Diary of a Nomad: January 2018

So who really is this Jesus I've followed for over 50 years? And what does He have to do with all my health problems, disappointments, challenges, and setbacks? His love is relentless, constant. His goodness is greater than all my stumbling steps. Romans 8 says that nothing can separate me from His love. Song of Solomon says that "His love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned." That's my story and my life today.

It has been a continuous unfolding revelation to know Him and learn more about Him. Every day reveals new depths of His character and goodness in the midst of the nitty and gritty of my life. In the 80's and 90's Dow taught us about God's nature and character and His trustworthiness and constancy and all His amazing attributes. Then in the late nineties and early 2000s, God allowed me the privilege of studying and learning more about His character as it relates to life today, and as it is revealed in children's literature. This learning turned into a study about how to share God's character and life with children and teachers.

The more I studied God's Word, the more I encountered how He loves me as I am. I began to know the depths of His love better, to learn to never put a period where God puts a comma. And not to put a comma where there is none. I think I'm still learning this. But His goodness, kindness, compassion and forgiveness are constant. So what else did I learn about this Jesus I love and who loves me? God revealed His character in Exodus 34:6-7 when Moses asked to see God's glory and the Lord answered by telling Moses who He is:

"The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,
“Yahweh! The Lord! the God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.
I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty."

I wanted to know more about how these traits of God Himself affected all of life, so my heart began a study of how some of these character traits were realized in award winning children's books. The traits selected came from the passage above.

To do this expansive study, I needed others to help, so a gang of half dozen amazing women came together to help out. We began meeting regularly to read and evaluate all the Newbery award winning books (almost 80 books at that time) to see what character traits we could find. The gang included Nadia Mitchell, Deeder Yanity, me, Darlene Wasserman, Betsy Keyes and Julia Chamberlain-Solecki. We had great discussions and times together. And what we found was very interesting. Read on!

The seven positive traits we identified for book evaluation were: compassion, respect, loyalty, courage, self-discipline, responsibility, justice. and forgiveness. The negative ones were: harshness, intolerance, self-indulgence, cowardice, bitterness, unreliability, and betrayal. Can you guess the most frequently found ones? Respect and loyalty were the most frequent positive ones and forgiveness the one we hardly found at all. Intolerance and cowardice were the most negative traits found and betrayal was the least frequent one.

Doing this study, with its accompanying two grants, meant there were funds for Dr. Dow Robinson to come and provide instruction on how to recognize these traits in literature, and how to implement them in our lives and i the lives of children. It was a rich time for all of us. Then we tried it out in several classrooms around the country and found that with some simple instructions, the kids quickly learned to pick out the traits in children's literature. We also discovered that this strategy could be applied to television viewing, movies and the media. Fascinating and interesting. Dow later wrote a book on who God is and how these traits were revealed through His Self-revealed Names. Cultivating the Presence of the Living God through His Self-Revealed Names.

Here are some of the great people who came and helped us dialog and learn more about God's character in children's literature. The gang included Brian and Kathy Emmet who came all the way from Boston to join us, along with some of my grad and undergrad students. It was a rich time with people we dearly love.

How grateful I am for His unfailing love. You see, even at this point in life, with so much blessing, I struggled with the demands of academia and its time expectations along with
my desire to draw closer and spend more time with God Himself, to hear His voice above the cries all around me.

2-26-99: “Free me, Father, from the demands of grants, to hear you. My heart says nothing else is important but all around me is the push to perform. Teach me the way of the heart, to rest in you.”

8-19-99: alone at the cabin Ledge Edge, New Hampshire (Brian and Kathy's generous sharing):

"TIME. Thank you for time to sit and listen and reflect without distraction. Time is such a grand and big thing. Yet I worry about my small portion of it. One day, 1000 years; 1000 years, one day. This moment is what matters--this moment to touch, connect and be with You, O Lord. What could be more important in time? Time is one portion of your nature that you share with us, so how I respond to time is in part how I respond to you. You can hold time still, or fast forward, to reveal Yourself, if I but release my constraints and time conflicts. Teach me, train me, change me, capture me, to sit in your time and be touched by You."
Dow and Lois visited Dow Lake in Athens while they were with us. We loved that we had a beautiful Lake named Dow close by for them to enjoy.

Back to the future--last week I asked my 12 year old twin grandson, Isaac William Lin, if he would draw me a picture with these characteristics of God and he drew this remarkable picture. I love the star that points to Jesus' birth, the worshipers, and the sheep is cute too! Now he's working on individual pictures of each trait for another project.

Psalm 73:28: But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

New Year, New Blog

This will be my last blog posting for Diary of a Nomad, for now. I want to spend more time reflecting on His goodness and gaining more hope and strength for the future. Instead of continuing my blog musings on the next twenty or so years, I will post our annual family newsletters for the last almost 20 years, always full of photos and news of the year's events. God is so good in every encounter and event of life, Jesus is the only God who is always good, and gives hope for today and the future, and my heart belongs to Him.

