Hometown Worship

Our Hometown Worship section is where you'll find our area churches directory, special features about local churches and church leaders and obituaries. Devotional pieces from Pastors Bill Mantel, Bob Mankaka (Amazing Grace), Brandt Johnson (Tamarack Church of Christ), Rick Perry (Kimberly Community Church) grace the pages of this section, along with columns by Lisa Koehler (Faith Page Coordinator).

Faith Page Columnist

Yesterday I mowed the grass. I enjoy the chore and feel like I’ve accomplished something good when I am done.

Feeling pretty good as I commenced with the job yesterday, I thanked God for the good weather, the mower that worked, and so on. But when I drove the mower to the top of our mound system, I came upon several deep trenches that had been engineered over the last few months by our dogs. The holes looked like craters from grenade explosions or an attempt by inmates to escape some prison camp.

Suddenly, my thankful heart and good mood vanished, and I was immediately irritated with this new job of filling holes. There was no way around it. I would have to get a load of dirt and fix the mess if I wanted to continue mowing.

Huffing and puffing as I shoveled dirt into the wheel barrow turned into loud lecturing at the dogs who were following me around with their sticks and balls hoping for someone to play with. They had no clue that their lives were, for the moment, in the balance.

It was when I was lugging the wheel barrow up the mound that God gently spoke to me and said, “If you can’t be patient with dogs who are just doing dog things, how are you going to be patient with people?”

With that quiet rebuke, I asked for His forgiveness and finished the rest of the job with my mouth shut. I didn’t say another word to the dogs, who don’t understand English anyway, and I made sure I didn’t beat myself up over the slip. Instead I told myself that since I had asked forgiveness I was forgiven, and I didn’t need to rehearse the episode in my mind again.

With the holes filled, I...

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Faith Page Columnist

I have this summer graduated my last child and have finished 20 years of home schooling. Home school, in my opinion, is not about standing at the chalk board and lecturing, or hovering over a Bunsen Burner successfully performing scientific experiments. It is more about teaching children to be self learners and self motivated to teach themselves. It’s also about years of total devotion to every aspect of the children’s development, especially when they are in the lower grades before they start to become self motivated. And being a home school mom means being an example whom they can follow.

So now, with having no one left to monitor, teach and direct, I am going through a bit of the empty nest syndrome. One day I am fine and feeling free as a bird. Another day I can be in tears thinking about my favorite times with them when we would sit together on the couch to read out loud for an hour.

These days, I watch with pride and trepidation as the kids test out their wings and do all the things I did as a young adult. But it’s different because even though I was old enough to do things like drive hundreds of miles on a trip with friends, they are too young.

And these days, I second guess myself and wonder if I did a good job. So, I constantly remind myself that with God’s help, I did the best I could bringing them up. I keep in the forefront of my mind the verse that assures me that because I raised my children in the way they should go, when they are old, they will not depart from it.

And when I...

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Faith Page Columnist

We are now entering round two of our lives. Now that our last child has graduated and is on his own, we are free to start some new projects. And with these new projects comes a multitude of questions that I can’t answer and some potential problems that I cannot currently solve.

One day while I was trying to figure out how these complications could be resolved, God spoke so very quietly to me, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it all taken care of.” So, I dropped my contriving and left it to Him. But, only for a little while.

I’ve since taken these potential problems in hand again and mulled them over with no idea how things could be worked out. What I am doing is trying to make the unknown future into a nice, neat, orderly known future where everything is done the best way, that is, my way. Doing this futile exercise shows me that my faith in my own ability is much greater than my faith in God’s.

What a waste of time and what an insult to our Lord. In the back of my mind I know that all this contriving and worrying is totally unnecessary. In truth, God is aware of the whole situation, and He will answer my questions, and everything will fall to place.

Writer Sarah Young says, “Many things can block awareness of God’s presence, but the major culprit is worry. His children tend to accept worry as an inescapable fact of life. However, worry is a form of unbelief; it is anathema to Him.”

She goes on: “He asks us who is in charge of our lives. If it is us, then we have good reason to worry. But if it is Him, then worry is both unnecessary and counterproductive.”

So why...

For the rest of this story and more, pick up this week's Voyageur Press.