Warmth of the Son

What a brisk morning! Too cold to sit on the porch, so I am enjoying this beautiful morning sitting on my dad's chair.

 I have a table and chair that used to belong to my Dad when he was alive. He would sit and drink his coffee, read the paper, and talk to the neighbors. When Mom sold the house, I asked for the table and chair. On the table I also have his ash tray and I also put a coffee cup. The hanging planter above is an old fishing bucket with metal fish hanging from it. You see, my dad loved to fish.

Sitting here, I feel the breeze, but can also feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I can hear my big wind chime and all the sounds of nature. When I close my eyes, I can even hear the trees.

Funny how the wind is cold, but the sun is so warm. Made me stop and reflect how when we have trials in our life we are not alone. Jesus is always there by our side. He is the warmth on our face. We are never alone. 

 Lord, increase my faith and trust in you. Please tell my dad I miss him and thank him for me for all he did for me.

 

Laughter

Oh, what a glorious day. I have been sitting on my rocking chair enjoying this beautiful morning. I have done my prayers and have been listening to my Peaceful Morning music. I h
ave been reflecting on laughter. Yesterday and Friday evening I attended a woman's conference with my daughter and my friend, and one of the speakers was a comedian. Well, she started her talk by making us laugh, and then out of nowhere went into her life story. Her life had been hard, but when she found Jesus, she found JOY in her life.

It made me think of my favorite picture of Jesus that I have hung in my bathroom. My laughing Jesus.

I think some of us take life's trials too hard. We have to relax more. We need more joy and laughter in our lives. We need to laugh more.

I know two beautiful ladies by the name of Letty. And both are full of laughter. I love their joy and their laughter. One of them posts the funniest things and makes us all laugh. She seems to post them when I need a good laugh.

I sometimes seem to take life too seriously. Tony takes life too easy. I guess we help each other, for I know sometimes he takes it too easy.

Yes, we need to acknowledge life's responsibilities, but we also have to be sure that we have joy in our lives.

 When we have Jesus in our lives and we trust that he will take care of us, life becomes less stressful.
Jesus I trust in you.

Answering the Call

I am sitting here enjoying this glorious fall morning. How I love fall. 

I have been reflecting on yesterday. Tony and I both had doctor appointments. They were several hours apart, so we visited with some friend and family. Since we do not live in town we try to make the most of our time.

I had a great visit with one of my dearest friends. She is one of the two persons who I have review my meditations or talks before I give them. I shared with her how I was now teaching CCD, first year Confirmation. She was most surprised. Yes, I told her I was surprised I accepted. I shared with her why I said yes. 

 You see, the lady who asked me is a very sweet and loving person. I first met her on a trip to Poland. We really did not talk much on that trip. But several months after our return, she called and invited me to join the Garden Club. After we got to know each other, she shared something with me. She said that she had been really sad for some time and that my smile on that trip had brought joy back into her life. She thanked me.

 

Wow, I was shocked. Who would think that a smile could help a stranger? We talked that day and she shared her story. So when she asked me, I told her I would pray on it. She told me she would teach second year and I would teach first year. When the director called, I said yes.

My friend and I laughed. I know my writings have been for adults. I do not know why now I am asked to deliver to teens. But I know that is what our Lord is asking of me. 

Last night, one of the questions was how could they rebel against our culture. One student answered by being good, at first I said no. Then I thought about it and told that student that it was a great answer, for if you are in a group that is known to be bad, being good is a rebellion. Somehow I know that made that student feel good.

 

Last night, we also had a meeting for the parents and students. Several students did not want to stay, but they did. At the meeting, I watched that student. The student's parents were not there, and the student had told me the parents made the student come to class. As I watched the student's face, I could almost hear the student's thoughts. " You make me come, but you could not come."
As I looked at my students and heard what they said, I think I can almost tell which have love and family life and which don't. 

My hope is that somehow I can show God's love to all of them, and that they can feel God's love and presence.

Sometimes we are so quick to label them as bad students, but they need so much love a guidance. We only have them for an hour, but I know God is a powerful God.

 

May He send the Holy Spirit to open their hearts and souls to hear His voice and may he guide my words.

Let us all pray for all our young teens. They are faced with so much in our world today.
Jesus, I trust in you.