So, in order to more fully reflect on God's goodness, I'm starting a new blog, Conversations with My Heavenly Father or Prayers by a Daughter, Friend, and Beloved. These include my prayers to Him and His Responses to me. This new blog will include almost 20 years of written records of how Jesus has spoken hope into my broken reality. These talks with my Heavenly Father, about all the things that were happening daily, are an expression of my heart that goes deeper than any recounting in my previous writings. There are conversations about hopes, fears, disappointments, joys, and many topics that my Father and I have discussed over the years. I hope to begin these postings in February after Jenny's (major) surgery on January 19. If you want to continue and read more, you can find this new blog at: lealconversationswithmyheavenlyfather.blogspot.com.

Here's a song that always strengthens my heart for each leg of the journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWXcRVZWTb8

In Christ alone my hope is found.
He is my light, my strength, my song.....
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His Hand….
til He returns, or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Can Anyone Have Too Many Friends? I have been so blessed with MANY friends. You can never have too many friends! I know because if you are reading this, then you are one of them. The late 90's and early 2000s had many treasured friends, family, students and colleagues with whom we spent memorable times together.

The Company of Those Who Fear Your Name

Psalm 61:5: You have given me the heritage of those who fear your Name. Some of these include treasured friends who have walked with us over many years, shared heartaches and tears. During these years we had the privilege of visits with them. Here are some pictures of these treasures.

My friend and constant prayer warrior Catherine Eldridge. There are not words to express my gratitude to Him for how she has stood with me in prayer.

Bill's first boss back in the US after our years abroad, Mary Fleming, who became an unexpected joy for the journey.

Good friend from my childhood on, Marilyn Petersen Kirshberger. She was one of the first people to talk deeply with me about Jesus and help me find my way to Him.

Students and Friends Who Became Family

One of the privileges faculty have is to travel and make literacy presentations in many parts of the country, and the world. I loved to take my students, both grad and undergrad, to conferences.

Here's one example of some undergrads and me at at children's literature conference in Columbus, Ohio: Clint, Julia, Diana and Sarah. They are all doing amazing things today....from being a principal to authoring a children's book, now published and ready for readers.

I was very partial to my PhD students because I worked so closely with them through thick and thin. They came from so many nations. Those in the photo below represented the Jordan, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and of course the US.

Also, I was also very partial to my Bible study gals. Each year after our partnership ended its term (and they were no longer my students), I invited them to come to our home the next year for a Bible study. How we enjoyed great discussions during our times together to learn what it means to be a follower for Jesus and a woman of God today.

I have to include another photo of Laura and me here too, though she left this earth too early because of liver cancer. She is still much missed.

Then there are the students I taught in elementary school, many of whom read this blog! Besides the joy of teaching my own nephews, David and Daniel Hazelton, for several years, I had the joy of teaching Emily (Sallee) Owen from first through third grade. She now has many children of her own and continues to be a joy. She loves to write and has written many books and letters. She now writes letters on hearts.

Plus there are long time friends and next door neighbors Steve and Joan Safran. We spent many happy hours playing games like Dictionary, sharing holidays, food, and Bear, plus long, delicious discussions over meals.

Treasured Places

A place can be a treasure as well. I'm going to mention three now briefly, though they deserve more space than this.

Nancy and I took a visit to my roots, growing up in the mid-Illinois farmland, as well as Chicago. My sister and I made a memorable trip to our remaining relatives there, Ken and Leota Huff .

We also found the tombstones for my grandma and grandpa there in Somonauk. You might remember my grandpa died when my mom was three, and my grandma died when I was three -- right before my sister was born. My grandpa was a Lincoln and descendant from Abraham Lincoln's uncle.

My grandma opened a boarding house during WWI after my grandpa died. It was right on this corner, in this building, in Somonauk, Illinois.

My Aunt Catherine also had a shop in Somonauk. She would let Nancy and me come and pick pretty things out to take home.

The most beautiful and memorable place on earth for me is Israel. I could write a book about this, but here are just a couple photos. The one of Bill and me is in Capernaum and the second with Dow and Lois above the city of Jerusalem. I was deeply aware of the Presence of the Living God everywhere I went in this country. I'd go back here in a heartbeat if I had the chance.

Another treasured place....I will never forget our home on the ridge overlooking miles and miles of southeast Ohio. Our deck saw it all ... the deer, the snow, the wild and amazing beauty.

Much Loved Family

A visit from my sister is always special. Here Jenny is with cousin Anna, and below, I'm on our deck with Nancy, my favorite little sister ("fls" in our correspondence!) and of course our favorite dog Bear. Notice how he sneaks into so many photos.

We often hosted Bill's Dad, all the way from California.

When Bill's father turned 90, we had a birthday bash in California that included lots of his family (some that we had never met), lots of people from his church, and lots of people from the assisted living place where he lived. It was a grand celebration. Jonathan came with us; Jenny was out of the country.

We enjoyed times with Bill's sister Mary Ellen and her husband Al. Al has gone ahead of us to be with the Lord, as has Bill's dad.

So here's the last collection of family pics from this time period. I'll let you figure out who's who. The only clue is that the first one below has two daughters with us: Jenny and Stephanie. The one of Jonathan in grad garb is one of his 3 OU graduations. Enjoy!