“The secret of a disciple’s life is devotion to Jesus Christ,
and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness.
It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies,
but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape“
(Oswald Chambers, June 19).

When I read these words a few weeks ago, I prayed a simple prayer.
“Lord, alter the whole landscape of my life if it needs it.”
Quite honestly, the last six months have been laden with stressful situations,
graduate work, teaching responsibilities, speaking engagements and
ministry opportunities, private counseling moments and
the ever-daunting familial duties of wifery and mothering. Slowly,
I have felt my health diminshing, beginning with intense pains around
my heart and into my neck and jaw. Then, heaviness and sighing, followed
by an ever present mantle of responsibilities that were weighing me down.

Then, my husband surprised me with a MONTH LONG TRIP TO EUROPE,
starting in Paris, then Giverny, then Switzerland, and finally,
ITALY (my long awaited trip to Tuscany).
When he first told me, I was stunned and I remained in this condition for several days.
With only 16 days to plan and prepare, the stress increased. I can honestly say, I have actually been
panicked at times. Did I mention that I have been working on a book on TRUSTING GOD for several
years now? Why am I surprised that my life circumstances rise up to challenge the words I have penned?

So, needless to say, God answered my little prayer and is
completing ALTERING THE WHOLE LANDSCAPE of my little life.
Tomorrow, we fly to Paris.
The journey begins.

In honor of this trip of a lifetime, I bought a brand-new
MOLESKIN journal (can you smell the leather and fresh, crisp pages?)
The blank pages beckon. This weary in well-doing pilgrim is off for some
spiritual renewal and rejuvenation. I need rest. I need time away from it all.

Know that you are in my heart and I think of you all daily.
I hope to blog (unless I am completely undone by the beauty of it all)
and I hope to go with the flow of God’s Spirit.

May you find rest for your souls (Psalm 62)!

It’s been a long month and a half. From the looks of my desk, you can see that
I have been totally immersed in my graduate work
(completing yet another 15 page research paper),
completion of grading the research papers of my fourteen home schooled
writing students and tallying the grades for all my writing students,
speaking at my first Exhale Spiritual Retreat at the Rivah!,
guest teaching at a new Women’s Bible Study which turned into a
passionate relationship with fourteen amazing young women,
transitioning the twins from college to home, etc. etc. etc.
The bottom line: my life has been very, very productive—
(you know how I feel about the word busy).  
Thankfully, the season of blogging drought is over and I say,
“Let the river flow.”

Over the next few days, let’s talk about this little four-letter word, flow.
It has arrested my attention lately.

Would you take a quick second and share the
very first thoughts that come to your mind 
when you hear the word—flow?

For me, it’s very late and the flow of my thoughts is waning.
But, as sure as the sun will shine in the morning,
the thoughts will begin afresh.
Be well. 
Be secure.
Be assured of God’s love. 

 

 

 

My final writing assignment to my HS writing students was to start a blog. They are doing a terrific job. Check out their posts on www.takethetimetowriteitdown.wordpress.com. I wanted to share this one with you because I just love the writer’s comment on keeping a journal. She writes, 

“Keeping a journal is living a wide-awake life. Whatever its name—notebook, sketchbook, log, daybook, diary, or journal—the blank book we fill with bits and pieces of our lives affirms and validates our experiences. It also provides a safe place to make discoveries, celebrate one’s story, and to confide, confer, question, and confess. Alert to the outside world, attuned to the inner one, the journal keeper lives with the consciousness that his or her life matters” (Graham ix). 

It begged the question, “Janell, are you living a wide-awake life?”

“On the way home from having maintenance done on my car, 
I began seeing signs for ”Faith Farms. Fresh strawberries.” 
“Fabulous,” I thought. “Fresh, local strawberries.” The signs led me
to a quaint local farm, off the beaten path.
 As I drove down the long, winding gravel road, I felt far away.
The sounds of the city were slowly fading into the background and 
the smells of country living filled the air. 

The only sound I could hear now was the slight
crunching of the gravel underneath my feet.
All of a sudden, much to my surprise,
a peacock—yes, a full-fledged royal blue crowned peacock—
stood in front of me. Gasping, I couldn’t help exclaiming,
“Well, hello beautiful! How in the world
are you?” My conversation with this stunning bird continued,
“Oh, can I take your picture? Stop! Hold still!”
Luckily, my camera was in the zipper pouch of my purse.
Posing regally, of course, this proud peacock 
honored me with his picture. I couldn’t help but smile.
All I wanted was a basket of organic strawberries.
But, God surprised me with something extraordinary. Why?
Because that is the God we serve. He loves to surprise us. 