 

Waiting on God's Time

Have done my prayers and have just been enjoying my music, have some cd's with morning and evening music, and watching the animals. Watching the animals doing their thing,what is their nature. And doing some reflection on my life.

 Some time back we decided to get involved here in our community. It was hard leaving Saint Mary Magdalene. I had a good talk with Fr Joseph Mary, may he RIP, before we left. He understood. He said he would pray for me, I know he is still praying fo...r me up in heaven. Oh how I miss our talks.
Tony has been on team here and has been teaching CCD. (I had just been involved with the Garden Club. ) I had helped at send off and candlelight. I had been asked to direct a retreat, but due to my schedule I had to refuse.

This year I was asked to be Spiritual Director for the Women's ACTS retreat. It was an awesome experience to get to know all the ladies. I know that was how God wanted me to get to really know the ladies. I know coming in to direct a retreat where no one knows you would have been so hard. I have directed ACTS Missions retreats, but you bring in your team, people you know.

Two weeks ago, I joined the Altar Society. Last week, I joined the Guadalupanas, and I will be teaching CCD this year. 

 Tony and I were talking, and I told him how I regretted not joining before, and not getting involved sooner. Everyone has accepted me with open arms. Tony just said,"It was not the right time."
He was right. It made me think how everything happens in God's time, not our time. God is in control. 

 Maybe Saint Mary Magdalene needed me, or maybe I had to grow more and I needed all that wonderful time with Fr Joseph. 

 It made me reflect on how we sometimes want to rush things, how we want to be in control. But if we just trust in our Lord and let Him have control, all will work out according to His plan.
Jesus I trust in you.

 

Prayer for Our Children

I have been sitting here enjoying this beautiful morning. My favorite season is just around the corner. I have been think about the young 8th grader from New Braunfels, possible suicide. It is so heartbreaking. What could cause someone so young to be so desperate?

I have been reflecting on my 8th grade. Yes, it was a long time ago, but I can remember it as if it was yesterday. It was a wonderful time in my life. I remember looking forward to the 9th grade, to our graduation, to parties, to high school. 

We have 2 grandchildren in the 8th grade. I pray that they enjoy their year as I did. I pray for them and all my grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

 I look at our world, and all that is going on, and I worry about their future. But all I can do is keep them in my prayers and put their lives in God's hands. 

My Lord God, please watch over all my grandchildren and great grandchildren. Help them in school. But especially over Tyler and Hunter who are in the 8th grade. Keep them safe and close to you. May they enjoy this year like I enjoyed my 8th grade. May they look forward to their High School years.
Jesus I trust in you.

News link to the suicide in New Braunfels:
http://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/8th-grader-dies-after-being-bullied-in-new-braunfels

The Story of Me

This week, I began orientation for my online ministerial training program. I have not been in school in over fourteen years, and I have never taken an online class before. It is a new experience, to say the least.

This week, we were assigned to write a brief autobiography, Apparently, we will be required to share this as an introduction to each new class. Tackling this project has left my brain empty of all other creative juices. So, I decided to share my mini autobiography here. Why not? In doing so, I can see how God has shaped my life, and used people, places, and events to lead me here.

. . .

My name is Troy Renee Albracht. Oftentimes, before someone meets me in person, I am often mistaken for a male. I blame my parents, but never get offended when someone asks for “Mr. Albracht.” Before my birth, my parents chose the name Troy Ellen for a girl, and Troy Alan for a boy. When I was born on Monday January 12, 1976, my dad decided he did not like the name Ellen. They named me Renee instead. I was not named after anyone special. My parents simply liked the name.

Everyone called me Troy for the first year or two of my life. Then, the woman who took care of me and my older sister decided to start calling me Renee. My sister’s name is Tori, and our caretaker struggled with Tori and Troy. The name change stuck, and everyone has called me Renee ever since.

I grew up in Garden Ridge, Texas, a small subdivision just north of San Antonio, Texas. I graduated from Canyon High School in New Braunfels, Texas in 1994, and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1997 to pursue a career in music business. However, soon after moving, I discovered I did not enjoy playing the drums enough to do what was necessary to make it as a professional musician. I did, however, marry a professional musician. Sadly, we divorced in 2010.

