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A Sudden Jar April 25, 2006

Amy Carmichael founded the Donavour Fellowship in India. The purpose of Donavour was to shelter little girls from shameful abuse. The work was taxing, round-the-clock labor in a hot climate. She was bed-ridden for the last twenty years of her life. During that time she began to write. Before her injury she had been too active to write. Though she spent her entire missionary career of fifty-four years in India and was buried there under a simple bird bath for a grave marker, her writing and influence have traveled around the world and her books are continually reprinted.

In the crucible of ministry and suffering she wrote about the content of the heart. She wrote:

“If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, than I know nothing of Calvary love, for a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water however suddenly jolted.”

When I first read that I felt compelled to call my Grandma Shipley and read it to her. When I read it she said; “What made you think of me when you read that?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “It just seemed like something you would like.”

She said; “I read that to you when you were small and I wrote those words in the flyleaf of the Bible I gave your mom when she graduated from high school.

Grandma has been with the Lord now for eight years, but when I remember her, my heart smiles. I picture the little green house on Auten Road in South Bend, I remember the smell of coffee, and grandma’s ready eagerness to talk about the things of the Lord right up until a few hours before she met the Lord face to face.

Father fill my heart full of things that are good today because I know that soon again I will be “bumped” and when it happens I want to spill “sweet water.”

Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
April 24, 2006

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Hope is SEVEN April 20, 2006

Early in the morning the day of the Columbine tragedy God sent little Hope America to us. We were living in Fremont, Michigan. Fremont is the home of Gerber Baby Food. Our baby, Hope was born at Gerber Memorial Hospital.

Today we went out for our traditional Birthday breakfast at a favorite restaurant. She is a sweet little girl and delightful to be with. Lord willing, she will be an aunt by Christmas.

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Recognition April 17, 2006

Recognition

Today is the Boston Marathon. Everyone who finishes will receive recognition for life as a finisher of the prestigious race.

Have you ever met anyone who likes to be known as someone who does not want recognition? I don’t think I have ever met anyone who really doesn’t want to receive recognition. Who doesn’t love to be recognized for an achievement? Who doesn’t want to be loved, accepted, and noticed?

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Good Question April 15, 2006

At a park in Fenton Friday night we noticed this graffiti on the wall. Good question, don’t you think?

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MISSIONARY ADVENTURE April 14, 2006

We (the Pierpont Family) are about to embark on an incredible, month-long missionary adventure. Keep your eye on this site for details (Lois will be taking pictures, too).

I take this lovely young lady with me almost whever I go and she takes pictures for me. Now you now why I smile alot… Cute, isn’t she?

Plans now will take us through the American Southwest and then on to Monterrey and Guadalajara, Mexico. We will be on the first of the “Great Expeditions”, with students from the Advanced Training Institute.

READING: I am reading a powerful book by C. J. Mahaney… The Cross-Centered Life. To take the message of the Cross to the people of another nation… what an exciting task.

“It is in the world cause that we connect our fragile, momentary, local efforts with his invincible, eternal, global purposes…” -John Piper

Here is a link to a beautiful missionary story called The Price of A Coconut This is a beautiful story for children of all ages.

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Holly’s 22nd Springtime

Every year I write each of my children a birthday letter and I give it to them at a special birthday breakfast. God has been kind to me to allow this tradition to continue for years. This morning Holly is sitting across the table at Panera reading this year’s letter.

I looked up her letter from 2004. Here is a little part you can read:

“Dear Holly; …Yesterday a young man was describing what it was like to step off the plane in the south where spring arrived a few weeks ago. There were huge azalea bushes, dogwoods, magnolias and other flowering trees and bushes. The air was warm. The sun was bright. The grass was lush and green. I want you to know that whenever you walk into my life, I feel like I have stepped into springtime…”

I am sure you can see a picture of my lovely daughter preparing for her big day if you check on Lois’ picture site.

You might want to take a look at Heidi’s tribute to her sister, too.

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Contentment April 10, 2006

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“I remember reading once of a spiritual seeker who interrupted a busy life to spend a few days in a monastery. ‘I hope your stay is a blessed one,’ said the monk who showed the visitor to his cell. ‘If you need anything, let us know, and we’ll teach you how to live without it.’ ”

-Philip Yancy, Christianity Today, March 2006 p. 112

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Creative Parenting

When I was a boy the death sentence was to have to go to bed without a “treat.” To call what we ate before we went to bed at night a “treat” is a bit of a misnomer, because it was usually a full meal of left-overs. On Sunday night it was really our evening meal eaten after church. Sunday diner was usually late because by the time we arrived home after talking with all the people we would eat late and then the evening service was upon us immediately after our naps. Buy the time we arrived home on Sunday evening we were ready to eat. I mean we were really ready to eat.

When I was hungry it was so hard for me not to misbehave. I’m still that way. You want to feed me or get out of the way. On the way home from church on Sunday nights I was always dangerously hungry. My parents tried all kinds of things to get me to behave, stopping just short of electric-shock therapy and capitol punishment. The last-resort discipline, especially on Sunday evenings was to have to go to bed without a treat.

One Sunday night in the car on the way home I pushed my parents just a bit too far and my Dad pronounced judgment on me. “Kenny, that’s it. You will go to bed without a treat tonight. Your mother and I have warned you ever and over again.”

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BIG NEWS!

BIG NEWS! On Wednesday I was in Pennsylvania. Lois was here in Michigan. Kyle called and conferenced us both in on the call. “Dad, Elizabeth and I wanted you both to find out at the same time that you are going to be grandparents.”

I shouted, I danced, I haven’t stopped smiling since that call. God is good. We have all been praying every day that God would give Kyle and Elizabeth a child. Now we humble ourselves and plead for a safe, healthy delivery. The baby is due on Wesley’s birthday, the 10th of December.

Of the “photos” that I keep in my memory is one of Kyle just a few seconds old eating from his mother’s breast. You’re not supposed to do it this way, but immediately our whole world began to turn around him. How we adored that little boy. How kind and merciful it was of the Father to make me a father. I haven’t gotten over it, still. And now my first-born son is going to be a Dad.

It is a beautiful spring Lord’s Day evening as I write this. Sunday I preached at Grace Christian Fellowship in Bay City. We will be there for the next two weeks, too. My series of messages is on How to Build A Community of Grace.

Message One: How to Overcome a Dark Past.
Message Two: How to Have a Bright Future.
Message Three: How to Build a Community of Grace to Help Others Who Have a Dark Past Have A Bright Future.

How’s that for a mouthful?