 ”Lord, help us live a wide-awake life!”

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden,
fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity;
when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine,
desert us when troubles thicken around us,
still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her
kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness,
and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
-Washington Irving

Jump over to www.takethetimetowriteitdown.wordpress.com to read today’s post! Blessings!

Hello to all! As you know, I teach Literary classes to homeschoolers. We have been reading/responding to Brent and Deanna Higgin’s book, “I WOULD DIE FOR YOU,” written about their amazing fifteen year old boy, who died of a serious respiratory illness. Over the next four weeks, they will be creating blogs and responding to assigned blog prompts, posted on my blog ((http://www.takethetimetowriteitdown.wordpress.com). Please visit us and respond! I know they would love your input.

When I clicked on an email today, written by Candace Rose,I was so blessed I wanted to share it with you. She spends a few moments encouraging us, her family, with the words of Psalm 18:29 (NIV):

“With your help I can advance against a troop;
with my God I can scale [ESV says, "leap over"] a wall.” 

Candace Rose practicing her etiquette at a High Tea in Christchurch, New Zealand!

She writes,

“hello, my beautiful family,

i will first begin by saying tuesday was a rather good day, so i hope
the same can be said for all your tuesdays, whether eastern or western
hemisphere.

i just mentioned to dad a poignant verse that struck me from verse 18
and while i thought i wouldn’t have time to send out a full-fledged
email on it until this weekend, i figured now might be an especially
good time for us all to hear it:

“For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a
wall” (proverbs 18:29, ESV).

I CAN LEAP OVER A WALL.

what awesome imagery, ay?? to me, that was just an automatic shot in
the arm (shot of an energy-boosting IV, that is!) it was an instant
confidence booster, a kick in the butt in regards to anything i am
doubting God over.

personally, i feel all of us have walls we need God’s help to leap over.

dad – the situation at work, lack of big kitchen jobs, lack of new
customer contacts
mom – the direction of ministry, your return to academia
brooke – the situation with your missions trip support, needing $880 more
grant – the situation of needing a summer job, of not being able to
sleep at night

and i think the list could go on….

and the walls don’t have to be quite as literal as needing a certain
amount of money or a certain number of kitchens. they can be more
vague, something intangible, like a wall of discouragement, a wall of
doubt, a wall of lack of purpose, a wall of anger…

there’s not much else i want or need to say – i think the verse speaks
for itself and echos philippians 3:14, “i can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.”

today, my family, i encourage you to run against the troop that’s
pressing against you. i encourage you to leap over the wall in front
of you. and if you don’t think you can make it, think of God kneeling
down beside it, locking his fingers together in an upside-down basket
to give you a leg-up.”

Candace encourages us to envision God’s fingers together 
in an upside-down basket; giving us a lift in order
to scale the wall. Go ahead—with God’s help, you will get to the other side of 
the wall in front of you. Please let me know how it looks on the other side.
I’m praying for you!

 

“For half a century, a horrible secret lay hidden, 
locked in a trunk in an attic. . .
Photos, official documents, and scraps of a diary
written by a nine-year old girl. . .
I kept secret my horror stories.
I am an old woman now.
It is time to tell my story.”
Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister

Nothing effects me more than reading memoirs or biographies of great men and women of God who have walked with God. Nonna Bannister’s story drew me in and infused a renewed vigor for overcoming pain and believing God for healing. Her story would be a great addition to your homeschool curriculum for NEXT year’s history/literature. Or, a great addition to your personal library. Take a few minutes and learn more about this amazing unsung hero of modern times:

Nonna Bannister appeared to be a typical American housewife. She married Henry, the love of her life, in 1951 and together they raised three children in Memphis, Tennessee. But Nonna was far from average. For half a century, she kept her story secret while living a normal life.  She locked all of her photos, documents, diaries, and dark memories from World War II in a trunk in her attic. 

 Tyndale House Publishers announces the publication of The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister written by Nonna Bannister with Denise George and Carolyn Tomlin (April 2009, Tyndale House), the haunting eyewitness account of Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister, a remarkable Russian girl who saw and survived unspeakable evils during World War II.

 Get to know author, Nonna Bannister, a little more. Her story will enlarge your life:

 1.  The Secret Holocaust Diaries is written by Nonna although she passed away in 2004. Did she write the book before she died?