While settling on a degree in Religion/Youth Ministry from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, I worked with Belmont’s Office of Campus Security, rising from student worker to Assistant Chief. In this role, I became heavily involved in crime prevention and training. I became a certified Rape Aggression Defense Instructor, and shortly before leaving Belmont in 2014, I became a certified CPR and First Aid Instructor with the American Heart Association.

In 2012, I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. After being in remission for one year, I decided to move back home to Texas, using my training to start my own business, Strong Response—offering affordable training and education options for CPR, First Aid, and Basic Self Defense. Although I love teaching these classes, and although I love the freedom working for myself affords, income is not stable, and I am currently looking for a part-time job to supplement my income.

When I am not working or taking classes, I enjoy volunteering at my church, reading fiction novels, and writing. In my church, I am head usher and the president of our local NMI council. I also volunteer with the women’s ministry and West Avenue Compassion, our food and clothing pantry. My favorite authors are Wally Lamb, John Irving, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but I enjoy all kinds of books, except romance and horror. I have written two novels, and am currently working on my third. My stories are about how Christians, too, struggle, but how their faith in Christ helps them overcome their hardships. I hope to be published one day.  I also began working with the Rosetta Stone program to learn to speak Spanish.

I was born and raised Catholic, but I have had many disagreements with the Church which led to me leaving the Catholic Church at the age of sixteen. My first disagreement was because I wanted to become a priest, and I could not understand why they would not let me serve Jesus in this way simply because I was a girl. It took many, many years, but I have been able to forgive the Catholic Church for practices I could not understand, and which hurt me personally. However, I never have returned as a practicing Catholic.

I have always had a special relationship with Jesus Christ. My first memory is of my dad getting so excited because his quiet little girl started singing out loud in church. Jesus has come to me during many dark hours of my life, and I credit Him with saving my life on many occasions.

When I married a Baptist in 1997, I began attending a Baptist Church. It was in this church where I learned about sanctification and about having an intimate relationship with God. Although we were close long before I attended a Baptist Church, I learned about prayer and growing in my faith. I got baptized as an adult in September of 1997.

Early in my career at Belmont University, I worked weekends. The campus was a ghost town on Sunday mornings, so I often spent Sunday mornings sitting in my patrol car listening to the radio. Each Sunday, I listened to Pastor Gary Alan Henecke preach from Nashville First Church of the Nazarene. I was enamored by his preaching-teaching style. I had no idea what a Nazarene was or what they believed, but when I finally got weekends off, I went to Pastor Henecke’s church to check it out for myself.

I fell head-over-heels in love with the missionary and compassionate focus of the Nazarenes. I loved their out-of-the-box style. For the first time in my life, I felt at home, surrounded by people just like me. My musician husband was often on the road on weekends, and even when he was home, he rarely went to church. He supported my desire to make NFCN my new church home.  

When I moved back to Texas, I knew I needed to find a Nazarene Church. I found a home at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene. During my first visit, the pastor invited me to lunch with him and his family. Others made me feel like I belonged from the very beginning.

This past May, I heard God’s call to full time ministry. I think the call had always been there, from my earliest days when I wanted to be a Catholic priest. However, God used the people of San Antonio First Church to reach me in a way nothing else and no one else ever had. I have found a family at SAF, and look forward to many more years serving Christ with them.

 

Lessons from History

I have been reading “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, and Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. The Third Reich” by Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer, a theologian and pastor, foresaw the evil of Hitler, and fought, often alone, against the growing threat of the emerging power, and the indifference of the German church, and greater world powers.

This book has opened my eyes to the reality of the Hitler regime, beyond what I thought I understood. The life of Bonhoeffer has challenged how I face my own faith and growing indifference.

Even though I am only half-way through the book, I realize I only knew the Cliff Notes version of events leading up to World War Two. I knew the psychosis of Hitler. I knew about the treatment of the Jews and physical and mental handicapped. I was thoroughly horrified by what went on in the concentration camps, and was baffled by how the rest of the world could allow this to go on.

What I did not realize was how far reaching Hitler’s plans and propaganda reached. This man was not simply psychotic and evil personified. He was intelligent, and calculating, and patient.

