Last Lessons #68 - THANKSGIVING

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

 This week I am determined to rejoice, pray, and give thanks in all circumstances because it is God’s will for me.  I choose to do God’s will.  But honestly, it is not at all hard for me to be thankful this week because God has been so gracious to me.  He has given me everything I need – especially himself.

 But today I want to thank God for you who read my blog each week and for those who make comments that encourage me to keep on writing. 

 I pray that your Thanksgiving Day will be filled with rejoicing, prayer and thanksgiving remembering that it is God who has given you everything you have.  How will you use his gifts?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

Last Lessons#67 – DREAM COME TRUE

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:19-20

Not all our dreams come true.  All God’s promises come true, but God does not necessarily promise us what we dream.  God did not promise me that I would become a missionary when I was seventeen years old.  But he did give me a desire to be a missionary and then he fulfilled my desire.  Here is how he orchestrated it.

We lived in Maryland where Bob was Chief of Medicine at Fort Meade Army Hospital.  Our first daughter, Annie, was born in the hospital there in 1955.  Then the Army offered Bob a promotion and a job in research on atomic medicine in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Bob wanted to cure people instead of being involved with destroying people and we needed to make a decision.  I suggested that we consider going to the mission field since both of us had dreamed of that.  We contacted the Lutherans and the Presbyterians and realized that Dr. Bob was most needed by the Lutherans in Tanzania.  We were accepted by the Lutheran World Federation and were commissioned by our church in Glen Burnie, Maryland. 

I was excited and happy that my dream was coming true, but not everybody was happy! My mother was happy because she had given me to the Lord when I was five years old (but that’s another story!).  My father was not happy, and Bob’s parents were not happy because we would be gone for four long years without coming home.  Some friends and relatives asked how we could sacrifice our lives and most especially the life of our child by going to Africa!  Neither Bob nor I ever considered going to Africa a sacrifice.  We considered it a privilege. 

But as we sailed out of New York harbor and passed by the Statue of Liberty, I must admit that I was more than a little nervous.  We were going for life and might never come home!  Yes, God had promised that he would be with us (Matthew 28:20), but what about our children?  Plus the fact that I was sea-sick the whole trip to England where we would live for eight months while Bob received a Masters in Public Health at the University of London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

We sailed out of New York in 1957 with fear and trepidation.  I don’t know about Bob, but I was afraid.  Still, we went. 

“Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses ad brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.’”  Mark 10:29-30

As I reflect on leaving my country, my family, and my comfortable life in America, I learned that God, true to his Word, gave me so much more than I ever left including brothers and sisters, children and mission compounds. 

One thing I am sure of: if we had not left America in 1957, there would be no Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Tanzania and there would be no Rafiki Foundation with Villages in ten countries in Africa today.

Last Lessons #66 – CONSEQUENCES

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”  Galatians 6:7

You have heard that “elections have consequences”.  We know that is true as we see how different political administrations deal with crucial issues.  A huge issue facing the United States today is what we do about abortion.  The Supreme Court will be taking up the anti-abortion law of Texas and Roe-V-Wade before the end of the year.  Abortion is the issue that divides our country because it lets us know whether we believe that God should control life, or whether we believe that government should control life.  Christians are not ambivalent about this.  We know that since God created life (Genesis chapters 1 and 2), he, and only he, has the right to take life.  We did not create life.  Therefore, we do not have the right to kill another human being, born or unborn. Nor do we have the right to take our own life.  Abortion, euthanasia, and suicide are all murder and we do not have the right to murder, no matter what the current political system says. 

“You shall not murder.”  Exodus 20:13

Thankfully in this country, we still have one right – the right to vote.  We can elect those who believe that abortion, euthanasia, and suicide are murder.  We can elect those who believe that only God has the right to decide who lives and who dies and when.  Elections have consequences.

Political campaigns are already underway in the USA.  I have voted in many elections in my pretty long life, and I have learned that my vote counts.  That means that I must be careful to vote for the right person.  Here is my plea to you in the coming months:

Make sure you are registered to vote.

Vote in every election – local, state, or national. 

