Proof…You Really Are What You Eat

Whoever said, “You are what you eat,” had it right. Our rough collie, Angel Joy, is a living testament.

Angel Joy developed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). For nearly a year, life at our house was miserable. Angel Joy’s stomach made runaway train sounds at night. She woke me up repeatedly to take her outside because of constant diarrhea. After each trip outside, she had to be cleaned up before we went back to bed. She lost stamina and energy. Our daytime walks decreased in length. A few times I picked up the fifty-pound dog and carried her part of the way back. Every few days, I had to cook chicken and rice for her. She had pills and tube medicine to take three times a day.

Because it took so long to diagnose and the vet wasn’t completely assured that IBS was Angel Joy’s only problem, expensive and time-consuming medical procedures were planned that would require us to take her nearly 200 miles away. As a stop-gap measure, the vet put Angel Joy on a gastro intestinal dog food. For treats, she could have cooked chicken – nothing else.

Even the vet was amazed at the result. For the first time in nearly a year, we slept through the night. Angel Joy re-gained the weight she had lost and recovered the joy reflected in her name. Walks lengthened as her energy and stamina returned. Anything Angel Joy eats – other than the special diet food and cooked chicken – causes a return of IBS symptoms, even something as seemingly insignificant as one fry that drops on the floor.

There is a spiritual parallel to this. Proverbs 23:7 says that as we think in our heart, so we become. Jesus said it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person, not what goes into the mouth, because we speak from what is stored in our hearts.

The cliché, “Garbage in, garbage out,” is as true as “You are what you eat.” We become what we allow to pass through the physical gateways of our body, our eyes and ears. Whatever we read, whatever we watch on television or movies, whatever we hear – all these build us into what we become.

The Bible provides a reliable filter for spiritual health, “Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there in anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8.

Guarding physical and spiritual health in 2015 builds us for now and eternity.

Shell Decorating

A pub in our area is welcoming students back to university with shell decorating contests and cocktails.

Contest categories include best fingernails, most glitter, most unique tattoos, wildest hair, and most body art – all of which will be left behind when we die. Our bodies are mere shells to hold the part of us that really matters while we’re alive. When we die – the us that is really us – escapes into eternity. Shells are buried. What a sad waste of expense and energy is reflected in decorating shells that will return to dust when we die.

The Bible advises in 1 Peter 3:3, “Do not let your adornment be merely outward…rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make the best of the bodies that God gave us by taking care of them. It honors God when Christians set themselves apart from the rest of the world by separating our appearances from non-believers. But the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 6:7, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” With that in mind, does it make sense to spend time and money decorating shells?

Shell decorating contests are vain, useless, empty events. As for the cocktails? Alcohol poisons the shells that we spend so much money decorating.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Living for Rainbows & Glitter

Word Rocks

The world caught its breath in horror recently when Farzana Parveen, 25, of Pakistan, was stoned to death by family members outside a courthouse because she married the man she loved instead of the man her family had selected for her.

Truthfully, a lot of us use word rocks to murder every day.

Consider parents who tell a child, “You’re a brat!” “I’m so sick and tired of you!” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You’re stupid!” Word rocks that kill. Most incarcerated individuals, including serial killers, were battered by word rocks as children.

Consider a spouse who tells the other, “I hate you!” “I wish I had never married you!” “How did I get stuck with you?” Word rocks. Most marriages that end in divorce started tearing apart from the weight of word rocks that were never forgiven, never forgotten.

School children are guilty of murdering with word rocks at school. Most of them learned the battering techniques they use at school from being battered themselves at home. “You’re ugly!” “I don’t want to be your friend.” “You’re weird.” Word rocks that scar for life and sometimes murder victims by pushing them toward suicide, drug use, or crime.

No wonder the Bible has so many verses commanding us to use words as tools, not weapons. Proverbs 18:21 declares that “Death and Life are in the power of the tongue.” Jesus warned that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. “By your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:37. He added, “Not that what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.”

While most word rocks are cruel and unkind, not all word rocks are deadly. Jesus hates profanity. As our example, He explained, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:63). Our words should reflect Jesus’ Holy Spirit and direct listeners toward joy, abundance, and eternal life.

The Bible advises, “Put perverse lips far from you.” It reminds us that, “The mouth of the righteous is a well of life.” It proclaims, “He who restrains his lips is wise.”

Convicted by reading Moody Bible books – The Sugar Creek Gang – as a teen, I quit using profanity, even though my parents were atheists and swore profusely. I wasn’t a Christian and couldn’t even define the term, but I knew there was something different and admirable about the characters in those books. Now that I write Christian mystery-romance-suspense, I challenge myself to write believable characters in exciting settings full of adventure and romance – without using profanity or glorifying risky lifestyle choices like smoking, drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex. I don’t lob word rocks. They kill.