What I did not realize was how his influence reached into the heart of the German church, morphing her into a satanic sanctuary, all right under the noses of the world’s Christian leaders. What makes it all more horrifying is how even the most holy, the most devout Christian leaders allowed it to happen, assuming it would all somehow work itself out.

This man, Bonhoeffer, lost friends and made enemies both within the Nazi regime as well as with leaders of his own church because he alone could see what would come if the church continued to remain disinterested in the political climate of the times. His insistence that the church speak up and fight for the foundation upon which the church was built caused unspeakable unrest, and eventually led to his execution before he ever reached the age of forty.

Only years later could the world and the church see what Bonhoeffer saw before Hitler took full reign of his power. As one of Bonhoeffer’s early colleagues, Martin Niemoller, who adamantly separated church and state, later penned while in a concentration camp as a personal prisoner of Hitler:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a Jew.

And then they came for me—

and there was no one left to speak for me.”

(page 192)

Bonhoeffer, addressing his frustrations with the church in a letter to his friend, Henroid, wrote:

“. . . We must shake off our fear of this world—the cause for Christ is at stake, and are we to be found sleeping? . . . Christ is looking down at us and asking whether there is anyone left who confesses faith in him.”  (page 219)

In addressing the lack of action even after the Nuremberg Laws were initiated, which clearly defined where the Hitler regime stood in regards the Jews, Bonhoeffer made his famous declaration:

“Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants.”

Metaxas interprets this sentiment by saying, “As far as {Bonhoeffer} was concerned, to dare to sing to God when his chosen people were being beaten and murdered meant that one must also speak out against their suffering. If one was unwilling to do this, God was not interested in one’s worship.” (page 281)

Stinging sentiment, isn’t it?

As I read about this, my jaw dropped and my eyes bulged. Not only could I not believe the church of any era could allow this, I realize, to some extent, nothing has changed. Shamefully, I count myself among those indifferent German Christians, fighting to separate the state of the world with the state of the Church.

In better days, I kept up with the news of the world. Now, however, I am so fed up with hearing about Clinton email scandals, and Trump’s latest foot-in-mouth incident. I’m tired of another police shooting, and the idiocy of people protesting by destroying their own neighborhoods. I’m sick of the latest ISIS suicide bombers, and politicians playing politics, blaming one another instead of coming up with workable solutions. I’ve had enough of politics and violence and the juvenile way our society acts out against atrocities.

How do I handle my frustrations? I watch the first minute or so of CBS Evening News or the news in 90 seconds on CBS Mornings, and get my Cliff Notes version for the day. If there is no new news or no feel-good story, I turn it off.

Doesn’t this, in a way, make me just as pacifist as the German Christians of the 1930s? By not paying attention, can I ignore it and hope it all goes away? After all, none of it has touched my life. I can just as easily re-write Niemoller’s words:

First they came for black lives, and I did not speak out—

because I am not black.

Then they came for the police, and I did not speak out—

because I am not a cop.

Then they came for the refugees, and I did not speak out—

because I am not a refugee.

Will the day soon come when I, too, must say:

And then they came for me—

and there was no one left to speak for me.

Of course, more verses could easily be written, with the same refrain, “. . . and I did not speak out—because I am not . . .”

The unborn child . . .

The sanctity of marriage . . .

Sexual purity . . .

These are just a few issues facing our church, issues many of us Christians ignore because . . . but who will fight for the life of the unborn child if we do not? Who will teach our children about how God defines marriage? Who will teach our teens about the importance of abstaining from sex until marriage? If we do not live according to, and teach according to the words of the Bible, the words of God, who will?

Do we not live by, do we not teach because we no longer believe ourselves, even though we call ourselves Christians? I remind myself and others that the Word of God has not changed. We, alone, have changed. We alone bear the responsibility for the Godlessness of our society.

If we will not speak up and speak out, who will? Trump? Clinton?

Do we leave it up to our pastors? Men like Billy Graham?

Or do we simply continue to keep our eyes closed and hope it all works itself out?

The words of Bonhoeffer are scary to read because they are still true in our world today, and even scarier, they bear some truth in my own life.

Father, I pray, help me, and all others who call themselves Christians, to have the courage of Bonhoeffer, and to speak up in the name of Truth, that we may be justified in singing Gregorian chants.