Password Protected

In this day and age there is a password for everything.  Any time you log on to a computer you probably use a password.  If you use online banking you need a username and password to access your account.  The same goes for email, Facebook, Amazon, Paypal, eBay, Pinterest, Blogger and any other online business or interesting page that you subscribe to.  Obviously, the ideal thing would be to use the same username and password for every single account that you have. But, alas, sometimes the username is already taken or worse yet, you are told you have to add some foreign character to your password to get the highest security. You finally come up with something that they accept and then when you go to sign in two weeks later, you can't remember what username or password you used. Eventually you find a place to store all these passwords where you can retrieve them when you need them.  Often they are in an inconspicuous file labeled PASSWORDS on your computer desktop on in your top desk drawer in an envelope with the same secretive title.

Recently, I had a very frustrating experience with a lost username and password. As part of my job at New Hope, I have to electronically file the federal, state and local payroll taxes each month. I usually like to do this when I am alone in the office so I am less likely to be interrupted.  On one such Friday, I logged onto Quick Books and did all the monthly reports and got everything ready and then went to the place where I keep my usernames and passwords to file and pay the taxes. I have a separate paper for each of the three entities and on each I have written the username and password needed to file them. ALL three of the papers were missing!  I couldn't believe it.  There was no way this could happen.  Trying not to panic, I looked everywhere.  Nothing. Frantically, I tried to think when I had last used them. I remembered having the papers out about a week ago to do some quarterly filing.  I finally concluded that I must have accidently picked them up with a stack of papers and put them through the shredder. Berating myself for not having the passwords anywhere else, I began to assess my options.  I have done this filing every month for the last seven years so you would think that I might be able to remember the passwords.  I racked my brain and prayed and miraculously I did remember the usernames and passwords for the federal tax and the local tax.  I went ahead and filed them and then began the difficult task of  recovering the passwords for the Pennsylvania tax.

I called the PA Department of Revenue. After the usual runaround of the recorded "if you are calling concerning _______ please push number ______," I finally was connected to a human who unfortunately was having as bad a day as I was.  I explained my situation and she curtly informed me that there was no way she could give me what I needed unless I could answer the security questions:

1. What is your mother's maiden name? and
2. In what city were you born?

Well, I knew that I wasn't the one who set up the account, so I told her I would have to research the answers and get back to her. I called the three persons who I thought might have originally set the account up and got their mother's maiden names and their cities of birth. Armed with this information, I called the Department of Revenue back, hoping that I would get a friendlier person.  No such luck.  Is it possible that they only have one person who takes phone calls?   As I read off the answers I had been given she smugly replied that none of them were correct. I asked her if she could give me some hints. When she refused, I asked her what my options were.  She told me the only thing I could do was register as a new filer and it would take several weeks for everything to go through.  I thanked her (well, maybe I didn't) and with a sigh, hung up. 

I decided to give it a rest over the weekend and hoped that maybe the username and password would just magically appear in my brain sometime over the next two days. It didn't. On Monday I returned to work and told my boss what had happened.  He offered to pray that the missing papers would reappear.  I was grateful for his prayer but was pretty certain I had looked in every possible place for them and was convinced that they had gone through the shredder.  I figured later in the afternoon I would start the arduous task of reregistering to file the taxes with the state. As I was typing at my computer I saw a paper sticking out behind my desktop.  I pulled it out and it wasn't one paper but three!  All the missing papers were there and on top was the Department of Revenue one with that username and password that I needed so badly!

This incident was frustrating and annoying but I learned some things from it: 

• ALWAYS, ALWAYS have the usernames and passwords kept in two different places so if they disappear from the one you still have the other.
• When you think you have looked everywhere, look again.  I am sure I looked all around my computer on Friday but didn't see them.
• Even if you are having a bad day, try not to take it out on someone else.

One thing we don't need a password for is prayer. I will never be told I can't access God because I forgot my password. I am thankful that I can talk to God whenever I want to.  I also hope and pray that my heart is open and not password-protected when He is speaking to me.
 

Keep On Singing

Over the past year the song by Matt Redmond, 10,000 Reasons, has become very popular in churches and on Christian radio. I first heard the song last September when Kristen Gochnauer introduced it to our congregation during our Praise and Worship time on a Sunday morning. I liked it immediately and the more I heard it the more I loved it.

