ARK - Give Me A K!

Most people get off of a ship after a rough journey and kiss the ground. Those of us on that 8 day tour of China in 2007 got to the cruise ship and kissed the deck. I wonder if Mrs. Noah kissed the ground on top of Mount Ararat where the ark came to rest? The Bible tells us Noah’s family worshiped there at an altar they built. And what final advice would Mrs. Noah have from that mountain top?

 Know that He is God wherever your journey may take you.

Lots of good things happen on mountain tops. That’s why we call them mountain top experiences. My literal mountain top experience came on a trip to Alaska.

We were in Denali National Park and halfway up a mountain when our tour bus made a rest stop. By the way, even the porta-potties there were better than the squat toilets in some places in China. There were cups of hot chocolate passed out and I took mine and stepped away from the people surrounding the buses to take in the beauty of the landscape before me.

As I stood in the stillness of that moment and took in the valley below me filled with gentle streams and lush green grass and tall fir trees and caribou grazing quietly and then looked up to the rugged mountain that was before me to its snow capped peak that rose to the sky as a tower of strength, I heard the word “majesty.” And I suddenly understood. When we are asked to worship God’s majesty, it is his strength, his beauty, his watchcare over us, his touch of love, that calls us to give our hearts and our lives to him.

He calls us to “Be still and know that I am God.”

The journey God has put me on has not only included the wonderful opportunities of traveling and writing and speaking but also of being a Grandma. I've told this story before but it is a favorite:

When Tyler was three, we arranged to meet him and his sister and our DIL, Lori, for lunch one day halfway between our house and theirs. Bob and I arrived a little early and so we were waiting for them at a table when they arrived.

Now Tyler, being the self-confident young man that he was, always entered a place as if everyone was poised, waiting just for his appearance. It wasn’t any different this afternoon. He strutted up to the table, nodding at people as he went along, then made his announcement to us.

“I’m gonna be a daddy.”

“You’re gonna be a daddy?” I asked hoping for clarification.

“Yup.” He shook his head and sighed as if it were a heavy burden. “Mommy will tell you.”

Well, you don’t mention becoming a daddy and not perk up a grandmother’s ears. I immediately looked for my daughter-in-law to confirm what I suspected.

“Tyler’s gonna be a daddy?” I blurted out as my DIL finally caught up to him.

 “You can thank your son for the daddy idea,” Lori said. “Tyler noticed the hair on Ron’s chest the other day. Ron told him it was daddy hair and when he got hair on his chest, he could be a daddy, too. The other day in the bathtub, he noticed he had hair on his legs and he figured that was good enough—he could be a daddy.”

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but there was no disappointment. Ron and Lori haven’t planned past two and those two promise to provide a lifetime of entertainment.

“Well, if we shaved the hair on his legs, does that mean he could be a mommy?” I asked.

To her credit, Lori politely asked me not to plant that idea in his head.

Whatever lies ahead for Tyler—daddy hair and all—I hope he will learn:

A -- Adventures of a spiritual nature often come in unusual and unique ways.

R --Remember God’s grace in all the storms of life and take refuge in Him.

And  K-- Know that God is God wherever the journey may lead. 

ARK - Give Me An R!

If Mrs. Noah were to continue to reflect on her ARK cruise she might say:

Remember, as you sail on in your spiritual adventure, to ask God to calm the storms.

Jesus often used boats to preach from and to journey back and forth across the Sea of Galilee which was actually a lake much smaller than Lake Erie. The disciples were pretty used to these boats and the sea. Most of them were fishermen. But as they traveled with Jesus, they often forgot to pack their sense of adventure.

On one particular occasion, they were in the middle of the lake when a great wind blew up. Apparently this was a problem in this area and even though the lake was small, a gale would really toss those boats around. It started to get swamped.

Let’s get the full picture. The sky is dark. It’s probably lightning and thundering. The rain is whipping them in the face and the waves are washing over the boat. But there’s Jesus—sleeping in the back of the boat.

Finally, someone gets his nerve up to quit bailing and wake Jesus up. I’m wondering if the disciples woke him up to get him to help bail.

Someone pushes a cup in his direction and yells, “Don’t you care if we drown?”

Jesus gets up, looks around at the wind and the waves and yells out, “Quiet! Be still!”

