She Chose Life for Me!!

World Adoption Day is coming up on Monday, November 9th and I want to thank a woman I never got to meet. 

I need to thank my birth mom for giving me life. Many of you know that I’m adopted. My birth mom was Elizabeth Madge Osmond. She had other options after discovering she was pregnant with me, but she chose life and adoption for me. I am SO very grateful for that. She passed away in the summer of 2018, and I feel a loss for someone I never got to meet. 

You can likely guess that I am pro life and you would be right. Every life is precious and we are all made in the image of God. 

At Christmas of 2019, my oldest daughter, Nicole, reached out to my half brother Sam and basically said, “I think my dad is your brother”. As it turns out I was a HUGE surprise to the family that she had kept for 55 years (and she was known for not being able to keep a secret). As Sam informed Jill, my sister, she had to sit down as it was quite a shock. Jill started contacting my uncles to see if anyone might have known something. As it would turn out there was in fact some knowledge about me within the family.

There are no secrets, just delayed knowledge. 

Since then, I have grown to love this new family of mine. They have shown me great grace and taken me in as one of their own (which I am). It is fantastic to find some people that I look like. At 6’2″ I am actually average height for a man in the Osmond family. That’s both weird and cool at the same time. 

I became the impetus to start a regular video chat with the cousins on the first and third Sunday evenings of each month. First to introduce me, now to build community with family. We cross five time zones in Canada and the USA. And we’re planning a family get-together/reunion next summer in Pictou, Nova Scotia. 

I have been writing about adoption around the World Adoption Day for  few years now. If you want to read any of those other blogs, you can check them out on the Widjiitiwin.ca website. 

God’s Goodness in Pain & Suffering

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 

This verse doesn’t mean all things will be good. No matter how rose-colored our glasses are, there’s nothing good about cancer, sex trafficking, the Covid-19 pandemic, or death. Until Jesus returns and conquers Satan once and for all, sin will continue to drag its poisonous tentacles across our world, damaging and destroying everything in its wake.

The truth of Romans 8:28 reminds us that although sin and Satan are powerful, God is more powerful; He is able to redeem and restore anything for our good and his glory. All things may not be good, but God can and will use all things for good.

Crucially, though, this promise is limited to “those who love God,” and “those who are called according to His purpose.”

And, don’t miss Romans 8:29 – “For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”. The “good” God has promised his children is to conform them to the image of Christ, for the purpose of bringing himself glory.

A wise Bible teacher once said, “God allows everything into our lives for one of two purposes—either to bring us into a relationship with himself or, if we already know him, to make us more like His Son.”

The last paragraph (from The Shack) is a helpful way in looking at God’s goodness and pain/suffering.

“Just because I work incredible good out of an unspeakable tragedies doesn’t it means I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that me using something means I caused it or that I needed to accomplish my purpose. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering your find grace in many facets and colours.”

Joni Eareckson Tada said, “God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.” There is no greater evidence of this than the cross of Jesus Christ. God permitted what he hates–the sacrifice of his Son–to accomplish what he loves–salvation for all who will put their trust in him.“

Randy Alcorn said, “Good Friday isn’t called bad Friday because we see it in retrospect: We know that out of the appalling bad came inexpressible good. And that good trumps the bad. Although the bad was temporary, the good was eternal. If someone had delivered Jesus from his suffering, Jesus could not have delivered us from ours.“

Adrian Rogers said, “In the chemistry of the cross God takes things that, in and of themselves, are bad, and He puts them together, much as a chemist might take chemicals that, in and of themselves, may be deleterious and mixes them to make a medicine that brings healing. The good is not to make us necessarily healthy or happy but to make us holy, to make us like Jesus.” 

Remember and Return

photo of a MasterCard“Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.” – A.W. Tozer

Give Thanks for the Gifts of God

ThankfulEvery good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change – James 1:17. What are you thankful for this year? Here’s my list. 

Learning How To Lose

Failure is not optional because we certainly don’t always win.

“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.”  Wilma Rudolph

So often in our culture today we don’t teach our children how to lose. And how to get back up again after they do lose. And how to lose graciously. Part of the problem with always giving everyone a participation ribbon is that once they leave high school, the world, college and university don’t function like that. We have to make it on our own merit. Learning how to lose builds resiliency! 

So much depends on our attitude in losing. I may just be waxing on here about “find the silver lining” but isn’t there something almost comforting about knowing how big the sandbox is you get to play in?

So, take a look around at the things that cannot be changed and instead of just accepting them and moving on, try to look for some of the value in the clarity that the unchangeable gives. 

“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” Allen Klein

New leaders need an environment where they can fail and get back up again. We practice this with our Skills And Leadership Training program. We call it “Failing with Dignity“. Our SALTers have the opportunity to learn lots during their time at Widji and part of that is in the third week of the program they participate with the campers in leading cabin devotions, leading in chapel and camp games. We want them to try out their leadership in a safe environment. Camp offers that opportunity to be coached & grow in new skills. 

