Someone turned the light off in my garden today.
Or, I gather, it was last night during the first frost of the season.
All my flowers are faded - the color drained from their now deflated corpses. It's a sad picture. It's a season of change.

Another light has been turned off for me in another season of change...my daughter leaving to Phoenix for a major lifechange. Or maybe that's not the right expression. It has made me very sad and very vulnerable at the same time.
Sad because even though she didn't live here in our house, we saw her regularly with Baltimore only 2 1/2 hours away.
Vulnerable because I am handing her over to a life that is not mine, to a future I cannot paint. Not that I truly had that control before, but she felt more real when she was 2 1/2 hours away. More part of my life. More my child, not the grown woman she is now - getting married in a few months time.

It's a season of change. It's a fearful thing, but there is an awesome God whom I trust that everything will be alright, and that JoAnne's new life will bring forth beautiful flowers. It will be a time of growth for us both.

posted by Elke at 10:16 PM

After quite a bit of soulsearching why I wanted to go and find the schoolhouse where a 32-year old man shot ten young Amish girls, killing five of them and seriously injuring another five, I decided to take a ride this afternoon. I needed a frame of reference for what had happened so close to where we live.

Nickel Mines, where the horrible scene to the left developed, is about 25 miles from where we live, towards Lancaster. It is in the beautiful Amish country of Pennsylvania, where horse buggies abound on the streets and where blonde children - the boys with bowl hair cuts - play in yards and peek out the back of buggies while their dad is guiding the horse along narrow roads.

It took me some time to find the road where the school is located. I had another road in my mind, but when I saw the road sign, I realized that it must be down a particular country road. And most certainly, after a brief bend in the road, I passed the now boarded up school house. I imagined it larger than it actually now looked, and I also somehow had placed it farther back from the road in my head. It was very small and much closer to the road than I had thought.

Policemen were making sure no cars stopped, so I simply saw in passing that the door and windows and the outside bathrooms were boarded up.
The whole time while I was searching for the actual location, I was praying for the families that have been impacted by this, both in the Amish community and in the community around them.

I also prayed for Charles Carl Roberts IV's family. How they must hurt...
We discussed in church today how he came from a Christian background, and how his mom actually works at Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, a Christian theater. Roberts' wife had come back from a Bible study the morning her husband decided to take his life and take five others with him.

I don't know if Charley Roberts knew God. I have to think he had given his life to him in some Vacation Bible School or Sunday School class. But what happened? We spoke on Thursday in my women's Bible study group about making sure to seek professional counseling when we run into situations that are not solvable through prayer and fasting. I couldn't agree more with this approach. God is a God of miracles, but He has also given us medicines and doctors who can help us.

I believe we can all learn so much from the way the Amish community has responded to this tragedy. CNN reported, that Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the shooting scene, told The Associated Press that the victims' families will be sustained by their faith. He was quoted as saying, "we think it was God's plan, and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going. A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

Another quote from CNN says: "A grieving grandfather told young relatives not to hate the gunman who killed five girls in an Amish schoolhouse massacre, a pastor said on Wednesday. "As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was making a point, just saying to the family, 'We must not think evil of this man,' " the Rev. Robert Schenck told CNN."

May we learn, learn, learn to truly love our neighbor as ourself.
And may the towheaded children of Lancaster County experience the love of God like never before.
May He put a smile back on their serious faces.

posted by Elke at 10:42 PM

I am having one of those moments where it's hard to turn the other cheek.

Lord, forgive me for feeling this way.

I should really stop reading Ynetnews.
According to Wikipedia, "Ynetnews is an English language Israel news and content website operated by Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most-read newspaper".

Most days, I find fascinating articles about life in Israel, archeology, tourism and religious topics. But there are days when I just want to go to this site and be able to have righteous temper tantrums.

The abuse Christians (and Muslims, but that's a whole other topic) suffer on this site through talkbacks to articles is unbelievable. Most days, there are few voices of reason.

In order to understand: just about every poster can publish comments on this site, even rude, racist or abusive ones.

If you are faint of heart, don't go there...!

Some recent examples are the article on "Cox: Where are Christian tourists?" or "The Garden Tomb – Secret of the missing tomb".

In the first article on Christian tourism to Israel, a poster, only identified as Israeli, writes: "WE DO NOT WANT THEM!!! Get the *** out of here Xrist idol worshippers, we dont want your support or your pressence." [sic]

In the second on the Garden Tomb, another, Michael U, of SF,CA, states: "I don't go to xtian sites trying to lure xtians to the Jewish religion. I leave them be... But I am a regular reader of Ynet, as many other Jews I know. Why should we have to read about the man on the stick?"

I know that Jesus reminded us to turn the other cheek, and I will do that, but what does anyone give the right to be angry about things happening to them or about prejudice being displayed towards them, but then go about lambasting another group and uttering incredible insults to this person's religion?

Father, please remind me that the eyes of the Jews are blind to the redeeming power of Jesus at this point in time. It would be so easy to start judging some of the posters of Ynetnews if it wasn't for the knowledge of God's plan. 2 Timothy 4:3 talks about a time when people will turn to what their itching ears want to hear.

If you have thought about where Israel and the Jews fit in, read the 11th chapter of the book of Romans sometime.

posted by Elke at 11:00 PM

Haven't even told you yet???
Oh NO!
Well, the big news of (last) Friday is that Greg asked JoAnne to be his wife.
So now they are officially engaged! WOOOHOOO!

We have a new son, and JoAnne is just beaming (well, he is, too)!

posted by Elke at 10:58 PM