What a week this has been!  I have always said and believed that God knows best.  This past Friday I watched as our son graduated from high school. It just seems that only a few days ago we were at Woman’s Hospital in Flowood preparing for and then watching our baby’s birth.  On February 17, 1993 I was the happiest daddy in the whole world.  He was a boy, and I got to show him off.  It didn’t quite seem fair after Catherine had labored all those months to deliver him into the world and then I, the daddy, got to show him off.  But I was a proud daddy when I stepped into that hallway across from the baby nursery at the hospital.

When he walked across the stage to pick up his diploma, I could hardly keep from shouting and at the same time remembering that he was a miracle, a gift from God, a creation of God’s making that I was blessed to be a small part of!

And then Sunday, as I watched each graduate of our church walk down that aisle I could not help but reflect back to how each parent in church must have been feeling when their young son or daughter walked that aisle as a graduate;  “They are just not old enough to grow up!”  But you know, that is the plan God has for each of us.  Grow UP!

Then, on Sunday afternoon, we got a call that our daughter was on the way to the hospital.  Woman’s Hospital in Flowood after all.  We found out that she was having some complications but would be all right.  The doctor told her that for her safety and for her baby, Holly, they are going to deliver at 6:00 p.m.  Awesome! Catherine was already at the hospital when she called Will and me to “bring the bag, we are going to have a baby!”

Same hospital, different delivery room, same waiting room, same hallway and different parents!  Barry, our son-in-law, “happiest Daddy in the world,” walked out into the hall, all smiles, water in his eyes, holding the beautiful little girl we call Holly Elizabeth.  As he walked her back to the nursery, my mother — the great grandmother — reminds us that God still performs miracles!

Baby is going to be fine!

Daughter is going to be fine!

Daddy (Son-in-law) is fine!

Son is fine!

Nanna & Pop (Catherine & Me) are fine!

Now, time for us all to grow UP!  God is still performing miracles!

Oh, and to top it all off, Tuesday, May 24^th is the day my own “happiest Daddy in the world” celebrates the fourth anniversary of his birth into the Kingdom of God!

“A happy heart makes the face cheerful!” – Psalm 15:13

Rattle, rattle, cling, clang!  No, this is not the items gathered at the baby shower this weekend for our granddaughter soon to be born.  That was the sound of my wife’s car when she arrived home last Thursday!

So Monday I get to drive her car. “You’ve got to drive it to see what it sounds like after you have driven it for a while,” she said.

“I know what it sounds like and I don’t like that sound,” I replied.

Well guess what, I drove it on Monday and after a couple of hospital stops I headed straight to the auto repair store.  They listened and then removed the “u” joints on the drive shaft (not that it is important, however, it is what makes the wheels move). So, I get to wait!

While I was waiting I witnessed a child, I’ll guess about 2 years of age, waiting with her grandmother. Her hair was in pony-tails and she was only interested in the toys.  Carefully pulling out each toy from the box one at a time and placing them in various chairs in the waiting area at the auto repair shop. Obviously, she was not aware of anyone else.

As she placed each toy around the room her grandmother received a phone call.  With the grandmother not particularly paying a lot of attention to the little girl, I noticed that she was now picking up each toy from around the room and creating what I called a “pile”.

About the time she had completed her work, the grandmother got off the phone and the cute little girl said, “Look Gran, I built a city!”

“That is good,” said the grandmother.

“I included everything!”

“That is very good!”

As I reflected on the activities of the child, I could not help be recall the story of creation when God made the heavens and the earth.  The world in which we live, the animals, the people and everything God creates is good. God must have the spirit of a child when creating.

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Oh, the car.  After the repairs, it was good, kind of!

- Mitchell

I think my body may be going into shock.  No, it is not the sudden change in the temperature from last Monday’s spring cold front. Did you realize that the temperature changed approximately 40 degrees in less than an hour (hope everyone was safe)?  What has happened is that I have eaten fruit several times. Now don’t get me wrong.  Fruit is good and I really enjoy eating it. Grapes, strawberries, oranges, apples, satsumas, pineapple, grapefruit, etc…I enjoy them all, I just don’t eat them very often.

