolved will be interesting. Judge Urbanski got an initial response from the ACLU. They said this edit might resolve the dispute, but still, the other six installments should not be worded, so as to infer that they are commandments. In other words, no “Thou shalt not” should be posted. Again, it’s this obstacle of absolute truth.

I’m wondering about precedence if we start chopping God out of the Ten Commandments. (It’s difficult for me to even type those absurd words.) Are we going to chop Him out of the Declaration of Independence? Will we amend the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact? Will we really mess with history to get around absolute truth? The problem is, the truth we chop away will still be truth. If we cut around the name of God with our measly scissors till kingdom come, the eternal kingdom will still come! If we take down plaques and edit Him out from now till the trumpet blows, it will still blow one day. Even if we take our chisels and remove His name from every marble statue in DC and from every cornerstone of every government building, His name is still the one at which every knee will one day bow. Even the knees of the officers of the ACLU… all knees under all tables on both sides of that courtroom… are getting ready to bow. Even the knees under the robe under the bench at the head of that and all courtrooms will bow.

Absolute truth is not decided in a courtroom. It’s not edited with scissors and chisels.

You can hear an audio about this case at www.libertyaction.org/7082/offer.asp.

I Didn’t Want to Know This

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 10-05-2012

Category : Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tags: , , ,

There are a few things that I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what’s under and behind my stove. I don’t want to know if there is a lizard living in my house. I don’t want to know if my adult child has purchased a package of stink bombs and I don’t want to know whether or not anyone noticed my blouse buttons were not in the corresponding holes while I was speaking in that huge assembly. Some things I just don’t want to know. I did not want to know this:

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” President Obama

Yes, he did. He did announce his support of homosexual marriages. He did become the first sitting president to do so. His rationale?

  1. He talked to friends and family and neighbors.
  2. He thought about staff members who are in monogamous, same-sex relationships.
  3. He thought about same-sex couples who are raising children together.
  4. He thought about servicemen who feel constrained.

I guess there are a few people with whom he didn’t talk and a few things he didn’t think about:

  1. He talked to friends and family, but he didn’t talk to anyone who has passed into eternity. In eighty short years, President Obama and everyone who will vote in this election will have passed into eternity. It will not matter at all there what views have been expressed by friends and family. It will matter what the Holy Spirit said about those who commit the sin of homosexuality and about those who approve the sin: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:32) President Obama, today announced that he is worthy of death.
  2. He did not think about those whose lives and families have been devastated by AIDS. Funny, as this announcement was being made by Obama, I was helping a friend, in an AIDS clinic. It is a place of quiet despondency and death. It is a place that would not exist in our city were it not for the sin of homosexuality. (It is also a place, by the way, where there are postings everywhere–literally, on just about every wall–encouraging patients to tell their social workers if they would like to register to vote. This is a place for government funded counsel, medicine, and housing for people who’ve contracted AIDS and for their children, many of whom will soon be wards of the state. It doesn’t take very long to feel the national burden of AIDS in such a place and to understand that voting for the funding candidate is important to the jobs of those who operate the free clinics.)
  3. He thought about children, but he did not think about the thousands of children who are orphaned each year because of the rampant sin of homosexuality; the sin he is necessarily normalizing by his statement.
  4. He thought about servicemen who feel constrained, but he did not think about the many servicemen and women–God-fearing service men and women– who are ever more fearful to even articulate their core religious belief about the sinfulness of homosexuality, even in private Bible studies, much less public arenas.

Why did he have to tell us? Your guess would be as good as mine. I believe he already had the votes of the homosexual population. I believe him. I believe, in his mis-guided conscience, it was an affirmation that was personally important for him. After all, if a person does not believe the Bible, and he obviously does not, then there is not one thing wrong with homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, infanticide, abortion, and a litany of other sins. In fact, outside the Bible, there exists a rationale for any sin, and it becomes just a matter of time until morality erodes to the level of implosion for any society. Our very first commander-in-chief, General George Washington, referred to the sin of homosexuality with “abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes.” His stance was not a surprise in 1778 and did not meet with dissonance in the young country. In the big scheme of things, it really hasn’t taken so long to take the moral plunge from a President drumming a homosexual soldier out of the camp in shame, to one proposing that he be honored in the sacred ceremony of marriage.

