It’s time for a shout out. A love shout out, showering appreciation on those who mean so much to us. We can, and should, do this regularly. But I thought a bit of seasonal and encouragement might be in order.

So, a few weeks ago, I took to Facebook to announce a contest. I encouraged readers to reply in post comments or send me an email for a chance to have an affirming message to their loved one published here and also for a chance to win a copy of The Voice of Melody.

In terms of responses, I had a couple of initial great ones.

Charles McCoy wrote, “I love my wife, a living example of Genesis 2:18.” (If you don’t know the reference, that verse speaks of the creation of Eve as the suitable helper for her husband, made by God so that Adam did not need to be alone.)

And Chris Turack shared, “I love and appreciate God for giving me my husband John. And I love John because he has been so patient and encouraging in our forty years of marriage. He has never been critical of me and has cheered me through my hormonal/emotional ups and downs with ten pregnancies, two miscarriages, PMS, and now menopause. He has a great servant’s heart and I’m thankful to be married to him, my best friend.”

These are wonderful words, all.

I was encouraged by the start of the responses, looking forward to more. A short time before the submission deadline, I tried to share another post to remind people of the opportunity to participate.

That’s when things went haywire and I was temporarily blocked from Facebook. Apparently promotion of an activity that encouraged sharing such affirming words was going against their community standards. I have never thought of myself as a threatening person. And I have never thought that promoting loving words to bless those we cherish is an offensive act. I guess I was wrong.

After struggling to get past the block and sending feedback to protest their decision (which was received but not affirmed as valid…ironically), I chose not to try and promote the contest further. I saw that my original contest post had reached well over 100 readers. So, I just decided to wait and see what would happen.

The deadline came and went. No more responses.

Perhaps it is no longer the thing to publicly declare appreciation for another person for no other reason than just because we notice and cherish them, and want to let them know it.

Perhaps we have started to lose the ability to say something good about others in a genuine, selfless way: not doing it because we really want to draw attention to ourselves but because we really want to bathe that other person in the warmth of a loving spotlight.

Perhaps I would have gotten a greater quantity of responses if I had asked people to give a shout out to themselves. Or if I had asked people to tell us about the people and things that most often frustrate them.

As a culture, generally speaking, we speak far less love and appreciation than we should. We are given to focusing most on our own personal contentment, accomplishments, interests. We are quicker to speak what is harsh, critical, obscene, unverified, slanderous, manipulative, or self-serving than to speak what is thrive-promoting and praiseworthy. We want to focus on all the ways we have been hurt by others instead of affirming how others have helped us.

This is a great pity. Because a key way to promote goodness in the world and to really help “the community” is to write and speak more words of gratitude, appreciation, life.

And we fool ourselves if we think it is enough to say all the sweet things on one holiday a year and then go on with a nasty, selfish outpouring (or even just a neglectful silence) the other 364 days.

I am thankful for the answers that Charles and Chris submitted. Thankful not only for how they can each bless their spouse in this way this Valentine’s Day, but also for how they have each maintained healthy marriages for decades because they have chosen to speak words of affirmation and blessing on an ongoing basis, over the weeks and the years.

In the end, I will admit I didn’t enjoy my brief stent in Facebook “jail.” But that won’t make me stop sharing good words, encouraging good words. Let us all take the time to tell those around us more and more on a regular basis what we love about them, why we appreciate them, and how they have blessed us. We can start on Valentine’s Day…but let that only be the beginning!

Ralph Powell passed away yesterday. He was 75 years old and had struggled with some serious health conditions during his life. He lost two children over the years and faithfully cared for his wife who has been, herself, of limited mobility.

Ralph is my uncle. I am saddened by his passing. Saddened for my widowed aunt. Saddened for my father and his siblings. Saddened for my uncle’s neighbors and friends.

Saddened in and for myself as his niece, however? Reading reflections posted by Aunt Jean, I wondered if I have a right to be. After all, the brother she described was the uncle I barely knew. We lived at least a few hours apart over the years. And apart from a handful visits in my childhood and a number of letters I sent him later on, I had no contact with this uncle who spent many hours with my father as a boy and young man.

Yet, while reading Aunt Jean’s words, I felt my heart tugging, wishing I could have known my uncle more. Known his serving heart, known his gifted eye for helping to beautify spaces and cultivate plants, known his industrally-trained mind.

Last night, as I drifted to sleep, I quieted my heart with the wondrous thought that I will see Uncle Ralph again. And we will be able to know and understand each other better than we ever could have known each other on Earth. Because we will be in the place where we are fully known and where we have all the time in…well, not in the world really, but all the time in Heaven.

