lyricoc@yahoo.com
My sister, Carol and I decided to start our own business, screen printing T-shirts. We both have some artistic talent, so screen printing seemed like a good way to use that talent.
We started by making a very unprofessional looking flyer. It was 1983, and neither of us had a computer, so you can imagine how awful this flyer was. We mailed out about a dozen flyers to local businesses and surprisingly, one of the businesses called and placed an order.
We were excited, we could hardly wait to get started. At the art supply store, we bought a screen printing kit and an instruction booklet. When I think back, I’m amazed at how confident we were considering we had absolutely no idea as to what were about to do. We took the kit to my house and started by studying the instruction booklet. After reading and re-reading the entire booklet, we thought we had a good understanding of how to make the screen, which was the biggest part of it.
We estimated the it would take about an hour from start to finish. We followed each step, just as the instruction booklet had said and everything seemed to be going just right. There were many steps, mixing ingredients, coating a screen, putting it under a light for a certain amount of time, washing the screen and letting it dry. The screen was finished and we were ready to print our first T-shirt. We carefully lined the screen up on the shirt, added the ink and slowly dragged the squeegee across the screen. As we lifted the screen, to see our first printed shirt, we were both disappointed and discouraged to see that it hadn’t worked, not a drop of ink was on the shirt. Feeling very frustrated, we made screen after screen changing the process a little each time, finally after eight hours we had a screen that we could use.
We mailed out additional flyers, orders came in, and we had to make more screens. Knowing how hard it had been the first time, left us feeling anxious. But after many mistakes, we learned exactly what we needed to know to make a perfect screen every time. We found that we didn’t get a perfect screen by doing just one thing right, it was a very complicated process, and just reading the directions wasn’t enough to get it right the first time, or the second, or third, or the forth.
At the end of a year, we had mastered the complicated process of screen printing. We hadn’t done it by just reading the directions, but more so by hands on experience. We could have had those directions memorized, word for word and it wouldn’t have helped us to make a screen. Experience was the best teacher.
A month or so after we had gotten into the business, I remember meeting a lady who was also in the screen printing profession. I told her about all the problems we had making the first screen, and she told me that she had been making screens so long that she could probably make one in her sleep. I remember thinking, “Wow, I wonder if I’ll ever be like her?” At the end of two years, I felt as though I too could make a screen in my sleep!
Repetition, trial and error is what taught us what we needed to do each step of the way. Learning that way turned something very complicated into something easily done.
I have read the New Testament, a few times. I have read most of the Old Testament, and heard pastors talk about the Bible most of my life. The Bible is Gods direction booklet for our life. Reading, studying and memorizing is important. The next step is trying to follow those instructions for a Christian life. We may have a hard time at first, just like Carol and I did when we tried putting the knowledge from reading into practice. But unlike Carol and I we have a teacher, a counselor the Holy Spirit, and with the Spirit’s help, I believe we can succeed. John 14:26, “But the counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and remind you of everything I have said to you.”
So read, study and learn the Bible, but also be hands on and you will triumph.
lyricoc@yahoo.com
My mom was born and raised in Germany. Over the years, she has told me many wonderful stories. Some of her stories were happy and some times she talked about the war, and those weren’t so happy. The story that she loves the best is how she met my father, an American soldier, stationed in Germany after the war. But the story I’m going to tell is about Christmas Eve when she was eighteen years old.
How I understand it, in Germany at the time of world war two, if the military wanted you, they took you and that was that. They took my mom to be in the German Army at the age of eighteen.
My Mom loves the Lord and going to Church means a lot to her, So when she found out that she wasn’t allowed to attend a Church service for Christmas Eve, she wasn’t happy about it. My mom and a friend left the base in secret and skied down a mountain to a Church in town. After the service, they walked in the cold dark night back up the mountain, as she tells it, she could hear animal sounds in the woods, so they sang to keep their minds off the noises.
It was discovered that they had left and when they got back to base they got disciplined. They had to clean all the bathrooms on Christmas Day.
To me this shows a real love for God. I’m so happy to have had a mother that was a good example.
lyricoc@yahoo.com
I know the time is
Almost here
When all re-born
Will disappear
Into the Heavens
We will meet
With Jesus Christ;
Good news complete
Quakes round the world
Are the signs
Of birth pains for
A dire time
Storms that devastate
Good lives
Will kill, destroy
And divide
Seas uproar
Mountains abate
God only, knows
Your coming fate
Sickness, pests are
Running wild
Can be acute
Can be mild
Infants born
To evil men
Surrounded by all kinds
Of sin
Growing up uncertain
Measure
But for us
Heaven stores treasure
The book is open
God will proclaim
The names he’s stored
The burning flame
The Trinity
The coming wrath
The death the life
The narrow path
We are the Christians
We behold
We did the things
That we were told
Lift up your prayers
Down on your knees
Open heart and eyes
And you will see
lyricoc@yahoo.com
Jesus said that we can have what ever we want, if we have enough faith. And it doesn’t take a whole lot, just faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to move a mountain. How do we get that faith?
