10/11

On October 11th, back in 1965, the world became a better place. I know most folks think of the 60's as tumultuous times, and they were, but truly, the world became a better place because Janie-Lynn Brown was born October 11, 1965. It was a good life. She grew up and gave to the world around her. She gave and gave and gave. She loved God and gave His love to all she came in contact with. 

I know that I sound like I'm memorializing her all over again - we did that back in May of 2010 - but how does one talk about her and not praise her? She was the best of the best.

I thought it would be good, in light of this being her birthday, to post the text of what I shared at her memorial celebration. I hope as you read it, you catch a tone of joy that was there that day as we sent her on her way, so to speak. Yes, there was great sadness - we miss her so much! - but also joy. She was a joyous person...her joy being rooted and grounded in her life with God begun here on earth and now come to fruition as she has been with Christ 'face-to-face' for two and a half years now. 

Thanks to all of you who continue to pray for us - we are truly blessed. I pray you are blessed as we remember Janie this special day.

God In The Shutters

So at least we know who to blame. According to Hubpages.com, it was the Ancient Greeks who invented the window shutter, that HORRIBLE-TO-PAINT device that does nothing but 'decorate' modern houses and make teenaged boys of the 1980's miserable for their entire summer. Obviously, the Spartans had something to do with the invention - to aid in their austere, grueling, cruel training regimens. 

Spartan Drill Sergeant, very loudly: You are to scrape every last bit of paint soldier! I want to see absolutely NO PAINT left on even one louver on that shutter! I want to see two coats of oil base primer on them with absolutely NO DRIPS and I want two gleaming black finish coats of paint on ALL SIXTY FOUR SHUTTERS! Do you understand, maggot?!

Newbie Spartan cadet: Sir, yes sir! Thank you sir may I have another!

Free

Time has traveled on since May 8, 2010. Today is the second anniversary of that awful, amazing day when Janie Booth's family ushered her into the waiting arms of her savior. It's weird trying to recall to my memory every aspect of the day. Parts are so vivid, and I'm sure I'll never forget them; other specifics and details have faded some, which I'm told is normal.

Pastor Dave told me that when you lose a loved one, it seems to take two of all the special days of the year before you really begin to feel more like a normal person again: two birthdays, two wedding anniversaries, two Thanksgivings, two Christmases, and, perhaps most significantly, two anniversaries of the day of their death. I'm not sure how normal I am (I'll leave that to you all to decide haha), but I thought it would be good here on this second anniversary of Janie's home-going, to make a special post.

Janie's Stocking 2.0 Final Whizbang Wowie

Don't you hate it when your kids are in the position to be able to say, "I told you so?" Well, that's me right now. Back in November when we were deciding on what item from the Food For The Hungry "Gift" Catalog we wanted to select for Janie's Christmas Stocking, I wondered about the idea of being so ambitious as to choose the largest gift in there. We'd seen God do amazing things last year, when over $1700 came in when we had hoped to "reach" $500. But still, this year I expressed a little reservation. It went kind of like this:

Me: "I have some reservations this year."

Carly (scoffing a bit): "Of course we'll reach $2500, Dad. You'll see. Have a little faith."

Me: *wince*

And with that, we decided to

Creepiest Piggy Bank Ever 2.0

Long-time subscribers to this blog (bwa-haha that's funny) may recall that last year when we did the first-ever Janie's Christmas Stocking fund raiser, my friends Steve and Ruth Hall contributed the contents of their spare-change piggy bank. Well, they've dropped off the bank again this year too, God bless them. It's a wonderful way to be a part of the fun, but they gave it with a few caveats:

1) I have to return the bank. No Problem...the thing gives me nightmares. This year, they dressed it up with some false eyelashes and a big red bow on the top of it's head. Yeah, that makes it much less chilling. Remember that awful shower scene in Psycho when the shadow falls on the shower curtain and the lady knows she's about to get it? "Reeee! Reee! Reee!" "Screeeeaamm!!" I wake up in a cold sweat having seen this pig, pretty eyelashes and all, appearing in the mirror when I closed the medicine cabinet. Or I get in the car and reach up to adjust the rear view mirror and there it is....slightly grinning. Or pushing me out of an airplane. Go ahead, click the picture. I dare you.

2) We have to remove the change ourselves from the

Janie's Stocking Is Going Great

Janie's Stocking is cranking right along! Thank you so much for giving. People you will probably never meet, people like this, will have a tangible evidence of your loving them because you gave to the project! Thank you! Don't stop spreading the word and thanks again!

Thanks For Sharing

I'd like to say a public Thank You! to those friends and family - you know who you are - who tweeted, blogged, emailed and shared on Facebook about the Janie's Stocking project. As you know, spreading the word about something of this nature is the only way for it to succeed - people can't give to something they don't know about! I'm especially grateful to Calvary Bible Church here in Rutland for sharing via their email list (as well as letting me talk about it on Sunday) and to my friend Jared for posting about it on his widely read blog. Thank you all! I'm excited to see where God takes this!

Janie's Christmas Stocking 2011

So it's time for the big reveal of a new twist on Janie's Christmas Stocking: Online giving! Yep, you don't need to mail a check or catch me in the hall with cash (unless you are Steve and Ruth Hall) or give me your firstborn or right arm or anything! Food For The Hungry has graciously set me up with a page for Janie's Christmas Stocking, and it's pretty cool.

