Writing and Living | A Blog by Staci Eastin

Using the Time That We Have

November 21, 2011 in Mercy of God with 1 Comment

Coming from a small town, I’m often amazed at the places where people cross paths with someone from home. I’ve heard stories of people from my hometown walking past each other in distant airports and finding themselves in the same foreign hotel. So running into my dad’s close friend and colleague at The Gospel Coalition in Chicago wasn’t that much of a coincidence.

We talked for a minute. He and Todd commiserated over the cost of parking. (Southern Illinois boys who grow up surrounded by corn and soybean fields with the occasional oil well to break the monotony find forty-dollar-a-day parking fees hard to fathom.) Then I lost him in the 6000 plus crowd for the rest of the conference.

My dad’s friend died suddenly this weekend. Bob was 47.

I’m sad for my dad, who has lost one of his best friends. I’m sad for Bob’s wife, children, parents, and siblings. It’s hard to understand.

When I heard the news, I immediately remembered Matt Chandler’s message at the conference. Matt is the pastor of The Village Church in the Dallas area. If you’re not familiar with Matt’s story, two years ago, after suffering a grand mal seizure on Thanksgiving morning, he learned that he had a brain tumor. He was in his mid-thirties at the time. The type of tumor he had generally has a three-year survival rate. The last news I heard is that Matt is in remission, but the odds of a recurrence are still quite high.

In other words, Matt has reflected on his own mortality more than most men his age. That’s what gave these words a bit more weight:

Here’s what I know that you don’t know. Some of you will not be back next time we do this. Now you think you will, because everybody knows that you can get that call that changes everything, but nobody thinks they’re getting the call. So everybody can quickly acknowledge, yeah, there’s no one that is immune to getting the phone call that’ll change your world forever. Yes, your children can die in accidents. Yes, your spouse can become terminally ill. Yes, this can happen. Yes, this can occur. But nobody thinks it’s coming for them.

But I’m thankful for these words of hope:

God doesn’t drive an ambulance. This didn’t surprise him or shock him or knock him loose.

Some things we just can’t fix, and some things we’ll never understand. But nothing that happened this weekend caught God off guard.

We mourn, but not as those who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Are we busy at the work we’ve been called to do? Are we making the best use of our time? (Ephesians 5:15-17) Are we rejoicing in the gospel?

Because we don’t know how much time we have.

(Matt Chandler’s sermon at the conference was excellent. I urge you to watch or listen.)

Youth – Matt Chandler – TGC 2011 from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

You can also download the sermon here.

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Saturday Links

November 5, 2011 in Links I've Liked with 0 Comments

I meant to include this last week. Molly Piper gives us a Google reader tip. I’ve found this very helpful!

Rebecca reran an old post about Christ’s active and passive obedience. A bit heavier than what’s typical of most blogs, but worth the effort.

On the Desiring God Blog, Carolyn McCulley talks about How to Serve “The Singles” – Ministry to Unmarried Adults in Your Local Church.

In my nine years of homeschooling, the biggest problem I am seeing is parents who think homeschooling is some sort of guarantee of righteousness. It’s not. World Magazine discusses this problem with Elyse Fitzpatrick in light of the essay Homeschool Blindspots that went viral on homeschooling blogs a few weeks ago.

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Foresight may be vain

November 4, 2011 in Mercy of God with 2 Comments

“You’ll never guess who I had lunch with today,” said Todd as he walked in the door yesterday evening.

And he was right. I never would have guessed.

An old friend, whom we hadn’t seen in years, passed through town yesterday. He managed to track down Todd’s cell phone number (which is a story in itself), and they met for lunch.

It has probably been ten years since they had seen each other, and even that it was just for a minute or two. As for the last time we had a good visit, it’s been closer to 14 years.

So many good memories. So many good times. So much food eaten together — most of it around their table.

Things like this always make us pause and look back. I think it’s normal to remember past times as better than they really were. But even though I’m doing a bit of romanticizing, the window of time we shared with them was a particularly good season for all.

Both of our families have endured disappointments — they probably more than we. We have also had some wonderful surprises, and they would likely say the same.

One thing I do know: if you would have sat those young couples down in 1993 and told them what was ahead, they would have never believed you.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew
~Robert Burns

remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.

Isaiah 46:9-11

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Thankful Thursday

November 3, 2011 in Thankful Thursday with 1 Comment

I’m still thankful for the fall weather. It’s been three weeks in a row now. I can’t remember a more gorgeous autumn than this one.

I’m thankful for breakfast with friends. I am thankful for friends who pray for you and lift your requests to the Lord.

I’m thankful that even though God is sovereign, he still wants us to pray to him and he works through our prayers.

I’m thankful that we got through another week of teaching the attributes of God to 3rd to 6th graders. I’m thankful for their tough questions that keep their teachers on their toes.

I’m thankful that the Cardinals won the World Series (even though I still feel bad for Texas. They never felt like the bad guys to me.)

Every Thursday I join Kim and some other bloggers to list things I’m thankful for.

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Status Report

November 2, 2011 in Status Report with 0 Comments

Sitting…in the living room, on the couch.

Drinking…coffee.

Listening…to acorns hitting the roof as they fall off the oak tree outside my front window.

Anticipating…the end of Daylight Savings Time this weekend. The sun doesn’t come up until after seven o’clock these days, and I’m weary of it. I think I could handle the sun setting in early afternoon if I didn’t have to get up in the dark.

Reading…Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian. I meant to have this finished and reviewed by Monday, but I got distracted by the World Series.