We, as mankind, were made for forever. We long for forever. But the forever now awaiting us is not universal.

Many of us have spent countless dollars and hours pursuing activities, using products, and eating foods that might help us live longer. Death seems like an annoying marage, a shadowy threat, or an eludable rumor. We want to develop some technology or wonder drug that will help us remain young and healthy and mentally sharp forever.

Because we have forgotten the Creator who made us. The Father who loves us. The King we were designed to dwell with forever. Before we broke faith and law…before our souls fell down.

But our souls do not have to remain crushed forever. They can be lifted from the mire of brokenness by the arms of Christ and washed in the blood of Christ to regain the possibility of forever life (instead of forever death). Because the forever we all need and long for is the forever of honoring God and of fellowshiping with each other with no distance, shame, secrets, or grief between us.

My Uncle Ralph’s days on Earth were extended by modern medicine, his work on Earth helped many people, and his time on Earth blessed more people than it cursed. But the most important thing I know about him and will remember is that Uncle Ralph knew Jesus and trusted in God’s grace through Christ.

And so, I grieve but I also praise. The blessing of forever awaits us. I want my heart and my mind to stay fixed on that promise with anticipation.

I will see you there, Ralph Powell. Can’t wait to know you better. Until then, rest in peace, and be blessed.

THE COUNSEL OF THE LORD STANDS FOREVER, THE PLANS OF HIS HEART TO ALL GENERATIONS. Psalm 33:11

How does God bless us most dearly and vitally on a daily basis? In addition to keeping us alive and meeting our most basic needs, He offers us His counsel. This is a blessing that stands for all time and is supremely good, never leading us astray and never abandoning us in our time of needed wisdom.

Some people might argue that God can be silent or seem silent at times, and others may wonder how we can know His counsel at times when so many of us have never heard His audible voice. But in every generation and in every season, the counsel recorded for us in His Word can lead us well. And when we listen to wise people in our lives, where their advice falls in line with His Word, we are also guided with assurance.

His counsel is boundless. It is timeless. And it is matchless in value. In receiving His counsel – in even seeking it out in the first place – we open our hearts to the very best input we can receive. To our greatest daily blessing.

It is the ONLY source of true life, wisdom, guidance. It is the ONLY route for answers to the questions that gnaw at us in soul and in mind. All other outlets for potential blessing will leave a sense of phantom longing in the gut and a strange hit of dissatisfaction on the tongue.

And once we have found this blessing, it is not enough to only seek His counsel once or twice. No, we must hunger and thirst for it, crave it daily, and desire to live in it more fully.

Because the goal of being blessed by the Lord is to know Him better…that His blessed counsel in our lives should bring Him glory and lift our hearts to see things at least a little more from His point of view.

My husband and I love to share songs with each other. Some are ones we both know well or heard growing up. Others are numbers that only one of us has encountered, so we each have the joy of introducing each other to those and in broadening our repertoire.

One of the songs in the former group is a Margaret Becker classic called “Say the Name” (linked below). One day, Paul asked if I knew it as the intro bars started playing through his portable speaker. I smiled and showed my response by starting to sing along immediately.

But as we got to the chorus, he paused in his singing with me and said, “I have always loved this song…but WHAT is that word? I can’t ever make it out clearly!”

I paused in my humming and murmured, “Immutable. You know, as in can’t be turned off or silenced.”

“Ah.” He nodded with understanding and relief.

The actual line from the song says, “Say the name Jesus. Say the name that soothes the soul, the name of gentle healing and peace immutable…”

When I prepared to write my next blog post, I thought back on that moment and I paused to ponder the weight of that word more deeply.

To say that the peace of Christ is immutable means that it cannot and will not be silenced. Even when the circumstances of life derail and threaten and reroute us, that is a peace that still speaks if we will be still enough to listen to it.

And God himself is immutable. He cannot be silenced. Even though we may think we can speak for Him or rewrite and reinterpret His words, we are only fooling ourselves. In the end, His spoken words have always been and will always be true. And in the end, He will always have the final word in truth, judgment, and mercy.

I ended my pondering by asking myself if people are truly immutable. Certainly, we are not God and we are limited, and death ultimately silences our voice here on earth. Yet, what we leave behind in what we write or pass on to others before we pass away — those are messages that remain and continue, the kind of legacy (for good or ill) that makes us somehow immutable even after we are no longer breathing.

Then, when I searched my brain to come up with a synonym for immutable that expressed the human scope of the word in a single word and not a phrase, all I could think of was this: free.

