The "Lonely Tree"--Where Jesus Met Her

Little did I know that this week would end up with a text from my friend Lila today saying my friend "Beaver," whom I had just had a very special visit with Tuesday and whom Crystal had just seen about noon today at the nursing home where she's a driver, had just passed away. 

I've been going up as often as I can on Tuesdays. This week I cut cosmos, bachelors button, blue flax, sunflower, and zinnias from our flower gardens and took a pint of flowers to Beaver. Interestingly, other times when I've come in, nurses have curtly told me she was napping, but that day, even though she was apparently in bed, they hurried and said they'd get her up. I don't know if it's because they are getting to know me, or because they saw the flowers, or if they were just in a good mood that day. I'm just glad, looking back, that they had cared to get her up.  

Every time I go, I'd visit and then I pray with her, (her holding my hand), I'd usually sing with the autoharp, and try to read or quote Scripture. She had her favorites she'd ask me to read, such as "about when I am weak then I am strong." Tuesday I sang for her the song best loved in Ukraine, "Shepherd of Love." She told me about the children or loved ones who had colored or drawn pictures hung on her wall, esp. the picture of a bare tree with pink buds.

 "It's my Lonely Tree," Beaver said. 

(Sorry, I can't get it to rotate upright.)

As I asked about it, she divulged that it was about her grandson who tragically drowned at age three. It was just another in a series of deaths Beaver had experienced in her lifetime. It seems when I come in, she unveils another layer of grief--layers and layers of grief. I didn't ask further questions, but just shared with her that we believe little children are covered by the blood of Jesus because they haven't reached the age of accountability, that we believe the angels carry little ones to be with Jesus where they are safe and won't be living a sinful life and be lost. She listened. I hoped it comforted her.

Later I found the child's grave across the road from our church at the cemetery. I took a picture of it to take next time I went to see Beaver. I thought she would like to see a picture, since the gravestone was rather recent.

Except--now I can't show it to her. She's gone--due to a freak incident.

Instead, Beaver is with her grandson buried there. 

Lila, Beaver's cousin whom I had taken to the nursing home upon Beaver's death, insisted I take the "lonely tree" picture and frame it for the funeral, and also frame the new "lovely tree" picture that I had created for Beaver and was planning to give her the next time I came. I had printed off a spring blooming tree and a clipart of a child resting in God's care, and I had glued the child in the sunshine rays of the picture. I was going to ask Beaver if I could put that second picture of a "lovely tree" next to her "lonely tree." I showed Lila the picture I had put together the day before. 

I thought back to John Peterson's song I'd sung with my autoharp to Beaver just three days earlier. "Shepherd of Love, You knew I had lost my way, 

Shepherd of love, You cared that I'd gone astray. 

You sought and found me, placed around me 

Strong arms that carried me home." 

I knew Beaver had lost her way and lived a rough life for a long time, but Jesus had met her one day in the hospital a few years ago. I had prayed with her every time I went to visit. And as we wait for funeral arrangements made by her guardian, I am so grateful for the opportunity to reach out to a lonely heart in a nursing home. That heart has gone Home where, as Lila said softly, "she won't be lonely anymore."

Baby Resurrects at the Sound of a Music Box

Last Saturday evening I went up to Pastor Ambrose's place to bring home Mrs. Ambrose's handwritten baby dedication service as they needed me to type it.  But I can't get out of there without hearing stories of the Ambroses' experiences here at the reservations. 

Mrs. Ambrose told me how the Sioux tribes were basically influenced by Catholics and Episcopalians, and how those churches teach the baptism of babies. In olden days on these reservations, Mathel said, the biggest reason babies had to be baptized was not so they would go to heaven, but so that, if they died, they would be allowed to be buried! No unbaptized baby was allowed to be buried in Catholic or Episcopal cemeteries. 

Of course, the Ambroses believe in believer's baptism rather than baby baptism, although they also firmly believe in dedicating babies to the Lord. This is what was to happen Sunday morning. But our discussion paved the way for another amazing story. The baby to be dedicated Sunday morning was named in memory of another baby who died. And the story went something like this. 

A father and mother were at the hospital with their baby when the baby, in being taken from one place to another on the elevator, coded. By the time she was hooked up to support, she was brain dead.  The grieving parents were stricken, and Pastor Ambrose was called to come. He prayed, committing the child into God's hands. 

