The last day of Autumn was a perfect transition into Winter. It was the kind of snow day I dream of all year long. The sky was overcast, layers of different shades of grey. There wasn’t a patch of blue to be found. Just a fluffy, cozy comforter laid over the Earth as far as your eye could see. It was warm enough to snow, and just cold enough to keep it snow. No chilling winds to guard against; no slushy messes to slide through.
It was a good day.
❤️
Well, here’s another post I didn’t have the courage to post. I wrote this on the 1st Anniversary of the Historian going away. I don’t talk to my sister in Heaven, but on that day I just wanted to pretend she wasn’t really gone.
Today happens to be the second anniversary of her leaving, so maybe it’s a good day to post this—unfinished. Seems appropriate.
Well, I’m already crying, before I even get to my laptop. It was a year ago today (it’s still October 8th for me) that I last saw your smiling face. Any idea when we might see you, again? Are there any indications there? I know you can’t tell me, but I’m curious. There must have been some commotion when people heard about Israel. Oh, I wish we could talk about that. Honestly, I had such an urge to just go to Israel and do anything I could to help and serve. If only I really was a Jewish grandmother. I have recently been learning about Golda Meir and I am disappointed by her being a secular Jew with questionable morals, but what an incredible person. Served the cause of Israel for almost her entire life. Anyway, the situation there is very upsetting. I know we would have been on the phone with each other in the middle of that night.
Since it’s been quite awhile since we last spoke, I thought I’d share a little update. It has really been an incredible 12 months. I can’t believe you missed it. So, should I start now and go back in time, or vice-versa? I guess I’ll try to start in the past and move forward. There’s a lot I’ll probably skip, though. In fact, let’s skip ahead to the kids acting in their first play.
They were amazing! The whole play was wonderful. Doug wrote an original song for it and composed the background music.. It was so beautiful. The kids were all wonderful and it was absolutely the best thing I got to do in 2022. If I could, I would do nothing but make theatre with children. Teach them about Jesus, and make theatre. I don’t think I’m great with kids, but I do love them a lot. That’s why I eventually gave my notice, because I knew I didn’t have the gentleness children need. Plus, I must look like a monster to them. It’s one thing to be fat and short, but fat and tall is terrifying. And, then I have this face that defaults to dead stare, because there’s always 501 concerns swimming in my brain. I really did believe the program was doing so well that I could help the next person in line, but…oh, well.
To step back to December for a minute, I did have another bout with the new cold in town. I will spare you the details, but I was out for three weeks. Pure will power dragged me out of bed for the New Year’s Day service.
It was on News Year’s Day I finally understood Doug’s vision for Wayfarers’ Lodge. My eyes opened and I just knew it was going to happen this year. Of course, what it ended up being was not what I thought I understood it to be, which is kind of bizarre. Actually, it’s just God. If He had shown me with the shadows and fog, I’d have balked. Oh, man. The whole Wayfarers’ journey. I don’t know if I can really give that the time and attention it deserves. I mean, that journey was quite twisty-turney.
Just want to insert here that the Holy Spirit, in February, showed me that June and September would both be significant months. Now, what I thought would happen in June did happen, but also something very much more than expected. What I thought would happen in September was right on—that was the beginning of WL. Of course, I didn’t know Wayfarers’ was going to be a church, and whatever I did think it would be up until early August I stopped believing would begin in September. Does this make sense? I mean, it does make sense, but I know I’m not communicating it very well. I am not a very good communicator, as you know.
So, let’s jump ahead to March. Just as the Holy Spirit had shown me, this was a month of shock and horror. What I saw were five blueprints. February and March were just confusing. Darkness, Chaos. April and May looked like a train. And, June was a building, which I first thought meant a building, but realized it meant completion, like the building is completed.
