Friday morning, June 4, I flew from Milwaukee to St. Louis to get a ride to Quincy, Illinois, where the Central Illinois District LWML Convention was going to be held. As I have often said, travel these days is not too much fun, but it is a great way to get somewhere fast. In the case of St. Louis it is about a 50 minute flight versus an 8 hour drive. Enough said! It was very cold in the terminal so I had gotten a cup of hot tea that was way too hot to drink; why do they do that? Oh well, I decided to take it on board with me and sip it after it cooled. The plane that I was on was a small regional jet with very small overhead compartments. My computer case did not fit; it did fit under the seat, if you count overlapping into the foot space of the person next to me. that seat was vacant, so I had a possibility that it would remain so. However, jsut a few minutes before the door closed a young man came and took the seat; he was dressed casually in shorts, a polo shirt and tennis shoes; this becomes important later on. He was very gracious and said that he had plenty of room for his feet under the seat in front of us; thank you Lord, for placing a kind man next to me! About 20 minutes into the flight I was engrossed in my book, and somehow bumped that cup of tea that was on my tray…right onto my seat mate! Talk about a gracious man; he quickly jumped up and got some paper towels from the flight attendant and we mopped up the tea. Thankful for several things: the tea had cooled considerably, so no one was burned; the lid did hold and not too much tea was spilled; and (remember) he was wearing casual, washable clothes. Whew! My jacket will have to be dry cleaned. For the rest of the trip we talked; he is a pipe-fitter, traveling to where the work on nuclear power plants is located, keeping his family in Milwaukee. He is a native of Puerto Rico, and convinced me that is one place I want to see. We talked about the Lord and our faith in Jesus.
Thank you, Lord, for directing my steps, and my missteps!

A little confession here, I have tried to quit drinking “soda” or “pop” or “soda pop” or “soft drinks,” whatever you call them. I know there are chemicals in them that are not good for my body; they are expensive; and they may cause me to eat more. All things I really should avoid.

Recently I had decided to stop, again. I was on day #1 and had done pretty well, so far. On the way home from doing some errands, I decided to drive through McDonald’s and order a large soft drink, to reward myself for getting lots done that day. As I was approaching, my cell phone rang, and I took the call. I wasn’t about to be rude and try to juggle a phone conversation with a fast food order, so I drove right by, without my beverage.

Saved by the bell, or the “ring” of my cell phone. Thank You, Lord, for timing things and for intervening in my life that day. You care even about the small details of my life. You took care of the biggest detail when Jesus died and rose for my sins.

Thank You, I think? No, thank You, I know!

Do you ever find yourself overhearing things, like phone conversations? On a recent flight the woman in back of me was making a phone call before the cabin door closed and all phones had to be turned off…and that is why she was calling. She was asking for help to turn off her cell phone! I thought that was pretty funny and had a little laugh over that.
Wouldn’t you know it, the very next day I got a new cell phone. Then I was the woman trying frantically to turn off her cell phone!
Reminds me of the saying that when you point a finger at someone three of your fingers are pointing back at you. I should have known better, would you agree?

Thanks be to God for His gift of forgiveness, especially when I should have known better.

This past weekend I attended the Atlantic District LWML Convention in Suffern, New York. While there I met a long time LWML member, Enid. She is 85 years old, attends most of the district retreats and events. Why, she even travelled to this convention all by herself…except for her seeing eye dog.
Enid has been blind since birth, but it seems that she hasn’t let that stop her from much at all. She worked in a job for over 40 years, participates in her church services, and is quite independent.
Did I tell you that she rode a train, then took a bus, and when she got off the bus someone helped her get a taxi that brought her to the hotel where the convention was located. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Somehow, all of my excuses for missing a meeting or event seem pretty lame.

Lord, thank you for crossing my path with Enid’s; the joy she has in Jesus her Savior radiates from her face. Thank you, too, Lord for how you teach me and put things in perspective for me. And thanks, too, Lord, for safe travel, especially for Enid.

Saturday evening I was sitting at the dinner table with guests at the Atlantic District Convention; in the course of conversation, someone had asked me where I had lived; I mentioned that we had lived outside of Cleveland for 22 yeas. A little later one of the women asked where specifically “outside” of Cleveland, and was it anywhere near Painesville? Well, it was Painesville; turns out that her husband, as a child, had been a member of the same church, and had been baptized there. His baptismal sponsors were the parents of the woman I had mentioned in a previous entry, You Have Mail.
This is all tying together in a wonderful way showing God is in the details…the woman who asked about Painesville was not a member of the Atlantic District. She was there manning the display for Concordia Publishing House. We just happened to be sitting at the same table that evening.