Each one in the hospital room took turns holding the baby before the doctor pronounced the baby dead and went out to the nurses' desk to fill out the death certificate. Mrs. Ambrose convinced the mom, or one of the ladies in the family who was there (I can't remember which) to go with her to get something to eat, as the lady hadn't eaten anything. They were gone about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, a relative of the baby was going by the foot of the bed where there was a music box that the baby used to enjoy listening to. Upon bumping the music box, it began to play, and just like that, the relative noticed the heart monitor. The baby's heart was beating again! That baby literally resurrected with the music! The father was sitting in a chair holding the baby when Mrs. Ambrose and the mom came back in. Mrs. Ambrose, not knowing what had happened, decided it was time for the dad to let go of the dead baby, but he said, "No! The baby is still alive!" The ladies couldn't believe it. The doctor had already pronounced the baby dead and signed the death certificate. 

The father held his baby hour after hour. "God knew I needed more time with my baby!" was how he explained it later. The baby lived until ten o'clock that evening. The dad had about 13 hours to hold his baby before God took it. 

At the funeral service, a Pentecostal man got up and said, "If we had faith, we could have prayed and the baby would have resurrected." This made the dad very upset and he went out. Mr. Ambrose followed him and spoke to him. 

"Don't worry about what he said," Pastor Ambrose said, "He doesn't know that God did resurrect the baby. She lived 13 extra hours. He just doesn't know."

What a story! The next morning, our Crystal played a special for the baby dedication, a medley of "Jesus Loves Me," "Praise Him, All Ye Little Children," interspersed with lines from a Mozart sonata, and, of all things, a line of a pretty, children's musical piece called "Music Box Dancer," which sounded like a music box. Little did Crystal know when she was practicing the music, that it would be so appropriate at the dedication of a little child named after a baby who had literally resurrected at the sound of a favorite music box at the foot of the bed!

Moose Forgiveness: Attribute of the Strong

 "I wish we could see a moose," Jonathan said one day during the September weekend that our family went camping. 

We had read that moose were in the area where we were in Medicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming. And we kept seeing specimens moose had left behind or hoof prints such as across the reservoir where Jonathan and I had taken a walk earlier that evening on the lake shore. So we had hopes. And I sent up a little prayer for Jonathan's sake, who (like nearly everyone in his Lucas family) loves moose.

And then our last evening camping, as I pushed through some small pines across the road to go into the woods across from our camp, I stopped short, because what I saw just ahead of me was NOT tree trunks. It was the back half of a moose!

Not interested in a moose charging me, but interested in Jonathan getting to see his moose, I squeezed back through the dense little pines and rushed across the road.

"Jonathan!" I hollered to my hubby down by the campfire. "Moose! Come quickly!" 

The whole campsite came alive as nearly everyone rushed back across the road and followed me back into the woods as quietly as a big family intent on moose could be. Of course, by now, the moose had moved a little, but it was still in sight!

Jonathan got more than one snapshot of it. It did not seem to be nearly as skittish as elk. An elk would have bolted and disappeared before I had crossed the road to alert my family. This moose took his good old time. 

He was huge. He was strong. He was not afraid.

 

And then as we started on our way home from camping, just 20 minutes down the road from our campsite, Crystal was reading aloud from an old classic titled Daddy LongLegs, when I spotted a mama moose in the willows down the bank by the road.  

Again, she hardly noticed us until we were nearly upon her. Danny was the one who recognized telltale noises nearby that proved her baby was nearby. And sure enough, the two soon became aware of the humans near them and headed off into the woods.

Her very size denoted strength. The two of them stood and gazed at us for a long time. 

An animal that huge does not need to be afraid. Its very size is formidable. Its hooves are sharp and dangerous. 
We are mere humans, and often we are afraid. We are easily hurt. We hurt others. But whether as humans we are weak or strong, our character can be strong no matter what.

Charlie Kirk taught that. 

When Governor Cox of Utah heard of Charlie's assassination, he described how he felt. Visibly emotional, he said how anger over the assassination nearly pushed him over the edge. But it was Kirk's own words that grounded him again. 

“Charlie said, ‘When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.’ He said, ‘The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive, welcome without judgment, love without condition, forgive without limit...[Kirk] said, ‘Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.'" 

Youth were implored to understand life in America doesn't have to be the way it is.