June is also when we drove across country. Incredible experience. There were some really weird things going on with me and Doug that God was very displeased about, and He made that clear to us in those first days. It was a really interesting month. Such a time of correction. Revelation. Surrender. God is doing all this stuff—speaking prophetically to Doug, teaching us about faith, revealing our lack of faith, answering prayer—and, through it all is this ongoing conversation about Wayfarers’. Oh, my goodness!
So, July and August were
One of my purposes for Blogtober 2024 has been to go through my drafts file and publish posts that are just sitting there ignored. Incomplete.
So, here’s one I wrote two years ago on June 7. I briefly published it, but then took it down. It was just a thought that I spit out into my phone and threw onto the draft pile of my blog. I have added a little, since recent experiences in my life brought fresh perspective.
SEEING CHRIST
We don’t always recognize Christ in our circumstances, but if Christ lives in us, He is definitely with us in every case—in our sorrow, pain, unrest, and turmoil. He is with us in our illness, our brokenness, our loneliness, and our desert places.
No, He isn’t the source, and He hasn’t caused that circumstance. He isn’t there to watch and see how we handle this horrible situation— we are not lab rats. He is with us in our trouble, because He promised to never leave us!
For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5a
Our faith challenge is to find Him, wave away the smoke (I call that worship), and keep our focus on Him and not our circumstances.
If we will keep our eyes on Him and follow Him closely (I call that repenting, obeying, and believing), He will not only keep us, but lead us to safety, wholeness, peace, and rest. We will walk in His favor in spite of feeling His hand must have been lifted from us, because we are facing such a time of suffering.
One day, I may write about the past four months and the moments when I was able to recognize Christ with me, but right now I just want to encourage you. I want you to know that in whatever situation you find yourself, Christ is there. And He is not there to be an observer, as I mentioned before, but to walk with you through this hardship.
If you call out to Him and are willing to trust Him to help you through, you will find yourself walking closer to Him than ever before, and truly knowing Him as Friend.
There is no formula here, OK? I’m not gonna give you three steps or five declarations. Just call out for help. Put yourself in remembrance of God’s Word. Believe with all your heart that His Word is true. It is, dear friend. It really is true. Today may not be the day you will understand everything that is happening, but you can still know that He is with you. Please, reach out to Jesus.
❤️
(I wrote this a long time ago, but never published it. Why? Well, that’s for another blog post. In any case, I’m publishing it today. And, I am publishing it without editing or second-guessing or yielding to my insecurities. So, typos and all, here it is for now. Maybe, one day I’ll come back and edit it and make it better.)
I sat down with a woman years ago. She had discovered that her husband was visiting prostitutes. She knew he had returned to drinking, but it was the prostitutes that had brought her to the point that she finally reached out for help.
That’s pretty typical. Wives will put up with a lot of bad behavior, even helping keep their husband’s secret sin a secret, until finally their husband just goes too far. Things get out of hand. “It was one thing when he would do XYZ, but now he’s not doing ABC and I think he might be doing LMNOP. I don’t know what’s going on. I just can’t take it anymore.“
So, back to my question: why do women put up with their husband’s bad behavior at all? Well, what I have heard from wives over and over is that they believe their only option is to endure: don’t complain, submit, hold your tongue. If they do a good enough job of suffering in silence, God will finally award them with a godly husband by whatever means necessary, including divorce. Mind you, they don’t know that’s what they believe; they would never confess that with their mouth. Yet, it’s true: too many women are believing that God is going to honor their passivity. God couldn’t possibly be expecting them to do something about their husband’s error or wrong inclinations. They believe thy just have to keep praying for God to help them endure.
That’s the first mistake Christian wives make. I don’t fault them, though. Most Christian women have not been spiritually equipped for marriage. I don’t know if that’s because it takes a lot of work to teach spiritual truths, or if it’s because – well, no. That’s why. Discipling humans is hard work, and churches just aren’t doing it. If a woman isn’t blessed to have a Titus 2 Woman in her life, she’s in trouble. Satan will be sure her ears are filled with every manner of secular humanist thought out there, counseling her right out of her marriage and her faith.