None of us can undo the tragic death of Farzana Parveen and her child. We can’t bring them back to life. But all of us can protect the ones we love in our life by remembering not to sling word rocks.

God intends us to use words to plant trees of life, not to kill and destroy.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Mother’s Day – Don’t Leave the Kids Behind!

The most exciting event of my life occurred on Mother’s Day when my son was four. Count Your Many Blessings, name them one by one rang out as the invitational hymn and Luke left my side, walked down the aisle, and asked Jesus to come into his heart.

That memory is more important to me than ever on this Mother’s Day as USMC Major Luke Gaines Parker celebrates another day with Jesus and I endure my first Mother’s Day without his cheerful, enthusiastic voice starting off the day with, “Good morning, Mom. I love you! Happy Mother’s Day!”

The magnitude of the decision he made 33 years ago is my peace and hope in a rest-of-my-life without him because it assures me that, just like the Jesus he served, Luke is in Heaven. This separation is painful – but temporary.

Luke gave me a Bible for Christmas in 1992, when he was sixteen. He paid for it with earnings from his first job. Two years later, I gave him a Bible when he entered the U.S. Marine Corps. He carried his Bible with him for the rest of his life, including his six deployments to war zones, and read it nearly every day. Like the Bible he bought me, nearly every page is marked, underlined, or has notes written into the margins. I cherish both Bibles and keep them visible on my desk as constant reminders of how marvelously privileged and honored I was to have a son who walked in God’s Truth.

When I look back to Luke’s childhood, I regret all the things I couldn’t buy for him because – as a single parent – I couldn’t afford them. I regret never having had enough money to take him to Disney Land or on a vacation. But what Luke and I did share is bigger and greater than all of my regrets combined: a love for Jesus Christ Who gave up His life on the cross for our sins so we can spend eternity with Him in a place where there is no death, sickness, dying, sorrow or tears. Wow! Luke’s plane crash on Nov. 17, 2013, wasn’t the end – it is the beginning.

You mothers reading this Mother’s Day blog may suffer the same insecurities that I did as a parent if your finances aren’t long enough to stretch to meet expenses. Don’t fret. More than things you can buy for them, your children need your time. More than expensive vacations and trips, your children need your love.

One of Luke’s most cherished memories was living in poverty in the Nevada Desert in a cabin with no electricity, no running water, and an outhouse for a bathroom. Luke loved it because he could have me – my time and love. Instead of running between two and three jobs to make ends meet, I was teaching him at “home” and spending every day and night with him. He mentioned that as a highlight of his life in every Mother’s Day card he sent, and in nearly every phone call.

Don’t waste time and energy agonizing over what you can’t give your children. If you spend time and love on them and teach them about Jesus, you are a successful parent. The only thing we have here on earth that can follow us to heaven is our children. Make sure they know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Don’t leave the kids behind!

Books by this author: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Dying to Live

The oldest inscription on a gravestone at the Rosemarkyne, Scotland – since changed to Rosemarkie – churchyard dates back to 1644. The present church building was constructed in 1821, on ground claimed for worship since the first century – 6 AD.

One family of pastors shepherded the flock for a combined total of 150 years. The salutary import of this glimpse of history is to demonstrate the truth Jesus taught: we must die to live.

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday is quickly approaching. Jesus said (Matthew 16:24-26) let those who want to follow Me deny themselves and be willing to accept the difficulties that following Me will bring. Whoever is afraid of public criticism and denies Me to win public approval will lose their lives. Whoever refuses to be swayed by fear of public opinion and serves Me will find life in Me and blessings. What profit is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?

Once we are not afraid of dying – either physically or socially – we can live in the fullness of joy, because fear of death is the ultimate fear.

Walking through a land peopled by grave markers illustrates the frailty of our human bodies and the intransigent nature of death. We will die. All of us will die no matter what race, sex, nationality, or religious creed we claim. No one has ever out-maneuvered, out-run, or out-distanced death. Even Jesus died.

With death certain, our only hope and comfort is that Jesus is alive. Death could not keep Him, the grave could not hold Him. Because Jesus lives, we will live. Because Jesus lives, we can die to live, confident that we are not living to die.

One headstone in the Rosemarkie churchyard is a quintessential example of how to die to live instead of living to die: a cross resting on the Rock of the Ages with an open Bible next to it. That’s an earthly reminder of a heavenly citizen who understood that death is just a shadow that can’t hurt us. We must all pass through the false shadow of “death” to enter eternal life where there is no more sorrow, illness, death or dying.

Our earthly journey is short. We own the choice to live it victoriously in Jesus, or in meaningless comfort, seeking the approval of other people who – like us – will die.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Old Hat

Besides precious memories, too few pictures, and a much-read and much-used Bible, all I had left of son USMC Major Luke Gaines Parker was the old hat. Now the hat is gone.