 Yes, she slipped up into the attic each night, translated her diaries (from several different languages), and recorded them in English onto yellow legal pads. Much later, after she told her husband, Henry, about her incredible past, she showed him the stacks of yellow legal pads on which she had translated her diaries and recorded her thoughts about her past, and he typed them up into a manuscript.

 2.  Would Nonna have liked to see her book published before she died?

 Nonna translated her diary into English and her husband, Henry, typed the manuscript. However, she requested the diary not be published until at least 2 or 3 years after she died. Henry honored this request. (She died in 2004.) The story was very painful and reminded her of the suffering her family endured. When she came to America in 1950 she was overwhelmed by her new life. She was determined to make a new life for herself and to give her husband and children a happy home.

 3.  Nonna came from a privileged family. Are there any interesting stories of people her ancestors knew?

 Nonna’s family “ran with” the upper crust in the Ukraine and Russia. Her mother and father were educated in Russia’s great cultural city, St. Petersburg. Nonna’s grandmother and grandfather knew the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and Nonna kept a postcard sent by him (shortly before his death) to her grandfather, Jakob, for his birthday (dated 1913?). Jakob was killed during the Revolution while trying to help Russian families escape.

 Nonna writes in her diary of living on the ”Chekov Lane” in Taganrog, the street where Russian writer Anton Chekov (1860–1904) had once lived.

The family also visited often the boy Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (nicknamed “Sasha”) and his mother, Taissia. She and Nonna’s mother, Anna, were good friends. They enjoyed giving concerts and playing the violin and piano. Nonna writes of eating ice cream with her mother and Taissia, and spending the night in the Solzhenitsyn home during a thunderstorm. Alexander was older that Nonna, studying at the university.

4.  Many people assume most of the people killed by the Nazis were Jewish. Was Nonna’s family Jewish?

 Although it is estimated that approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, other nationalities experienced suffering and death, also. Nonna’s family was Russian and owned seven grain mills and homes in southern Russia and the Ukraine. Her father, Yevgeny, and his family were from Warsaw, Poland, which included a large population of Jews. Due to border restrictions, Nonna never met her father’s family. Yevgeny never told Nonna and her brother, Anatoly, if his family was Jewish. If the children didn’t know, they could not let it slip. The admission of being Jewish could have meant deportation or certain death. There is speculation, but no one is certain.

 5.  Nonna saved many documents from her time at Nazi camps; what are these artifacts?

 In a small ticking pillow she kept tied around her waist, she kept many one inch square photos of her family and friends in the Ukraine. She also kept her small childhood diary. On tiny slips of paper, she wrote her experiences (in diary form) and also kept these in the little pillow.

Later she kept all these in a small trunk, which she painted bright green.

 6.  When Nonna finally revealed her secret, was her family shocked?

 Henry knew there was something about her past that she didn’t want to talk about. Being a patient man, he never pressed her to speak about this secret. As they grew older, he asked her to write down some things about her family—so their children would know their heritage. After months of secretly translating her diary (written in several different languages) she took him to the attic, open the little green trunk and showed him her family’s photos and the yellow legal pages of the translated diary. Henry was astonished at what he saw.

 7.  Why did Nonna keep her devastating secret for so many years?

 Nonna kept her secret past from her family/friends because she had, at last, found such happiness with her husband, Henry, and her three children. She didn’t want to express her past pain–she didn’t want it to interrupt the family’s happiness and cast a shadow of despair over them.

 8.  The diaries themselves were written in several languages and some were on scraps of paper. How did she go about transcribing them?

 Nonna learned English after she came to America in 1950. This became her primary language. She realized they should be transcribed in English so Henry could type the pages. He spent several years typing these notes after work and on weekends.

The miniature black/white photos, the diaries, the notes from the prison camp, her mother’s letters from the concentration camps, and other documents were organized and put into chapters for a book—one she hoped would be published after her death.

 9.  What can people of Christian faith or Jewish faith/descent take from The Secret Holocaust Diaries?

 That grave injustice exists–Nonna learned that from the Red Army (who killed many of her family members) and Hitler’s army (who also killed many of her family members and imprisoned her in a labor camp). But that God’s love and forgiveness for those who hurt us are stronger than even Hitler’s evil and injustice. Nonna came out of the whole experience with her heart still filled with love. She experienced none of the bitterness and hatred that some Jewish Holocaust survivors have held onto. She was able to marry, raise children, and bring them much joy and happiness through her own love and through introducing them to God’s love.