Is there a place for long-suffering? Absolutely! This is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in our life. Just remember that long-suffering is patience, which in this scenario I think we can define as an evidence of our faith in God’s unfinished work. It is a spiritual condition. Instead of walking in patient faith in God, though, wives are white-knuckling their way through a little bit of Hell on Earth.
This is what I think happens to the godly wife full of every good intention towards her husband, whose faith is being worn down with his every transgression: she begins to tolerate his sin. Tolerance is easily mistaken for patience, aka long-suffering. We tolerate his coming home late; we tolerate his ignoring calls or texts; we tolerate his temper or offensive language. We tolerate his making place for boozing and using. We tolerate his unloving attitudes and behaviors. We tolerate his not attending family gatherings, or his skipping church, or his not serving God. Then, before we know it, sin has taken root and established itself in our husband’s life, and consequently in our marriage and family.
Knowing your Christian husband is making wrong choices and not holding him accountable to the Word of God for those choices is the wrong kind of silence. That is not iron sharpening iron. That is not Galatians 6:2. It might make life easier for you in the moment, but in the long run that little transgression (it was just one drink, it was just one look, it was just one time, etc.) will lead him to the brink of spiritual death and your marriage and family to utter destruction.
For the record: a man who confesses Christ is Lord is a Christian. You should not be making allowances for any of the baggage (spiritual, emotional, or otherwise) that he brings with him to your marriage – or picks up after his, “I do.” There is no excuse for sin. Trauma or temperament or lifelong habits may be the cause of his struggle, but they are not to be accepted as a permission slip for sin. Unrepentant sin should have no place in a Christian’s life.
Yes, men have free will and they can choose to reject exhortation, accountability, or correction. However, we must not decide the end of his story. Who are we to determine God is done with him?
NO. As long as there is breath, there is hope. So, he’s rebellious to truth. Okay. That’s very bad! However, as a wife we still have a spiritual influence in our husband’s life. We exercise that influence in the spirit, through prayer and standing in the gap. We commit to intercede for him, because that’s what be a godly wife means. Through our tears, we call out to the Father for mercy. In our heartache, we believe by faith every promise of deliverance the Word has given. We cast off fear in the name of Jesus, and put on a garment of praise.
Thank God for God. Thank God for the Holy Spirit and His kind and loving ministry to our broken hearts. Thank God for tiny mustard-size seeds of faith that cannot be denied. Thank God for prophetic words received over the years, but never understood until that moment when we needed them, when the Holy Spirit suddenly opens our eyes to see that not only was He calling us to a deeper faith and great intimacy with Him, but that He had gone ahead, before we ever knew we would marry this man, and had made provision for the loving support and godly friendship we would need in this hard place. Just look around. Reach out to them.
For me, I didn’t think I could possibly take one more emotional hit, yet here was the Holy Spirit teaching me that in my place of greatest pain, it was still not about me. My marriage wasn’t about having a good husband, but about being a good wife. When it was the hardest, if I would yield my will to God’s and allow the Holy Spirit to use me as my husband’s help meet (a spiritual calling on every wife, FYI), He would meet me in that place and give me all I needed.
Make your requests known to God. Think on those things that glorify God. Have faith for the unbelievable and impossible. Being a biblical wife to a spiritually high maintenance man is very hard. At times you feel crushed under the weight of that calling—and, I am convinced it is a calling. The unrepentant husband will tax you heavily, but remember that your prayers for him are for God to be Master, Lord, and Savior. He is willful and continue to reject the truth, but God is on your side. Make your requests known. Stop him, God! Convict him, Holy Spirit! Have mercy on him! Forgive him! Spare him! Save him!
Don’t stop praying. Ask the Holy Spirit how to pray for him! Pray in the Spirit over him. Reject whatsoever things are unlovely and untrue. Banish the lies of Satan from your mind and remember that Fear is a wicked spirit.
Read Philippians 4.