The saddest part about Obama’s statement yesterday is that it was not a surprise, either. May God help our still young country.

(P.S. Have you ever thought about the fact that the excessive government control of the current administration is intended to re-shape the moral and fiscal fiber of our nation? I mean, if we continue to make larger and larger portions of the population dependent on government clinics, housing, food , etc…for survival, and we continue to register these ever larger dependent populations to vote, then the country’s leadership will naturally evolve into socialists. In a socialist culture, self reliance, human dignity, and morality become rare commodities.)

Not so Saint-ly

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 12-03-2012

Category : Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tags: , , ,

Let me be the first to admit my ineptitude about sports–both in knowledge of most sports and, most certainly, in skill in any sport. But every now and then, when my son is in for a visit, I catch a blurb here and there from ESPN’s Colin Cowherd. I think he’s big on the Patriots–maybe Tom Brady, in particular; he’s not a fan of undefeated college football teams who failed to put any decent opponents in their schedules, and I’m pretty sure he has some sort of whacky divisions about deceased male movie stars going on right now. That’s about the extent of my Cowherd knowledge except for his unsettling story about the Saints last week. It seems that, even after having been warned by the NFL commissioner, some of the players continued to pay each other off for purposely injuring certain members of the opposing team (i.e.”I’ll pay you a thousand dollars if you hit ________hard enough to have him carried off the field on a stretcher.”)

“After the NFL made its investigation public Friday, former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams admitted to running a bounty pool of up to $50,000 during the past three seasons, rewarding players for knocking targeted opponents out of games,” according to ESPN (espn.go.com/new-york/nfl/story/_/id/7660902).

What was disturbing to me as I listened was both that this unconscionable bounty pool existed and the public reaction to this injury for pay. I listened, in disbelief, as I heard fans call in and say “ This kind of thing is nothing new. It’s just part of the sport of professional football,” or “That’s why American’s love pro football; violence is just a part of the excitement of the game,” or “Why do we have to suddenly punish the Saints when we’ve been looking the other way on these kinds of locker room pay-offs for years?”

I know I’m just an empty-nest mom, coming off of twenty-eight years of making sure everyone was playing fair and no one was getting hurt, but give me a break! Am I really living in a country where people, who are smart enough to dial in and talk on a national radio show, see nothing wrong with paying one another to purposefully injure other human beings in order to win a football game?

This has got to be a least a microcosm of the kind of violence that called down the wrath of God in the days of Noah:

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen.6:11).

A pool of funds, especially designated for distribution among those who physically hurt opposing teammates, is pretty corrupt. The defense of these paid injuries by many fans of the sport shows a national propensity for anesthetization to the black nature of human violence.

The account of Noah was one of the first that I, as a child, heard from the Holy Pages. I remember wondering what kind of violence was occurring in the days of Noah. Were people beating up on each other with their fists or were they using sharp objects to wound and kill each other? And why? Why did people want to hurt each other in Noah’s day? I’m sure it had something to do with personal gain back then, too.

As I grew older and began to teach teens and ladies from the account of Noah, I often wondered how to most practically take lessons from the account of the violence of Noah’s day. After all, most of the women in my Bible classes would never consider hitting anyone, much less seriously injuring or killing anyone. When speaking about violence, I might have mentioned the horrors of abortion or the tragedy of child abuse. Still, for most of us, those examples are from the worlds of women in vastly different circumstances from our own. I know there are exceptions, but most of us, are just not perpetrators of violence.