Last week my wife brought home a bag of satsumas.  I honestly believe I could have eaten the whole bag.  They were awesome.  And then a couple of days later, Catherine brought home two, get this now, two bowls of cut-up strawberries already coated in sugar (thanks to my mother-in-law). I rushed to the freezer, took out the vanilla ice-cream and indulged myself. Fresh, sliced-up, sugar-coated, strawberries and ice-cream, what more could a person want?

Fruit! Was my body going to go into shock? I’m kind of a meat, potato and vegetable kind of guy.  Fruit makes it into my body so rarely that it probably comes across to my stomach as an unwanted guest.  But I do love it.

Fruit is obviously really good for our bodies and good for our souls.  Paul says in Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  The fruit represents the good works in our lives like: thought, attitude, or actions that God values because we have given glory to Him.  I think this is probably why Jesus declared to his disciples, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:8)

Today, may we find ways to glorify God by bearing much fruit!

P.S. Notice, I left off bananas! I don’t like bananas but they really are good for you!  Why not enjoy a banana today and share your “fruit” with someone else?

Mitchell

Matthew 6:25-34

Isn’t this just awesome? It’s spring!

The leaves are growing on the oak trees! The pollen is turning my white automobile into a yellow taxi cab-looking vehicle.  The colors of flowers are beginning to blossom everywhere from the little white ones that dot the grass in our yard to the beautiful pink roses in the flower bed next to the pre-school playground.

People are wearing bright spring colored clothing. The spring thunderstorms are popping up all around us (think of last Sunday morning)! The heavy coats have been put away, but wait, I had to turn my heat on again last night.  And the birds are building their nests to remind us again of new life!

Now we are talking spring!  Last week I came home for lunch only to discover the little birds flying back and forth through a tear on the cover of our outside grill.  Knowing that I was going to be using the grill in a couple of days, I immediately (after I finished eating) got up and went to remove the cover before the birds actually built a nest inside the grill.  Well, lo and behold, when I removed the cover, there was a nicely packed and perfectly placed pile of leaves, branches and moss configured as a bird nest on my BBQ grill!  Imagine, if you will, a pile of leaves about one foot square and about six inches high.

Looking it over, I discovered the birds had not yet placed their eggs so I gently removed the nest, placed it over the fence and hoped the birds would find it.  I did feel a little worried about removing the nest until two days later. As I was working on my wife’s car I noticed some leaves under the hood of her car.  They had built a new nest in her car!!!

Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them….Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? …Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6 [selected verses]).

May we see the new life in Christ each and every new day! Tomorrow will worry about itself!

Beginning Wednesday, March 9, officially called Ash Wednesday, I want to invite each of you to join us for a series of messages entitled Journey of Stones. This journey promises to be a time during the Lenten season that will take us on a journey of prayerful and honest repentance – a powerful, life-changing journey that calls for private and corporate expressions.  These   sermons will lead us on a journey of celebration, of grace, of awe at the miracle of the empty tomb and the promise of life.

The sermons will be a powerful invitation to amendment of life and the weekly devotions will hopefully encourage personal reflection and acknowledgment of the need for God’s mercies.  Each time we gather we will be offered the opportunity to place a stone at the foot of the cross – to lay at the feet of our Savior all of those things which separate us from him.

The messages will be grounded in the living Word of God, in the history of God’s people, and in the call to be faithful Christians in this age.  This Journey of Stones is a journey for God’s people; a journey which ends with the joyous invitation to be free, to be alive in Christ!

Along the way, we will confess our faith, we will weep with sorrow, we will tell the truth about ourselves, and we will eat and drink the body (bread) and blood (wine) of Christ.  It is my hope that we will be standing together at the foot of the cross, laying our stones – and our sins – down, and leaving in wonder each week.  We will together journey through Holy Week and together proclaim the resurrection on Easter!

My prayer is that as each stone, each sin, every tear is placed at the foot of the cross the Holy Spirit will meet us there and we will be transformed (changed) in His Glory!  And, come Easter Sunday morning together we will announce the Good News for all to hear, “HE IS RISEN!”

So, I was at the Magic Kingdom a couple of weeks ago. Yes, the one with Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Daffy, and of course, Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger too!  I was at a continuing education conference (someone go ahead and say it, “Yeah, right!”). But it really is true!  It was a conference dealing with the subject of Creativity in Worship.  Some of the top executives in the Disney Corporation and the Busch Gardens Entertainment world were our primary speakers.

