We have taken it to several mechanics:   old ones, young ones, out of town ones, in town ones, ones that seem to know a lot, and ones that don’t say anything new.  But so far none have fixed the problem.

We really want this car fixed.  I want to travel happily down the highway of life in it…without any horrible surprises.  I don’t want to constantly be afraid of ending up on the side of the road.

In order to understand what is pushing the OVERHEATED-shutdown-on-the-side-of-the-road button, it seems we would have to be inside the engine.

In our Friday morning prayer meeting this week, someone brought up a marriage that is in trouble.   The couple are Christians, married for about 20 years.  They are not currently in fellowship with a church body, nor are they seeing a counselor, marriage or any other kind.  They are our friends.

We really want them to be happy and healthy.

However, this couple seems to be willing to go straight to the OVERHEATED-shutdown-on-the-side-of-the-road gonna-get-a-divorce button without getting an opinion about what could be causing their marriage radiator to overheat.

Isn’t it interesting that we will sometimes go to great lengths to fix something that will wear out eventually anyway, but we won’t make a modest effort to fix the most important relationship we have here on earth?

Most men take their car to the mechanic at the first wrong noise.  If the mechanic doesn’t help them fix the car, they will certainly get a second opinion.  They usually won’t give up easily, after all,

“I need my car to work!!!! I can’t afford for it to be broken!!”

If you (or someone you know) have a serious knocking sound coming from the motor of your marriage, or maybe there is smoke coming from the pipe of your life, there is a divine heart mechanic.  Jesus is the world’s most amazing fixer of things; hearts, minds, souls, past hurts, misunderstandings, and just plain meanness. He can get inside the engine of your life or marriage and show you exactly what is wrong!

He will fix it (free) if you just give Him the go-ahead!  You may have asked for an opinion on your problem from some lesser mechanics (like friends, relatives, others with sins like those in your own heart) but they can’t fix it.  Jesus is the last one you have to go to in order to fix what needs fixing.

Jesus doesn’t want you sitting on the side of the life’s road steaming, overheated, locked up, suffering, and, most importantly, in pain because you cannot get on with your life.

Let’s get going in peace, with provisions in the car, maybe with the top down and a cool breeze in our faces!  Doesn’t that sound like a fun road trip?  His Presence makes that kind of trip through life possible.

There is plenty of time to register for the final regional conference of the 2010 Wellspring Women’s Conference in Raeford at Rockfish Church.

• Find details at on our Regional Events Page.
• Go directly to the registration page.
• Don’t forget to enter our contest for your chance to win an expense paid weekend to the Raeford conference.

Sheri Ferguson Cox

Sheri Cox is Wellspring’s Ministry Team Overseer. She says of her occupation: ” I try to serve God wherever I am but I suppose my main occupation is homemaker for my husband Thom! I was a successful homeschool teacher for 18 years (retired summer of 2008). Since January of 2006 I have served as a trained, volunteer mediator for the Dispute Settlement Center of Alamance County. We serve the District Court doing family and community mediation. In December of 2007 I took on the role of fitness trainer at a local Curves. I work a few hours a week there and it gives me an opportunity to really minister to the ladies that I meet.”

When I was a teenager he and I would load our gear, the dog, and Gram into a rusty Jeep Wagoneer almost every weekend in the summer and head to the Potomac River. Gram would sit in the Jeep and read or sew while we jumped in a little boat and headed up the river looking for a good fishing spot.

Pooka mostly brought home catfish, bottom feeders that are easy to catch. Then one day the line twitched, a manly fight ensued, and he reeled in a huge brown trout. He had finally achieved angler superstar status.  He reeked with pride.

Pooka stated it was time for Gram to memorialize the event with a picture of him and the trout on his  line. If he had not been senseless with excitement, he would have recalled Gram’s photography reputation.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t focus a picture; it was that she had a sort of framing-ADD (attention deficit disorder). It always seemed to possess her in that nanosecond before she snapped the picture. As her finger lowered on the button she would see a tree, rock, or flower that HAD to be in the photo.

That’s what happened with the trout. As her finger lowered on the button, she saw a tree and shifted the camera slightly left. If you are 29 like me (ahem), you recall that back in the late ‘60’s, when you took a photo you had to wait until the entire roll was shot before you could mail it off to be developed.  Then you had to wait several weeks for the results.  By the time you got to examine the picture, the moment was past and you could not retake the photo.