Singing has always been a part of my life. My parents sang a lot. I grew up on a chicken farm and if I entered the chicken house looking for my father I just stood and listened where the singing was coming from (although sometimes it was hard to hear over the cackling of the chickens!). My mother sang or hummed as she worked around the house. Naturally my siblings and I sang too. I didn't know that there were some families who didn't sing as they went about their daily lives until I was in my teenage years and a friend expressed astonishment that my family was always singing.

We didn't always sing the correct words and we certainly weren't the most musically gifted family, but we still sang. I actually don't have that great a voice but I still sing. I married a man who has a lot of trouble staying on key, but thankfully he still sings. Steve's trademark is making up songs and singing them. The songs he sang to the children when they were little were absolutely goofy but the kids loved them and he taught them well. All of them are quite capable of putting words to any tune. If you are lucky enough for them not to know you are there, you will be treated to the most ridiculous, hilarious tunes that you can imagine. The other day, Megan heard Josh bellowing a song and substituting humorous lyrics in place of the actual ones. She said the song (with the incorrect words) has been stuck in her head ever since. Three year old Alexis rode with Uncle Josh in his truck one afternoon and to his delight and her mother's dismay she now happily and lustily sings "baby monkey, baby monkey, riding on a pig, baby monkey..." Also, if you ever happen to sneak into the shop when Shawn and Josh are working on their trucks you will hear a men's duet like you have never heard before.

I am telling you all of this to explain why I love this song. I love the tune but even more I love the words, because it is exactly how I feel about singing.

"the sun comes up, it's a new day dawning, it's time to sing Your song again....let me be singing when the evening comes....for all your goodness I will keep on singing...."

The Bible has a lot of references to singing. The Psalms are filled with songs, a lot of which we still sing today.  Jesus and his disciples sang together before they went out to the Mount of Olives. Paul and Silas sang in jail. I think the Lord loves when we sing together and I can't help but think he even enjoys the silly little songs we make up to entertain each other. I pray that I will never stop singing and when "the end draws near and my time has come" I plan to sing God's praises "ten thousand years and then forevermore."

If you have never heard the song and even if you have, I hope you enjoy this video and that you can find some reasons to keep on singing.

Seventeen Too Many

     When Megan was in 11th grade she needed to write a short story for an English class.  Writing has always come easily for her (I like to think that she got some of her skills from me), and she put together a tale about a serial killer who ends up in a small town as a deputy in the sheriff's office. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that the killer (Lilly) had a rough childhood and when she finally thought she met the man of her dreams and married him, her husband loved his cats more than he loved her. She ended up killing him and over the years she had killed sixteen more people and the common link was that they all had a cat.

     This lady hadn't killed for quite a while and was doing a good job as deputy but her life was shattered when the other deputy (Colt) bought a cat to keep him company.  Thus began the plot to kill him as well.  She sent a message, saying that Hox (that is the name the killer was known as) was in their small town and intended to kill someone. Of course the sheriff and Colt had no idea it was her and she plays along and acts like she is intent on finding this killer.  In the end, the sheriff and Colt figure out that it is her and she demands a gunfight with Colt.  They meet in an alley and when the noise and smoke subside, they are both lying on the ground.  Eventually, Colt gets to his feet and walks over to Lilly's dead body, and says, "seventeen deaths is seventeen too many."

    Megan handed it in, got a good grade on it, chalked it up as a pretty stupid story but that she had fun with and forgot about it.  Last semester in her Honors Comp class at college, her professor told them that they could get extra credit if they wrote a play.  He said that the plays would be entered into a playwriting competition as well. Megan heard the extra credit part and figured that was easy enough.  She pulled out her story from 11th grade, rewrote it as a play and turned it in and never gave it a second thought.

    In February she received an email from her professor saying that she had won first place, would receive $150.00 and that the drama department was going to act it out on stage. Her initial reaction was one of disbelief.  She actually emailed her professor back and asked if he was sure he had the correct person.  He replied, "your play was titled 'Seventeen Too Many', right"?  After it had sunk in that she had really won, she was kind of embarrassed, because she thought that the play was just dumb and pretty cheesy. She hoped that no one who knew her would realize she wrote it. 

She met with the cast and they made a few changes and then she didn't hear a whole lot more about it, until her professor emailed her the dates that the play would be performed and asked her to come so they could interview her afterward.  She was horrified. The week before the play, she texted me this picture:

 

 



Me:  This just made my day!

Megan: I’m considering taking them all down.

Me: It’s fantastic! You are a star!

