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Twenty years ago, I served as the first woman chairperson of the Board of Trustees for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The president at that time was Stephen Hayner, who died of pancreatic cancer on January 31, 2015. He was 66 years old.

I remember when Steve asked me, after having been on the board for two terms, to serve a chair. My response was less than gracious.

“Frankly, Steve, that’s the last thing on earth I want to do.” I felt as though my personal trajectory had suffered due to the time I willingly gave to this worthy organization, and I needed to become involved in the writing life again. However, I promised to pray about the decision, and somewhere in the next week, heard that insistent, quiet inner voice say, You know, Karen, there’s artistry in creating a good board also.

Saying “yes” to Steve’s invitation was one of the better acts of obedience I exercised in my whole life. Some of the reason for that is the journey that Steve and I took hacking out what it looked like for the president of a well-known evangelical organization and a woman chair to work together to create a model infrequently (or never) employed that displayed the holy dynamic of how men and women of equal strengths could show forth the full nature of God. Meeting face-to-face once a month, in addition to a weekly phone call, gave us (man and woman) enough time to take a measure of one another’s character, disposition, response to stress and crisis, godliness in word and practice, vulnerability and authenticity.

Stephen was 44 at the time, working through early midlife issues, so our weekly discussions invited me into that dialogue. Fruitful growth and trust and mutuality developed over the two years we were in this relationship. I was often left breathless by Steve’s integrity and authenticity. Moreover, I’m not sure how many men in his position would have been so vulnerable with their board chairs.

On many important issue, Steve and I held to certain strongly formed common values. Our dual role as board chair and president of the organization allowed us to tandem and frame the function of the InterVarsity board in a mold different than what it had previously been.

We both believed that the business of the board was accomplished in positive and God-honoring ways when the relationships of the people of the board were ones based on holy affections, consideration and compassion. We established the precedent that all the committee meetings needed to begin with an hour of sharing what God was doing in our lives; this was necessary since we met only three times a year and were from disparate parts of the country. The love for one another as colleagues around the board table deepened so much that when one member’s term ended and he rotated off, he asked me, “I’m just wondering: Is there life after the InterVarsity board?”

Together, with others’ help, we “browned” the board. Since the student bodies in secular campuses across the country were multi-ethnic, and it was estimated that the white ethnicity would no longer be in a majority, it was important to us that the directors of an organization that worked among those colleges and universities reflect the kind of breadth and depth of thinking that multi-ethnicity demands.

Other women, those not afraid to speak out in a room full of powerful and sometimes opinionated men, were brought onto the board. A gender-equality was established. This again spoke volumes to a watching home office and field staff. Women were considered to be important, they were valued, and literally, room at the table was made for them.

Somewhere in the past, an edict had gone out that board members were not supposed to “talk with the staff”! We made a point to bridge what had become an awkward divide. Appropriate cautions were established: One board member was never allowed to speak for the whole board. Any staff complaints were to be directed to the appropriate supervisors. Due to this effort, a lovely co-inherence began to occur within the full human structure of the organization.

And we healed the divide between the national staff and the board. Up to this point, the IV senior staff sat in the board room, but since I felt they were the ones who knew the organization fully and completely better than anyone else in the room, they should be invited to sit at the table and speak out when they had something pertinent to contribute to whatever issue might be at hand.

After Stephen died, I pulled my InterVarsity board files. To my amazement, I had kept fairly extensive notes on our conversations. I could go on and give multiple accolades about this man—graduate of Whitman College, graduate school at Harvard University and Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and eventually a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Semitic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland—our conversations were obviously erudite, stimulating and challenging.

Perhaps some lines from my notes convey as well as anything the quality of the man and the high regard in which he was held. An email reported, “On top of it all, three churches have called this week to ask whether I’m interested in moving, (Park Street Boston, Christ Memorial in Holland, Michigan and Christ Church of Oakbrook, IL). I’m not interested in pursuing these, but it was a nice break not to have anyone calling for a while.” Then in a parenthesis, an oh-by-the-way, (“I also got a call from a head-hunter asking whether I was interested in either the presidency of Seattle Pacific or Denver Seminary.”)