If you don't yet know what this is about, click here, and for where it all came from, click here.

We are extending the deadline to December 31 this time.

Also, if you would still prefer to

Thankful For....A Sock?

Yes, I'm thankful for a sock this Thanksgiving! It's not just any sock, however: the mystery photo from the last post is Janie's Christmas Stocking (you can read what we did with the stocking last year here). It was a thrill last year to collect, alongside so many friends and family (as well as a few total strangers!), enough money to buy a cow for a family in Rwanda through a wonderful aid organization called Food For the Hungry. We also helped several local families. I honestly wonder who got the greater blessing, the folks who received the help, or all of us who were involved with giving it. So I'm thankful.

Before last year's project was even over, many were asking if we'd do it again this year. Well, we decided with a resounding, "yes!" We've decided this year to not only help one family with one cow, but to help a whole village of people by buying them a well! Can you imagine walking four hours, waiting in line for two, getting your jerrycans of clean water, and walking home another four hours with forty pounds of water? And repeating this every three days? That is what some families have to do to obtain clean water that won't cause sicknesses from water related disease. A well right in their own village can save people from all this, and it will help not only one or two people, but a whole village of people. Plus, Food For the Hungry gives these resources in Jesus's name, which is the greater gift of course.

The goal will be

Janie's Last Journal Part 22

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

******

Well, here we are, 22 posts later, at the end of Janie's journal. Thanks for reading them with me. As you can see, her focus on the Lord became acute as she continued walking by faith through her struggle right to the end.




I love that these are her very last written words:

"The Lord challenges us to suffer persecutions and to confess Him. He wants those who belong to Him to be brave and fearless. He Himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by the courage of the Spirit. This is the testimony of the apostles and in particular of the representative, administrating Spirit. A Christian is fearless. - Forgotten God, Francis Chan (quoting Tertullian) p.45

Janie's Last Journal Part 21

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"We walk by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinth 5:7

(It thrills me somehow to know that for her, with mere days left to live, she would quote this verse. She knew, I am sure, that soon, the faith would become sight!) 

Tomorrow's post is the last thing she ever wrote on earth.

Janie's Last Journal Part 20

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

This is the third to last entry - she  probably wrote this down on the date of the reading in the book: May 1. She had 8 days left.

"Faith does not say, "I see this is good for me; therefore God must have sent it." Instead, faith declares, "God sent it; therefore it must be good for me." -Streams In The Desert, L. B. Cowman, May 1

Janie's Last Journal Part 19

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility." -My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, April14

Janie's Last Journal Part 18

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"My children, there is no good thing that I would withhold from you. I have not left you to fend for yourselves nor to make your way by your own devices. I am the Lord your God. I am your Provider and Defender. I care for you with a deep and tender love. I am all-wise and all-powerful and will be your defense against every onslaught of the enemy." -Come Away My Beloved,  Frances J. Roberts, pg 204

Janie's Last Journal Part 17

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"God's love is unchangeable, and He is just as loving even when we do not see or feel it. And His love and His sovereignty are equal and universal. Therefore He often withholds our enjoyment and awareness of our progress, because He knows best what will actually ripen and further this work in us." -Francis Ridley Havergal

Janie's Last Journal Part 16

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to 'let go.' But any effort to 'hang on' to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him." -My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, April 12

Janie's Last Journal Part 15

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"I willingly bear witness to the fact that I owe more to my Lord's fire, hammer, and file than to anything else in His workshop. Sometimes I wonder if I have ever learned anything except at the end of God's rod. When my classroom is darkest, I see best." -Charles Spurgeon

Janie's Last Journal Part 14

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.


(Um, also, and I swear this is true, I really did not do anything special so as to make today's post fall on  the 4th of July!!)

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinth. 12:10

The literal translation of this verse adds a startling emphasis to it, allowing it to speak for itself with power we have probably never realized. It is as follows: "Therefore I take pleasure in being without strength, being insulted, experiencing emergencies, and being chased and forced into a corner for Christ's sake; for when I am without strength, I am dynamite." -Streams In The Desert, L. B. Cowman, April 5

Janie's Last Journal Part 13

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next week or so, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to Janie as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******


Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"There is a perfect passivity that is not laziness. It is a living stillness born of trust. Quiet tension is not trust but simply compressed anxiety." -Streams In The Desert, L. B. Cowman, April7

Janie's Last Journal Part 12

Janie's final entries in her journal...continued (read what this is about here.)

(For the next few weeks, I'll be posting these quotes that meant a lot to her as she neared the end of her life here on earth. If you read them closely, you'll see a common thread there....I'll let you find it without any commentary - except to encourage you to take the entries to heart and be blessed...and perhaps store them away in your own journal....)

******

Today's entry, as well as the rest from Janie's journal from here on in, aren't dated by her. If they have a date, it's the daily reading date from the book she was quoting from. Since I don't know the exact date she jotted these things down, I am breaking them up in a way that seems logical to me.

"Most Christians lead a treadmill life - a life in which they can predict almost everything that will come their way. But the souls that God leads into unpredictable and special situations are isolated by Him. All they know is that God is holding them and that He is dealing in their lives. Then their expectations come from Him alone, We must be detached from outward things and attached inwardly to the Lord alone in order to see His wonders." -Streams In The Desert, L. B. Cowman, April 5