While we are free, my friends, let us speak and write without fear. And even when our freedom is stripped or our breathing ceases, may goodness we have begun to spread be unsinkable, immutable.

Because of the power in the name of Jesus, through whom we must seek to do everything good. With the strength and peace He gives. For His glory.

Over the past weeks, I heard people talking about love, especially the passionate kind. It led me to wonder how many millions of red roses were purchased and how many bottles of wine were consumed in the traditional effort to highlight and fuel physical attraction, centering around the day of February 14.

But then I thought of all the firy love songs now buzzing over the radio and the pick-up culture that is still alive and well despite encouraged pandemic parameters. And I thought of an essay a student of mine recently wrote about if the size of a man’s anatomical equipment is truly the determining factor in whether or not a romantic relationship should last or fall apart.

And I felt something is out of focus, off balance, not as it was meant to be.

So, I did a bit of studying about the word “passion” to uncover the reason behind my curious feeling.

It turns out that the term has five different meanings in Merriam-Webster. And it is only the fifth — the last — that has anything to do with romantic or sexual love. Long before this word was commonly used in that light, it was more commonly used to refer to the suffering and death of Christ.

The roots of passion and patience are nearly identical and are all tied to suffering. Do we sometimes suffer and give up things we care about for the sake of those we love? Yes. Do we hate to watch those we love suffer? Yes. Do we ache with heartbreak when the love and desire we long for from another goes unrequited? Yes.

But perhaps the most important point of all the observations above is that the pursuit of real love and the central focus of our lives were never meant to be wrapped around ourselves and our own desires, our own driving happiness, our own burning hunger. We were and are meant to be focused on Jesus and His glory, example, sacrifice, patience, self-control, death, victory, magnificence, love.

On His passion.

The start of Lent snuck up on me this year. Ash Wednesday came just three days after Valentine’s Day. This Valentine’s Day was the sweetest I have ever had, the first one spent with a man I will love forever. After our sweet celebration on that day, however, I remembered the words engraved inside each of our wedding rings and shifted my heart right back where it needed to be. Where it needs to stay.

And not just for the Lenten season. But for every day of my life. Jesus as number one, my husband as number two.

And my whole life — every day — to be a reflection upon and of Jesus’ passion for us all.

There’s a great word that isn’t used so much in our vernacular these days.

It can mean to stay for a time or to become a resident in a place. It can also mean to keep one’s attention directed on something or someone or to speak or write continuously about a subject.

Ironically, this word that now means where we live or stay was first used in 13th century middle English based on an old high German word for tarrying but equally evolved from an old English word for going astray.

Reading about this in my dictionary app made me think about how so many life stories include one or more chapters in which we who are living are lost before we are found, are wondering before we find our best path, are distracted before we hone in on goodness.

For those who seek God, even after we find His Goodness in this life, we must journey still, before we reach our true home with Him.

I also smiled as I sketched this word art and noticed that the word well resides in the word dwell.

When we are no longer astray but are dwelling where we are meant to be — when we are home — it is well with us.

And from that heart and soul where we abide with God and His Spirit abides in us, Life will bloom — both here and ever after.

Among the multiple meanings of our word peace (which morphed out of the Latin pax and has been in use for at least nine centuries), one stands apart. Several have to do with a sense of civil rest from war or under government control. Another has to do with sound relationships between siblings or other loved ones. But the second meaning listed in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary states, “Freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions.”

There is a broader sense of peace that I have little to no control over. And there is a peace with others that I can only do so much on my own to maintain.

But there is a peace that has nothing to do with the absence of trouble or the choices of others. Instead, it has everything to do with where I find my freedom.

And for me, one who has trusted Jesus for freedom from the first weight of her sin, and one who still seeks to trust Him when daily trials and challenges come (whether in my thoughts or in my feelings), that kind of peace soothes the heart. It is like dwelling for a time in the eye of a hurricane. While all spins fast around, the immediate closest air is still and bright.

My friends, today I would pray for peace on earth and good relationships within our families. But more than that, I would hope for you that this most important peace would be yours and would guard your mind and your heart. Amen.

The final verse of Only a Holy God says, “Who else could rescue me from my failing? Who else would offer His only Son? Who else invites me to call Him ‘Father’? Only a holy God…only my holy God!”

Rounding out the month on generosity and a year about various virtues, I want to provide a short profile of a dear friend.

Her name is Nyla McKinzie, and she moved from her native Hawaii to settle in rural Illinois, to work faithfully beside her dear farmer-husband Jim and raise three beautiful children. Being Hawaiian in an otherwise generally all-white and rather remote area was not the only thing that made Nyla initally different from her neighbors, however. The thing that made her most wonderfully unique was her generous heart.