For those who have never had the opportunity to establish a similar cross-gender working relationship such as this, they have missed the rare and beautiful opportunity to step into a trusting and mutually affirming spiritual friendship. I personally believe in the sacramental quality of marriage; something holy is shown forth when a man and woman love one another and live with one another in this covenantal way. But there is also a need for Christian men and women to model a more complete nature of God—trust and mutual admiration and like mindedness with no cross-gender “ickiness”—just in their working relationships and friendships. This may say more to a watching world than many of our words.

Others will more aptly tell the other extraordinary qualities of this rare man, but I can affirm that Steve’s exercise of holiness in inviting me, an evangelical woman (who couldn’t read a financial statement—still can’t) to walk beside him and other InterVarsity leaders, was unparalleled in my life and healing to me on the deepest of levels.

Stephen always signed his correspondence, “Joyfully, Steve.” And that is how I will always think of him. Joyfully.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Our friends Bruce and Cathy Harro have been in our lives for the last three years. They are an exceptional couple in so many ways, and it has been a delight to get to know them better. Somewhere in his late 40s, Bruce decided he had chosen the wrong profession, a doctor practicing general medicine, and he set his mind toward a trade. He became a credentialed and trained electrician.

Not being party to the initial decision that he was constitutionally unfitted to be a general medicine practitioner, we are not always sure we completely understand why he left a profession for which he had arduously trained, nor why he is content to trade the perks of being a doctor for that of being an electrician. We did become acquainted, however, with the part of his life where he was attempting to find employment.

After a few false starts, Bruce began working as one of many electricians in a large chocolate candy-manufacturing company in the heart of Chicago. Since at this time we were meeting weekly for Sunday brunch, Bruce regaled us with fascinating stories as far as what he was learning in his new profession. We were enthralled. Our friend is a wonderful storyteller and thinker, but his tales about what he was learning in the chocolate factory was stunningly observed through the mind of his past experience with medicine. And let’s face it—once a doctor, always a doctor.

David and I found ourselves exclaiming, “Bruce, we hope you are writing all this down. It would make a fascinating book. What about a title like Everything I Learned in the Chocolate Factory?”

Since then, Bruce has been writing down chapters, about seven so far. The readings have become so fascinating that David and I beg for him to bring his latest work and read it aloud to us. This Sunday after brunch, he read one titled, “Oops!” It was about the mistakes he had made as a novice electrician in an aging, mechanized candy factory. Whole lines were shut down, workers put out of work for a day (without pay) until things could be sorted out by the understanding and collegiality of his fellow electricians. We laughed until tears came to our eyes. It was a lighthearted, self-deprecating collation of events, with the word “Oops!” culminating in each recounting.

Then the medical voice slipped in and Bruce told about an incident out of his days as a doctor. At a church picnic, a friend had brought his father to Bruce. His father was not feeling well. Bruce took him to his office, conducted an examination, took and read an EKG, then prescribed a medication and told him he needed to make an appointment with his cardiologist without delay. The physical matter was urgent but not critical.

With tears running down his face and choking back emotion, Bruce read to us how this elderly gentleman suddenly died that night, before he could make an appointment on Monday, the next day. “I checked with a cardiologist friend who told me that I had done exactly what he would have done under the same circumstances. It was an unfortunate incident but not due to any malfeasance on my part.”

By this time our laughter had turned to empathetic emotions and we were jolted when Bruce read, “Oops! Mistakes happen all the time. That’s just part of being human. But in the chocolate factory, no one dies from them.”

Now, I know a good writer when I hear one read his own work or when I read great work. This is a book in the making with extraordinary possibilities. I’m starting to think of agents I or my friends might know.

What is interesting to me, however, as a matter of personal observation, is how thrilled I am that our instincts were right: There is an unusual story here in the making. The juxtaposition of an electrician’s experience with a deep medical knowledge makes for rare reading. And I am discovering, that in the right circumstances, I love book-coaching. I LOVE IT!