"You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option. But through [Kirk's] words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path," Cox said. "Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now. Not pretending differences don't matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations. I think we need more moral clarity right now ... words are not violence, violence is violence, and there is one person responsible for what happened here and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable. And yet all of us have an opportunity to do something different."  

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2025/09/12/cox-statement-at-presser-n2663234

I loved how Charlie Kirk explained it. "Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive...forgive without limit."

And if we are too weak to do that, we can ask God for the grace to be strong.

What Others Think of Me--Is it My Business?

Today when I sat down to rest, I picked up a book by Regina Brett, in which was a chapter titled "What Other People Think of You Is None of Your Business." She wrote that as a newspaper columnist, she'd been called just about everything from Idiot to Moron to Scum-sucking and quite a few words I hate to put on this post, even if I substituted asterisks for some of the letters. 

Brett's editor had tried to talk her out of wanting her dream job of columnist. He warned that readers could be downright mean and nasty, would attack her every way they could. Was she tough enough? Brett wasn't, but she took the job anyway. 

And sure enough--she got the attacks.

Brett wrote about a Father Martin movie she once saw called Chalk Talk. In it, a priest told stories to inspire people on the road to recovery from alcoholism. One story was about a woman who came to the priest in tears because her drunken husband called her a whore.

"Would you be upset if he called you a chair?" the priest asked.

"Of course not," she said, and "Why not?" the priest asked.

"I know I'm not a chair," the woman explained.

"Don't you know," the priest went on, "that you aren't a whore?"

Don't you know that you are not that awful whatever that someone is saying of you?

That wretch, that bad guy or gal?

Brett said she had to decide what she would answer to. She would remember her identity and what she would answer to, though it was tougher than she imagined. 

Those calls hurt, she said, the "shame on you! self-righteous Christians who damned me to hell or prayed for me in ways that didn't at all feel holy."

Her columns ran three days a week with her contact info at the bottom, which some saw as an invitation to "dump all their rage from their bosses or ex-wives or deceased parents."

Brett found that the secret to complete freedom from gossip, judgment, criticism, doubt, and the opinions of others was humility. 

Not humiliation, Brett, explained, but humility. There is a difference.

One does not have to accept humiliation where another person needs you to eat dirt at their pretty toes.

But, Brett quoted another author, to have perpetual quietness of heart, and to be at rest when no one praises us. 

When one is blamed or despised, to have a blessed home in oneself to which one can go and shut the door and kneel to one's Father in heaven in secret and be at peace,

as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble."

What others think of me is of far less account, humility teaches us, than what our heavenly Father thinks of us. 

And in our quiet camping spot of fellowship with Him, He knows that we are not a chair, or a whore, or whatever nasty words are spat at us. 

His Mercies are New Every Morning--Are Mine?

A couple nights ago, I could not stop walking the floor in the darkness. Wordless distress had me sunk into sleepless pacing. I stood at the window, staring out into the dim outdoors, pale with the light of the moon. 

 

 If only I and those I love could claim to be sinless and perfect and never having made a mistake.

If only we had never hurt anyone.

If only we could pull our righteous robes about our shoulders and look upon others with disdain and even fury.

 

I have done that at times. 

Last night I could not.

I stood at the window last night, not knowing what to think of a situation, and instead of asking God to step in and bring judgment on those who are causing pain for countless people, I could only bow my head, like the publican of the story Jesus told, and whisper,

"God, be merciful to me a sinner."

In the spirit of the publican who beat his breast in a corner of the temple, I stood there at the window. If I come to God and do not come humbly, He will disdain to hear my prayer. 

 

If I do not come extending mercy to those around me, I will not obtain mercy.

If I come throwing nasty stones and accusing the ones who are breaking loved ones' hearts, I will not receive blessing from the Lord.

So in the middle of the night when others are sleeping, I stand exhausted at the window, head bowed.

"God, forgive us.

God, have mercy on me, for I have sinned, too, like everyone else."

 

Jesus, You promised that if we were merciful, You would bless us with mercy.

If we forgave, You would forgive us. 

If we would humble ourselves, You would exalt us.

 

God, even if You never exalt us, help us to be humble before You. We don't need to be exalted; we just need Your mercy.

With many tears, Amen.

Crumbs from Christ

 While our family was camping together last weekend, one of the girls snapped this photo of me reading my Bible--well, it was Tom and Rose's Bible--one morning while holding little Ellie Rose. Even babies are included in devotions! Ellie looked like she was reading, too!

