I find most paintings of Jesus objectionable.  They are way too "sweet" looking.   If you have ever been to the Louvre in Paris, there are thousands of wimpy, effeminate paintings of Jesus hanging on a cross.  Or draped across his mother's lap.  The halls are filled with those kinds of paintings.

I have always contended that Jesus didn't look anything at all like any of those pictures.  I can't imagine men like Peter, like James or Thomas following a wimp.  Jesus said, "Follow me," and they left their fishing nets, their way of life, their families and followed Him.

Jesus had hands with calluses.  He had spent his life as a carpenter. His fingers were familiar with splinters.  He was a working man.  The Bible says that there was nothing about him that was attractive.  And yet, paintings continue to portray him as pretty.  Peter wouldn't have followed "Pretty."  Peter was a man's man.

Isaiah 53: 2-3  "He grew up...like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.  He was despised and rejected by mankind, a a man of suffering and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces.  He was despised, and we held him in low esteem."

Jesus was rugged.  Strong.  He had been probably been cutting down trees and lugging them to Joseph's work room for over twenty years.  Cleaning off bark.  Using an ax to split wood.  He was not  pretty.  He was not a wimp.  He carried a cross to his death.  Bleeding, bruised and broken.  And he did it because he loved us.  He wanted to die for us.   He wanted to pay for our sins.  He was God.

Every year in Oklahoma, some species of blooming flower or tree outdoes itself.  This year it it the Bradford Pear trees.  They are covered with huge white blossoms.  So thick you can't even tell that the tree has limbs.  They look like huge vanilla ice cream cones.

In the garden of Eden there were four types of trees.  Genesis 2:8-9  "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is (1) pleasant to the sight, and (2) good for food; (3) the tree of life, and (40 the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

vs. 17 "...of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it..."  And of course Adam and Eve did the one thing God told them not to do.  Original sin was born.  They suffered spiritual death and separation from God.  God cast them out of the garden lest they should eat of the tree of life.  They would have been zombies!! The living dead.  Dead in sin, living forever in that condition.

The other two trees are solely for our good.  One type was for food.  They didn't eat meat at that time.  As a matter of fact in Gen. 1:29, God tells them that the tree that bears fruit and that bears seed will be their meat.

The other tree was for our pleasure.  Pleasant to the sight.  Dogwood, Redbud, Bradford Pears, Cherry, Peach, and on and on and on.  God meant for us to be uplifted with joy at the sight of beautiful trees.  And I am.  Many of them have no purpose except to bring us joy.

Spring is here.  Psalms 104:16-17 "The trees of the Lord are full of sap;...where the birds make their nests..."  I have a Japanese Maple right outside my back door.  There is a robin who builds a nest in it every year.  Or maybe it is one of her babies coming back to the place where she was born.

Spring is God's way of saying he's going to give us another chance.  Winter is over.

Wednesday night the neighbors came running to my house.  The siren had gone off.  Everyone watches the weather in Oklahoma and when you get a funnel close by, people start looking for cover. When the siren blows, you really start looking for cover.  I'm sure this won't be the last time.  The tornado season is just beginning.  My new house doesn't have a shelter, but the next door neighbor came over and invited me to come use his if I want to.   I won't move before May.

I had a really large safe room built into this house.  Everyone on the block knows they are welcome.  And they come.  So it turns into a party.  They bring their kids and their dogs.  And we crowd into a ten by six space and lock the door.

After five or ten minutes, it gets hot and humid.  That's when I leave and let everyone have more space.  I have big covered porches on the front--and the back--of my house.  I usually sit out there when we have a storm...and watch.  I love the rain.  And of course we had hail.  I used to be very afraid, but for some reason I'm not anymore.  It seems more interesting than frightening.  Of course Doppler Radar has made all the difference.  You can watch it on TV right up until it is a mile or two away from you.

It scared my neighbor's boxer dog.  He jumped the fence and came into my house with everyone else.  I don't know where his people were, but he seemed happy to be with us.  My dog Squig is a chicken-dog.  He is afraid of rain.  And thunder and lightening send him into the stratosphere.  He hunkered down in a corner and shook.  For an hour or two.  I feel sorry for him.

Psalms 147:7-8a  "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God: Who covered the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow..."

We'll take the rain here in Oklahoma any way we can get it.

Today is my birthday.  They keep coming and that is a good thing.  I am seventy-seven and I still have my wits about me.  What more could you ask for.  My mom and her sister had Alzheimer's disease, so I figured I was doomed.  But thank God I'm sane.  Or at least I think I am.  I guess you wouldn't know it if you weren't.

Phillipians 2:5 "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus..."  I figure "that mind" is the mind of a servant so we should try to be willing to help where we can.
Pillipians 2:7 "But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant..."

I memorized Pillipians 2: 5-ll years ago.  It is a great passage.  I had gone to a study of a book called "The Mind of Christ" and had told the leader of the class that I wasn't much on filling blank spaces into workbooks, but that I wanted to memorize the passage and would if there was someone to hold me accountable.  He did.  And I did.  Read it.  It will take thirty seconds.