In addition, Bruce can write. He can write really well. Not only that, he spent some of our Sunday time together, after we had hurrahed and exclaimed over his chapter, helping me to diagnose what was wrong with the electrical chandelier in the dining room and offered (at my inquiry) an initial diagnosis on a heart abnormality David has been having for years. Initial diagnosis: supraventricular tachycardia.

This is a friendship for the keeping.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877) was removed from the Chicago Art Institute galleries last summer when the museum’s conservators noticed that some lifting of paint from the canvas and cracking in isolated spots was going on.

When the Art Institute acquired this large canvas in 1964, some restoration had already been conducted, but since then, magnification, x-ray viewing and ultraviolet-light imaging have become sophisticated diagnostic tools for great art works. Conservator Faye Wrubel, while examining the canvas with these tools, determined that the varnish on the painting had yellowed significantly, masking nuances of pale blue, pink, and lavender-grey tints. This meant the masterpiece had aged beyond the artist’s original intent.

The member’s catalogue explains the result of restoration: “Instantly the painting began to take on new life, revealing qualities that had been hidden for decades. The woman’s earring, for example, believed by many to be a pearl, now reads as a sparkling diamond. The man’s cheeks now glow with a touch of color. Above all, the sky, which had appeared to have an even yellow-gray tone, now shows a subtle gradation, from rosy-gray near the bottom to a cool gray toward the top of the painting. The result is a transformed sense of light and atmosphere that is likely to change the way viewers respond to Caillebotte’s vision of 19th-century Paris and its people.”

My granddaughter, Joscelyn Timberlake, and I are beginning to take monthly study trips to the Art Institute; what a waste it is not to visit and learn in this nearby museum which is credited as being one of the finest in the world.

So on a gray and snowy January morning, we took the Northwest line from Crystal Lake (Josie’s mom and dad were out of town for a birthday celebration, and I was the grandmother supply) into the city, stopped in the wondrous French Market beneath Ogilvie Station, and bought six different kinds of Madeleine cookies, each of us eating one half of each flavor as we walked down Washington Street to Michigan Avenue.

We shared a lunch at Terzo Piano, the third-floor restaurant that overlooks the exquisite architecture of Millennium Park, then we plunged into our beginning study of the French Impressionists, beginning with Caillebotte’s restored painting, pausing before one of Josie’s favorites, A Sunday Afternoon by pointillist Georges Seurat (Josie also loves the musical it inspired, Sunday in the Park With George).

It occurred to me as I shot a photo of Joscelyn standing before the painting that it is some 137 years old and that the restoration and conservation process of great art is a constant, arduous process, very much like the process that goes on when the divine Master Painter attempts to render us into the human masterpiece He had in mind when He created us.

I am 72 years of age, and God is removing the varnish in my life brought on by the wear and tear of living this long. His methodology is to painstakingly remove whatever keeps the true colors of my being from glowing on the canvas. “Cotton swabs” are dipped into a solution that erodes the hard surface of my life but doesn’t damage what is lovely underneath.

“Ouch! That stings!” I cry. “Can’t You stop for at least a decade or two?” I bargain. “Whew! What an odor!” “I don’t remember asking You to take on this restoration project. It seems to be totally Your idea.” “Who gave You permission to be my curator?”

Of course, those are all the things we complain about when we are in the middle of painful conservation. The truth is I love the fact that there is a sparkling diamond on my ear, that the tints of the painting that is my life are really pale blue, lavender-gray and pink, that the sky behind me on a rainy day in Paris or in Chicago glows rose, and that my cheeks are really ruddy from walking along all the avenues of this good life.

Josie is 18, and it is so fun to watch her soul open up to what is beautiful and good and true. What a privilege it is to be a work of art some 72 years of age and be able to share with her what I know about walking along wet pavements, and avoiding storm sewers, and being part of the umbrella street dance, knowing the rain will not really spoil the pigments that are part of our lives.