When Gram’s roll of film came back, Pooka was anxious to see and show his superstar status. He had told everyone about that huge brown trout. Gram shuffled through the stack. There was the beautiful tree, there stood Pooka, a proud smile on his face, there was his stretched out arm, and there was … no hand, no line, and no fish. Gram had cut off Pooka’s hand and fish for the sake of a tree.   Then Gram pointed out that you can see could see the shadow of the fish on the ground!  You could see how big the fish was by his shadow!  Pooka, who was born on Groundhog’s day was not impressed by this shadow. He looked at Gram, shook his head and walked out of the room.

Pooka wasn’t a superstar in fishing, but he was in my life and the lives of his family.  He was not perfect but he loved his family and he loved God.  He died young, age 64, a month before my sister’s first child was born.  And yet my three nephews all talk about Pooka as if they knew him and he is a part of their lives, as he has continues to be a part of mine.

What made Pooka a superstar in life?  My grandfather did not know a stranger, he always had a kind word for others, he grew up in a time of racial injustice and yet he did not see color, he was an imposing man and yet I often saw him brought to tears reading in the papers about the passing of a friend, he often told a little fat girl that she was pretty, he trusted and loved his Savior above all else, he knew that he was fallible and that God was not, and he trusted and leaned on God’s grace.   My Pooka loved God and he loved his neighbor as himself.  I pray that I can leave that kind of superstar legacy.

Remember to enter the contest for an expense paid weekend to the Raeford Conference (and other prizes).

Karen Sleeth

Karen Sleeth has lived in North Carolina for 26 years. She shares her home with two kitties who cause her to laugh every day. She firmly believes that a merry heart does good like a medicine and some days overdoses.

One evening the women decided to take a stroll down the beach after dinner.  My youngest nephew, at that time about four years old, desperately wanted to tag along.  His mother, however, knew that minutes into the walk he would be whining and begging to have her carry him.  She told him he could not come unless he understood that the entire walk was under his own power.  He promised that he understood and he would walk on his own two legs the whole walk.

Of course we were less than a forth of the way into our walk when he began complaining about being tired, holding his mothers hand, dragging on her, talking about how his legs were aching, moaning, then crying.  His mother held firm and made him walk on his own.  Now he was angry.  His tears came harder and he was striking out through his words about how nobody cared about him.

We continued on our walk, ignoring his tantrum.  Suddenly we heard the angry declaration behind us, “What kind of vacation is this, anyway!”  Of course we all burst out laughing.

I wonder how often we seem similar to God.  We know the rules going in, make promises to God and then get angry with him when he stands firm?

Lord, help me see your love and provision. Help me to understand that if I’m angry at you, it is because I’ve failed and not that you have failed me.

Karen Sleeth

Karen Sleeth has lived in North Carolina for 26 years and in her house for nine years. She shares her yard with a herd of about fourteen deer, a raccoon, a family of possum, a hawk and her young, a wise old owl, many birds, snakes, and a bunny she has seen only once. “I assume it took the warning I gave ‘Run for your life!’” This is Karen’s first year attempting to convince the deer that the yard is not their salad bar. Karen is a member of Christian Assembly Church in Durham.

Ben and I were talking about our children and their need for discipline and love in their lives.  In talking we realized that too often we make the offense be about something other than the heart issue. It becomes something that offends us or our “rules.”  The kids can pretty quickly pick up on what the rules are and follow those in order to hinder further discipline.

What we realized in the way we had begun to approach these issues was that we were creating children who were good at figuring out the rules and following them to make their lives easier, but we did not have children who were facing their sin and dealing with it in the appropriate way.

We do the very same thing in our relationship with God. We’ve figured out what makes our lives look together and healthy.  We come up with rules and solutions so that we can make sure we check off the right boxes so that we are deemed “good” or even “Christian” people. The thing is that you can only go so far doing that before you simply snap. You can’t handle the weight of every area of your life being on you, so eventually you just snap.

The only thing that prevents that from happening is making Jesus our source in every aspect of our lives. Too often he is an afterthought when we can’t figure out how to do it ourselves. Instead, He should be our source. He should be who we look to for every aspect of our lives. He should be the center of all that we do. When He is, we are not bearing the load, He is!

This is such a simple foundation of Christian living, but it is one that too often gets thrown to the side. We do all the things that look and seem good, but we don’t always ask God what the best thing is. What is the thing that he is requiring of us? When we do that and only that we won’t burn out, even if it is more than we are doing now! I know that sounds crazy, but it is true that when we walk in obedience to what God has for us HE will provide what we need to do that.

So, for me when I get bogged down in the everyday stuff, I need to remember that Jesus needs to be my source. When I start out the day with Him and praying for my children, they don’t stress me out so much and I am able to walk in a place of peace even when it looks like things are falling all around me. So, I guess the question is if God isn’t your source then who or what is?