Some might say that it is a small, Lutheran world!

Have you had the opportunity to use the monthly prayer guides for our LWML mission grants? These are located in the Missions section of the Web site; download and print them each month. There are great prayer prompts and suggestions for mite giving, along with a feature story about one of the grants for this biennium.
Last Saturday, April 17, the entry said, “Give the LWML Web site address to someone – 10 cents for each one.” Well, last Saturday your president was giving the report to the Montana District LWML. Do you have any idea how many times I “gave” the LWML Web address? Suffice it to say, I left a donation to the Montana District for mites. What fun!

This morning, I almost skipped my quiet time. Do you have days like that? When I saw that it was only one chapter in Deuteronomy (following the Today’s Light devotional plan from CPH) I thought that I would read the suggested, “if time is short.” When I saw that there were only a few more verses, I decided to read the whole chapter 17. In this chapter the Lord is giving directives for the future kings of Israel. Verse 19 (and following) seemed to jump out at me; it is speaking about the Word of God that had been given through Moses, “And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law..that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers.” (ESV)
Words that I needed to read and take to heart as I serve the LWML as president. This really spoke to me and my responsibilities. And to think, I almost skipped my reading today! A personal message to me, In the Word of God.
My prayer is that God’s Word will minister to each of you.

This morning I was getting ready to leave the hotel in St. Louis. After breakfast I went back to my room, put my contact lenses in and proceeded to finish my last minute packing. Something just didn’t seem right…my vision was “off” a bit. I took out the right contact and put it back in, and then continued to pack, walking all over the room. I went back in the bathroom, still having trouble with my contacts, only to discover that there was no contact lens in my left eye! The old Jan would have gotten all upset and stressed out, but today I was able to whisper a quick prayer, something to the effect, “Lord you know where my lens is, if it would please you to reveal that to me, I would be so grateful. You know how I tend to run late, and I really don’t have a lot of time to look all over this hotel room…” I looked down and there was the contact lens, on the edge of the hand towel!

Thank You, Lord, for even caring about little things like my contact lens.

Yesterday’s mail brought a note from a friend in Ohio; we had instantly bonded when our family moved to Ohio in the early 1980′s. Chris’s first child, a boy, was the same age as our Nathan. Her second child, a daughter, was born a couple weeks before our second child, Daniel. We went to the same doctor, watched each other’s kids while the other one grocery shopped…you get the idea. As our children aged and went to different high schools, we drifted apart. We were still friends, just not that close day-to-day contact that had brought us together in the early years we were in Ohio. Chris had come across a note in her desk that I had sent to her in 1991, when she was going through some challenging times. She wrote to thank me for that note, and the tangible reminder that it was for her.

So, my question to you is, have you written a note to encourage someone lately? It seems we rely more and more on electronic communication and social networking these days. There is great power in sending “real” mail to someone, a card or note for them to read, enjoy, and possibly save. Who knows, 19 years from now you just may get a note back thanking you for taking the time to send a special note in 2010.

Today in my quiet time I was reading Exodus 34 which recounts God giving Moses the new stone tablets to replace the ones that were crushed when Moses saw the Israelites worshiping the golden calf. The Lutheran Study Bible, (ESV), Exodus 34:29b, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.Later on in the chapter it says “the skin of Moses’ face was shining.” (34:35) The people could tell that Moses had been with God. Pretty neat stuff, I thought. On with the rest of my day…
When I opened my e-mails one of them was from LCMS World Mission; Good News from the Field – March 2010. One that caught my eye was from Andrea Herman in Guinea; one of our grants from 2007-2009 went to support the work of Andrea. She shares a story about her friend, Evie, and how she and her husband came to attend a worship service. When Andrea asked Evie about her seemingly quick response and decision to attend church, she found out that Evie and her husband had lived in another country in an apartment building where Christians gathered for worship. They knew the pastor of that fellowship and watched him. Andrea concluded her account, “So much of their information about Christianity did not come from asking about our doctrine or theology-rather, they based the rightness/righteousness of our faith entirely upon the actions of those who claimed to be believers.”
I think that Andrea’s face must have been shining to those around her; they knew she had been with Jesus!
So, back to the title of this, Is Your Face Shining?