Romans 10:17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
The word of Christ is the Bible. We read the bible and we will receive, and build faith.
When I first became a believer, I was on fire for God! I read the Bible every day, watched Christian shows, rented Christian movies, listened to Christian music and read all the books I could get my hands on. One day, our van broke down. Now we needed that van to get to our sign jobs and we relied on that van for our income. We weren’t making a lot of money so the van not running was a very bad thing.
The first thing we did after trying to start the van was to pray. My husband and I said a long strong prayer. The next thing we did was walk around the van seven times, still praying, like Joshua did around the walls of Jericho. We must have looked silly out in the back alley of our apartment complex, walking around our van, hands in the air, but we didn’t care. But to our dismay, the van didn’t start.
The van eventually did get fixed but not in the supernatural way we had been hoping for. I’m still not sure what we did wrong, or should I say, what we didn’t do right.
A couple of months ago, Mark and I studied some articles on how to make Mozzarella cheese. It sounded a bit complicated but we were up for the challenge. We got the items that we needed to make the cheese over a period of a week. Then we got a couple gallons of milk the day we were going to make our cheese. We mixed everything together, just as the recipe said to do, we brought the milk to the right temperature, we had bought a thermometer just for this occasion. We used the right kind of pot, the right kind of milk the right ingredients, we followed the instructions, every one of them. We waited we checked the milk and it still wasn’t cheese, we failed! We never did find out what we did wrong but we haven’t given up. We are planning to try again after doing more studying.
You know, the same goes with our faith. Walking around the van seven times and praying wasn’t enough to get our van running, and I’m certain there are people that have tried to move a mountain with their faith, fail or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that we should never stop trying. And what I also know is there are people that make cheese every day, for them it might seem simple. Mark and I just couldn’t do it on our first try. Whether it is faith or cheese, or getting our van running, learning should not stop until we reach the finish line and win our prize of everlasting life with our Lord.
lyricoc@yahoo.com
Sitting close, as I remember
In our Church for midnight mass
Again our family comes together
Another Christmas Eve is here
“Oh Holy Night” Mom is singing
With the choir, up in back
Crisp and clear, her voice is ringing
Breaking through our silent praise
With gifts and trees our minds are filled
But for more than presents we rejoice
Even though the air is chilled
The one bright star is burning
New born baby in a manger
Grew to be our saving grace
Filling hearts of friends and strangers
Making Christmas oh so right
Lifting hands we worship our Lord
On this day, picked to remember
All our voices in one accord
Another year has come and passed
Hope and faith are in us, growing
Peace and love are spreading too
If year round we felt this, showing
We’d live as one along with Him
By Bary Bennett
With these hands I’ve offered comfort
With these hands I’ve given pain
With these hands I’ve helped my neighbor
With these hands I’ve eased their strain
With these hands I’ve fought your battles
With these hands I’ve fought through mine
With these hands I’ve fed the hungry
With these hands I’ve helped light shine
With these hands I’ve healed divisions
With these hands I say my grace
With these hands I reach toward heaven
With these hands I touch Gods face
With these hands I offer friendship
With these hands I draw your gaze
With these hands I keep my distance
With these hands I give God praise
lyricoc@yahoo.com
When I was in my twenties, my neighbor, Tom was a Christian, I was brought up Catholic so we had many talks about Christianity. I don’t feel like I really understood the whole religion thing and Tom said something to me that truly upset me at the time. He said that we were like filthy rags to God.
I spent the next day crying because I felt so low and worthless. I grew up believing that we had to work our way into heaven and I thought I was doing my part, but hearing that God thinks of us as filthy rags, hurt me to the core.
The next evening, I went to Tom and told him just what I was feeling, I told him that I thought God loved us and that I didn’t understand what he had told me the day before.
Tom went on to explain that God loves us even though we are filthy rags to him just as a child loves her rag doll. Being a girl, I could remember back to a time that my baby Susie meant everything to me. I took care of that doll just as a mother would love and take care of her own child.
In so many scriptures, Jesus tells us to be like a child. Children believe in things that can’t be seen, that is what faith is, and it takes faith to please God. Jesus said in Matthew 11:25, “I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” This scripture goes on to say, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yolk upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
My daughter, Liz, has been having a hard time lately and I told her something I had just heard, “Before you can become that beautiful butterfly, you must rest in your cocoon.
I started life as a baby, grew to be a child and then to an adult. I became a Christian in my late twenties, then I was already an adult. I know that was the point that God put me into this cocoon where I have been growing and changing and one day I will emerge, a beauty butterfly, ready to see God.
Until that time comes, I will give my yoke to Jesus and I will rest in God’s cocoon. I will eventually shed my adult skin and I will be child like in the ways of our Lord, and now I know He loves me just as I loved my baby Susie.