But here we are. We do live in a country where the guys who play in the NFL make millions. And millions of Americans are enthusiastic fans of the game. I’ll wager (okay, not wager, but venture to say) that many of you readers have little boys who love NFL football and wear somebody’s number on a jersey. It’s a huge national pleasure and that’s okay. But members of an NFL team have admitted operating a bounty pool for the purpose of injuring opponents and the NFL is planning to levy some sanctions? If you ask me, the Saints should have their franchise pulled yesterday and be forced into the annals of once great NFL teams. Football is a sport. Here’s the definition of sport:

An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

Did you get the purpose of a sport? It’s just entertainment. Yet, here we are…raising our kids in a society that very nearly worships at the stadium or in front of ESPN and bows down before the latest and greatest quarterback. It’s difficult for me to fathom that articulate worshippers have been led in the frenzied congregation to the point of verbally excusing and even supporting their icons in pay-per-view for pay-per-violence. But moms, mark it down: We’d better start early to teach our children that sports are merely entertainment forms and all entertainment is optional. We’d better make sure they know that sports are a distant second or third to spiritual activities when scheduling conflicts arise. We’d better let them see us using sports as opportunities to evangelize and to learn the value of fair play rather than sacrificing our values for the win at all costs. We can use the examples that come around each week– from the atrocity of the Saints’ behavior, to the common abuse of steroids, to the ethical issues surrounding recruiting, to the simple lessons of sportsmanship on the Little League field–to teach our kids some very practical lessons about life and godliness, or we can let those issues teach our kids that sports trump the spiritual. But we had better get ready for some dialog with our kids about sports and the relative unimportance of the games, because the devil really wants your kids to worship at the altar of some false god–and the idol of football is about as good to him as any other. I hope your family and mine can have fun at the stadium, the diamond, the court, the field or the rink without spiritual compromise. If we can’t, we should stay away.

“And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (Matthew 18:9).

Stray Pieces of Lent

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 01-03-2012

Category : Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tags: , ,

I’m having a hard time really understanding why I’m starting to hear my brothers and sisters talk about celebrating Lent. Oh, I know that fasting and alms giving and the putting away of things that distract from our spiritual focus is a good thing any time of the year. I love to hear that Christians are clearing material clutter and temporal time-thieves to make more room in their houses and spirits for the spiritual. But choosing a time prescribed by the Catholic church and calling it a name designated by Catholicism and thus associating the good things prescribed by the Lord Himself (fasting, giving alms and living sacrificially) with “Holy Days” like Maundy Thursday and Ash Wednesday; with the smearing of ashes on the forehead; and with the obligatory abstinence from meats—all things that are the doctrines of men—that observance seems to be very much like what Jesus was condemning in Matthew 15:9.

“But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

To me, problems with speaking of “what I am giving up for Lent” or “I’m loving the concept of Lent” are several:

  1. I give the impression to those who hear that I am okay with religious rites and observances created by men. (There is just a whole lot more to Lent than sacrificing some practices or substances that distract from the spiritual.)
  2. More specifically, I give credence to the teachings of those who would fall into the category of people described in I Timothy 4:3, who are “forbidding to marry” and commanding to “abstain from meats” and who are described by the Holy Spirit as having “departed from the faith.”
  3. I sacrifice chances for evangelism when I mention to my friends what I am “giving up for Lent,” when I could be speaking with them about why I love my friends who are being sacrificial, but at the same time kindly explaining the reasons I don’t practice Lent. I might even engage my friends about I Timothy 4:3 in a respectful and inquiring tone. God is good to open doors of evangelism when we are faithful to plant the seeds.
  4. Perhaps I do not mean to be, but it seems to me that I am implying that the new covenant or the new testament, given by Jesus and activated at His death, leaves something to be desired; that the sacrifices of Romans 12:1,2 and the answer of a good conscience that results from baptism as described in I Peter 3:21 somehow leave something to be desired. I want to be very careful that I do not insult the gift of grace that so completely provides all that I need in Christ.
  5. My children, and perhaps others around me, may become genuinely confused about what practices in my walk of faith are Biblical and which are borrowed from the traditions of a false religion. I have some very dear friends who struggle every day as they try to reclaim a family member, who was once a simple New Testament Christian. They love his soul. They want him to remember that the burning of incense, worship of Mary, smearing of ashes, rosary, papacy, etc…of his new religion are all innovations and/or traditions of men. But now it is likely too late. I surely do not want to contribute to any such departure in the hearts of my children.
  6. We would not know about Lent if we were reading only the Bible for our guide in religion. We would know about giving to the poor and making sacrifices to walk with Christ and about fasting, but there are many components of Lent that are unrelated to anything we read about in the Guidebook.