Fall down seven times, get up eight. Japanese proverb. Don’t get stuck in “I wish it wasn’t like this” thoughts. Get BACK Up!!

Cooking with Moose: Apple Pie Jam

apple pie jam on toastSummer has turned to fall. The autumn leaves are changing into beautiful colours and falling to the ground. It will soon be Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. To celebrate the season, enjoy a taste of fall as the apple harvest is in full swing. 

A new recipe from Moose’s family cookbook, “That Tastes Like Home”. This one came from a friend, Ruth Greenleaf. Today’s recipe: Apple Pie Jam 

Ingredients

  • 1 lb tart apples (3 cups) 
  • 4 ½ cups sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp nutmeg
  • 1 box pectin

Directions

  • Wash and pre-heat jars
  • Peel, core and chop apples, place in large pot
  • Add water, lemon juice, spices and pectin
  • Stir on high heat until boiling
  • Boil hard 1 minute, remove from heat & add sugar
  • Return to full boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly
  • Remove from heat, skim foam, stirring for 5 minutes
  • Ladle into hot jars, attach lids, let sit until they seal (lids pop down) 
  • Place in boiling water canner for 10-15 minutes (optional)

Also makes an amazing ice cream topping!

Enjoy!!

Is Your Spiritual Reservoir Full?

Derwent Reservoir, Derbyshire, England

It’s important to keep your spiritual reservoir full. How are you doing with that? Need a little help or motivation? This is true especially when you are part of the spiritual feeding of others. 

Spiritual Disciplines

  • Bible reading, try a daily reading plan. Just four chapters a day will get you though the Bible in a year. 
  • Prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and petitions; for loved ones, often these need to be ongoing.
  • Fellowship with fellow Christians, at church, small group, at work, Bible study, neighbours
  • Having a spiritual mentor, someone who is ahead of you on their journey with God and can offer prayer and spiritual encouragement
  • Personal devotions, daily as best as possible 
  • Being in God’s creation; nature has a way to show us the God through His creation. Sitting in the middle of the woods listening to the wind in the trees waiting on God. 
  • Having a grateful heart attitude for all that God has given each of us. 
  • Meditation on God’s Word
  • Reflection on the person and work of Jesus. Remember that the God of the universe came down from heaven, became human, bled and died on the cross for our salvation. 

Discipline, Desire & Delight

These are stages of our seeking God. It takes work. You need a plan. Life is SO busy that you can’t just happen into it. You need something that triggers a response in you. But you don’t want to – it’s easier to act you way into a new way of feeling than feel your way into a new way of acting.

The 5 Ones by Faith Baptist Muskoka – read more here

  1. WORD: One-On-One Time I Spend With God Each Day
  2. WORSHIP: One Worship Service I Attend Each Week
  3. GROUP: One Group I Attend Regularly
  4. SERVE: One Ministry I Serve In Regularly
  5. REACH: One Friend I Reach For Christ

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What Makes You Marvel?

NASA's Cosmic 'Winter' Wonderland; Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
NASA’s Cosmic ‘Winter’ Wonderland; Chandra X-ray Observatory Center

What makes you marvel? To marvel by definition means: 

  • To be filled with wonder or astonishment or admiration.
  • A wonderful or astonishing person or thing. 
  • Things that make you say WOW!

Things that make me marvel… 

  • The Grand Canyon (the first sight literally stopped me in my tracks) 
  • An amazing multi-coloured sunset (especially if it has purple in it)
  • When each of my kids and grand-kids were born
  • Magicians & illusionists (I want to know how they do those tricks that make me see or not see what I’m looking at)
  • The sun shining through dark clouds 
  • The wondrous colours of trees in the fall in Muskoka
  • The power and force of running water and rain (must be why I like waterfalls) 
  • Being on a cruise and looking out at only ocean (made me feel very small) 
  • Pictures of far out galaxies and stars like the one pictured right
  • People who can work with mechanical machines. If it’s not wood, I’m out. 
  • The architecture of old buildings and how they were created with hand tools, winches and leverage
  • Movie special effects (insert Marvel, Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Disney, Star Wars, etc.) 

***Here’s the thing that causes me to marvel the most. I am amazed and astonished that the God of the universe would even care about man, but that he would come down to earth, put on flesh as a man, live, be crucified and die for us taking our sins on His body, be forsaken by the Father and on the third day be raised to life to give us salvation and everlasting life. AND – Jesus loves me. Me!! With all my faults and sin. And He loves you too.

Marvel, ponder, wonder and meditate on that for a while this week. 