Heather Cotten

Heather Cotten is a wife and mom of three, and most importantly a child of God. She loves more than anything to see people build relationships and break down barriers that prevent those relationships from happening. The family moved to to Kernersville, NC 3 years ago in order to begin the adventure of Ben pastoring Kernersville Community Church.

On the way to church, I was practicing the presence of God, when He revealed that all week I had been subconsciously dreading Sunday and the reason I had difficulty sleeping last night was because of my anxiety. As I was pulling into the parking lot, He revealed why. My church asks that each member agree, as a part of membership, to serve in the nursery once a year and this was my day.

It isn’t that I don’t like children. To the contrary, I love them and in my past that love showed in ways that astonished friends to the point that they jokingly called me “the baby whisperer,” for my ability to calm crying babies when even their mother’s could not.

My first babysitting job was when I was in first grade. I watched a neighbor’s baby for her while she took a shower.  And I babysat throughout high school, college, and into my marriage. I looked forward to the time I could have children of my own.

When the time came when we agreed to have children, none came. We went through the emotional brutality of fertility treatments for several years, during which time every couple in our childless Sunday School class became parents, except us. I distanced myself from children and isolated myself from young families because being around them made me feel like such a failure as a woman−exactly what God did NOT want me to do.

But I, like most people believed I was in control…all I had to do was decide when I wanted my babies and they would be there. Yes, we are told that children are a blessing from the Lord, but what I heard was, it is a blessing THAT you have children, not it is a blessing WHEN God gives you children.

A few years later, all was gone from me: marriage, dreams of a future, promise of children, my home, and my job. It was just God, and me eye-to-eye, with no static in between. It was then that I finally heard His voice. And His voice said the thing I had longed to hear my entire life:

I love you. Your value does not come from what you drive, where you live, what you wear, how many men find you attractive, or your job. Your value rests in the fact that I love YOU.

This morning I entered worship, with this discomfort about working in the nursery. God met me there, washed over me with a fresh infilling of his Spirit and a fullness of his deep, deep love as the dance team rose, and danced to the hymn, “Oh the Deep Deep Love of Jesus.”

Today I understood one more piece of the puzzle of my life. My value is not in whether or not I have children. My value is in the deep love my Savior has for me. This is not the first time I have served in the nursery. However, this IS the first time I’ve enjoyed it.

Karen Sleeth

Karen Sleeth has lived in North Carolina for 26 years and in her house for nine years. She shares her yard with a herd of about fourteen deer, a raccoon, a family of possum, a hawk and her young, a wise old owl, many birds, snakes, and a bunny she has seen only once. “I assume it took the warning I gave ‘Run for your life!’” This is Karen’s first year attempting to convince the deer that the yard is not their salad bar. Karen is a member of Christian Assembly Church in Durham.

Though it rained off and on, the temperature was not too hot.  The funeral was held at the Methodist church, which has a giant stained glass window honoring Thom’s grandparents, Roscoe and Laura.  The service was beautiful and meaningful, reflecting Uncle Jim’s belief in God.

We drove a long way to the graveyard, parked, and then hiked our way up to the grave site.  My father-in-law performed the service while we listened.  There were 20 of the 25 members of our Cox immediate family present, including Thom’s three brothers and their families.  Many of the uncles, aunts, and cousins from Uncle Jim’s extended family stood with us in a circle around the grave.

I stood behind my mother-in-law.  Both of our husbands had functions to perform, as did her other three sons.  It didn’t seem awkward, but we were both alone.  About half way through the graveside service I noticed the way she was standing.  Her body language told me that she was having a hard time emotionally.  She seemed to feel her solitude  and probably thought that she had no one to hold onto for support at such a difficult time. I realized that she probably didn’t even know I stood only a foot behind her.

I stepped forward and put my arms around her.  Her response was immediate: she grabbed my hands,  pulled them around her waist, and pushed herself back toward me in a hug.  She sobbed a little, and relaxed her posture.  She wasn’t alone.  Although she really already knew it, now she experienced it.

I have been thinking a lot about presence — about how God never leaves us.  He promises to be our rear guard.  Do we go through life like my dear mother-in-law was going through that funeral, thinking that we have to bear all things by ourselves?  His presence is always there, waiting for us to relax into His arms and to invite Him to help us bear our burdens.

Have you pulled His arms around you today?  I did.

Sheri Ferguson Cox

Sheri Cox is Wellspring’s Ministry Team Overseer. She says of her occupation: ” I try to serve God wherever I am but I suppose my main occupation is homemaker for my husband Thom! I was a successful homeschool teacher for 18 years (retired summer of 2008). Since January of 2006 I have served as a trained, volunteer mediator for the Dispute Settlement Center of Alamance County. We serve the District Court doing family and community mediation. In December of 2007 I took on the role of fitness trainer at a local Curves. I work a few hours a week there and it gives me an opportunity to really minister to the ladies that I meet.”