Forgive him. Again. And, again. There is so much spiritual power in forgiveness!
Love him. Be the hands of Christ whenever you touch him. Bless him that curses you. Do good to those that despitefully use you.
Speak truth out loud, because faith comes by hearing—you’re talking to yourself!
If you need prayer, but have no one else to go to, I will pray for you.
Remember, the Holy Spirit is your Comfort and your Help. Depend on Him. He will be there for you. When I had no one to confide in, no one who still had faith or hope for my husband, the Holy Spirit was there. Bless the Lord!
❤️
I pulled an all-nighter,
listening to IHOP-KC,
when I received a notification.
The BBC.
I stopped to check it.
Israel invaded.
Israel invaded?
Suddenly, everything changed.
The atmosphere was different.
I felt it in my spirit.
Time would be measured
Differently
Now.
What really mattered changed forever.
What was I reading,
seeing,
hearing?
It took me time to process
what I was seeing…
live footage from the invaders.
The captors.
The demons.
How could they do this?
Where was the IDF?
How did they get in?
Her face!
Noa’s face.
I watched her abduction
over and over.
How were they getting
away with this?
So many questions.
Yet,
in this year
we have seen
the miraculous
hand of God
intervene
again and again.
Incredible.
Impossible.
But, God.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
🕊️
This morning, I have been looking for a Christmas poem for HopeMail’s Christmas card and came across this pretty poem. It really struck a cord in me. It’s not the right poem for HopeMail, but it does set my heart and mind on Christmas.
Helen Maria Williams lived from 1761 until 1829. She was born in London, but most of her life was lived in France. She was a political activist and supported the revolutionists. At one point she was imprisoned by Napoleon for her political writing, and I wonder if that is when she received this Christmas Cake. I don’t know who Mrs. K is, but she certainly chose her gift well—it inspired this lovely, sentimental verse.
by Helen Maria Williams
What crowding thoughts around me wake,
What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!
I’m about a week behind schedule, but that’s OK. Back dating my posts will be just fine for me, until I catch up. Hope you’ll join us and tag me!
Just wanted to share this version of The Solid Rock, recorded by my husband, Doug Gregan.
The song was written by Edward Mote, circa 1834, before there even were saxophones, but Doug does a beautiful job integrating his horn into this powerful hymn. William B. Bradbury composed the music in 1863, according to the HymnTime.com website.
Below are the lyrics, if you’re inclined to sing along.
THE SOLID ROCK
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ name.
Refrain
On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
Refrain
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
Refrain
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
Refrain
Click to hear The Solid Rock on Sound Cloud.
The Solid Rock with Doug Gregan on saxophone and keyboard. There are three versions, and this is the first.
I hope you are blessed. It brings peace to my soul.
❤️
“Oh!”
She had just opened her phone to reply to a text.
“I only saw this now. I’m so sorry.” His voice doesn’t sound normal. She starts to reply to the message, as he calls out to her from the other room. “T was found unresponsive in his apartment!” Emotion is filling his voice.
Her first thought, the first words that come out of her mouth: “Is he okay? Where is he?” She is running down a mental checklist of what they will need to take with them to the hospital, but suddenly realizes what unresponsive means. Now, her mind is flooded. Thoughts race into her consciousness. The computer crashes. T is dead?
Reboot and reload and thoughts and images and words and sounds and so many memories fill up the screen. Tears explode. Questions. So many questions. Who wrote you? Who’s that? How do they know? What time did it happen? Do the girls know? Who are your writing? How could this happen?
“I should write J.”
Just then, J calls. Wanted to make sure they knew. too. He’s weeping. They’re all weeping. She begins to realize how many people are hurting right now—how many people his life touched. How could this happen?
The weight of grief falls so instantly. Grasping the size of this loss is impossible. There was no preparation for this, no opportunity to prepare for how bad it would feel. How could this happen?
