INTRODUCTION

Everyone’s life is a story as unique and personal as fingerprints or DNA I was never more sure of that than when I began gathering these stories. They are wonderful! People that I thought I knew have told me details I never would have dreamed of. Many times I have felt as though I was sitting in the presence of greatness in spite of these people having begun by saying they had nothing to tell.

Life continues to hold such surprises.  Perhaps age is required to know that. Only in looking back to what has been and is now can we see with E. Stanley Jones that the "world process is not moving with aimless feet.  " There is a goal for all created things"….. the earth and everything (everyone) in it. A psalmist was inspired to write "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed" (Ps. 139:14,16).

I do not agree that age is a negative, for with age comes wisdom and an opportunity to review, to make sense of what seems senseless at the time we are enduring it. What was cannot be changed but what is, we begin to see, has a reason for being. We learn and grow. Paul noted that we are, being changed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). We even come to agree with the generalization that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).

It required reflection and wisdom for a mother to have shared the following as a painful lesson that might become a recipe for other parents:

Like other parents, when our children were barn we wanted most of all for them to be healthy, and as they grew we prayed that they would turn into responsible adults. There are no hooks of instructions to guarantee this.

Our children were horn healthy and average. They walked and talked at the usual age and did well in school much the same as ether children. Someone once told me that if you raise children in a good Christian home they will never stray from the so··called "path."  We tried to do this and all went well until the teen years. Even then our first child performed as was expected — some minor mishaps but nothing a mother couldn’t cope with. Pretty much a normal life.

But another child act into things that were hard for us to understand. In the beginning I closed my mind and eyes to this. I blamed it on peer pressure and the times. I guess I thought that if I ignored the problem it would go away, but it didn't go away. It only escalated. There didn’t seem to be any solutions. How do you discipline a young adult? It’s too late for all that. I became more serious in my prayers and began to do same really deep thinking. I realized I hadn’t spent as much time with this child as I did the others. This was the last one and I was busier. I could see that I was more relaxed in the rules and the lines of communication were lessened. The child had the same love - just not the same discipline. I went through a long period of guilt.

Many years have passed given the advantage of looking back objectively. I have come to the conclusion that love, discipline, and responsibility should all go hand in hand. Children should be taught to be responsible for their own actions. Too many times I looked the other way.

You can’t tell them or show your children too often that you love them. Be there for them. Always listen even if you hear things you’d rather not. Give advice only when asked but always be prepared to guide. I try to live by this now even with grown children.

I probably am as proud of my problem child as any parent is of a child maybe more so, because this one is a responsible adult today and has had to overcome many things to get there.

There is hope. Prayers do get answered. I have always believed that things work out for the best if we can only have the patience to wait for Gods answer. It hasn’t always been easy and I’m sure that all situations don’t end with the good results that I have seen but I am convinced there is a reason for all things and we can only hope that the results bring us or someone else closer to God.

That story is exactly in line with a goal of this book: to share experiences that we might all learn from one another.

Another goal is that our congregation might know one another better and appreciate each other more. Writing the life stories has been an education for me. I thought I knew the people. I hadn’t began to know them! If this happens to you as you read, this goal will have been accomplished.

I consider that each life is a recipe for living. They are given in the life stories, some subtly, some more plainly; but in each case problems have been met and dealt with. No life is free from them even as Jesus acknowledged, "In this world you will have tribulation..." How these people have dealt with life perhaps will give readers encouragement or guidance for their lives, which has been another goal.

I appreciate the willingness of the following persons to share their stories. It takes courage to do so. I discovered that when I wrote my autobiography. It requires trust that readers will accept us for who we are, for, along with traumatic times we have faced, we are often exposing our faults and weaknesses. We have learned and grown as all of us are doing every day. The world we live in now isn’t the one we grew up in, but surely some of the same basic rules still apply.

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 1996 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised May 31, 2012