Megan: It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just on bulletin boards. But no, it’s on doors too.

Me: Oh my goodness. This is CRAZY. Do people actually come to this?

Megan: I hope not.

Me: Did they ask info from you to write a bio?

Megan: O goodness no. That’d be terrible.

 

Well, as it turns out they did ask her to write a bio and I think in the end she felt pride in her play being selected as the winner.  Steve and I went with Megan to the play on Thursday evening and yes it was a little silly and not many people showed up but we enjoyed it and were glad we went.  Her brothers wanted her to record it for them so on Thursday evening we tried with one of our cameras.  The picture quality was awful so she used a different camera on Friday evening and got a little better picture.  She is working on editing and adding captions, and will possibly post it on her Facebook or blog some day.  On  Thursday evening, when they interviewed her afterward, I recorded that as well.  Again, you can't really see the picture but you can hear what they are saying.  I thought I would share it.  Who knows, maybe someday, Megan will be a famous writer, and this will be dug out of the archives and heralded as her first live interview as an author!

 

   

This Thing Called Prayer

I have always believed that prayer is more powerful than we can possibly imagine and I feel that most of us haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg in realizing what we could accomplish if we really used prayer the way God intended us to.  When I was a teenager, I was at a meeting where a minister invited us to come up front and pray specifically for healing for a person that God laid on our heart.  At the time, I was close to someone who was really struggling with some addiction problems that were not healthy. I asked God to heal this person and release him from the addiction. Within a year, my friend removed himself from some unhealthy relationships and recommitted his life to Christ. I felt like God had directly answered my prayer and I have always associated this instance as the root of my deep belief that praying is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves, our family and our friends. Above all, I believe it is what God wants us to do and we honor Him by doing it.

Why does having someone pray for you calm your anxiety and make you feel loved? I think it is because it shows that they care about you, about your life, and about a situation you may be facing. I remember being awakened in the middle of the night by Steve talking out loud. After listening for a little I realized he was praying. He was praying for a lot of things and he also prayed for me. I was filled with a tremendous warm feeling of love!

I am aware that the phrase "I am praying for you," is used quite casually and probably often the person who says it really isn't praying for you. I myself have been guilty of doing this. However, there have been times in my life, when someone has told me that they are praying for me and I have known that they really were. I have had people approach me at church and ask about things that they know are going on in my life.  They will then tell me that they have been praying for me.  I know that they mean it. My dad told me all the time that he was praying for Steve and me and our children.  I knew that he was. In fact, when he died, I actually thought how I would miss not having him praying for me.  It goes back to that feeling of comfort and knowing that someone really cares about you. In the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prayed to His Father, I believe He was praying not so much for relief from the horrible death that was before Him, but because of the comfort it gave Him to talk with Someone who He knew loved and cared for Him with a love that He could not receive from another human.

I usually pray quietly in my mind, however, I will occasionally pray out loud when I am by myself. Often I will pray through a song. I pray when I am happy and I pray when I am sad.  I pray throughout the day but I especially like to pray when I am in the car. Often, I will have a running dialogue with God while I am driving (safer then on the cell phone, right?). I pray because I want to and because God wants me to. I pray because I love God and I am thankful for the life He has given me. I pray because I believe God hears me and cares about me. I know that He listens and answers my prayers.  Sometimes, I am not even aware of how He answers them but I honestly think that the answers He gives may not be as important as the time we spend in God's presence communicating with Him.

One of my main reasons for writing this Blog is for my children. I want my children to know that I pray for them.  When they were babies, I would softly tiptoe into their room where they peacefully slept with their knees tucked under them and their innocent little faces so sweet and I would pray.  I thanked God for them and I prayed that they would grow into a fine young man or woman who would love the Lord. I prayed for their life and for their future spouse if and when they married. I prayed that I would be a good mother to this child that God had gifted to me. Even though they are now grown, I still pray for them every day.  I thank God for the person they have become and I pray for their future. I pray that God would guide them in their lives and that they will continue to put Christ first in their life.  If I know specifically of something they are dealing with I pray for that situation. Now that I have grandchildren, I pray for them.  I pray that these precious children will grow up into fine young men or women who love the Lord.  If I am still alive when I have great-grandchildren I will pray the same for them.

I Thessalonians 5:17 encourages us to pray continually. As a parent, we love to give gifts to our children.  Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give to them is the assurance that we are praying for them every day.