We are under the capable hand of a Master Conservator, Josie. Stand before the work and attend.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Time for true confessions: I am a piler, not a filer. And as a New Year’s effort (“resolution” is a little too strong of a word), I’m making a determination to become a filer not a piler! I’ve spent days in my writer’s study in order to get five hours of writing in per day, making more and smaller piles—these papers to the medical information drawer, these newspaper and magazine tear-sheets to the files about authors and filmmakers and curious bits of information, etc., etc.

Somehow, filing goes against the grain of my fiercely independent, artistic and free-floating nature. I HATE to be pinned to a too-tight schedule of any kind that lasts too long. A rule of life for me is NO More Than One Appointment Per Day. This means only one face-to-face, and if I have a committee meeting commitment, no face-to-faces at all.

But ordering papers is my donnybrook (David says that is like a mass melee; I had to ask)—the desk at the office is stacked with piles, my writer’s study, obviously, ditto, the kitchen bowls (see photo), and the household and garden management desk in the basement!

For a long time, I excused this as “creative clutter”—we artistic types do flourish in certain kinds of disorder and shrivel when faced with too much regimentation. Inevitably, when I go through these rare compunctions to exorcise the demons of paper disorder, I can never find anything I’ve filed, and I eventually and pretty rapidly revert to piling-not-filing again.

But truthfully, despite my excuses, piles are really symptomatic of some old sins. Procrastination is an oldie that I have whipped into submission and mastered with brutal determination. I arrive on-time, do household work on schedule, match my writing assignments to the deadline schemes and bask in the positive feelings of virtue I feel when I function competently in all these arenas. I even am mastering the glut that results from modern email ubiquity.

Old sins, however, no matter how much we attempt to vanquish them from our lives, die hard. This Procrastination, my dastardly enemy, keeps peeping out of my piles; “Hee-haw,” it taunts. “You done thought you got rid of me.”

Now I haven’t even mentioned that I am allergic to dust, so clean surfaces, wiped regularly, are important to my health. I simply have to face down this last remnant of defeat regarding a personality flaw that will probably attempt to haunt me for the rest of my life.

Consequently, I would like to announce that I have filed all-but-two-of my-piles. The remaining ones are in bowls in the kitchen. The household desk top is cleared and swiped. My writer’s study is ready for me to begin practicing sweat and inspiration.

And all that is left are two small kitchen bowls holding recipes, sales notices, coupons, etc.

They say it takes 30 days for any practice to become a habit. Consequently, I’ve set a grim goal: No more piles for the next couple of months. File instead.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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I realized this year, as I turned 72, that I have a terminal life diagnosis. It’s not as though a doctor has given me so many months to live, but it is more inevitable that my life will end sooner than later. The days that stretch out for me are fewer with each passing year, and I am determined to be intentional about my dying—or at least the circumstances surrounding my death.

Approaching age is a little like having a cancer diagnosis (and it helps in this process of being intentional that I had a brush with thyroid cancer myself last year). Let’s say I have five years left, or ten. What difference does that make in the way I live the life that is given to me?

First of all, for me, it means deciding what is the Most Important Thing for me to do with my gifts and interests and capabilities. In addition, what is the MIT to do while I still have health and a good mind? I refuse to not be prepared for death, to leave messes that our adult children have to sort through, to have bitter feelings about people in the past or in the present, or to not celebrate the ascent that death really is for those of us who are people of faith and belief.

I have a friend who is putting her funeral scheme together; she’s a musician, and the music she’s chosen sounds wondrous. I might just ask her if I can look over her funeral program, get some ideas, and adapt it for ourselves. Is our will in order? Have we given away things to family members that they will love to have? Will we have the joy in observing the pleasure we have given them with these gifts?

I am greatly convicted that I must withdraw from many of the things I love and start writing seriously again—this means five hours every week day thinking, making notes, researching and reading, then writing and writing and writing. This is the gift God has given me. I have little time left, comparatively. Scripture teaches us that we should “number our days.” And if I die without doing the work that is given me to do—as best I can—I will feel as though I’ve lived an uncompleted life.

So I took January and cleaned my writer’s study. This was no small task. There were piles upon piles. The mess had gone way beyond the “creative chaos” we artists like to brag about. My desk and the laptop computer were unapproachable. But AHA!—I have conquered it. There are just three small piles of letters and papers and bank statements I need to file. I think I’ll also dust and order the books in my writer’s reference library. Should get that done today.