When I was growing up, I remember experiencing time with Nyla as a respectable, honest, kind, and warm lady. But when I got older and returned to her home and community for occasional visits, I understood her and appreciated her in a different, deeper way.

Nyla — who I have now called Tutu (Hawaiian for grandmother) for some time — finds tremendous delight in giving to others as she feels God lead her to do so. Her time, energy, resources, and ideas have blessed so many, both in when she gives (at such opportune times) and how she gives (with such joy).

The truest generosity is born out of a listening heart.

Tutu loves to study and meditate on the names of God. His names in the original scripture languages and their meanings as we grasp them in our own tongue. And those meditations have refined a beautiful soul in her over years and years of dwelling.

The most beautiful generosity is born out of a thirsty heart.

Tutu has the forgiveness of God through Jesus so deeply stamped on her core being that she must tell others (in her natural, endearing way) about how His grace and His invitation changed her forever. And she knows that there are some very “good-hearted people” in the world…but without the goodness of God’s heart transforming each person’s heart with a familial relationship, that person will never be good.

The sweetest generosity is born out of an adopted heart.

Thank you, Tutu, for encouraging me to love like this. I know I can follow your example because you follow the example of Jesus.

Verse three of Only a Holy God says, “What other glory consumes like fire, what other power can raise the dead, what other name remains undefeated? Only a holy God.”

Charles Wesley is best known from history as being a key founder in what we now call the methodist movement or Methodist Church. But for those who have loved singing hymns, he is better known and loved as a writer of such classic church songs.

I was blown away, however, when I learned that he wrote about 6,500 during his long and faithful life. 6,500! A bit of basic math tells me that of he wrote one hymn a day, every consecutive day, that would have equalled nearly 18 solid years of writing. (I have no evidence that all of his hymns were written in such a fashion; I just say that for sake of perspective.)

The line highlighted in this post’s word art comes from my favorite of his hymns (of the handful I know well!). In this line, I see a prayer and a plea as well as a promise.

As an artist and a writer, I know that my creativity and my worship through designing are both greatly enhanced when my heart’s slate has been wiped clean of sin and fear for a time. For sin chokes the Spirit’s influence on my ideas, and fear holds me back from wanting to share my inspiration with the world for God’s glory. After all, if His name and power are so great, why should sin still bind me, and why should fear threaten my heart?

When I think of Charles Wesley, then, I think of another key aspect of true generosity. In order for us to live with the fullest measure of generosity each of us can display, we must crave the promise of freedom from sin and fear — and claim the promise daily as we walk on in faith. The result, when we embrace such an outlook, can be mind-boggling, for we never know what an impact our redeemed living might have on our present community or what a legacy our unfettered attitudes might have on future generations.

This month’s four posts will briefly profile subjects as inspired by the words of a song. Not a traditional holiday song, but a modern hymn written by the team at CityAlight and Dustin Smith. Each week, I will focus on a verse, a person, and an elemental truth that defines the virtue of generosity.

Verse 1: “Who else commands all the hosts of heaven? Who else could make every king bow down? Who else can whisper and darkness trembles? Only a holy God.”

This week will be a bit different in that my profiled person is not a human but an angel. Gabriel is his name, and being an ageless yet created being, he has witnessed the whole span of known time, from before existence of our space, to creation of light and all that was perfect, to the Fall and the fall, to the lines of our history and his obediently announcing the coming baby king who would set all things right again. He saw that baby grow to live and die and crush the eternal hold of death. And he exists today, obedient still and anticipating with all creation a day when complete newness will obliterate brokenness.

He has dwelt in the presence of God most holy and stood watch over the few-pound form of God most fragile. He has witnessed the beauty of Eden and wept in the shadows of Calvary. And he, through it all, has modeled generosity.

For to be generous is to hold nothing back. And that includes, fundamentally, our very being. It is to be who we were made to be and live out of that core being for the glory of God. In obedience and in truth, even when that means facing what is not easy or pleasant. Because to ignore this inherent need to walk with an open heart and life before our Creator is to starve the life essence of any created being.

Is this a new thought? Certainly not. Yet, neither is it an easy one to live out in a death-courting world, nor a natural one to embrace when hiding and retreating seem so much more comfortable for we who cannot throw off the weight of our own shame.

But there, in the song lyrics, we see the reminder that God’s voice and presence make darkness tremble. So, may we, like the faithful herald He sent, take a chance, be bathed in the light of holiness, and dare to generously show ourselves to the world, that the world might know Him.