It was ironic to still have Luke’s hat after he departed for Heaven at age 37. A hat should not last longer than the person wearing it – especially an old hat.

I bought the bright blue wooly hat for Luke in the Great Basin Desert of Northern Nevada when he was eleven. He left it behind when he reported to the Marine Corps for basic training.

Because it had been Luke’s hat, I kept it and wore it on cold, windy days – even though since it was a child’s hat, it was too small for me and kept popping off my head. Over the years, the hat became tolerant of me and relaxed enough to remain on my head. After I moved to Scotland, I wore the old hat nearly every day of the year – spring, “summer,” fall, and winter. Even in the height of “summer” it is still cool – often with a strong wind. The hat kept my hair from blowing across my face and getting tangled.

Now the hat is gone. It vanished. I wish I could believe that Luke reached down from Heaven and reclaimed the hat as a sort of sign. He didn’t. Heaven is a perfect place with a perfect climate. Luke would have no need for his old blue hat. When a person dies, their spirit goes immediately to be with Jesus in Heaven – if they belong to Him. Jesus is alive, Luke is alive – but he didn’t come for the hat.

I spent several days retracing walks and runs to look for the missing hat. Folks here in the Black Isle are honest and thoughtful. When they find someone’s property, they hang it on a fence post for the owner to find: shoes, socks, keys, dog whistles, shirts, hats, dog leashes. No bright blue wooly hat.

Perhaps the hat fell out of my pocket on the rocks and washed into the sea. Perhaps it blew out of my pocket when I was running and someone who needed a winter hat took it. Actually, I’m glad that it vanished because it taught me to look into my heart for what’s left that’s really important.

Everywhere I go, I see Luke’s smile. I remember the times he called me to sing a song he had just written. I still have cards and poems he sent me. When I look at his daughter’s face, I see his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He lives on in precious memories, and in the life of his daughter. These things are important. The old blue hat? Well, it was just a hat.

Every physical possession we have on this earth, no matter how valuable, will eventually wear out, get stolen, get lost, or disappear. Even the ones that we keep until we “die” will get left behind, just like Luke’s old hat when he went into basic training. No one leaves this earth for Heaven with a suitcase.

Value your children, friends, family members, pets – everyone and everything that you love – now. Spend all the time with them you can and lavish all the love on them that you have to give. You can’t spoil anyone with too much love – but you can break their hearts with too little love.

Build memories and hang on to them. Let old hats go.

Author’s books: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Gateposts

Here in Scotland, a rock mansion was built in 1790, complete with ornate stone gateposts.

After he inherited it, owner James Douglas Fletcher spent an enormous amount of his wealth creating “a mansion to supersede all others.” Rosehaugh premiered as an elaborate four-square, three-story, 60-room showplace of unbelievable opulence, built with the finest construction materials, and filled with valuable furnishings from around the world. The mansion to supersede all others was completed in 1893. A mere 66 years later, the mansion was demolished. Today, 121 years later, all that remains of Rosehaugh are two ornate stone gateposts leading to nowhere.

That’s a good warning to us. We build our lives every day. Are we building something permanent that will remain when we leave this earth, or are we building grand and eloquent gateposts to nothing?

It is not wrong for Christians to have and to spend money. The Bible encourages us to work. It promises that in all labor there is profit. It tells us to work with all our might. It affirms the right of Christians to get paid for working. “He who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope…the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.” (1 Cor. 9:10-14)

If we work and are rewarded financially with a good income, we should have the freedom to spend what is left after God’s tithe on whatever will benefit us in this life so we can continue to be productive. But how wide is the gap between what we really need and what we build? Are we building to impress others, or building gateposts in Heaven?

Once I lived under a bridge in the back of a pickup truck, painting signs for meals and washing myself and my clothes in the river – even on the coldest days of winter. I had little, but I had everything I needed.

Once I lived in an open-ended garden center. I had no bathroom facilities, no kitchen facilities, no air conditioning in the 100-plus degree summers and very little heat on the 16-degree winter days. I took showers with the cold water in the garden hose and slept on a lawn chair mattress on top of three wooden planks. Toads, birds, a wild cat, and other critters came in and out to visit. I had everything I needed. I had Jesus.

I’ve been without things that most people view as necessities, but I’ve never been poor.

“The blessing of the LORD, it makes rich.” Proverbs 10:22.

Jesus encouraged, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:20, 21)

As commanding as it was in its time, Rosehaugh is gone. Two stone gateposts stand as reminders that not even an enormous amount of wealth spent on things in this world can secure them or make them permanent.

Jesus is the only foundation for eternal life. Living for Him is just as possible under a bridge or in a derelict half-shell of a building as it is in a palace or grandiose showplace like Rosehaugh.