February is set aside for writing as many book proposals as I have a mind to complete. The plan is to send them out to publishers and just go with any (if there are any) who will bite and give me a contract and an advance on royalties.

Intents have to start somewhere. Actions have to match the ideas. We have to let go of anything that is unnecessary or will prohibit us from achieving the Most Important Things. I turned 72 this month. I have a terminal life diagnosis.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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I have bruises on my knees—but not from prayer. Or are they?

Last week, I spent the equivalent of two whole days organizing and storing the Christmas decorations at Turtle Creek Farm, the 18-acre piece of land (mostly protected marsh) that my daughter, Melissa, and son-in-law, Doug Timberlake, bought two years ago. Their home is a converted dairy barn, and David and I are making plans to move into the north wing sometime at the end of this summer.

The place is huge and therein lies the problem. It is simply too big for one couple and their two kids to care for without some help. I, however, am the rally-the-troops lady. People avoid me because they suspect I have a job for them to do! Well, not really—most of the time. I pride myself on my administrative gifts; I love to plug people into what serves their greatest passions. A former Episcopalian rector once said to me, “How do you do it? You get people to do for you what I never could get them to do for me.”

In addition to a big living space in the converted barn, there are horses, cats, dogs, chickens and sheep that also need to be cared for. This animal menagerie requires a barn, paddocks, a chicken coop, feeding troughs, watering buckets, an ATV to haul away manure, constant trips to feed stores for supplies, a truck to pick up the supplies—well you get the idea.

In addition, the Timberlakes moved the month that our son, Jeremy Mains, came down with an acute and rare lymphoma that five wretched months later took his life. It has been a year in November since Jeremy died, and Melissa has never really had a chance to get settled.

There is a wonderful large attic that was perfect for storing all the Christmas and seasonal decorations we seem intent on using come spring, summer, fall and winter. The problem is that the space is only 3½ feet high, impossible to stand up in, uncomfortable to bend over in—the only solution is to crawl around on one’s knees, which I did for several hours over a two-day period.

Melissa had already taken down most of her Christmas trees and stored some of the decorations; it was left to me and to Joscelyn, my 17-year-old granddaughter, who worked like a trouper beside me, to pack up all the rest—wreathes and knickknacks, box the artificial trees, strip Josie’s room and store anything that looked holidayish.

In time we had 10-15 large plastic bins, all full, all labeled, but how to get them across the large floor to the other side of the attic crawlspace when our knees were already bruised and our backs sore from hours of hunching and crawling across the floor? Exhausted, I went home—a 50-minute drive from the farm—and woke the next morning determined to finish the job.

On the patio, beneath the snow, I found a plant stand with moveable casters. David hauled the large shop-vac into our car, and I set my face early the next morning to scoot across the floor pushing plastic bins before me. When I arrived, however, another plan unfolded in the form of a long skateboard belonging to my grandson Ayden, age 14, and a sports jock at that. Together, we three—the attic aficionados—developed what we all felt was a brilliant scheme. I sat on a pillow on the plant stand and scooted myself to one station across the attic while Joscelyn took up another mobile station, vacuuming the sawdust and dirt from the floor with the durable vacuum cleaner.

Ayden, outside the attic door, loaded the long skateboard with as many bins as it would hold without tipping, then scooted the delivery device to either me (Christmas station) or to Josie who took her place at the fall station. We each would unload and stack the bins in their proper areas, then scoot the empty skateboard back to him. By this time we were all laughing. I thanked Ayden, telling him I didn’t think we could have finished without him. “Oh, that’s OK,” he replied. “It was fun.”

It was fun. I found myself comparing bruises with Josie. “Well, at least I can say I have bruises on my knees (but not from prayer).” But then who is to say what prayer is and what prayer isn’t? So many ideas do not come to life until there is intentional action. An invention in the head is not an invention in the hand. Who’s to say that crawling around on one’s knees for a couple of days because you know someone you love needs a hand is not a form of prayer? It is idea, mixed with love, becoming action. I think the Divine Organizer may have laughed at our skateboard delivery system. I suspect He delighted at our laughter. I know He was pleased that we helped one another.