Look up every candidate to see how they stand on abortion.

If possible, contribute to candidates who are anti-abortion.

Tell your friends and relatives how you are voting.

Abortion is not just one thing we think about as we vote, it is the issue that defines our worldview – what we believe about life.  Our belief about abortion shows whether we believe that God controls the world and us, or whether we believe that we have the right to control ourselves and the right to control others -- even the world. 

Elections have consequences.  Please remember that in the days ahead.

Last Lessons #65 - MARRIAGE

 “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 2:18

Not everyone is called to be married. I am thankful for those whose calling is to remain unmarried so that they may better serve God. I think of Wetherell Johnson who started Bible Study Fellowship, John Stott who was an incredible Bible expositor, and Karen Elliott who is now the Executive Director of Rafiki. On the other hand, some are to be married to better serve God. I am one of those. I needed a partner.

Because I was a Christian, the one thing I knew was that I was to marry a man, not a woman! Genesis 1:27-28 makes that clear.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

God has his perfect plan for males and females to marry, to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the earth. For me, a tiny part of God’s plan was to take a woman from Florida and a man from Minnesota, have them meet in Texas so that he could send them to Africa! Who would have ever thought of that, except our amazing God. Here’s how he worked behind the scenes.

When I arrived in San Antonio, Texas, to study occupational therapy, I had no idea that I would meet the man I was to marry to make my dream of being a missionary come true. His name was Robert T. Jensen and he had just returned from the Korean War where he served as a doctor. He had been highly decorated for bravery. He was a major in the Army Medical Corps. I was a second lieutenant in the Army Medical Specialists Corps. We met at a “bachelor/bachelorette” dance for commissioned officers at Ft. Sam Houston. The funny story was that Bob and a doctor friend of his flipped a coin to see who would ask me to dance. Bob lost, so he had to dance with me! Actually, Bob told me later that he had decided that night that I would be his wife. For him, it was love at first sight. That was not the case for me. When he called for a date the next day, I didn’t remember who he was and turned him down. I was dating a couple of other guys because at that time the men officers at Ft. Sam Houston outnumbered the women officers ten to one. Not a bad place for a single woman like me to be! Later, Bob asked me to go to lunch and then dinner and then the symphony and the opera and I began to know him. I almost married an Air Force guy whose father was very wealthy, but God

clearly said “no”. In the meantime, Bob had been asking me to marry him every day after our first month of dating. That was September 1953. I continued to say “no” because I had not known him long enough to marry him. But Bob was persistent and so when in December he ordered me to marry him, I had to say, “Yes, sir” because he outranked me! Actually, he always outranked me!

Bob and I married on February 20, 1954, in a military wedding – swords and all. I was 24 years old, and Bob was 27. With all its ups and downs, our marriage lasted for 60 years. We never considered divorce because we had made our vows to God.

God’s plan was to send us as partners to Africa. It seems that most often, the Lord sends his people two by two where he wants them to serve him. Even today when Rafiki sends single missionaries to Africa, we try to send two together. It is safer that way (especially for women) and they can support and encourage each other.

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.” Luke 10:1

I have learned that marriage is a partnership – one man with one woman – so that they may become fruitful physically in having children and spiritually in serving the needs of people in the places where God intends to work. For Bob and me with a two-year old, that was Africa.

Have you thought of why God has given you a spouse, or even more than one spouse? Maybe you have remained single, or been widowed like me? Whatever your condition at this point in life, God has reasons for you to be as you are and Paul explains in 1Corinthians 7 how you are to respond. Read the chapter. God has shown me why I live alone now. I can serve him better in a number of ways.

If God has gifted you with a spouse, and maybe a family, it’s for a reason you may not know now, but God will tell you if you ask him. Maybe he wants you, alone or with your spouse, to lead a Bible study, or teach Sunday school, or work in your church, or start a ministry, or give to Christian ministries, or start a church, or go into politics, or teach children, or help in prolife work, or paint pictures or write music or write books for his glory, or heal people, or commit to being good Christian parents who have jobs. Whatever it is, God has made you for a purpose. Make sure you are fulfilling it.