Picnics on the hill

There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. . . . When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. – John 14:2-3 (NLT)

“It doesn’t get any better than this. This is what heaven’s going to be like.”

I’ve never forgotten those words uttered by our friend Sam while we were sitting around a campfire on Benson Hill. That was back in our camping days, when the kids were still with us and family vacations were spent at campgrounds and holiday weekends with the crew on the hilltop outside Punxsutawney. With three kids, we couldn’t afford anything else.

Not that camping on the hill translated “poor.” It was a rich experience in every way.

Picnics on the hill were not only reserved for holiday weekends, but for any time the need was felt to get together, which was frequently. And they were open not only to the Benson clan, headed up by Grandpa Oscar and Grandma Henrietta, but also to friends from the little country church we attended and anyone else they took a shine to—which was just about everyone they met.

The kids played night games—“Capture the Flag” in the dark. And there was always a pot of coffee on the fire and food on the table, a weekend-long covered dish picnic.

We looked forward to the legendary cowboy breakfast, compliments of the many hands that prepared it—scrambled eggs, fried potatoes with onions and peppers, bacon, ham, and toast, all cooked over an open fire. Auntie Kay was famous for her sticky buns—cinnamon rolls slathered with a thick ooze of sweet, sticky icing. Back then we didn’t worry about fat grams and cholesterol and sugar and anything else that could eventually kill you. We just enjoyed eating and being together.

Occasionally the Backwoods, a local men’s quartet, would fill the air and our souls with Southern Gospel music.

One year, in response to the growing number of folks who showed up for picnics on the hill, Sam and Steve, another friend from church, built a three-bay outhouse Sam named “The Steven F. White Memorial Toilets” (after Steve), which he painted across the top.

I never had to worry about my kids. There were plenty of moms who patched up skinned knees, put ice on sprained joints and kissed boos-boos.

Grandma and Grandpa are gone now, and the kids are raising kids of their own. Echoes of laughter and singing no longer ring across the hilltop outside Punxsy. The creaks and groans of aging have caught up with just about all of us.

If I could relive any time of my life, it would be picnics on the hill. We were surrounded with family and friends, folks who loved Jesus and us. Like-minded folks who knew, believed and lived the Bible, who practiced that old-time religion that the world might label “politically incorrect” but never really goes out of vogue.

Ask a hundred people what heaven will be like, and you’ll get a hundred different answers. No dust. No cleaning. All the chocolate I can eat and no worries about gaining weight (I’ll have a new body!) No aches. No pain. No tears. No sadness. No conflict. Only love, joy, peace and rest forever. Whatever we enjoy most in life is what we associate with heaven, whether golf, fishing, family, friends—or picnics on the hill.

What does the Bible say about Heaven? After all, that’s what really matters—what God says about it.

That it’s His home, unimaginably beautiful, and open to all whose names are inscribed in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 21:27). I know my name is there. And I’m looking forward to an eternal picnic on the hill of all hills.

You were right, Sam. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Dear God, thank You for blessing us with picnics on the hill and people who fill our lives with their love—in this world and the next. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read Revelation 21–22

A glimpse of the harvest

Be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. – 1 Corinthians 15:58 (NLT)

It was my first Good News Club, and I was so scared, my hands shook. Surprising for someone who’d spent years as a teacher. But this was different. This was teaching more than grammar, composition, and reading. This was teaching God’s Word and telling 25 boys and girls from my children’s elementary school about Jesus. This had eternal consequences.

I’d attended teachers’ training, studied the lesson, and practiced using the flannel board—and was reminded why I chose secondary education. Manipulating flannel figures at the same time I was talking was a challenge.

Woven into the Bible lesson was the GOSPEL: God loves you, so He sent His Only begotten Son to take away your Sin by shedding His Precious blood on the cross so you can have Eternal life. Won’t you Let Him be your Savior and Lord?

This was the most important part of the lesson, the reason why I hosted and taught this weekly Bible club in my home after school. God had transformed my life, and I wanted to tell these young people about Him so that they could get started on the journey of faith sooner than I did.

At the end of the lesson, I asked the children to close their eyes and bow their heads. Then, to make sure I didn’t forget anything, I read what I’d written out on index cards, which I held with trembling hands behind my Bible.

“If you prayed this prayer and asked Jesus into your heart, will you please raise your hand?” I directed them.

When I dared to look, I was astounded: Nearly every hand was raised! Later, I drew a heart beside those names on my prayer list.

Years passed. My children moved on to high school, and I returned to teaching English. A friend took over the club. Life moved on.

Occasionally I’d take out the tattered prayer list and wonder what happened to those children. Two had met untimely deaths in their teens. I checked the list: Beside their names, a heart. I had no idea where the others were in their relationship with God. I knew how powerful the lure of the world is.

One morning earlier this month, 23 years after I taught that club, I drew my daily Bible verse out of my basket of verses. It was 2 Corinthians 9:6: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

“Lord,” I prayed, “I’ve poured my heart and soul into so much for You. I’ve planted generously, yet I see so little in the way of results.”

The next day I attended a prayer breakfast for the National Day of Prayer. Afterwards, a man approached me.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

His face was familiar. I glanced at his name tag and smiled. He'd been in that Good News Club. “Of course I do.”

“I’ve been wanting to contact you,” he said. “I’m a youth pastor at (a local) church. You gave me a Bible. You planted the seeds.”

It’s hard being a seed planter because you rarely get to see the harvest. Well, God showed me this harvest. And reminded me that my labor for Him is never in vain. Only in eternity will we see the true harvest.

Until then, with God's help, I’ll keep on planting!