Oh well, back to the day at Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  I arrived via bus transportation around 9:00 in the morning (got to be there when they open).  Immediately, I met up with two preacher friends and we rushed to ride “Space Mountain.” You have to know this was a day of “research and study,” so I had to ride the rides. Believe it or not, by 10:00 we had already ridden five rides. I think before the day was over I had been on every ride, even the train that goes around the Magic Kingdom, except for the ones in ‘kiddy land’.  It looked a little awkward, a 51-year-old standing in line with infants and toddlers!

As the evening came to a close around 7:00 p.m. I made my way down Main Street.  My friends left earlier in the afternoon, they couldn’t hang with the ‘young’ guy! Pretty much exhausted, I decided I would sit on the main drag and watch the night-time entertainment and the fireworks to close out my day.  Suffice it to say, the laser light show on the castle and the fireworks were just awesome but I want to share with you about my new friends I met who were from Brazil.

Sitting alone on the street curb for a few minutes was interesting as I watched people come and go, up and down the street.  At first there was no one seated beside me until a young lady and her daughter (4) sat down to my left side.  Finally, a young couple came and sat to my right (they were obviously “in love”, you know, all that hugging and kissing stuff).

After a short time the young lady in broken English asked, “Are you waiting on parade?”

“Yes,” I responded, “but I was just told that there was not going to be a parade but a laser light show on the castle and then the fireworks.”

Believe me when I say I did not know what I was talking about but some guy, a street sweeper, had just told me that.

If you know me, once a person starts talking to me it doesn’t take long till we are carrying on a conversation.  As we talked, her husband Lucio, (he’s the only one who spoke really good English) and son (6) showed up.  By then, the lights were going out and people were beginning to stand to watch the show.

About that time Lucio picked up the little girl and placed her on his shoulders so she could see.  Realizing the son was having the same trouble seeing, I volunteered to let him sit on my shoulders. Now for some this may not have been much, but for me, it was wonderful.  I had Lucio’s wife take our picture. Just seeing the smile on the little boys face reminded me of Jesus sitting with his disciples and saying, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

I learned a lot at the Magic Kingdom.  Mostly I was reminded that we all need the faith, hope, love and joy of a child.  We tend to get so caught up in the business of this world that sometimes we forget the joy of loving the LORD!

With about 170 preachers in our church this week for the Clergy Leadership Conference I was reminded of the story of a pastor who came home from a tough day at the office and told his wife, “I’ve had a bad day.  Please, if you have any bad news, keep it to yourself.”  To which she replied, “Okay: No bad news. Now for the good news!  Remember our four children? Well, three of them didn’t break an arm today!”

As parents we are given a great responsibility.  Proverbs 22: 6 reads, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”  For the last couple of weeks I have made a trip down the hall during the Sunday School hour to visit the children’s classes and to go by the nursery.  Now if you want to get blessed on a Sunday morning, stop by the nursery for a few minutes (They could use some help!)  So many beautiful little children.

Last Sunday when I stopped by, Sandra — one of our nursery workers — explained to me why one of the children, a little girl, was not happy.  It had become obvious that she did not have her blanket.  We all know the comfort of the blanket.  No one else’s blanket would work.  She searched every backpack, every bag and in every corner of the room.  No, it was obvious; Mom had left her blanket at home.

In some ways we are all like the little girl whose blanket was not there when she needed it.

This week as preachers gathered to talk about worship planning and the various styles of worship that occur within the bodies of the United Methodist Churches from across the state, it was interesting to recognize how we all want the security of our “blanket”.  The challenge offered these last three days has been to expand our horizon by understanding that no matter what goes on during that appointed time of worship, we are never to forget that the focus is not on us, but on praising Almighty God!

Remember, as a child you were trained.  As an adult, are you focusing your life on Jesus?

Mitchell

Oh well, for those of you who were at church Sunday, now you know what I mean when I say, “Mitchell, please don’t sing where people can hear you!”  “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows, but Jesus!” Well, at least I can say I made an effort with it!  (If you missed it you might want to go to the website [www.fumcclinton.org] and listen to Sunday’s message, “Singing the Lullabies!”).