Mom was drinking Pepsi from the bottle, so I waited for her to hand me a cup of milk. My sister and I were not allowed Pepsi. But instead of a cup of milk, she handed me a Pepsi bottle…filled with chocolate milk! I was so excited – even if, as the mature adult I had become, I couldn’t act like it. I remember taking a swallow from the bottle, sitting it aside, smiling at Mom, looking up at the underside of the trees, drumming my fingers on my leg, and waiting for a torturous few seconds to pass until I could take the next swallow. I can only image how hard it must have been for Mom to keep from laughing.
Looking up into an oak tree propels me to that moment of PRE-maturity with all its love and warmth, even today. What about these few moments in my life made it so impactful? Was it drinking out of a Pepsi bottle? Was it pretending with Mom for a moment that I was an adult? I don’t think so. I believe it was the fact that I felt important to Mom, that she was (dare I say it) present.

Read what John Donne, the late 16th and early 17th century poet said about his struggle to be present with God.

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to John Donne. I want to be as present with God as my Mom was with me that day. I don’t want to be distracted from Him by any random thought or noise, and yet I struggle.

If you haven’t already, sign up for the Wellspring Women’s Regional Conferences. Gloria Cotten will be bringing us messages on this topic. I’m excited to hear what God has to say to me about presence, aren’t you? There’s still room at the Kernersville Conference, this week (May 21 &22). I’ll be there. Maybe we can sit down together, chat, and split a bottle of chocolate milk.

Karen Sleeth

Karen Sleeth has lived in North Carolina for 26 years and in her house for nine years. She shares her yard with a herd of about fourteen deer, a raccoon, a family of possum, a hawk and her young, a wise old owl, many birds, snakes, and a bunny she has seen only once. “I assume it took the warning I gave ‘Run for your life!’” This is Karen’s first year attempting to convince the deer that the yard is not their salad bar. Karen is a member of Christian Assembly Church in Durham.

The privilege of living close enough to all of our grandchildren so that we can be a fairly regular part of their lives is awesome!  Three of them live an hour and 45 minutes away, three of them live 30 minutes away and the rest have always lived just a few miles from us.  The Lord has blessed Wayne and I in such a way that we have been able to have close relationships with most of them and many opportunities for Godly input. 

Our grandchildren range in age from 23 down to 4 and our great grandson is 1 with a little brother on the way!  Here are just a few of our summer activities.  Our oldest granddaughter, Cathy, is home with her little one while her husband is deployed.  What an absolutely wonderful opportunity to be with them at least 4 months out of each year.  We take an exercise ballet class together with her mother every Monday.

Her brother, Michael, 18, has been away at Nation Guard boot camp all summer.  We have missed him and we are looking forward to his graduation, August 21st, in Ft. Jackson, SC.  He will leave immediately for Arizona for 6 more months of training.  Our family is ever changing.

Our next in age is Ashleigh, 17.  She has been on a missions trip to Scotland with TeenMania for the past month.  It, too, is her first time far away from home.  We are missing her like crazy!  She returns on August 6th.

Her sister Melinda, 15, has been away at War Cry and a Christian music camp near Ashville with Marion Jones and her family.  She has returned and is continuing to finish up her home school Algebra class with Granddaddy’s tutelage.

One of my favorite events of summer is VBS.  I always attended as a child, my children always went and now the grandchildren.  It feels like I went from learning as a child in VBS to teaching VBS as an adult.  We had our son’s 3 children with us all week for that, Lucas, 8, Strider, 7, and Emma, 4.  That week also included a trip to the Museum of Life and Science, working at our church food pantry, treasure hunts and getting sprayed with the hose.  Our blessing cup was overflowing at the close of that week!

Our 12 year old, Rachael, came next and we did her favorite thing, “shopping for her birthday present.”  It was also a week spent with cousins and sewing 2 new skirts.

Strider, 6, was next.  He had a good time playing with Gracie,5, his cousin that comes to my house almost every day.  He also was a hard worker at our food pantry.  The Lord gave us some precious one-on-one time while he was here, which is what I really look forward to.

Next to arrive will be Michael D.,10, and Lucas, 8.  They are best buds and really enjoy playing together and having a nice break from their siblings.  Treasure hunts, playing in their fort and sword fighting (all with Grandmother included) will be a few of their activities.

