Tag Archives: Faith

Taste and See That the Lord is Good

11 Jan

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Janet Perez Eckles

How do you explain blindness to a two-year old?

Sunday after church hubby and I stopped at a local restaurant. And as always, we ran into friends.

And as we exchanged comments, I heard a little giggle. “Hi Reagan!” I said looking in the direction of my friend’s two-year old little girl. “Did you like your visit to Cypress Gardens?”

She didn’t answer.

“Honey.” Her mommy said. “Mrs Eckles, can’t see. You have to say ‘yes’ out loud, not just nod your head.”

We chuckled.

“Close your eyes.” Her mom said. “That’s what Mrs. Eckles sees.”

We continued our visit, her mom and I chatting about silly stuff for several minutes. Then suddenly Reagan’s mom paused. “I’m sorry Reagan, you can open your eyes now. And go ahead and eat your food.”

We hadn’t realized during the whole time we were talking, she still had them closed.

I’ve done that too. When I faced tough times, the sting of setbacks, or the jolt of disappointment forced the eyes of my heart to close. And when in the darkness of my pain, I missed the banquet set before me.

I waded in the pool of self-pity. Then soaked with discouragement, sat in the hard chair of gloom. Refusing to open my eyes, I reasoned I was justified to sulk and pout.

Even worse, when God’s Word echoed in my heart, the rehashing of negative details of the circumstance drowned his message.

Yes, it’s ugly and smelly to be in that spot. No doubt, God’s patience was tested with me. How often He must have whispered, “Open those eyes and check out the banquet of blessings I placed before you. But my stubborn heart refused to open.

Those episodes come in all sizes and often unexpected. As a writer, rejection of my work stings. And my discouragement quickly closes my eyes. Then sadly, I become blind to the encouraging notes that fill my in-box when my words elicit positive reactions.

And when those times hit me hard and long, the popular saying, ‘get over it’ rings true. Just how long could I keep my eyes shut to his truth. And refuse to see the treasures within trials and the blessings that often follow burdens.

As a blind friend, I invite you to take a look, move beyond that setback, disappointment, or discouraging comment. If not, you’ll miss the bouquet of blessings, fragrant with His love, and sweetened by His compassion.

Unlike Reagan, don’t wait for someone to tell you to open your eyes. Instead, relish in the banquet the Lord has before you, and “Taste and see that the LORD is good…” Because when facing tough times, “… blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.”

(Psalm 34:8)8

Legacy

Janet Perez Eckles,

Grateful for the privilege of inspiring you…

My website in English

En Español

My story (video)

Inspirational video  just for you.

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Starting the New Year Face to Face

8 Jan

Last night the bloggers for Old Things R New met face to face for the first time in our history. It was an incredible and laughter filled evening.

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From left to right, Judy Wills, Divoran Lites, Onisha Ellis, Lynn Shepherd (web genius and daughter of Louise) Louise Gibson, Janet Peres Eckles. Back row, Bill Lites

I created the blog January 13, 2012 and my first post was to announce my daughter, Rebekah Lyn’s debut novel. I had no idea what I was doing, but knew I needed a platform to help promote her work.

In Febrauary 2012,  DiVoran Lites, my long time friend and mentor, brought her fun and inspiring wrting to our blog. She has now published three novels which you can find here.  Her husband Bill, loves travel and vintage WWII airplanes and we were pleased to add him on April 19,2012. In September of 2012  we welcomed Judy Wills, a talented pianist,  whose life as a military spouse brought us an inside look at family life both in and out of the military. In 2013 we were blessed with two new bloggers, Louise Gibson, whose poetry about nature, feline friends and life touches many hearts and brings smiles to the readers face, and last but certainly not least is Janet Perez Eckles, a dynamo of energy and faith, who shares her life experiences with us through weekly posts that encourage us to dig deep into our own faith and challenges.

Janet was recently interviewed on Emotional Mojo   a nationally syndicated show that  combines the best of Psychology, personal development, life coaching, and daily inspiration in a single Mojo brand.

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How to Make New Year’s Resolutions

4 Jan

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Janet Perez Eckles

“I hate making long-range plans,” I said to hubby at dinner the other night.

“You have to. If you don’t, you’ll flounder.”

Grrr. He’s right. But setting goals is way too tedious for me. I’d rather just do what comes up. You know, follow God’s lead for the moment. And contently, try to do my best each day.

I’m tempted to do the same this year too. When most are setting New Year’s resolutions, making plans, charting paths to reach this or that, I just want to chill.

Anyone out there feel like I do? To-do lists already dictate my day. And the daily demands beckon relentlessly.