May our hearts constantly rejoice in the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). May we bask in the fact that we are thoroughly furnished in the New Testament to every good work (II Timothy 3:16,17). It’s all-sufficient. It’s all we need. But we really need to be in it every day–for strength, for clarity, for comfort and for hope.

Wait! I Thought You Just Said A METH LAB…

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 10-12-2010

Category : Uncategorized

Tags: , ,

I was doing one of my favorite things—wrapping presents—in the kitchen last Thursday when I looked out my kitchen window and saw a Madison County Sheriff’s patrol car slow to a stop right in front of my house. Two big fellows with guns and badges got out of the car and approached my kitchen door. I’d already opened the door before they got inside the picket fence as they came up the sidewalk. I plunged headlong into an amazing conversation with them:

“Can I help you?”

“How are you ma’am?”

“Good…How ‘bout you?”

“Pretty good…Listen, we just came out to ask if you’ve got some sort of well pump or something that would make a big spewing kind of sound…”

“Well, no. We don’t have a well and I can’t really think of any sound like that around here. Why?”

“Well, is there anything out here that would let off steam or hiss or…” (at this point, the officer make a big sound)… “PSHHHHHHH!”

“Well, sometimes when I am jogging out on the road, I think my air conditioner is a bit loud, but why? Did someone send you out to see if I have a well pump?”

“Well, actually not a well pump. Actually (pause…pause) somebody reported that you have a meth lab.”

“…Excuse me…but did you say ‘a meth lab?’”

“Yes ma’am. A meth lab.”

“Sir, would you all like to come in my house?”

“Well, really ma’am…she didn’t think it was in your house. She says you are running a meth lab in that little cottage. She pointed straight to that little house in your back yard.”

“The cabin?!! She thinks we’re running a meth lab in the cabin?!”

(See, at this point, the conversation was getting to be very surreal to me. This was starting to seem like something from a bizarre dream, where you wake up and think, “Oh wow! That was weird. Why’d I dream that?”)

“Yes ma’am,” he responded, jerking me back to strange reality.

“Well, then do you want to come in the cabin?”

“Well, ma’am, we can tell this is not going to be a drug bust. In fact, we’re really sorry we scared you. It’s probably a little unnerving when we drive up. I guess the main thing now is…well, we’re kind of concerned about your elderly neighbor back on the street behind you. She’s pretty sure you’re running a meth lab. In fact, she fell in my arms and got all emotional when she realized I was going to come check it out.”

“You mean she cried?”

“Yeah. Do you think you could maybe keep an eye on her—maybe go and check on her and make sure someone’s looking after her. She could have had a stroke or she might need some medical attention. I’m not a doctor, but maybe she needs to go see one. Something’s just not right.”

“Yes. I will see about her. Maybe I can find out if she has kids and if they are checking on her. I’ll try to put her closer neighbors on alert and make sure they keep an eye out. I’ll take her a loaf of bread and check on her myself, too.”

And so the next evening I stopped over to see her on my way to the church holiday party. I had made a batch of chai tea to take her, attached a card with the directions for mixing it along with our contact info, and I was on the porch ringing the bell. I waited…and waited…and at last…the door opened just a crack, a little, stooped grey-haired lady peered out just a bit and I said,

“Hello. I’m your neighbor.”

“Did you say you’re my neighbor?” she said with a hard stare.

“Yes ma’am” I’m the one… you know with the cabin… where the sheriff came out yesterday?”

“Thank the Lord!” she said with a great sigh of relief in her voice. “Thank the Lord they did! Why on earth are you running a meth lab, anyway?”