Jesus was born in a stable. His first visitors were poor shepherds, hated and despised by the wealthy. We have a God that cannot be bought or sold for money; One Who only accepts the freewill offering of our hearts.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Death, Dying and Shadows

Having just said goodbye to my 37-year-old son, U.S. Marine Corps Major Luke Gaines Parker, (Aug. 19, 1976 – Nov. 17, 2013), I feel qualified to write about death, dying and shadows. Death because a memorial service was held for Luke; shadows because they are illusions.

Luke was born hyperactive before it became a buzz word and was diagnosed with learning disabilities, all of which he overcame. When Luke wanted to learn something, he did. He learned to whitewater raft, rock climb, scuba dive, play a trumpet and piano, fly an airplane. When he wanted his own plane, he found and purchased one of 19 remaining Focke Wulfs in the world. He worked his way up from learner, to instructor, to an instrument rating. He performed aerobatic maneuvers at air shows and wrote smoke messages in the sky.

As a Marine, Luke worked his way up from enlisted to Major. He served six tours of duty in war zones – saw many of his Marine Corps buddies die – and returned home from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which he overcame. But this isn’t about Luke – it’s about shadows.

Shadows are illusions. Shadows aren’t real. They can’t hurt you. People can make shadow animals on the wall – even sharks and wolves – but the shadow critters are harmless. They can’t bite.

Death is unpopular. It gets bad PR. People think of death as an end. It’s scary. They see death as the worst thing that can happen. Death is not the end of life; it’s the beginning of eternal life. Death is what we label the passage from this earth into Heaven where there is no more death, dying, sorrow, illness, pain or sorrow. Death stands between this restless world and eternal joy.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Today at a nursing home, I saw the worst; lonely people with no one to visit them or care; people whose bodies and minds have worn out ahead of death’s arrival. Some screamed and cried for help because imaginary fiends – real to them – bit and crawled under their clothing. Some slumped over in their chairs, lacking strength to straighten up. Some sat, head lolling, drooling, useless arms ending in claw-like appendages that had once been functional hands.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Today at a prison, I saw hopelessness in eyes once bright with wonder; human bodies held captive in cold metal cages, trapped in a dreamless land of no hope, no future.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Today I saw a drug addict with bleeding gums and pussy sores on his face sitting in the cold rain, shivering, and talking to invisible companions as he held a paper cup and begged for money for his next fix.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Today I saw an alcoholic mother in an uncontrollable spate of weeping because her young daughter had run away from home and she had sobered up enough to realize that it was her neglect and abuse that sent the young girl rushing out into a dangerous, uncertain future.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Today I saw an abused child with cigarette burns and bruises on his thin arms and face and shattered trust written across his face because the parents who should have loved and protected him had turned on him with anger and hate.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Jesus asked, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” If this life is all there is to life – then death is indeed an enemy and the worst thing that can happen.

Luke lived his 37 years to the fullest because he walked with God. Even when other people around him did, Luke never drank alcohol or used profanity. He attended church, read his Bible, and was a great father to his young daughter. Within three days of his death, I received 850 messages expressing sorrow and commending his life – because it was a life lived with God. He flew his beloved Focke Wulf through the shadow of death into the arms of Jesus.

Do I miss my son? Dreadfully. Am I incapacitated by grief? No. Death is a shadow. Shadows are harmless, powerless illusions. Death doesn’t deserve such a bum rap. There are many things in this life worse than death.

Link to six Christian mystery-romance-suspense novels: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

God in a Box

I dreamed that people came to me with problems. They told me what their problem was. I went into a room, scanned the neatly labeled boxes on the shelves, and selected a box that would solve their problems.

Out of curiosity, I opened one of the boxes labeled “impending divorce.” I was impressed that it contained the perfect solution to the problem and could stop divorce. During a lull in customers, I opened up several other boxes. Each one was a perfect solution for the problem it was intended to solve.

After waking up, the dream puzzled me at first. I recognized that it was God solving the problems. That’s why each solution was perfect. Only, we can’t put God in a box. He won’t fit! He created the entire universe and all that is in it. The Bible says that even the “heaven of heavens” cannot contain God.

Then I realized that the boxes in the dream were Bible verses, each one designed to perfectly solve whatever problems life hurls at us. The Bible is a living book. It is designed to solve every problem we have today – more than 2,000 years after it was written. God’s wisdom never fails.

God is too good to be cruel, too wise to make mistakes.

When life gets tough and you feel like wave-mangled seaweed snatched from the soft ocean floor and flung heedlessly against the rocks along the shore, read the Bible. Jesus calmed the wind, stopped storms, and walked on water. He will take care of you.

It’s all in the book!

Speaking of books, here is a link to all six of my Christian mystery-romance-suspense books. See if they solve your reading needs!

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0