But I guess it’s time to change. This 2014, I’ll embrace a different attitude. I’ll plan to do three things:

  •  Calm my heart enough to hear what God is instructing me.
  • Seek His Word more diligently to know if I’m heading in the right direction.
  • And be at peace when things don’t work out.

These are my three goals. I don’t know what the New Year will bring. I don’t know where God will take the ministry. But I do know that peace, sweet peace will fill my soul just because His Word whispered to me this morning: “Be still, and know that I am God…” Psalm 46:10

He’s God when I fail to plan, when I fall. And He’s still God when triumph comes in spite of it all.

Janet Perez Eckles loves to inspire. She is an international speaker, author, radio host and life coach. www.janetperezeckles.com

Legacy

Janet Perez Eckles,

Grateful for the privilege of inspiring you…

My website in English

En Español

My story (video)

Inspirational video  just for you.

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Heaping Coals of Fire

30 Dec

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and ArtistAs I write, my soup heats on the stove. A banner blows from the porch over bright red poinsettias in sunshine. A shiny whirly-gig spins on the back fence. Red tallow tree leaves flutter in the breeze. I’ve had two days of being down with a cold, but today I’m feeling myself again and everything looks better and brighter.

I just had a rest listening to Dino’s incredible piano hymns on my new Pandora radio station coming from Bill’s iPhone. The cat lay on my chest purring the whole time.

Before that Bill and I cleaned house so it would be fur-free when, tomorrow, one of our grown children’s friends brings his family for a rare visit. They live in the Atlanta area and we live in Florida, so we don’t see them often, but we do talk on the phone.

Bill vacuumed and I dusted. It was cool on the porch, but not too cold to water the plants and run a dust rag over the shelf where we keep them. Oh, yes, some hot-pink Christmas cactus is in bloom there, too. I filled the birdbath and the painted buntings came to bathe, to drink, and to eat the seed Bill put out for them.

As I was lying down to rest, just before the cat got comfortable, while the music was playing softly, Bill brought in a vintage book he’s reading: Strange Scriptures. It was written by a missionary by the name of Barbara M. Bowen who lived in Palestine and published her book with Wm. B. Eerdman in 1945. It explains many of the things we read in the Bible by telling how the people of Bible lands have lived since the days of Abraham.

He read about coals of fire, Romans 12:20. Mrs. Bowen explained that where she and her husband lived people kept a brazier of fire going in their homes at all times. If the coals went out they sent someone to a neighbor’s house for fresh ones. If the neighbor was loving and generous she filled the container for the coals full and it was carried on the head back to the fireless home. Paul said that if we give our enemies food and drink, we are heaping coals of fire on their heads. In that day and time it meant to forgive fully and generously. Such love and forgiveness can only be experienced through the Spirit of God and those who love and trust Him.

It had been one year since Bill’s heart attack. As he read to me, he had his ball cap on, ready to run an errand. My bed was the right mix of firm and soft. The house was neither too warm nor too cold. Our work was done, our house was clean. The radio played softly, “It is Well with My Soul,” and it truly was well with our souls. Sometimes such moments arrive and we treasure them fleetingly. I wanted to share this one with you and wish you a New Year full of them.

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Memories of New Year’s Past

29 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

Judy Wills

I guess I am just like most people when it comes to New Years – “I AM going to lose those _____ pounds this year!”  “I AM going to get the house in order!”  “I AM going to scan all those pictures and get them in an album!”  etc., etc., etc.

So, resolutions not-with-standing, what are my memories of New Years past?  I guess my favorite memory is of growing up in my church in Albuquerque.

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For many years, on New Year’s Eve, the church would have a program that started about 6:00 p.m. with a dinner.  Now, this was a fairly large church, and we had a paid staff who made the meals every Wednesday evening, before the regular activities began.  And those ladies made the BEST dinner rolls!!!  Nothing I’ve ever been able to duplicate!

Anyway, dinner started at 6:00 p.m.  After that, I remember either a movie shown on a large screen in the sanctuary, or games.  Perhaps there were games for the smaller children – I just don’t remember.  But then there was a time of “remembrance” or sharing.  Just being thankful for the year that was passing away, and looking forward to the new one approaching.

But the best thing about the entire evening, was that, after the sharing time, we would – literally – ring the outer edges of the sanctuary, holding hands to make a funny-shaped circle, and pray in the New Year.  We could hear the fireworks going off, and people yelling outside the church building.  But inside, we were asking God to bless the New Year, and us in it, and our part of it.  It was an extremely wonderful time.

And then I remember some New Year’s Eve’s in our small church in Virginia.  We would gather for a time of sharing and remembrance, then share the Lord’s Supper together, and then pray in the New Year.  The pastor would try to do the Lord’s Supper differently some times, to make it more meaningful for us.  I remember a time when he had a loaf of bread, and we pinched off our own little piece.  I also remember a time when there was a community cup for each family to share the “wine” (grape juice in the Baptist church!).