God is on everyone’s mind. His sovereignty. His mercy. His kindness. God knows the worth of a life, the impact. The thoughts just keep coming. His first time at The Farm. The light in his eyes each time he mentions his girls. The tears that flow when he tells of God’s goodness. Or, when he mourns those who are still lost in their brokenness and sin. How could this happen?
Emails and text messages, carefully worded, fly away to the ones who will want to know. Their hearts are not prepared to be broken, and words cannot relieve the pain they are about to feel. All week long it’s, “Did you tell…? What about…? Does…know?”
Tears stop and start suddenly. Sleepless nights roll into one long state of unbelief. His best friend. How could this happen?
-cg
Please, click to read about Tom. He should be known and remembered.
Feeling a little nostalgic today, so I’m blogging old school style. Remember that kind of blogging? No one was trying to make money or get a book a deal. People were just connecting to people who shared something in common with them: they liked to put their thoughts and feelings into words. Eventually, you found yourself returning to the pages where you had a little more in common with a person, and then settled in with the people you decided you liked – and they liked you, too. It was a world of its own, and I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I’m glad I’m still connected with some of those blogging friends, and they’ve now become real friends. That’s pretty cool.
What’d I tell you. I’m feeling nostalgic. Everything has a little halo around it.
So, how did I find myself here? Well, it was kind of weird and unexpected. John Stamos has published a memoir, so he’s all over Instagram, pumping out lots of reels to promote himself. One of those reels fell into my feed, and I ended up looking at his posts.
Now, you have to understand something about John Stamos. He lived in my husband’s neighborhood. So, in my mind that associates him forever with Southern California, specifically the neighborhood where my husband grew-up. That means memories of the first time I met his folks, and we watched that weird John Irving movie with Robin Williams together. It means memories of the last time I saw Doug before Boston, and I really thought it was really the last time I’d ever see him.
It reminds me of the incredibly awkward Christmas evening the future in-laws spent with their future daughter-in-law, alone, when she gave them the stupidest gift in the history of future daughter-in-law gifts. It’s so embarrassing that I can’t even tell you.
It reminds me of the drive to their place from my apartment in Long Beach—that wonderful California Bungalow design is probably still my favorite. And, when I think about that apartment I think about Doug dropping me off and sitting outside talking. What did we talk about then?
That’s when we sat in his car so long I ran in and grabbed a blanket, because it got cold. No, of course, I didn’t invite him to come inside. Never even crossed my mind. It was too much fun to sit together in his dumb little car.
We fell in love in that dumb car. We fell in love over Rocko’s Broccoli-Cheese Soup. We fell in love over a cases of 20# paper and a Xerox 9500. We fell in love over slices from Pizzamania. We fell in love over long-distance phone calls between Boston and Long Beach. I did see him, again.
As I sit at my laptop here, looking around this spare room of ours, I see so much evidence of who we are today, and who were back then. He’s pretty focused: saxophones, keyboards, his laptop and recording gear, HopeMail envelopes everywhere. Shelves of Bibles and overheads and instrument stands stuck here and there. A slide whistle. And, I’m all over the place. Baskets, balloons, and bin. Art I wish I had more wall space to hang. Sewing. Baptismal robes. Stacks of letters from inmates I want to write back. Mementos. Craft supplies. Christmas gifts. Paper in so many forms. Surprises. NBF work. Bins of bins.
Anyway, as I was thinking about John Stamos and the way he talked about his marriage to his first wife, I got really sad. Apparently he had a lot of issues in their relationship and was very angry at her after the divorce. I watched two clips of him talking about her, and there’s this hurt still there. I guess he had to come up with a resolution to his feelings, though, so in the two different clips he blamed himself for not focusing more on his career during their marriage. He said that’s why the marriage failed. That’s a stupid answer. And, he looks uncomfortable saying it. It’s like, dude, you know you’re lying, and we know it, too. But, the truth slips out in between his twitching and grimacing: he was ready to have a family. He’d achieved as much fame as he needed, and wanted babies now. She, on the other hand, was a star on the rise. She didn’t want babies. She didn’t want to be a wife and mother, yet. He still resents her for that. I am forced to believe he actually really loved her. That made me sad. He’s married now to a little girl who gave me the son he should have had 30 years ago. He struggles to say that famous line people always say when they have regrets, but want to sound like they don’t: “It was all meant to be.”