Dear God, sometimes You just blow me away! You knew I needed that glimpse of the harvest. Thank you. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read 2 Corinthians 9:6–15

My cookbook treasures

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. – Luke 2:19 (NKJV)

My sister gave me my first cookbook in 1972. I’d just graduated from college, landed my first real job, and set up housekeeping in my very own apartment—much to my mother’s disappointment. Mom wanted me to find a job back home and live with her. My father had died less than a year earlier.

“You won’t have to cook, clean or do laundry,” she said. “Think of the money you’d save on rent.”

I wasn’t even tempted. We were too much alike—independent, I’ll-do-it-myself, stay-out-of-my-way-while-I’m-doing-this kind of women. When I was growing up, all I was allowed to do in her kitchen was make tea and popcorn—and maybe, once in a great while, macaroni and cheese.

So, you see, I didn’t really know how to cook. Hence the cookbook was a perfect graduation gift.

The first time I used it was when I wanted to make hot dogs for supper. Was I supposed to boil them or fry them? Or both? So I pulled out my new (and only) cookbook and looked up “hot dogs.” I found a dozen ways to cook hot dogs, none of which seemed right. But I was too proud to call home, so I chose the simplest recipe: I boiled them for 5 to 8 minutes, wrapped them in slices of cheese and bread, then broiled them. It still wasn’t what I remembered Mom doing, but it was edible.

Betty Crocker and I had only just begun. My next feat was spaghetti sauce, which I had simmering on the old gas range when this really neat guy I’d just met came to my apartment for the first time. I offered him some spaghetti, cautioning him, “This is the first time I’ve ever made it.”

“I was in the service,” he said. “I can eat anything.”

He’s been eating “anything” for 37 years now.

Over time Betty Crocker taught me how to make pie crust, potato salad, biscuits, pancakes, cookies, chicken, lasagna, egg salad, tuna salad . . .

Nearly four decades of use have taken their toll on my cookbook. A giant rubber band holds it together, and keeps its red hardback covers in place and all the stuff stuffed between its pages. The masking tape, now yellowed and dried out, stopped doing the job long ago.

Stuffed between its grease-splattered, stained pages are recipes from other sources—most of which I’ve never used—and probably will never use. But I keep just in case.

And, curiously, cards, notes, and mementoes of my life. Why on earth I saved these in my cookbook, I have no idea. But there, they are—a VBS certificate of recognition between the pancakes and waffles pages; handmade Christmas and Easter cards and decorations; a birthday card to my husband from our youngest, signed “I love you, DaDDy” in his childhood scrawl; a homemade Christmas card from this same son, who, for some reason, signed it with his first and last name; Mother’s Days cards; Father’s Day cards; Valentine’s Day cards; a postcard sent from our oldest when he went to a summer camp, assuring us in faded red pencil that he took his medicine and that he was in better shape than we thought—and that the cooking was bad, but he had two helpings. Another letter from summer camp, this one from our daughter, who told us her dance classes were hard but fun, the showers cold, she loved us “a bunch,” and we could get her address from the “pamflitt.”

Another card from our oldest, again at summer camp, telling us that “I like it up here. I got sick on the frist day.” Also stuffed in the cookbook are directions on how to take care of our grandson when we babysat and a handmade book of “Mother’s Day Promise’s,” one promise per page: “I will always do the trim mowing, the dishes, clean my room, make breakfast on Sundays, and walk the baby.” Only two were marked as done.

Another note from camp from the oldest: “I miss you. Show Dad my tree cabin. P.S. Teel Daivid I love him. P.P.S. Teel Jaime I love her.” An “In Memoriam” card from my brother-in-law’s funeral. A Christmas card from my mother—I think it was the last card she signed and sent before Alzheimer’s got the best of her.

Occasionally when I’m leafing through the cookbook—I have a shelf of them now, but this is the only one that I save stuff in—I’ll come across one of these treasures. I’ll smile softly as I read the words, running my finger across them lightly, then hold it close to my heart, holding back the tears that fill my eyes.

These days, I’m a lot like my cookbook—falling apart on the outside, but on the inside, stuffed with more love and joy than my heart can hold.

Dear God, thank You for my family—they are the key ingredients in the recipe for a life of love. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read Proverbs 31:10-31

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

May Book Giveaway

Nobody ever told me motherhood would be easy. Challenges that mothers face day in and day out are not unique to this time, and modern-day moms have much wisdom to gain from true examples recorded in Scripture.


In Mothers of the Bible Speak to Mothers of Today, you'll meet ordinary women of their day who, by God’s incomparable grace, were used for extraordinary purposes. You'll journey through the lives of such mothers—Eve, Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Salome, Mary, and others. Exploring heart issues such as fear, discontentment, grief, and gratitude, you'll discover solutions through biblical models of prayer, sacrifice, and faithfulness. Each chapter ends with personal application and prayer.


Written by award-winning author Kathi Macias, this book is beautifully designed and makes the perfect gift for a mother on any occasion.

On Saturday, May 30, I'll be giving away one copy of Mothers of the Bible Speak to Mothers of Today. To register your name for the drawing, send your name and email address to michelehuey@yahoo.com. You may enter your name once a week.

Rainy day on Monday

So I took the day to update my Web site:

• New news on the What's New page
• A glowing review of my novel, Before I Die
• Editing services page added
• Sample newspaper unit lesson and worksheet added
• Check my Grammar Goofs page for the difference between nauseous and nauseated--you DON'T want to confuse these words!!!

Check back tomorrow for information about the MAY MOTHER'S DAY BOOK GIVEAWAY!

Your weekly cup of inspiration will be posted later this week.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Until then, Shalom.

May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace (Numbers 6:24-26).