For just one moment, I’ll bet those disciples thought he was yelling at them.

But then the wind calms and the waves recede and all is at peace again. And Jesus asks them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Faith is key to any spiritual adventure. There was a time when I, like the disciples, was asking God the same question: Don’t you care?

The year was 1984. Like Mrs. Noah life had been pretty good to me. Sixteen years earlier I had married the man I love and we started a family. We enjoyed our church activities, his career took off—as did mine as a homemaker, a PTA activist, and a mother. After three boys, we decided to adopt to get our girl. She came with a brother and that brought the total of little mouths to feed to five. We were a happy group.

And then life happened.

It started with the sudden death of my mother then my infant niece. Like the disciples, I questioned whether God cared. It took a long journey of faith building before I finally realized that I needed to turn to him and ask him to calm the storms of life. It was a hard lesson to learn but when other storms came, I remembered to turn my face to him and ask for calm.

In all of your trials, your journeys of life, in all of your spiritual adventures, remember God’s grace and in all the storms of life, take refuge in Him.

ARK - Give Me An A!

If you were to ask Mrs. Noah about her cruise aboard the ARK she might start by telling you that:

Adventures of a spiritual nature often come in unusual and unique ways.

I've blogged about our trip to China. It was part of a cruise we took through the South China Sea in October of  2007. The first 8 days were spent on land exploring Bejing, Xian, and a few other cities before boarding the cruise ship to sail to Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. The terra-cotta warriors, the Great Wall and the panda bears in China were all fascinating to see and I don’t regret for a moment the opportunity to have experienced China’s culture and tradition. But the food and the restroom facilities were truly something else. This is where that sense of adventure was supposed to come in that our travel agent had told us to pack.

Our first night in Bejing, we strolled up to a pedestrian mall dodging traffic at a few streets we had to cross. There are no traffic rules it seems and pedestrians are low on the food chain. The best advice we got from one of our guides was to close our eyes, step off the curb, and keep walking. If you stop you disturb the flow of traffic and there will be an accident.

At the pedestrian mall, there were lots of nice shops and then off to one side was an alley that led to the “real” China. Food booths lined the cramped and crowded alleyway.  There was all sorts of weird foodstuffs on a stick—bugs, snakes, seahorses—if you’ve ever watched the fellow on the travel channel who eats all the weird things, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The smell was enough to put you off of wanting to sample anything.

From Beijing we went to the Yangtze River. There for three days we cruised down the Yangtze River on a Chinese river boat. On board, the river boat food looked a bit more appetizing but much of the time was unrecognizable. Our China adventure was the only trip I’ve ever taken where I actually lost weight.

Before we left for China, I knew that we would be experiencing some tough days of travel, different foods, and cultural shock. Overcrowding. Trust me, our western style toilets are a luxury. So I had asked God to get me through it by showing me God Moments where I could see Him at work in this Communist country where people worshiped Buddha and gods of other Eastern religions.

One afternoon we transferred from the river boat to a smaller tourist catamaran that was to take us down a tributary of the Yangtze and through what they call the Lesser Gorges area. It was a beautiful area even though we saw most of it through a cold drizzly rain. We listened as our Chinese guide told us about the history, and pointed out the monkeys and other wild life that we met along the way. When we got to the turn around point and headed back, our guide began to tell us about local customs and traditions. Then she sang us a Chinese folk song. When she finished she asked that we help her to learn a song in English that she liked. She asked us to sing—Amazing Grace. One hundred voices rang out in the middle of the river in the middle of Communist China. It was the most beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace that I’ve ever heard.

Adventures of a spiritual nature often come in unusual and unique ways. But wait! There's more from Mrs. Noah. . .

My Ship's An ARK!

How many of you have ever said, “I’m waiting for my ship to come in?” I used to hear that term a lot when I was growing up. Every time my dad was dreaming of getting something big or doing something special he’d always dreamed of, he would say he had to wait for his ship to come in.

Have you ever wondered what that ship would look like? Perhaps a big yacht? Or an oil freighter? Or maybe a cruise ship?

I think Noah’s wife was thinking cruise ship when Noah started talking about his ship coming in. Mrs. Noah, was probably very excited when she heard her husband talking about a cruise—a forty day cruise no less! I can see her sitting at her kitchen table, sipping coffee and turning pages of the latest cruise brochure.  Dreaming of exotic ports of call, warm sandy beaches, chilled fruit smoothies.