Last week, I spent two days crawling around on my knees. I’ll leave it there…

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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On Saturday, January 17, as part of my 72nd birthday weekend, David and I took in Selma at the local movie theatre. Selma focuses on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s public protest about the gross irregularities of voting rights in the South and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge as African-American protestors pushed toward the capital of Alabama, Montgomery. I sat through much of the movie with tears welling in my eyes and running down my cheeks. The courageous persistence of that civil-rights movement as it rose to resist violent, racist evil, as well as the companion structural violence, hit me again, and I was well aware that among all those church leaders who came South to join their brothers and sisters, none (or perhaps next to none) were evangelicals.

My tears were tears of embarrassment and shame that we of conservative Christian faith are so slow to join in the justice movements of the world. David and I talked long and hard about what we remembered of these years and why our spiritual leaders were so come-lately in these efforts.

The early civil-rights movement, the one that focused on non-violent, peaceful protest, was—as Taylor Branch makes stunningly clear in Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge, his Pulitzer Prize-winning series about America in the King years—a revival movement in the black churches of America. While we whites, in our conservative churches worked hard to send missionaries across the seas to convert people of other nationalities and races, we shamefully ignored or even decried the efforts of our Christian brothers and sisters to gain the freedoms that were their constitutional rights.

Take a minute on this Martin Luther King Day and let us all hang our heads in shame as an act of communal contrition.

I’ve been writing down all the references to justice in Isaiah. There are many. “For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” Isaiah 61:8.

Taylor Branch quotes a newspaper ad placed by MLK in the New York Times during an incarceration in the Selma jail, February 5, 1965: “THIS IS SELMA, ALABAMA. THERE ARE MORE NEGROES IN JAIL WITH ME THAN THERE ARE ON THE VOTING ROLLS—”

Have you seen, are you planning to see, Selma? Have you read Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece on the contemporary movements that defined race in American’s history? Do any of us believe strongly enough in anything to stand up against institutionalized evil? Are we so pietistic in our faith that none of us would risk getting arrested for resisting civil authority, propelled by some deeply held aversion to injustice? (This is one of my greatest regrets; no jail time—although my children remind me that there is still life left to me.)

A moment of silence; heads bowed. (Who has a full copy of the documentary Eyes on the Prize that we can buy or borrow? Were there any white evangelicals crossing the Bridge from Selma in 1965?)

Dearest friends, we can do better. Yes we can.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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I fancy myself a pretty-good average, really-average nonprofessional electrician. I can do simple things like rewire some lamps, re-hang the dining-room chandeliers (well, one fell down, but it did miss David’s head). Now I leave the heavier pieces to the professionals.

But when the dimmer switch in the dining room kept falling on the floor (not the whole apparatus, mind you, just the switch), it became a nuisance. If you pressed the switch up to turn on the lights or down to turn off the lights, it would fall, roll onto the floor and defiantly hide somewhere in the carpet.

The little hook on the metal underside was broken. This meant that the whole dimmer unit would have to be pried from the wall, the screws removed, the caps twisted off, everything removed, then a whole new unit installed in reverse order—wires matched, caps twisted on, everything stuffed back into the wall hole, screws twisted into holes, and the lids snapped over the new switch.

During a quick trip to the hardware store, I happened to be in the very aisle where dimmer switches were displayed. (How often does that happen—to be exactly where you need to be when you are on a hardware-store search?) And to my great delight, I actually bought the correct replacement. It matched my old switch exactly. So I went to the main electricity box in the basement laundry room, above the dryer, pulled the kitchen-light circuit switch (this also controls the dining-room lights), tested to see if there was any live current in the wire and began to replace the old dimmer set with a new one.

At this time, my husband walked through the room and decided to give me a hand. “Are you sure the electricity is off?” he asked. I assured him I knew what I was doing (he may have been thinking about that falling chandelier) and that the electricity had been turned off. Actually, I’m not sure my husband knows where the master electrical box is!