We will still have 2 more to work in for their one-on-one time with us, Hannah, 6, and Emma, 4.  Playing with American Girl dolls, tea parties and dress-up (all with Grandmother included) will keep them very busy.

I am reminded of 2 scriptures as I contemplate the wonderful privilege we have of spending time with our grandchildren even though, sometimes it is exhausting and I have put on a few pounds from the PB&J sandwiches and cookies that I seem unable to resist, our prayers for more grace are always answered.

Psalm 22:30-31 – “Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn – for He as done it.”

Psalm 102:12 – “But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.”

The opportunity to pass on the Lord’s renown to the next generation is a gift I am very grateful for.

Please look up and read these passages too:

Deut. 6:4-9; Deut. 11:19-21; Prov. 17:6.

I hope that each of you has as much fun and as many blessings as I have had this summer!    Love, Saundra

As the grandma of the group, I had the ultimate pleasure of spending lots of time with my grandchildren. I had individual time with each one and also time playing together with them in small groups. We put together puzzles (really an excuse for cuddle-on-the-lap time), read books out loud (more cuddling), and drew and colored pictures together. We also sat in the front porch swing and talked (while cuddling, of course), played on the beach and went out for ice cream. Have you ever cuddled a chocolate-covered 3 year old? It was wonderful!

I also got to watch my children parent their own children. What an intense pleasure that is! Both couples who have children are such diligent, loving parents! They work beautifully together as a couple to discipline and shape the characters of their children. I was impressed again and again with the patience and faithfulness and love it takes to be a good parent. The children, of course, tend to misbehave or have a crisis when the parents are involved with something else. Mom starts playing a game with the other women and dad picks up his Louis Lamour novel and almost immediately at least one child has a melt-down. It’s as though the parents’ restfulness signals the children’s misbehavior! One of the parents has to put down his (or her) own pleasurable pursuit in order to deal with the child. The truth of Proverbs 3:12 is demonstrated vividly: “For whom the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” Only a great and unselfish love in the heart of a parent for his child can sustain the demand of faithfulness required by parenting!

This scenario recurred so frequently last week that another truth began to hit me: Father God was using parenting to shape the character of the parents as much as He was using it to shape the character of the children! The parents, because they love their children, are faithfully disciplining them. But, at the same time, because God loves them all so much, the hearts of the parents are also being stretched and expanded in the process. The capacity to love must constantly grow and be replenished in the parents or they will never be able to sustain the kind of faithfulness and consistency that is required to shape the character of a child.

The image of God being like the dairyman who squeezes and tugs and squeezes and tugs until He gets the last drop of milk from the cow comes to mind, doesn’t it! God’s dealings with us are not wasted on anyone who is involved in the process! Parent and child are equally impacted by the process. (Even an observant Nana gets taught and blessed as well!)

Many years ago, my husband as a young pastor had to go to a father in the church whose children needed discipline. His little sons were terrorizing the other children in Sunday School and we needed for the father to correct the situation. The father confessed that he could not bring himself to discipline his children. “I’m afraid they won’t love me if I correct them,” he said. “I never knew my own father and I want my children to know that I love them.” Michael showed him the scripture I just quoted but he was unable to see it and his children grew up having to “learn things the hard way” because they had not had a father who was willing to instruct them.

Years later, when one of the sons was grown, he came to see us for some counsel. “My father loves God,” he said, “but I know he has never loved me. Is there something wrong with me that my father can’t love me?”

“What makes you think your father doesn’t love you?” we asked.

“I know he didn’t care about me growing up because he never took time to correct me or discipline me,” the young man answered. “He let us children run wild and misbehave and even talk back to our mother without ever saying a word to us. Yet he was in church every Sunday and served the Church and the Lord in any way he could. I know he doesn’t love me because he never spanked me or corrected me in any way.”

This young man was suffering as an adult because his father had refused to discipline him as a child. He felt rejected by his father, the very thing that his father had feared and the very fear that had caused the father to neglect disciplining his son. How ironic! God’s ways are not our ways, are they?

I rejoice that my grandchildren are being consistently and lovingly disciplined by their parents. That correction is already bearing good fruit in the young lives of their children. If you are raising young children, I hope you are pressing into God for that heart expansion that makes the parenting kind of love possible!

And if you are a grandma like me, I hope God is blessing you with lots of cuddle time with your grandchildren! As for me, I can hardly wait for next summer!

Here is the view from the front of our house…

One of the views from our house

A picture Ben took on his iPhone of the beach at dusk…

Walking on the beach at dusk

Some of what the kids have been doing (a rare chill moment!)

Afternoon Chillaxation

Gloria with Eliana

Hope everyone has a great Independence Day!!!

Jessica