Fellowship, Children, and Family
Children are a gift of the Lord. Ps. 127:3
By Staff Writer Dianne Miller

Being a child of the living God, we are placed into a family, and as we grow and fellowship with one another, we are being knit together in love, in His love. We should never take our friendships and wonderful "fellowship" for granted. We as Christian women should truly be cherishing our sisters and realizing that each of us are special, not only to God, but to each other. Our relationships can be different though. Some of them are based on merely the day to day mundane, it seems sometimes, rearing our children, keeping a home, and all that that entails. There certainly is great spiritual aspect to that, as we see in scripture that being a mother, homemaker and wife, is truly an awesome responsibility and yet great privilege for women. Our lives can be full of fun and fluff at times, but we also need to realize that we do need to be grounded in solid biblical belief.

When we have close knit friendships, there is a sense of safety, and not always having to be on guard with what we say, knowing that we are on the same page, as the saying goes. But further than that, the fact that we can truly open our hearts to each other, for biblically, that is what we are to do. As the scripture says a friend loveth at all times, and that certainly means in "the good and the bad, and the ugly!" We are to realize that we all are sinners, and we goof up all the time. There certainly are times when correction is needed, and we do know that scripture also tells us the proper ways of doing that as well. But right now, we are focusing on the friendship, love, and forgiveness aspect. In Proverbs 17, we are told that love covers a multitude of sins. We are to overlook our sister's sins.

But instead of ignoring our sisters who may be going through some tough times, we should come alongside, reach down, and help lift them up; share in praying with them, assisting in whatever ways that we can in order to help and encourage them. Sometimes just praying for them, or just being there with, or for them, is all that is needed. When someone has lost a friend or family member sometimes words aren't even necessary, just your presence is a welcome sign of your love and understanding.

As we are already into the second quarter of the year, there are still so many uncertainties in the future. Some, if not all of us, will have many tears to shed. Just being women, and being mothers, and knowing that part of the outcome of the Fall, was that we would have much pain, not only in childbirth, but in the years that followed, in the raising of children. There is much joy to being a mother, and there is also much pain and sadness and disappointment. Because we have been down the road before, we can almost foresee situations that our children face. We made mistakes, and they will, as well.

We've all been through hurt, and will as long as we live, but it is in and through those hurts and trials that we grow. We just pray that our unbelieving children will come to the knowledge of Christ as their Savior. God is sovereign and he has everything under control, and yet we are still commanded to pray. And pray we must.

May the trials of this life drive us to Christ, and not make us bitter, but cause us to grow more in sanctification.

AMEN

Of Marbles and Saturdays
Submitted by Carol Skipper of Apron Strings

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so
much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's "dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter..

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles...

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