By this time, David had taken charge of the unscrewing, cap turning, and re-screwing, etc. I, the pretty-good average, but really-average non-professional electrician, was assigned the task of finding the right size flat screwdriver and a small Phillips screwdriver, of holding the flashlight and advising from the sidelines. Actually this was a two-person, really average, non-professional electrician job, simple as it might have seemed. Someone had to run for tools, hold flashlights and advise from the side. Getting the right screws in the right holes was a little tricky. I held the casing while David found the tiny holes.

But together we got it done. Apart from snide asides, I was glad that my husband had stopped on his way through the dining room and given me a hand—well, taken over. Small tasks sometimes do go better with two workers. In fact, most of life is better when we share the chores with someone else. The prosaic becomes less ordinary when two people—a spouse or a child or a friend—help one another with my tasks.

Dishes get done faster. The table is immediately re-set. A dinner cooked together is a pleasure. Baking in the kitchen takes half the time (someone else washes up the measuring cups, spoons and cooking pans, my faulty measuring-math is double-checked; someone else stirs batter). “A threefold cord cannot be broken,” says Scripture (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Two is better than one for most of life’s mundane activities, and it is also two-thirds of the way to being a cord of three strands.

Now, we need to insulate the crack between the two front doors. I can feel the cold air seeping through. I wonder when David will mosey into the hall?

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Sometimes when prayers are answered, God displays what I think is a sense of humor. Before Christmas, one of those yellow-tipped corncob-holders slipped unnoticed into the garbage disposal. What a grinding racket it made! Our oldest grandchild, Caitlyn Mains, was visiting from Indiana Wesleyan College where she is a senior, and as this age set generally seems to do, she brought her boyfriend, Jake, along with her.

They were making an out-of-the way stop at our house in Chicago Friday through Saturday before they returned to Indiana by way of Valparaiso, where they were guests at a college friend’s wedding.

Oh, Lord, I prayed, help us to get that stupid thing fixed so we don’t have to pay plumber’s bills. The disposal was no longer grinding; now it was jammed.

Jake, the boyfriend, thrust his hand into the disposal to see if he could dislodge whatever was causing the distress. He had already pulled out some broken yellow plastic pieces, so we could determine a corncob-holder was the culprit. Of course, by this time, the electric current had been disconnected.

Now, I must admit, I admire a man who is not afraid to stick his hand into another woman’s garbage disposal. It indicates resolve; it hints at a person who considers himself a fixer. It reveals a fearless approach to coming up with desiccated potato peels and onion skins.

By this time, I was standing hunched over Jake’s shoulder, holding a flashlight into the dark hole of my sink’s disposal unit.

“See,” said Jake. “See that pin there.” I could see nothing. Jake had detected a small metal rod—the tine of the corncob-holder. “Just hold the light a little longer.” With no little effort, the metal pin was dislodged, the electricity was switched back on, and the disposal made its normal chawing-away sound.

Jake became my hero. I recommend this tactic for any boyfriend attempting to win approval from any grandmothers. In fact, since he’d just saved me $120, I offered to pay one of his applications to physical-therapy school.

However, after Christmas, the garbage disposal acted up again. This time it ground and moaned and just stopped. I prayed, Oh, Lord, help me to get that stupid thing fixed so I don’t have to pay a plumber’s bill. I, however, am not a woman who is much daunted by garbage-disposal collapses.

I even know where the key wrench for the garbage disposal is stored. Hoisting it from its place in the shadows under my sink, I poked the end into the hole and turned the mechanism until it jarred free. Some little yellow plastic pieces were probably jouncing up and down in the cavity. Then I found the little button on the left-hand side bottom of the disposal, pressed that, and voila!—we were in business. I threw away some food that was past its time in order to grease the cogs.

On Sunday, however, I whizzed into the kitchen, making last-minute preparations for guests who were coming home with us from church. The garbage disposal was clicking off a high pinging sound. The cold water from the faucet just sat in the sink. Prayed again: O Lord, help me to get this darn thing fixed so I can serve company and not have to pay a plumber’s bill. Should we take our friends out for dinner? What restaurants were nearby and open? I decided that the food was prepared, just needing to be warmed. We would bring our friends home; they’d understand. After all I still had one working sink.