And then Noah handed her a hammer and said he needed her help building the ship.

Well, wives are pretty resilient. And I’m sure Mrs. Noah after a bit of negotiating with Noah, decided it was better to help build the ship than to not get to cruise at all. The ship began to take shape. Of course then she had to endure all the gossip about what was going on in their backyard. She took to telling people in the grocery store that their ship had come in—it was just in pieces and they had to put it together.

They finally put the finishing touches on the ship, oiled all the teak, and were ready to begin embarkation. Mrs. Noah got all her cruise wardrobe packed and set the suitcases out for the porters to take on board. She happened to see the porters as they picked them up and she wasn’t happy with the way they handled the luggage. The only way to describe them was: they were gorillas!

She boarded the ship and took her welcome aboard drink from the server who was decked out in bright feathers and kept squawking “hello.” Something seemed odd about this cruise already but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

The cabin was a bit small but comfortable and with a window. She’d wanted a balcony but Noah had insisted it wouldn’t be necessary. When her luggage arrived in the room, she tucked away all the clothes in the bureaus and closet and then went up on deck to watch the other passengers board the ship. 

She was appalled! They were real animals! Some were hairy and loud. Some were rather large and clumsy. Others, well, it was just not the kind of company she’d expected to have dinner with in the dining room.

Mrs. Noah sighed and took out the book she brought to read, found a deck chair and then slathered on her sun block. She sat back and closed her eyes to enjoy a few rays of sun only to be interrupted by her husband.

           “What are you doing?” he asked.

           “I’m relaxing a bit,” she told him. “I think I’ve earned a little rest and relaxation after all this ship building.”

           “I think you’ll want to get your rain gear out,” he told her.

           “Rain gear? What are you talking about? The sun’s out. I want to get a tan.”

           Noah took her to the side railing. “Honey, take a look out there. Do you see any water?”

Mrs. Noah looked out on a dry sandy soil. There wasn’t even a backyard creek running through the yard. Now she realized what had been bothering her. How do you cruise on a ship when there’s no water?

           “What kind of a ship is this if there’s no water to cruise on?” she asked Noah.

           “It’s an ark. God’s gonna provide all the water we need and we’re going to save all the animals of the world and have a wonderful cruise as well. You did remember to bring your sense of adventure, right?”

Now when anyone tells you to bring your sense of adventure on a trip, you know you’re in for something unusual. Trust me on this. That’s what our cruise company told us when we were going to China. It truly was a unique adventure.  

For the Noahs, this was a real Do-It-Yourself cruise. How many of you have ever gone camping with the family or taken one of those vacations where you rent a condo for the week? If you are like most wives and mothers, you packed, you cooked, you picked up after everyone, and you may have even had to clean and do the laundry. Can we imagine it was any different for Mrs. Noah?

First there was all the rain. That at least floated the boat but there wasn’t much opportunity for lounging in the sun on the deck. And incidentally, all those passengers needed looking after. What do you do with a seasick elephant?—give him lots of room. And what about those rabbits that seemed to be mathematically precocious? Where was she going to put them all?

Yes, it was a real adventure and I’m sure Mrs. Noah was happy to see the top of Mt. Arrarat appear in the distance as the sun broke through once again. Incidentally, the forty night cruise turned into 150 days before they set foot on dry land. That’s an around the world cruise today!

I’ll bet she was glad to see the cruise end but at the same time, what an amazing journey—an adventure unlike any other. Something to tell her grandchildren about for years to come—As a matter of fact the story is still being told. It was truly an adventure of faith.

Now if you asked Mrs. Noah about that cruise what do you think she might tell you? Stay tuned. . .

Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part III

For the Noahs, this was a real Do-It-Yourself cruise. How many of you have ever gone camping with the family or taken one of those vacations where you rent a condo for the week? If you are like most wives and mothers, you packed, you cooked, you picked up after everyone, and you may have even had to clean and do the laundry. Can we imagine it was any different for Mrs. Noah?

First there was all the rain. That at least floated the boat but there wasn’t much opportunity for lounging in the sun on the deck. And incidentally, all those passengers needed looking after. What do you do with a seasick elephant?—give him lots of room. And what about those rabbits that seemed to be mathematically precocious? Where was she going to put them all?