It's a good thing I memorized scripture when I was young.  As you age, it is a lot (LOT) harder.  I can still do it, but will have forgotten it by the next day.  So I have to write the scripture out and paste it on the steering wheel of the car, or the kitchen counter and go over it, and over it, and over it.  The scriptures that I memorized when I was young just pop into my head.  Not so now.

But you can't stop keeping on keeping on.  Otherwise you're done.  And I'm not done yet.  You aren't either.  God has plans.  You may never know what they are or where you fit into His plans, but He has them nonetheless.  And you are a part of it.  I personally would rather know what His plans are ahead of time, but it doesn't always work that way.  Just keep doing what is right.  Keep sharing Christ with those you come in contact with.  And I don't mean that you should whack them over the head with a Bible. There is a song that says, "Let others see Jesus in you."  That's a good place to start.

When you are trying to connect with people, remember, they don't want to hear how much money you make.  Or how perfect your children are.  Or how big a house you live in, or how new a car you drive.  They don't want to know the expensive name brand of clothing you are wearing.  Those are not the things that people want to hear.

They want to know what went wrong in your life and how you overcame the problem.  We love stories in which a person rose above adversity.  How they survived and with the help of God, dug themselves out of the mess they were in.  How God turned tragedy into peace.

My friend Carolyn tells everyone, "Nobody will ever blackmail Janie.  She tells everything about herself.  There's nothing left to blackmail her with."  That's true.  I try to tell stories about myself that show how good God is.  How forgiving.  How loving.  How he takes our failures and gives us peace.  What good does it do to brag about your successes.  That helps no one.

So, for the family who has lost a child, I can listen and understand because I have buried one of my children.  For the person who has lost their health, I can listen and understand because I have been there.  Sometimes God chooses to heal us.  Sometimes he doesn't.  We simply share what God has done in our life.

People need hope.  They need to know that God is alive and well, and is still active in the lives of his children.  They want to hear, "Once upon a time.... and everyone lived happily ever after."  You have stories like that in your life.

Share them.

Looking back over my life, I have found that I don't remember all the days that everything went right.  My best stories are of when things went wrong.  Those are the things that I remember.  The day that Scott knocked his front two teeth out.  The day that Becky put the sterling butter knife in the light socket and permanently burned a black notch in it.  The day that Pat was riding her horse Rusty and he ran under a tree and got knocked for a loop.  Luckily no broken bones.

The day the horse got out of the fence and I was running down the highway with a broom trying to get him back in the pasture.  (Eight months pregnant at the time.)   The day that Ken was hurting so bad he couldn't stand up, wouldn't go to the doctor, and both boys (Jon and Scott) had to practically drag him out--his appendix had ruptured.  Ken always said, "Pain is just weakness leaving the body."  I think he would have just gritted his teeth and died rather than admit the pain was more than he could stand.

The day I dropped a pan of cornbread that I was trying to put in the oven and batter flew everywhere. On me, in my hair, on the cabinets, on the floor.  What a mess.  The day Jonathan left for college and didn't tell me he had a snake in the closet that he had been feeding for months.  Good grief.  I could have killed him.  The day we came home from vacation and a water pipe had burst in the bathroom and flooded half of the house.

Are your memories like that?  I have millions of them.  All simi-disasters.  But the good days, when everything went right have faded.  The good days that I remember are special ones like when Ken came home from Vietnam--alive.  Not in a box.  When Scott made All-State in baseball and Jon made All-State in football.  When Pat played Lucy in the play "Charlie Brown."  When Becky was selected as a National Merit Scholar.  There are lots more of those kinds of wonderful memories.  But most of life is a blur.  It trickles through your fingers.

Cherish the day that God has given us.

The people who owned the house before me were pink flamingo kind of people.  My sister removed around fifty bunnies, turtles, flower stepping stones,...etc. from the back yard alone.  There must have been a dozen flower pots filled with dirt.  No flowers.  And solar lights.  They were everywhere.  When she was through, I was able to plant flowers, bulbs and peonies around the Koi pond.  We got it running.  It has a waterfall.  It looks nice.

I'm glad God didn't make us all alike.  It would be so boring.  According to the number of species of flora and fauna, God loves variety.   He didn't make a prototype and then quit.  All the way from hummingbirds to pink flamingos--both birds.  And a million variations in-between.  Even people look  different.  That's how we  recognize them.  By their differences.

I have never been attached to a house.  They are just places that hold all your stuff, and more importantly--all your people.  We moved so much that I had packing down to a science.  I moved 24 times.  That doesn't count the moves that Ken made.  This move will be 25.  I can be happy just about anywhere if the temperature is right.  That assumes that it is clean.  Or that I can get it clean.  I don't want to be hot, cold, or dirty.

Phillipians 2:4 "Look not every man on his own things, but every person also on the things of others."  I am really blessed that there are so many people helping me get my "things" in order.  Becky's husband Craig has lined up all the contractors.  Painters, tilers, electricians, carpenters...etc.

All my people are certainly looking on the things of others.  On me.