Friends came. Food was great. Conversation better. We laughed about the comedy in our life, shared our sorrows, reconnected. David and I were both glad we hadn’t decided to eat out. The fire in the fireplace, the Christmas settings still on the table, the lingering to talk as the afternoon went on were all worth a little inconvenience. We left the dishes for a while and went upstairs to take a nap.

Coming down to clean up, I finally stuck my hand into the bowels of my recalcitrant appliance and felt what appeared to be a small juice glass in its mouth. Determined, I hauled and leveraged what turned out to be a half-pint canning jar out of the dark enclosure. Turned on the water, turned on the electricity; everything worked like a charm. No grinding. No moaning. No pinging.

And I thought I heard that small, still nudge that we can never really be sure about, See. You prayed about this one, two, three times. Just want to make sure that you attend, take notice and understand that I care about a housewife’s laments and other things like plumber’s bills.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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We love the Christmas and New Year’s letters we receive in the mail. Mostly, we pile everything to read after Christmas, keep the envelopes in case addresses need to be changed, and then we settle by the fireplace to catch up on friends and distant family.

This letter came from Sylvia Lovett (who was in our Moody Church youth group in Chicago more than 40 years ago). She writes about two of her sons who were traveling in Europe.

Matt and Ian were traveling in different parts of Europe and planned to rendezvous somewhere in the town of Prian, Slovenia to go climbing. The day before they were to meet, Matt was in Venice, Italy. Overland, the trip to Slovenia entailed bus, trains, taxis and the possibility of being stuck at the border. The trip across the Adriatic Sea was only two hours, but he had missed the weekly ferry. The closest town Matt could get was the ferry to Umag, Croatia, Slovenia’s neighboring country. Arriving in the sleepy coastal town, he found a taxi driver willing to take him across the border to Piran. As Matt was deposited in the town square, his next thought was to find Ian. They had no meeting point, phone contact, or Internet connection. As Matt picked up his bags and looked around, rain started to fall—and there was Ian, leaning against the corner of a building. He had been waiting about 10 seconds.

Now these kind of divine encounters happen all the time in our lives, but most of us don’t pay much attention to the fact that God has planned rather remarkable meetings. We run into an old friend we haven’t seen in years and that person has the key to open a door we didn’t have the key to open. We’ve started to attend a church we were part of decades ago. Every Sunday we bump into people we’ve known and loved. It has been kind of a grand homecoming or an unplanned reunion.

Last Sunday we shared a meal with friends—he had started in Youth For Christ when David, just home from seminary, had been commandeered by national headquarters to funnel former high-school club members, now attending Wheaton College, into directing clubs in local school. They, newly married, he and his wife had attended the church we planted together on the West Side of Chicago. When they left after our Sunday meal together, we basked in that warm glow that always comes from connecting again with former friends.

However, these meetings are often un-dramatic and can be easily taken for granted. We need stories of extraordinary encounters in far off places to cause us to think, Wow! That had to be of God!

The truth is that most of our connections are divine appointments. We never know which strangers we meet will become friends. We don’t know who it is nearby us who needs that word from us so casually extended. I recently read of a couple who felt impelled to talk with someone seated beside them in a restaurant. The conversation turned to spiritual questions and answers. The stranger went away seemingly unmoved and unchanged. However, a gentleman sitting in another nearby table paid his bill in preparing to leave the restaurant. He paused at their table and said, “You have no idea what your discussion has done for me. I came in here troubled and heart-sore, wondering where God was in my life. Forgive me for listening so intently, but everything you said to that man was exactly what I needed to hear.”

We are at the beginning line of a new year. Remember, won’t you, the two brothers finding each other in Prian, Slovenia, both traveling from different parts of Europe, without cell phones, or an Internet connection or a designated meeting place, looking up in the rain and discovering that they have arrived at their destination within ten seconds of each other. Now that’s a story.

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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