Every morning Jonathan and I read or listen to the Scripture, and this morning it was about the Syro-Pheonician woman who came to Jesus asking Him to heal her daughter who was severely demon-possessed. She cried to Jesus to have mercy on her, but He didn't answer her a word.

So unlike Him. 

Yet like so many times when we pray, and He doesn't seem to pay us any attention. He doesn't answer a word.  

The disciples urged Jesus to send her away, and He told them He wasn't sent to any except the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

Noticing that she was being talked about, the pesty woman stepped nearer and worshiped Jesus.

Do I step nearer to Him and worship Him when He is silent to me, or do I quit praying and ignore God? 

"Lord, help me!" she said again, urgently. 

The disciples had urged Jesus to send the woman away, and now she, desperate, was urging Him to help her. 

 

To whom would He listen?

"It isn't proper," Jesus said, "to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."

Dogs!

The woman didn't miss a beat or take offense. She accepted the comparison and had a comeback of her own. 

"Truth, Lord," she gulped, wincing at the sting but embracing the chance at humility and the possibility of being heard. "Yet, even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table."  

 

We are all familiar with what happened. She had passed Jesus' test with flying colors. 

"Oh woman," Jesus said, so willing now to do what He had always been willing to do, "great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire!"

And her daughter was healed from that hour.  

There may be times we may feel that we don't deserve even crumbs. What if we feel like such a jerk and a failure that we don't deserve even crumbs? 

The Pheonician woman's example should encourage even those of us in those shoes. 

She came. 

She cried. 

She came again.

She worshiped.

She asked.

She humbled herself.

She was heard.

She received the answer to her prayers, and her daughter was healed. 

Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, hear our own prayers tonight!

We come.

We cry to You!

We come again and again and again.

We worship You.

We ask.

We humble ourselves.

You will surely hear us.

You will grant the healing, the redemption, the restoration, the hope that we need.

Amen. 

 

 

Charlie Kirk's Assassination--What Use Was Prayer?

 Today Charlie Kirk, a conservative "firebrand" and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated by a single bullet at a university campus in Utah. I don't listen to much news, mostly notice headlines and read a few articles a week, so to be honest, I didn't at first know who my sister was talking about when she sent a message about Charlie getting shot.  Seeing photos later, I recognized Kirk, but I hadn't really listened to him very often. By the end of the day, though, he was a household name. 

At first it was hoped he might make it, though he was described as critical. Thousands, perhaps millions of prayers must have winged heavenward this afternoon as people waited for news.  

"Please help him be okay." 

 

He was not okay. He died. 

On Crystal's phone, as she fried potatoes and ground bison and garden vegetables for supper, we watched Megan Kelly and Glenn Beck talking about the shooting, both of them crying. Glenn bawled unashamedly.

I had never seen commentators bawling without even trying to cover up. I had never seen a man weep like that on the news. And that was before the announcement came from Deseret news that Charlie had not made it.

So what use are our prayers?  

 

Some nights recently when I couldn't get to sleep, I'd lie in bed praying. I'd fold my hands and let my body language say words I wasn't coming up with in my mind. But then in the last few days, I've been learning to not fold my hands, but hold them. 

Hold them open to the Father, Who knows what is best. 

Hold them open in surrender.  

Hold them open to receive peace. 

In most areas of life, Greg Feulner wrote in the Samaritan Ministries newsletter this month, we do things ourselves. If we are hungry, we make a meal. If we don't want a messy house, we clean it. If we need to write an email, we sit down at the computer and type away. 

"But in prayer," Greg wrote, "rather than exercising control, we surrender our control."

 

 There it was again--just what God was showing me--changing my clenched hands into open ones.

Releasing the hands that were balled into a fist--and holding them open and empty before God.  

"Prayer is our acknowledgement of our humanness, of our total dependency on the Giver of life.

In prayer, we come before the throne empty-handed, seeking Him...."

Today thousands came empty-handed to our Father. Were our hands balled into a fist, or were they open and surrendered?

What if, like me, more people will hear about what Charlie stood for because of his death than because of his life? 

What if God will work more good from Charlie's death than his life?

What if others will choose to follow in his footsteps and speak up for truth not only on university campuses but all sorts of places?

What if we must look to God instead of to Charlie Kirk now for truth and right answers? 

What if, in other areas of our lives, we held our hands open to our Father instead of raising a clenched fist? 

What if, in releasing control to God, He gives us in return His peace?