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But in all the memories I have, it always culminated with prayer for the New Year.  And I can’t think of a better way to start any New Year, than asking God’s blessings upon it.

May YOUR New Year be blessed beyond measure.

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Look Before You Leap

16 Dec

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Last Friday when I wrote the date, December 13, 2013, I thought, dum-de-dum-dum, it’s Friday the thirteenth, bad luck day. In case you didn’t recognize it, dum-de-dum-dum is the theme song to the old T. V. series, “Dragnet.” Bill and I use it as a warning that we’re entering suspenseful and dangerous territory.

This blog is about three of the many other superstitions I’ve heard in my lifetime. You probably know them too.

  1. If you walk under a ladder propped against a building you’ll have bad luck.
  2. If a black cat walks across your path…bad luck. I suppose the cat has to be black because black cats are associated with witches.
  3. If you break a mirror, you’ll have NINE YEARS bad luck. Don’t ask me why nine, not eight or ten.

So what’s the truth about superstitions?

  1. If you walk under a ladder there’s a better chance of a gallon of primer falling on your head than there is if you walk closer to the curb. But watch out on that, too.
  2. Any color of cat can twine around your feet if you get too close. You could trip and fall and break your arm.
  3. It gets much worse. If you break a mirror and a shard of glass flies up and cuts your leg you can get an infection that if you don’t clear up you could develop gangrene and have your leg cut off. The effects from that could last nine years–or a lifetime.

Mostly though, and this I know, God looks after us in our carelessness and preoccupation. This doesn’t answer the BIG QUESTION, of course, but to me it’s apparent that by asking the Holy Spirit, not why bad things happen, but how to take them, and in what way to be blessed by them will more than meet our needs for comfort and guidance when bad things do happen. The Holy Spirit knows all the truth and He will tell us what we need to know.

Meanwhile:

  1. If you take any wooden nickels, be sure they’re round tuits.
  2. Keep looking up.
  3. Look before you leap.

Have you heard of any new superstitions connected to the digital age that I don’t know about? I suppose you have, otherwise, why would we need Snopes?

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Mom’s Handwriting

8 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

JUDY

                                             

 My Mother’s handwriting was really beautiful.  From what I understand, she and my Aunt Jessie were taught “penmanship” in school.  Not only is that not taught in today’s schools, but I’m afraid that cursive writing is a thing of the past.  I suspect it will be as difficult for our grandchildren to read as the Old English is to us.  What a pity.

In any case, I loved getting letters from Mom.  While she nearly always hand-wrote all her letters, I always type out mine.  My handwriting is terrible!  Almost unintelligible!  But Mother wrote lovely, loving letters and I enjoyed them all.

As I was growing up, we never heard of automatic dishwashers, so I learned to wash and hand-dry the dishes from our meals.  Since the humidity in Albuquerque, New Mexico was very low – very dry – it didn’t take long for those dishcloths (T-towels, we called them) to dry out.

One Christmas I received a set of T-towels from my Mother, that she had hand embroidered for me.  Now, embroidered T-towels were not a novelty, but these were special.  Mother had written out some “sayings” and embroidered those sayings on the T-towels.  I told her once that I would always have her “with me” – since I had her handwriting on those towels!  Here are the things she wrote:

Psalms 118:24
Hi
Hello There
Have Fun
Good Morning
Have a Nice Day

I used those towels until they literally had holes in them, before purchasing new ones.  I don’t know how to embroider – I’ve tried many, many times, but just can’t get the knack of it, so my T-towels will remain plain.

But I always have the ones my Mother made especially for me – in her own handwriting.  They are treasures for me.

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Relishing on the Journey

7 Dec

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Janet Perez Eckles

“Mom, please, please, can I have that for Christmas?”

Christmas used to be seasoned with pleas from our kids to get them that one more toy. We weren’t perfect parents; we gave in sometimes. But why wouldn’t we? Just like our kids, we’d fallen for the popular competitive race. It used to be called “Keeping up with the Joneses,” but now the Jones family is bankrupt. You’d think we would have learned, but no. I would put on my running shoes, slip on my headband, and put on my T-shirt that read, “Heading to Win – I’m on a Mission,” and dash off to the finish line. Anxious voices cheered me on: “Get the best, gather more, and grab every opportunity!” That included indulging our sons so they too would be a tinge above the competition. Finally, with wobbly knees, I reached that elusive finish line. But to my disappointment, rather than contentment, another finish line awaited. There was ALWAYS another finish line to reach.