Yes, it was a real adventure and I’m sure Mrs. Noah was happy to see the top of Mt. Ararat appear in the distance as the sun broke through once again. Incidentally, the forty night cruise turned into 150 days before they set foot on dry land. That’s an around the world cruise today!

I’ll bet she was glad to see the cruise end but at the same time, what an amazing journey—an adventure unlike any other. Something to tell her grandchildren about for years to come—As a matter of fact the story is still being told. It was truly an adventure of faith.

If you were to ask Mrs. Noah, she’d tell you:

Adventures of a spiritual nature often come in unusual and unique ways.

Remember, as you sail on in your spiritual adventure, to ask Jesus to calm the storms.

Know that God is there wherever your journey may take you. 

Blessed travels!

Mrs. Noah's Cruise Part I
Mrs. Noah's Cruise Part II

Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part II

Noah and his wife finally put the finishing touches on the ship, oiled all the teak, and were ready to begin embarkation. Mrs. Noah got all her cruise wardrobe packed and set the suitcases out for the porters to take on board. She happened to see the porters as they picked them up and she wasn’t happy with the way they handled the luggage. The only way to describe them was: they were gorillas.

She boarded the ship and took her welcome aboard drink from the server who was decked out in bright feathers and kept squawking “hello.” Something seemed odd about this cruise already but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

The cabin was a bit small but comfortable and with a window. She’d wanted a balcony but Noah had insisted it wouldn’t be necessary. When her luggage arrived in the room, she tucked away all the clothes in the bureaus and closet and then went up on deck to watch the other passengers board the ship. 

She was appalled! They were real animals! Some were hairy and loud. Some were rather large and clumsy. Others, well, it was just not the kind of company she’d expected to have dinner with in the dining room.

Mrs. Noah sighed and took out the book she brought to read, found a deck chair and then slathered on her sun block. She sat back and closed her eyes to enjoy a few rays of sun only to be interrupted by her husband.

           “What are you doing?” he asked.

           “I’m relaxing a bit,” she told him. “I think I’ve earned a little rest and relaxation after all this ship building.”

           “I think you’ll want to get your rain gear out,” he told her.

           “Rain gear? What are you talking about? The sun’s out. I want to get a tan.”

           Noah took her to the side railing. “Honey, take a look out there. Do you see any water?”

Mrs. Noah looked out on a dry sandy soil. There wasn’t even a backyard creek running through the yard. Now she realized what had been bothering her. How do you cruise on a ship when there’s no water? 

           “What kind of a ship is this if there’s no water to cruise on?” she asked Noah.

           “It’s an ark. God’s gonna provide all the water we need and we’re going to save all the animals of the world and have a wonderful cruise as well. You did remember to bring your sense of adventure, right?”

[Now when anyone tells you to bring your sense of adventure on a trip, you know you’re in for an unusual adventure. Trust me on this. That’s what our cruise company told us when we were going to China. It truly was a unique adventure. ]

Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part I
Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part III

Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part I

How many of you have ever said, “I’m waiting for my ship to come in?” I used to hear that term a lot when I was growing up. Every time my dad was dreaming of getting something big or doing something he’d always dreamed of, he would say he had to wait for his ship to come in.

Have you ever wondered what that ship would look like? Perhaps a big yacht? Or an oil freighter? Or maybe a cruise ship?

I think Noah’s wife was thinking cruise ship when Noah started talking about his ship coming in. Mrs. Noah, was probably very excited when she heard her husband talking about a cruise—a forty day cruise no less! I can see her sitting at her kitchen table, sipping coffee and turning pages of the latest cruise brochure.  Dreaming of exotic ports of call, warm sandy beaches, chilled fruit smoothies.

And then Noah handed her a hammer and said he needed her help building the ship.

Well, wives are pretty resilient. And I’m sure Mrs. Noah after a bit of negotiating with Noah, decided it was better to help build the ship than to not get to cruise at all. The ship began to take shape and of course, then she had to endure all the gossip about what was going on in their backyard. She took to telling people in the grocery store that her ship had come in—it was just in pieces and they had to put it together.

[Thankful I've never had to build my own cruise ship. But wait! The story gets even better.]

Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part II
Mrs. Noah's Cruise - Part III