10. Why did Nonna feel it was so important to share her story?

 The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister is a true story of a young Russian girl whose family was caught up in the Russian Revolution and in World War II. In spite of the injustice inflicted on her family and millions of others, it is a story of love and forgiveness. Nonna wanted others to know the horrors that occurred during the Hitler and Stalin era so that it might never happen again.

Nonna felt compelled to tell her story because she was an eyewitness to many dramatic events, and she was the only survivor of her entire family.

In conclusion,

Late in life, Nonna unlocked her trunk filled with memories from World War II first for her husband, and now for the rest of the world. Nonna’s story is one of suffering, torture, and death—but also of incredible acts of kindness that show the ultimate triumph of faith and love over despair and evil. The Secret Holocaust Diaries is in part a tragedy, yet ultimately it’s an unforgettable true story about forgiveness, courage, and hope.

 Book Preface:

http://www.christianspeakerservices.com/TheSecretHolocaustDiariesPreface.pdf

 

This past Sunday, my worship leader, Mark, sang Chris Tomlin’s, “I Will Rise.”
It took by breath away and ministered to a deep place in my heart.
I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind or off my lips.  
And, today, images and interviews of Columbine families,
those who perished and those who survived,
were remembered. Let us remember, too.

Remember that life is short. Life is fragile.
Life is meant to be lived fully and wholly for Christ.
In the following video, Chris Tomlin shares the message behind the music.
Take a few moments toglimpse
into your future—a future with Jesus—laden with peace, not pain.
THE GRAVE IS OVERWHELMED.

Psalm 23:1 has been a cornerstone scripture in my life. I love it in every version:

• KJV: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
• NIV: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
• The Message: “God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.”
• New Living Translation: “The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need.”

Several weeks ago, Candace and I hosted a birthday tea for my mom and her girlfriends, Ida Mae (97 years old), Maggie, Marie and Millie (my Mom)—all three ladies in their eighties! The conversation  around our tea table was laden with wisdom, laughter, memories, and fun! 

After all the chocolate-covered strawberries, tea cakes and chicken salad sandwiches were gone, I felt divinely satisfied—physically. After the delightful company of these wise women, I felt divinely satisfied—spiritually. One thought kept creeping into my mind—I am 49. Ida Mae is 97. Meaning, I could possibly live another 48 years, if God allows. What an incredible, mind-blowing thought! If God does allow, I pray that my life will be as fragrant as the lives of these exemplary women—whose faces radiated a deep sense of contentment with a life well-lived. A life wrinkled by ups and downs, but rich in perseverance, faith, and commitment. 1 Peter 3:3 (ESV) exhorts, “Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” 

When Paul penned the words, the hidden person of the heart, what exactly did he mean? Commentator Matthew Henry writes:

“The ornament prescribed. It must, in general, be something not corruptible, that beautifies the soul, that is, the graces and virtues of God’s Holy Spirit. The ornaments of the body are destroyed by the moth, and perish in the using; but the grace of God, the longer we wear it, the brighter and better it is. More especially, the finest ornament of Christian women is a meek and quiet spirit, a tractable easy temper of mind, void of passion, pride, and immoderate anger, discovering itself in a quiet obliging behaviour towards their husbands and families. At least, a quiet spirit will make a good woman easy to herself, which, being visible to others, becomes an amiable ornament to a person in the eyes of the world. The excellency of it. Meekness and calmness of spirit are, in the sight of God, of great price—amiable in the sight of men, and precious in the sight of God. Learn, a true Christian’s chief care lies in the right ordering and commanding of his own spirit. Where the hypocrite’s work ends, there the true Christian’s work begins.  
The endowments of the inner man are the chief ornaments of a Christian; but especially a composed, calm, and quiet spirit,
renders either man or woman beautiful and lovely.”

Matthew Henry, like my mother’s friends, reminds me to nurture “the endowments of my inner man.” During Lent, I felt moved to forego wearing jewelry, in order to remind myself of the importance of adorning my inner man. This simple little act was amazingly freeing and once again reminded me of my cornerstone scripture in Psalm 23, “I shall not want.” When I glance away from the temporal and gaze into the eternal, my wants slowly fade—inviting me to a deeper sense of contentment. Oh, I have a long way to go—hopefully 48 more years—but for a brief moment, while sipping tea, I glanced into the face of my future and smiled.