“Oh Ma’am. I’m NOT running a meth lab. I don’t even know how to run a meth lab and I surely don’t want to market any meth.”

“Well, how do you explain that terrible, awful smell that comes from that cottage down there?”

“Well, I haven’t smelled anything, but what does it smell like?”

“Well, I never smelled anything like it before…It’s a strong and very terrible smell. I mean it’s awwwful! It’s just sickening.”

“Well, I really don’t know what you could be smelling.”

“Well, if you don’t know anything about it, you had better ask your husband!”

“Well my husband isn’t running a meth lab, either. My husband is a good man.”

“Well, he may be a good man, but still…”

“Well, ma’am, I have a good idea. Why don’t you let me walk you out to my car and you can go down to the cabin with me and you can go in and see for yourself.”

“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I have a hard time walking and I’m in poor health. I don’t think I want to do that.”

“Well, then, I don’t know how I can make you believe that our cabin is just a little guest house. It’s just extra rooms…you know…for people to come and stay.”

“Well, who’s staying there now?”

“Well, nobody at the moment. It’s just for guests, you know.”

“Oh, well I have extra rooms, too. I know what extra rooms are for.”

“Well, I guess I’ll be going along now, since I’m not convincing you.”

“Yes. That would be very good. I wish you would.”

“Well, here’s some chai and the directions are right on this little card. It’s really good stuff.”

She eyed the jar carefully and said, “No I won’t keep that. You just take that on back with you.”

“Well, will you at least keep the card so you can call me in case you need something?”

“Well, I’m fine,” she snapped. She took the little card and gingerly held it between the tips of her thumb and forefinger, as if it were a bomb ready to detonate at the least little jiggle. “I don’t need a thing.”

“Do you have children who come to see you often?”

“Oh yes. My son looks in on me every day. He takes good care of me and I am just fine,” she said, with an emphasis on the “I”, as if to intimate that it was I who needed someone to “look in” on me.”

“Well, goodnight then.”

“Good bye.”

And that was my encounter with the woman who blew the whistle. I let out a long wavering breath as I walked to my car in the chill of the harsh December air. Who would have thought my neighbor in this serene little country village would have patently accused me of operating a methamphetamine laboratory? And to quote my philosophical friend, David Lipe, “What in the round world” could be done about it? Not a blessed thing. (And what a great prelude to the jovial festivities of the party. She knew how to put you right in the spirit.)

Lessons from the meth lab:

  1. There are some things that are simply beyond my control. Perhaps that’s why the apostle Paul said, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:8). Sometimes, for various reasons, it is just not possible.
  2. Sometimes people have a false sense of security. This woman kept reiterating to me that she was “just fine.” Sometimes, just as she thought she was physically and mentally sound, people think they are spiritually “just fine,” when, in reality, they may be very ill. “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Rev.3:17,18).
  3. Sometimes people refuse the very help they need the most. What can you think of that this woman really could use more than caring neighbors who are willing to look in on her and see to her needs? Yet this is the very thing of which she is most afraid. Often, people need the Lord and his people desperately, yet they fear the commitment, the changes and the holiness that will ultimately save their souls.
  4. Often, people make the evidence fit their hypotheses rather than making their hypotheses based on the evidence. I’m quite sure that this woman’s “evidence” was fabricated by some sort of dementia. But, in spiritual matters, we often let our preconceived ideas lead the evidence rather than allowing evidence to lead our ideas.
  5. I can’t ever tell what a day may bring (Proverbs 27:1). I must be ready to face the challenges of life, whatever they may be, head on, with faith, each day.
  6. The Golden Rule never leaves me wondering—how to treat the elderly, how to treat the misguided sheriff, whether or not to contact this woman’s son, etc… It’s universal in its applicability and it’s very easy to figure out its demands. This comes in very handy, especially in situations that are reactive (where you have to give a reasonable response very quickly) rather than pro-active.

So, anyway…what in the round world?

Remember to send your contest entries to: byhcontest@gmail.com. See the 12/8/10 post for details.

Please visit Cindy’s Blog at cindycolley.blogspot.com/

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