Dear family and friends,

Another year has flown by; although, it feels like multiple years. This is partly due to the major changes that have occurred and partly to the accompanying fatigue. But don't be dismayed, God has been so gracious to us. We are amazed by His provision and cannot speak of this past year without mentioning our gratitude to God.

Facebook has provided many of you with our story. Last year Marnie came to the house to help me with Mom's care. Marnie stayed into March and I couldn't have made it without her. At the end of February Mom had a TIA (all the symptoms leading up to but not a stroke). Mom was hospitalized for a week during which time we all continued to work full or part-time, taking turns at the hospital while tackling the daunting task of finding a new home for her. We are so grateful God's answer was Jones Harrison Residence in St. Louis Park.

I had known Mom was hungry for people, so moving her into a facility with hundreds of residents was a good thing. She was in shock from the hospitalization, yet adjusted to her new home as if she had always lived there. Her big confusion was that I no longer lived with her. She would often say “I'll go where you're going.” Lately she told me that she decided to stay. When I asked her what she meant she said she had wanted to go home for a little while but there were too many people here, so she would stay.

While the time invested in Mom's care reduced, it was a very busy spring. I cleared out the house and moved into an apartment then moved to another apartment due to circumstances beyond my control. I had a business come and empty out everything I didn't take with me then put the house on the market. The offer I accepted was submitted in the first 12 hours. How amazing is that? I have been so blessed to not have the responsibility of the house or the 20-minute commute to visit Mom. Because I am less than a mile from her, I get to see her almost every day. And my new apartment is spacious enough for my family to visit and comfortably move around. It was my way to meet the standard of the Mehlhaff Bed-and-Breakfast my father ran. I'm not quite there, but I'm close.
Leaving my job at the end of July was of relief; however, not getting my new website up until December has made the fall more challenging. Yet visits from my sisters have invigorated me and I am ready to get moving on what God has for me next.

Mom always included a part about the extended family, and I couldn't have made it through this year without them. My sister Marla has been dealing with health issues, while managing Mom’s financial matters and major decisions. She also found time to work on her book, Praise PhD, and do standup comedy. Her husband is doing well but misses her as her job requires constant travel. Her eldest daughter Cassidy is completing college this year, while her youngest daughter Laura is dual enrolled in high school (a junior) and community college, and working at her first job.

Sister Marnie and her husband Dave sold their home and their retail store this past spring. In one day Marnie closed up her house of over 30 years, drove to Minneapolis and helped me close up our childhood home. A day later she headed off to her new home in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she lives next door to sister, Vicki, and 20 minutes from daughter, Keren, and family. Keren has brought us all to a new place in life: Mom is now a great grandmother, Marnie and Dave are grandparents, and I am a great aunt to Julianna, born August 16! We love every picture that is shared via Facebook or in texts. Marnie’s sons are doing well. Her oldest, Mark, is living in Austin, Texas where he gets to spend time with his great aunt, Renée. Marnie’s youngest, Tim, has moved back to Minnesota, albeit Bemidji, so I don't get to see him much.

​While sister Vicki and her husband Dave have settled down in their home in St. Petersburg for several years now, they are still exceedingly busy and hard to keep track of. Dave's business is doing so well Vicki was able to transition to working with him full time. Their eldest son, Gunnar, has moved around a bit and is doing well. Their son Max is completing college with a degree in engineering. Sons, Trey and Chris, keep their home busy and motivate such activities as building a skate ramp in their backyard and holding weekly boys’ night. They also have regular house guests, some visiting, some living with them.

We pray that you and yours are prospering in the love of God, and thank you for being a part of our lives. We are richer for it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I am working on a post about praying and listening to a speaker on ISN (the It’s Supernatural Network) talk about the Lord’s Prayer. During the talk, he talked about an old principle he called ‘the prayer tree,’ so I googled it. What I found follows. I hope it encourages you.

​www.wbtv.com/story/38679108/prayer-tree-brings-hundreds-of-people-together/

In the book, The Weigh Down Workshop by Gwen Shamblin, she talks about how thin people and heavy people define being full differently. When a skinny person is eating, they’re eating to satisfy hunger but they only eat to a point of not being hungry anymore. This is not usually the case for heavier individuals. If you are eating slowly and you stop when you're no longer hungry, the food that you've eaten that hasn't made it to your stomach yet will get you to a point of being full, while eating beyond that point means that even though your stomach is ready to be done there is still more food coming.

So what does dieting have to do with redefining repentance? The answer is that when we appropriately define our actions and motivations, it's easier for us to understand our need to repent and then to make the change that is a crucial part of repentance. When God talks about repentance in the Bible, He's talking about us adopting His view of a given activity, whether that is actually seeing the reasons for that activity or simply trusting God to know what is best, and then completely stopping that activity.

Consider how God feels about marriage and divorce. When God established marriage, He did it because we need community, we need partners, we need to put others above ourselves. Also, families are essential to raising healthy children. God established marriage because He wants us to have an understanding of the relationship He wants to have with us. God wants to be intimate with us. He wants to be so close that He is our top priority, our first thought. And He wants us to be confident that He loves us and that He will always love us.

When we allow divorce, when we allow personal desires and conflicts to build up and tear us apart, we are hurting ourselves, we are hurting everyone around us, especially our partner, and we are making what was meant to symbolize God's love for us a lie. So God wants us to hate divorce as much as He does because it's just wicked.

Does that mean that I think there is never a time for divorce? No. We live in a fallen world, and we are fallen people, and there will be times when divorce is the only option. But whether or not we destroy what God created for beauty doesn’t mean that what God created can’t be beautiful. We just need to turn our thoughts and hearts to God. And that happens through repentance.