But you know, it’s been kind of interesting, people have given different and varying opinions:

“Hey, who said you cannot sing!” (Obviously, this was a person who is tone deaf!)

“Not too bad!”

“Wait a minute, we hear you sing on Sunday night and you do pretty well!”

“Don’t feel bad, there are a lot of people singing around me who cannot sing either!”

“Don’t feel bad, there are a lot of people around me who are afraid to sing!”

“Don’t feel bad, when we were singing the hymns, I was the only one singing in my area of the sanctuary!”

As you can tell, singing is one of the things I really enjoy. I also don’t think you have to sing all that well to make melody to the Lord! I have to be honest and tell you that for years I would not sing because I did not want anyone to hear how bad I sounded.  Then, one evening at a youth event years ago I came to the realization that I was not singing for the people around me, I was singing to praise God!

Singing to Praise God!  Awesome!  The Scriptures tell us;

“Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.” – Psalm 100:1-2

“Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.” – Psalm 98:1

“I will sing of your love…, I will sing praise!” – Psalm 101:1

Did you like singing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…?”  I hope so!  What are some of your favorite sing-along songs?  Why not drop me an email to Mitchell@fumcclinton.org and let me know of some that you really like.  It is possible that we might just sing yours in the next few weeks as together we praise our Awesome God!!!

Mitchell

Well, today is another day for mourning! Mourning seems like such a discouraging word, but in the last several weeks friends of mine have had loved ones die.  Yesterday, a friend buried his father and today (Tuesday), three sisters and one brother will place their mother in her final resting place.

You know, each day as I read the obituaries in the paper the list always seems to be long.  As I reflect upon the list I see names, and often ages, of people that have died, and I want to ask, “What happened?”  Too often we do the same thing in questioning God, “God, what happened?”  “Why did this have to happen?” “Why God?”

So many times as I think about my own personal feelings when someone I love or have known dies I want to state to God that “this is just not fair!”  This thought might be very familiar to God.  After all, Jesus, the son of God — innocent and without sin — was humiliated and brutally put to death on a terrible Roman cross.  Yes, God must certainly understand our feelings when we tell God that someone we love has died unfairly!

How can we adjust to questions of this magnitude with no answers?  It is only by clinging to our faith that we are able to adjust.  Romans 8:38-39 shares with us a promise if we will only step out and have faith.  The apostle Paul is telling us that in Christ, there is nothing that can come between the Lord and us.  NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! This means that not anything in the present world or even death itself can come between the LORD and us!

We may not have all the answers to our reasons for mourning, but we have been given God’s assurance that Christ will be the ultimate victor over death for all of eternity.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

-      Romans 8:38-39

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.””

For 22 years Catherine and I have been celebrating Christmas together.  Over all these years we have seen the traditions of our childhoods incorporated into our own family style.

When I was a child Christmas morning was an exciting time of anticipation.  We could hardly sleep Christmas Eve but my brother (Michael) and I knew that our older sister (Jacky) would come to wake us up even before sunrise.  I guess it was the older part (sorry sis) but she always got up first.  Once we were awake she would go get our baby sister (Rendy).  Then, as if pounding off of springs under our feet, we would run jump in bed with our parents and tell them that Santa had come.  “It’s time to get up!”

Yes, I can still hear the voice of my patient father, “Let’s go back to bed for a little while, the sun is not even awake yet!”

And no, we did not go to bed. We all rushed into the living room where the tree was, looked around to find our presents from Santa and then the explosion of wanting to open the gifts would take place.

It was at that moment that our parents would remind us of the real reason of Christmas!  Either Mom or Dad would open up the Bible and we would read the Christmas story.

Well, my father is no longer alive to read the story and because our own families have grown so large, we don’t gather as the H.J & Orell Hedgepeth family on Christmas morning anymore.  However, we do gather as the Mitchell Hedgepeth family each Christmas now.  And somewhere during the not-so-rushed morning, we will stop and read the Christmas story.

This year, I think I’ll have my father-in-law (Bill Bowlus) read it. It has kind of become “our” family tradition for him to do so!

“Today….a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!