ARTICLES AND COMMENTARY

These Articles Are For Your Encouragement
These are articles written by Lydia Chorpening
Please contact her for permission before reproducing them.

WHEN OUR CHILDREN TAKE WRONG TURNS
By Lydia Chorpening
Are you having a hard time turning loose of your children?
Let the Scriptures in this article encourage you.
The end results are victory.

Lacinda, our youngest, had just moved from our small backwoods community in Northwest Wisconsin into the big cities. I had gone there to help her nestle in at her sister’s apartment and to get situated. We had searched the newspaper ads for job openings and she had landed an interview. After studying our city map and writing out specific directions we headed out. We were both going to take 694 east, but she would soon head south while I kept going toward home.
Lacinda was cool. She seemed confident and eager to be out about the twin cities to try her wings. I let her lead the way and we did well for the first couple turns, but then she took a right turn before the underpass and headed west. I knew she had made a wrong turn and that was even before she got out of my sight!
What was I to do? Traffic was moving fast and I had only a second to decide. I could either follow her, try to stop her, and go into a panic, or I could simply let her go west on 694 while I went east. I made a quality choice and chose the later. I knew that she would eventually discover her mistake and find a way to turn around.
As I headed homeward I knew that I could trust the safekeeping of my children to God. I’d been given occasion to trust Him many times when I had seen them make wrong turns in life. This lesson had become very personal to me years earlier when we lived in the Philippines and our first daughter went off to boarding school. The first night after we had left her at the school I awoke with a start and a cry of despair.
My husband rolled over and asked, "What’s the matter?"
"I just left my daughter at the boarding school," was my anguished reply.
Without a moment’s hesitation or sympathy he quoted the last portion of II Timothy 1:12 "…for I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Then, as if he’d never been awakened, he rolled over and went back to sleep.
I, on the other hand, lay there angry that he could take the separation of our daughter and my heartbreak so lightly. As we returned to our home in Cebu City I knew that my feelings were wrong and that my husband had at least given me a portion of God’s word to stand on.
I began to search the meaning of some of the words in the given verse and God in His faithfulness brought me to a satisfying answer. The word "keep" is a word that implies the Lord setting Himself aside to watch over. At that moment’s realization I visualized the Lord sitting cross-legged, rolling up his sleeves, ready to do any dirty work He needed for my daughter’s good and safekeeping.
My challenge was that of committing her into His care. He had assured me of His promise to set Himself aside to watch over her, but what about me?
What about my emotional needs and my loneliness?
How could I really commit her fully to His care?
It was then that God led me to study Psalm 121:1-2 " I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."
As I hung our laundry in the cubical backyard, I lifted my eyes to the terrorist infected mountains that surrounded our city and wondered how God could help me from those hills. Their distance seemed unreachable by the perilous, spiral roadways that wound into their interior and final heights. But as I continued to search for my answer, I found that the word "cometh" is an action word that takes wings without the measure of time and distance as we comprehend it.
The Lord made me realize that He would be coming, coming, and would be right where I needed Him when I needed Him. The expanse of distance would not delay His arrival at my side at the moment that I really lifted my eyes to His majestic hills in faith and trust.
It was in this way that some of my first steps of faith, prevailing prayer, and trust were built. My trust had grown through the times I’d tested God and I knew Lacinda would soon turn around and head in her right direction. I rejoice to say that she has become a very competent and safe driver. As with trusting in God, I can assuredly ride with her while she winds her way through traffic to destinations I can only imagine.



THE ‘I’ IN RESPONSIBILITY
By Lydia Chorpening

This article was printed in the ‘Spooner Advocate’ before our last election.
It still holds a challenge for us today

Bam Crawford tells the story of having missed one of her daughter’s spelling bees. Later when she inquired how the spelling bee had gone, the daughter replied, "I left the ‘I’ out of ‘responsibility’."
According to information I found on the ‘www.iVoteValues.org’ website it is a fact that when it comes to voting in this country, many of us have also left the ‘I’ out of our responsibility. Only half of the Christians are registered to vote, and of those who are registered, only half of these vote.
According to US Census Bureau 25%-35% of our voting age population is not registered to vote. That translates to between 45 and 65 million Americans who are not registered. Studies further show that only 53% of Americans who were eligible to vote did so in the 2000 elections, and only 39.3% did so in 2002.
Studies done by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life show that nearly two-third of Americans say their faith has little to do with their voting decisions. I want to ask these Americans, "What faith?" If faith has no voice, it is not faith.
I find the fact very sobering that we make excuses and won’t inform ourselves of the true values represented by those who are running for office. Then we don’t vote and if we do, we don’t vote our values. By not voting our convictions, we are digging our own grave…and that grave will be big enough to swallow up our nation!
Early in our national history all of us didn’t have the privilege to vote and many suffered physically to obtain that opportunity. Now we have the privilege to vote, and I want to know if it matters to you that Wisconsin’s senators and our House Representative are voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). Do you weep, pray or care for the 4000 abortions performed daily in our country. Does it matter to you that liberals are trying to take ‘under God’ out of our national pledge or that they are removing the ‘Ten Commandments’ from our court buildings? Are you alarmed to hear that our universities are making Islamic religion classes mandatory while they are making prayer and Bible reading illegal?
I am not ashamed to say that it is time to put our ‘I’ back into responsibility and vote for values rather than political party. Even if the party who is running does not fully agree with you in every aspect, righteousness (not money) still exalts a nation. Who will dare vote for righteousness?
Even though we may not have a major voting event in our immediate future, it is not too late to register and be informed for the arrival of that time. Now is the time to be praying in our future leaders. Now is our time to do all we can.


A SNAKE IN OUR BEDROOM
By Lydia Chorpening
This article was written to help us realize
that we don’t have to give in to fear.

The yellow River stealthily snakes its way through our area of town. It provides leisure and fishing spots for our community, but it also produces and nurtures creatures and critters of various sorts. In early summer turtles make their way from its depths and invade local lawns in search of a place to lay their eggs.
As summer advances our lazy river breeds enormous amounts of mosquitoes, and then from within its brush-covered banks a myriad of dragon flies are released to sail and soar…chasing mosquitoes.
Recently my neighbor called me from my backyard. As I approached the back of his house he suddenly ordered, "Stop right there!"
Startled, I stood still in my tracks…then I saw it…a big three and a half foot snake, wrapped easily in itself, sleeping soundly. The harmless Pine Snake was later returned to the Yellow river.
Yesterday morning as I came to straighten our downstairs bedroom the light was dim. As I passed on my way to the other room I glimpsed a dark piece of stripped elastic in a corner. I thought it strange to have something like that in my bedroom, but reached to pick it up, when suddenly I thought to take a closer look. As I did, I realized it wasn’t elastic at all, but a small snake, perhaps thinking it had found its place for winter hibernation. I, equipped with my garden hoe, hoisted him outside and shortened his hibernation in my bedroom.
Where did that guy come from? It took him four years, at least, to find his way into our bedroom.
How did he do it?
Did he come up my shower drain?
Did he bring another of his kind with him?
Did I now need to check my slippers before sticking my feet into them or check my bed sheets before climbing into bed?
No, no, four years and no snakes and the promise that God hasn’t given me the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind (II Timothy 1:7).
That evening I climbed into bed and slept like a child while the Yellow River continued to snake its way though our area of town nurturing its assortment of creatures.