Also reading…Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. I first read about this book in this post by Justin Taylor. The last few fiction books I’ve tried lately have been duds, so it was nice to find this.

Thinking…that the next few months will be quite busy. Oldest son turns 15 in a couple of weeks. Two of my kids’ birthdays fall in the midst of the holiday season. Then the rush of gearing up again in school in January, plus a busy spring with trips and speaking…and all the other stuff I normally do…I’m probably not going to get to catch my breath until June. At least it’s a fun kind of busy.

Thankful…for two exceptionally nice things to look forward to. A big family gathering over Thanksgiving, and Together for the Gospel in April. Can’t wait for either one!

Wishing…that The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference was also on the schedule, but I don’t see that happening right now.

Noticing…that my allotted computer time is nearly over. I must go.

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Women of God Interview

November 1, 2011 in The Organized Heart with 0 Comments

The Organized Heart, along with an interview with moi, is featured in this month’s issue of Women of God magazine. You can read the article here.

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I Think I’ll Knit the Snake Blanket, Myself

October 31, 2011 in Just for fun with 0 Comments

Today’s blogging time was spent taking my Disclosure statement off the About page and putting it on its own page.

Then I noticed that ALL of the links to my pages were gone from the Navigation bar. This is funny because I’d been looking at the navigation bar for a week and thinking that it looked boring and green. Which now makes sense, seeing as how the links for the pages were missing.

I am not a detail person.

The good news is that I now know what changing that setting did last week. And the lesson? If you change settings on your blog and you don’t think it did anything, it probably did something that you’re not noticing.

So, I’ll leave you with a little Monday humor. Knitting 101:

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He is Trustworthy

October 30, 2011 in Quotes with 0 Comments

Our lives are also cluttered with a lot of “if onlys.” “If only I had done this,” or “if only that had not happened.” But again, God has no “if onlys.” God never makes a mistake; God has no regrets. “As for God, his way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30). We can trust God. He is trustworthy.

Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

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Saturday Links

October 29, 2011 in Links I've Liked with 1 Comment

In honor of the World Series Champions, I give you Cardinals Cake Wrecks. Not everything on Cake Wrecks is appropriate, but this one is family friendly.

Kim discusses the Rules of Engagement as she reflects on a recent kerfuffle on another blog.

The Kindle version of Pujols: More Than the Game is only $3.74 right now. (Check price before purchasing, because I don’t know how long this will last.)

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The Christian Athlete

October 28, 2011 in Life in General with 0 Comments

I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure. – Eric Liddell

For those of you who don’t follow baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals won Game 6 of the World Series last night. This is a big deal. It was the most exciting game of baseball I’ve ever seen in my life.

But I’m not going to talk about that now (even though I could go on and on (and on) about it).

I want to talk about the Christian athlete.

After the game, as I was basking in the glow of victory. Or, more accurately, trying to absorb what I had just witnessed and hoping my blood pressure would soon return to normal, I left the TV on for post-game interviews. During the interview, Lance Berkman shared that he’s a Christian and he always prays for peace and focus before a game. That’s not an exact quote because I was distracted by something else at the time, but I think that’s reasonably close to what he said.

I liked Lance Berkman before that, and hearing him say that made me like him more.

We love our Christian athletes, don’t we? We (as Christians) are excited when we hear a great athlete is a Christian, and adopt him as our hero. He’s one of us, after all.

Of course, there are always the people who point out that there are preachers and missionaries faithfully laboring for Christ in difficult circumstances. They aren’t getting glory and ridiculously high pay. Those are the ones who deserve our honor. That’s valid. We are a society who prioritizes the wrong things. All humans tend to do this, as James warned us about in James 2:1-4.

I don’t think, though, that it’s wrong to wish Christian athletes well. If these men are our brothers in Christ, we need to encourage them (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and rejoice with them (Romans 12:15), not begrudge their success.

But we need to be careful. The Bible specifically lists what qualifies a man to be a leader in the church. I have no idea if Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, or Adam Wainwright meet these requirements because I don’t know them. I know how they play baseball, but being able to hit home runs or throw strikes is not listed in the requirements for elders found in Titus 1:5-9. We should not assume that because they are Christians who are gifted in baseball that they should then anointed special Christian spokesmen.

Like it or not, though, they have been given a public stage. We should pray for them and encourage them, and not be shocked when they stumble. I have seen Pujols get snippy with reporters when he’s being pressed hard to answer for something he did on the field. He does have a temper.

But so do I. My failures are just more private. If reporters started shoving microphones in my face every time I snapped at my kids or burned supper, I would probably be snippy, too.

I took the following quote from the Pujols Family Foundation website:

People have said to me, “Albert, I would give anything to be able to play baseball like you.” They may look at my abilities and think that being a great baseball player is the goal of my life. Believe it or not, baseball is not the chief ambition of my life. Becoming a great baseball player is important to me, but it is not my primary focus. Because I know the Hall of Fame is not my ultimate final destination.

My life’s goal is to bring glory to Jesus. My life is not mostly dedicated to the Lord, it is 100% committed to Jesus Christ and His will. God has given me the ability to succeed in the game of baseball. But baseball is not the end; baseball is the means by which my wife, Dee Dee, and I glorify God. Baseball is simply my platform to elevate Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. I would also rather be known as a great husband and father than an All-Star baseball player. Perhaps one day I could be honored with an invitation into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. That would certainly be a boyhood dream of mine come true, but it is a far greater honor that one day I will be in heaven with God to enjoy Him forever.

A great testimony from an imperfect man and astounding athlete. I wish him well.

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