Competition often throws us into the compare snare. And caught in its web, contentment is as elusive as snowflakes in Orlando. Way back in 1927 poet Max Ehrmann wrote, “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter.” Now, years later and with a bit of wisdom flickering in me, I broke loose from that snare. By replacing competition with contentment, stress is greatly reduced. I learned this from a pretty great guy. He found contentment in ways foreign to most of us. He’d been in prison, beaten, insulted, and even left for dead, yet, he found real contentment. How did he do it? Paul is his name and he wrote a letter revealing his secret. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:12-13) The “Christ” in Christmas is what gives us the strength to change competition to contentment. So, while sipping on a cup of hot apple cider, I’ll ponder on this truth: Contentment ushers in, not when reaching goals, but when receiving His grace to relish on the journey.

For nuggets of inspiration, visit Janet at: www.janetperezeckles.com
Legacy
Janet Perez Eckles,
Grateful for the privilege of inspiring you…
Inspirational video  just for you.

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My Aunt Jessie~Part 2

24 Nov

Sunday Memories

Judy Wills

JUDY

My Aunt Jessie…..the only “auntie” that I was close to.  There was only her and my mother on that side of the family.  Of course, my dad was one of 13 children, so I had lots and lots of cousins.  But they were all in Texas or Louisiana….or SOMEwhere else.

Because Jessie never married, she became the breadwinner of the family after her father died, and

Grannie's Favorite Chair

Grannie’s Favorite Chair

Granny lived with her. And because she never married, her security became the things she owned.  She became an expert in antiques.  Her love of antiques started when my grandfather purchased – for $5.00 – a beat-up old chair frame for her.  She refinished and re-upholstered that chair, and it became the first of many antique items that filled her house and her life.  It became Granny’s favorite chair.

She had several love seats.  She had a coffee table that was magnificent – it was quite large and the top (covered with glass) was one solid piece of mahogany.  Beautiful.  (One family story goes that a large slab of wood fell off a train and someone – Grandpa? – found it, took it and made it into that coffee table.

She had an antique pump organ, and Victrola.  Mother said Granny always loved to have music around the house.

She had curio cabinets.  She had one piece of solid cherry wood that was a china cabinet.  The top had glass doors through which you could see the lovely antique tableware she had found.

She was always on the lookout for estate sales, and shopped at as many of them as she could.  She found wonderful sales, and was able to purchase many good things at great prices.  At one time, she was the president of the Albuquerque Antique Club.  Her house was large enough to accommodate all of her purchases, and she had a gift for placement of her pieces.  As we prepared to have an “auction” of her household items, the auctioneer looked around, and said, “This is some of the best Victorian furniture I’ve ever seen!”

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Unfortunately, Jessie never thought any of us wanted anything of hers.  Because none of us had expressed an interest in any of her things, some time before she died I suggested we should all make a list of her things we wanted, and give it to her.  If there was a duplication in “wishes” – hers was to be the final decision.  She was quite delighted to see how much we loved her things, after all.  And, I must admit that, after I had made my “list,” I finished it with the statement that we would rather have HER in our lives than anything of hers….but that we loved her and wanted to have keepsakes of her.

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What a Friend

14 Nov

What a FriendLast Sunday one of our hymns was What a friend. Out of curiosity (I have a lot of that) I looked to see when this beautiful poem was written and who was the author. Fortunately our church uses an older hymnal which has the information at the bottom of the song. What a Friend was written in 1855 by Joseph Scriven. Apparently the longing for friendship and comfort is not new to mankind. The song has three stanzas and I would love to share them with you. I am taking the words from a Broadman Hymnal that was used in my church when I was a very young child. It is so old there is no copyright/publication page.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer.
How those words speak to my heart! Someone wants to bear my
pain.
O what peace we often forfeit
O what needles pain WE bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
How silly am I when I choose to wallow in my pain when I
have friend who will bear it for me!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged.
Take it to the Lord in Prayer.
So many times have I felt discouraged. Who hasn't known 
the utter exhaustion of raising a family, trying to meet 
everyone's needs and no one meeting our needs.
Can we find a friend so faithful?
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness.
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Have you been at the end of yourself, longing to share your
 heartache with someone? I have.
Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.


This brings to mind a modern song, Strong Tower by Kutlass


“You are my strong tower. Fortress when I’m weak”


What a blessing to know that my friend will be strong for me,
 and be my refuge.






Do your friends despise, forsake thee?


Take it to the Lord in Prayer.


His arms he'll take and shield thee,


Thou wilt find a solace there.




My friend, DiVoran once shared with me her personal picture of a grandfatherly God who would take her upon his lap, wrap his arms around her and just rock and love her. That has always stayed with me and often when praying for someone I ask for them to know  that blessed feeling of being wrapped in God’s arms of love.

You can read a short biography here or a more detailed account here.

				
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