Like cheese fries.
So, I look around at this room that I used to be ashamed of people seeing – so messy, right? I must be a flawed person. As Snoopy would say, “Blech.” Give me a break. I do a lot of stuff and I live in an 800-square-foot apartment. I love this room. It’s where I meet with God. My desk and chair and laptop work best together right in this spot. I love looking across the desk at my husband doing his thing. Wayfarers’ legit started in this room. It’s all good. It’s our life. It’s who we were 35 years ago amplified by time and God’s goodness. Did I mention the dried flowers? My mother-in-law’s knitting basket? This is what making a life looks like. It’s not messy: it’s full. It’s beautiful. It’s touched with the unexpected sticky note on the wall from a grandbaby. I Love You.
It’s a good life.
A life touched by God’s grace,
A life preserved by God’s mercy.
When I fell in love with Doug, I didn’t know what that would mean. John’s (I think we should be on a a first-name basis by this point) book is called, If You Would Have Told Me. Can’t we all say that about our lives? I mean, what is this life? What is this kind of goodness called? I know life could have taken other turns. There were so many times we could have disobeyed God. Well, I mean, there were so many times we did. I think God gave us just enough chances: infinite. Every day, twelves times a day, and twelve times more.
I’ve told Doug recently that I do believe there are some things that could have been better—gone better—if we’d obeyed sooner. It was not all meant to be, John. God didn’t require all that pain and sin and stress and whatever. We could have made better choices financially, when he was working a “real” job. We could have exercised more. We could have prayed so much more and turned off the TV a lot sooner and put away vain ambitions earlier. I would have gladly skipped all my nonsense years, when I let the Enemy get such a stronghold. So much vanity.
God hears those prayers, though. Those desperate prayers we cry out to Him, those prayer promises we make to Him—vows we can never keep, but sometimes we really mean them.
He looks down on us with mercy, too. He knows what we’re made of, where we came from, how strong (or weak) a stuff we’re made of, and He has compassion on us. I know He had compassion on me.
It was January, 1988. Doug’s grandfather had passed away and he had to go to Arizona for the funeral. It was just a few days, but it felt so long. No cell phones in those days, remember? No text messages, no photos on social media, no long-distance phone calls. And, we were just friends, of course. Co-workers. Hadn’t he just flirted shamelssly with what’s-her-name at the Christmas party, and bought his girlfriend a leather jacket? He didn’t call her as soon as he got back into town, though. “Can we meet at Pizzamania?” He was full of thoughts. Those shorts and his sneakers and his dad’s old button-down. His grandfather Marty was on his mind. He was struck by how much his faith was a part of his life. He admired it, but God had no place in his life. “Would you ever marry a man who didn’t believe in God?”
Well, he believed by the time he proposed. A little baby faith, but I sure wasn’t a faith giant. My faith was more about my religion in those days. I had “a few” things to learn—have to be kind to young dumb Caroline, after all. Can’t hold too many things against her, now that she’s old and decrepit. I mean, it took her long time to learn to pray and recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit and discover that spiritual accountability she had to her husband and that money wasn’t security but security was spiritual intimacy with God.
How did we get here? Was it something about John Stamos? Was it Sunday mornings at home, because we have church on Saturday evening? Was it remembering those days in sunny Southern California that led us to a crooked little house in Massachusetts? Was it thoughts of cups of coffee with my husband and maybe a fritter from down the street? Ah…that makes me remember Winchell’s.
Have nice day, everyone.
❤
P.S. Didn’t edit this. Refused. “Let the mistakes prove it’s real, ” she said with a wry smile.
The Saxophone Player's Wife 