Charles and I spent last weekend in Birmingham. I passed my two year cancer-free check up with flying colors. I do not have to see my oncologist again for six months. There is always a LOT of anxiety connected with that appointment. I am wondering if everyone who has ever had cancer feels that way when the check up rolls around. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. I just want to be here for a LOT longer to enjoy life and love and….grandchildren. We have a lot of them and are expecting to add two more to the group in the next couple of months.
I remember the day my daddy died and while our family huddled in a room close to intensive care, my pastor made the comment that it really didn’t matter what the chart or the statistics said. God has our names engraved on the palms of His hands, He has a future and a hope for each of us. Even when the doctor came in and announced in clinical terms that my dad had died, I held on to the words of my pastor. It was not as much about what any doctor did or did not do – Ultimately, it is God who determines the number of our days.
While in Birmingham we spent some time with Betsy who writes our Single Still, Single Again column. She is my daughter who – let me tell you – did not know coat hangers existed for the first two decades of her life. She just bought her first house, and it is about as cute as anything could possibly be, but her sudden path to neatness and cleanliness was a bit startling to the mother who used to love to send her to summer camp just so I could clean out her room. Kind of an affirmation of God’s idea of the “making all things new” idea.
The July issue of MCL went to print Wednesday. You should see them everywhere by now. This is one of my favorites. You will find a LOT of heart-to-heart stories. I want to put in a special plug for Martin Willoughby’s column on media and culture. I did not realize what a deal Sex and the City was until I saw posters advertising the movie all over Paris during my recent trip.
When I got home, I tuned in to my “tell-me-what’s-happening” source, Good Morning America, and found out that this television series that prompted the movie had shaped the decisions of many a young teen during its hay day. What are we thinking?
I won’t even begin to tell you what I thought when I tuned in to The Bachelor for the final episodes last season. I wanted to know what it was all about. I then determined I must be way too old to “get it’ at all. The whole concept seems to be at odds with everything women – and especially the most liberal of all – have worked to accomplish over the past few decades.
So, do you think we need to watch and pay attention just to know what is happening in our culture – or do you think we Christians should not notice at all? I have just recently heard a series of sermons from Philippians and I wonder at the verse in the 4th chapter that speaks about directing our thoughts to “whatever is pure, lovely, admirable….we don’t have to go any further than the “pure” word…our culture presents some real challenges in finding the balance.