The Conscious Water Saw Its Master & Blushed

Ravi Zacharius says, “A word is worth a thousand pictures, try to draw this… 

Capturing the beauty of Jesus’ first miracle or sign, the conversion of the water into wine (John 2:1-11), the poet Alexander Pope said, “The conscious water saw its Master and blushed.” That sublime description could be reworked to explain each one of the miracles of Jesus.

Was it any different in principle for a broken body to mend at the command of its Maker? Was it far-fetched for the Creator of the universe, who fashioned matter out of nothing, to multiply bread for the crowd? Was it not within the power of the One who called all the molecules into existence to interlock them that they might bear His footsteps? How could it be inconceivable for God who breathed life in Adam to raise Lazarus? 

Why did Jesus come to Earth before the invention of photography and video? Couldn’t He have reached more people if everyone could see Him? After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Another time, when Christ calmed a storm with the words, “Quiet! Be still,” His stunned disciples asked, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:39, 41). Later, Jesus told the Pharisees that if the crowd did not praise Him, “the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40). Even the rocks know who He is.

John tells us, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory” (John 1:14). Out of that eyewitness experience John also wrote, “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen… He is the Word of life” (1 John 1:1 NLT). Like John, we can use our words to introduce others to Jesus whom wind and water obey.

The seven signs in John’s Gospel record. 

  1. Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1-11 – “the first of the signs”
  2. Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54
  3. Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-15
  4. Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14
  5. Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-24
  6. Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7
  7. The raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45

Of course the greatest sign is the resurrection of Jesus on the third day!!

God’s People; a Beautify Tapestry – The Church

We, as God’s people, form a beautify tapestry, called the church.
When we are properly woven together by God as one, we form the tapestry God wants us to be for His Kingdom building purposes. When that happens we will perform like the church and minister to the people who need to hear the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.
    • We are all one body, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
    • We each person or part of the body has their function, 1 Corinthians 12:18 & 19, But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?
    • We each have different spiritual gifts (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12–14 & Ephesians 4) to be used for the betterment of the church
    • Each of us has different personalities, skills and abilities that allow us do the work of the Kingdom of God. 

This shows up at Muskoka Bible Centre in our staff. Each of us has different roles and responsibilities, gifts and talents, personalities and quirks. YET, as John Friesen, MBC’s CEO, recently wrote in his email update, “I certainly take my hat off to our team members who have stepped up and created a robust and yet safe environment for our guests this summer, COVID-19 notwithstanding.” John explains more in the rest of his email. An except is below. 

Over the past year we refined our core values that will also be the key principles for growing resiliency among families. I have seen these values lived out by our team members this season as we have experienced rapid and significant changes starting on March 24, 2020 when businesses were declared closed by the provincial government. Here are some brief examples of how these values were lived out by our team:

  • Christ Centred – our team was unflinching in their commitment to trust God and not operate out of a place of fear. The courage I saw demonstrated by each team member was humbling. Even during our ‘lay off’ season our team members met weekly via zoom to encourage one another and pray together.
  • Growing in Grace – each team member had varying responses to the cover pandemic and I saw our team rally together and show grace and love to those who were more sensitive and cautious regarding the risk of infection. I witnessed team members put their needs aside in an effort to focus on doing the best for the guest experience in the midst of difficult circumstances. That is grace.
  • Walking in Unity – when I asked our year round team last week to describe the team experience these past few months, many stated the word ‘unity’. Our team focused on our common mission of blessing our guests and they put aside individual and department needs in deference to the larger group needs.
  • Engaged in Community – the federal wage subsidy allowed us to bring team members back to work but many were asked to do things that were not connected to their normal work. Our office team began to phone our guests from their homes and pray for the families they called. In total, they called more than 1,000 families to encourage and pray for them and ask if there was anything we could do to help. That is ‘community’. We have so many great stories of God’s goodness that came through these connections.
  • Serving Together – this value is continuing to be lived out as so many of our team members, including our summer students, are working in various departments (not necessarily what they originally signed up for) to make the guest experience a great one! So many team members are crossing department lines in their efforts to serve as ‘one’ team.
  • Stewardship – our team is committed to living ‘within our means’. As hard as it was, each team member carried their share of ‘cost cutting’ beginning back in March. They recognized that our end goal is the long term sustainability of this ministry for the Kingdom and they, without grumbling, accepted the measures taken to ensure that could happen. Many offered to volunteer even while they were on layoff or reduced work hours. We have a team that values being faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

I don’t share these things to boast (although I would not be wrong to boast about the great year round and seasonal team God has given us this year). I do this to let you be encouraged as you see our core values lived out amongst our own team. These are the same core values and principles that we want to encourage you to take on as a family. We firmly believe that as we grow in living out these values we will grow in our resiliency to face adversity. And we do know that adversity is coming to the Church in ever increasing measure.

By God’s grace, we can stand together and face the uncertainty of the future and we believe that these basic values can help do that. As a family. As a Church. To the glory of God.