So the next time you think about apologizing to God for something you know you shouldn't have done, followed by another empty promise to never do it again, think about how you’re looking at what you did. If you start to see your actions from God’s perspective, maybe you’ll find that what you did doesn’t look so attractive to you anymore and repentance won't be such an empty activity after all.

Psalms 103:17-18    Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
17 But the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord are from everlasting to everlasting upon those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him, and His righteousness is to children’s children--18 To such as keep His covenant [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it] and to those who [earnestly] remember His commandments to do them [imprinting them on their hearts].

If you don't understand grace you will never understand rest (Heb. 3:7, 11, 18; 4:1, 3-5, 8-11; 6:6; 13:19) because it is only through grace that you can stop fearing death (Heb. 2:14-15) and stop striving in your own works (Heb. 4:10).

The book of Hebrews which is seen as so harsh by so many – Martin Luther even wanted it removed from the cannon – is all about grace. The problem with our understanding of the book of Hebrews, and what causes it to be so harsh, is that it lacks the one-step-back theology* that we love. I do believe this is on purpose because of its intended audience. An analogy might be drug usage. When parents talk to their children about drugs, they talk to them about the dangers, the consequences and worst-case scenarios. Parents tell their children how a single use of drugs can kill them or cause them to be hooked for life. They tell them about how many lives have been destroyed, and omit the possibility of it being anything else. So it is with Hebrews.

Hebrews is a letter written to a church under attack. It was not the frontal attack of the government, capturing and killing them, but the insidious attack of the Sadducees and Pharisees, driving them out of the temple by including phrases in the daily prayer that made Christians curse themselves if they participated, and other such changes to their religious practices.

Unlike Americans, the Jews of this era, and possibly all eras, saw themselves in relationship to the community. They would not have believed that participating in all of the prayer except that portion that cursed them would be acceptable. Standing in the temple during the prayer would be the same as saying and agreeing with that prayer. Not just part of the prayer, but all of the prayer. So the book of Hebrews was written to a group that was choosing whether or not to follow Jesus or to turn back to the old ways.

The choice being made was not a simple one. It was like the drug analogy where once the choice was made the consequences were inevitable. The author purposely left out the one-step-back theology just like parents leave out the possibility of not having major negative consequences for drug usage.

Understanding that Hebrews is not negating one-step-back theology but rather highlighting the severity of the circumstances that the readers were in allows us to see what the author was trying to point out which was the supremacy of Christ, the value of our salvation and the need to stand firm.

Our ability to stand firm is all because of grace by which we enter God's rest.

*The belief that taking one step toward God, through the acts of confession and repentance restores your right standing before God.

A few days ago, my radio station hosts were talking about a new fashion faux pas list that says we should not wear jeans after age 53. I have several thoughts about this.

First, we can wear anything we have the body style and chutzpah to wear. If you've got great style, you can carry off quite a bit that the pundits might say is inappropriate. I do not have great style, so I just wear what's comfortable, and will continue to do so, regardless of the list makers.

Second, I watch TV shows where they talk about people in their 50s and show tottering senior men and women. While we may not be living longer, we are looking better than they did a decade or three ago. Old age is not what it used to be for many of us. Of course, the current list was written by people today, but probably not by people in their 50s.

Third, I remember reading about how older people weren't supposed to wear bright colors. I was a teen at the time, and the story was about someone who challenged that rule and was considered odd. I am so very grateful that people have been challenging these silly rules for decades.

Recently I was walking into Walmart and saw a gentleman who had to be in his 60s wearing a very sharp skater outfit from the 80s that would have embarrassed any 12-year-old today but was probably all the rage when he was young. At first, I thought he looked ridiculous, and he should grow up. But then I was grateful that he had the liberty to wear what he liked and thought 'You go for it, dude.'

St. Augustine said, “In essential issues, unity; in non-essential issues, liberty; in all issues, charity.” I'm grateful we live in a time where there is so much personal freedom, but, sadly, in a time where that freedom has taken us down a path away from God. Are we more free? Are we truly better off for having abandoned the moral safeguards of years past? I don't believe so, and I'm trying to get back to standards that reflect the God I love versus the personal comforts I enjoy. The Bible points out, quite accurately, that we can't serve two masters. I want my master to be God, regardless of the cost. The reason I want this is that I know He is a loving and good God and the good He wants for me is far better than anything I chase after myself. In essence, my priority is to seek His kingdom and His righteousness, and everything else inevitably falls into place.

Psalms 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (KJV)
 
While familiar, these scriptures have never been my friends. I wondered why anyone would ask God to show them more things that are wrong with them. Don’t we already know about more than we can handle? But recently my perspective has shifted. (My sister, whose devotional has been of such great benefit to me, called it ‘moving from guilt to grace.’) What if these verses are not about giving God an opportunity to point out my flaws? What if these verses are asking God to go into my hidden places? What if these verses are asking God to work on areas that I can't work on myself?
 
During the time, or possibly even before, I have been meditating on these verses, God has been bringing before me Philippians 4:6, which says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;” (NKJV). It started with a Wednesday discussion by the pastor's wife, continued when it was my prayer card at a Bible study a few weeks later, and most recently was part of the Sunday sermon on being fearless. When I mentioned both of these Scriptures, Psalms 139:23-24 and Philippians 4:6, to another sister, she mentioned how one of the translations of the Psalms scripture includes the words for God to seek out 'my anxious thoughts.' Isn't it just like God to tie things together!