Hello, Singing News fans! I am happy to be among the chosen that bring you the news each month. Let me start right up by saying that I love being married to my beloved husband, Brian Speer. He is a record producer, engineer and sound technician, and he tends all the electronics in our home. The TV, VCR, surround sound and all electronic things are in his domain at our house. I handle the kitchen! The stove, fridge and microwave are all, my department. I realized the other day if anything ever happens to me, Brian can video-tape himself starving to death! Don’t tell him I said that though because he will start trying to cook. That would be tragic.

Brian and I have been married for 25 years! The other night we were praying and Brian said, “Lord, You know how hard marriage is so bless us.” One of my eyes popped open and looked to see if Brian was kidding. He wasn’t.  After the prayer I said, “Jesus was never married so He doesn’t know how hard marriage is.” Brian replied, “Yes, He does know, I have been telling Him all about if for years.” You understand that 56% of all marriages end in divorce. But if you look at it another way that means that 44% of marriages end in death!

I love to talk. Brian’s vocal chords are pretty rusted from unused. I am reminded of my Granddaddy when I think of rusted vocal chords. One day my little brother told my Grandfather that he had gotten the part in the school play that he tried out for. My Granddaddy said, “What part will you be playing?” My brother replied that he would be a man who had been married to the same woman for 25 years. My Granddaddy said, “Oh, well. Keep trying, Son. One day you will get a speaking part.”

Hey, y’all keep laughing and loving and I will see you next month!

Allison

Mary said it. Mary meant it. She was fully pregnant with adoration of the Lord God of Israel, and fully trusting in His intent for her. She had the audacity to believe that an embarrassing and ruinous earthly “event” was God’s plan for good. But she went further in her belief…she believed this “event” came to her because God really loved her.  

Bill and Gloria Gaither have written many impacting and important songs for the church. I believe the most important lyric in any of their songs is this line in “I Am Loved”,  “For the One who knows me best loves me most.”  

Mary believed the One True God, who planned the events of her life, and loved her more than any other being in her life loved her!  

Now let me move one step forward into our psychological development.  

When we are children we believe the Bible stories. We also believe in angels, Jesus, fairies, gnomes, Bible characters, monsters, aliens, Santa Clause, God, talking animals, and so many other imaginative fancies. As we age, we discover that animals don’t talk, and we learn that fairies are only made up beings that we pretend are real.  

While we age we learn aliens probably don’t exist (except my little brother) and we find out Santa is really our parents. We then realize monsters only exist in movies and gnomes are just concrete yard art.

We now see that things have a simple explanation in our earthly dimension or they don’t really exist at all.  

As we begin to do this with our fairies and aliens, we also begin to doubt the angels and Bible characters, Jesus, and God.  

Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “the willing suspension of disbelief” in reference to reading fiction and allowing yourself to enjoy the medium.  To enjoy reading a story about a dragon, you have to be willing, not to believe in dragons but suspend your disbelief about them. Coleridge says that this responsibility is on the reader, not the author.  

Children are born with “the willing suspension of disbelief.”  This ability to suspend disbelief “withers” as we are taught that the things of our imagination are not true. The bad part of it is that we also begin to doubt unseen things, like Jesus, God, and angels, as well.  

We begin to exist in what I like to call the “glued-down adulthood.” We are glued to the earthly truth and sometimes on Sunday during worship service we can see the beings that really exist up in the stratosphere of spiritual things.  

Mary was young and just innocent enough to believe in the stratosphere of spiritual things, including a loving God.  

How do we get back there from here? If you are jaded and do not believe in Jesus, God, angels, miracles, or Bible characters how do you find your way back to a place of trust in the things that really do exist? How do you discern what is real and what is the imagined? I believe it takes three actions.  

One is the willing suspension of disbelief. Go out and get a palm-sized stone. Take a sharpie and write on it, “I Will Believe in Heavenly Things”. Put it where you see it often and every time you see it reaffirm your decision to suspend disbelief.  

The second is a prayer life that is asking God to open your eyes to the glorious impossible in our earthly realm. Pray that God grants you sight like a microscope focused in on the minute and wonderful things He has designed. Begin looking for God in ALL things; a cup of coffee with a friend, a flower bloom, an interruption to your day, good things and bad things.  

If you have followed my articles you might guess the third thing. READ YOUR BIBLE.  

Read it with the intent of finding the hard things to believe and set your mind to believe wholly. Take your stone and when you find a hard thing to believe, hold it and pray.  

Now back to Mary. God doesn’t want you to believe for no reason. When you believe fully, your entire soul begins to magnify the Lord. Even when a terrible thing  happens, you still believe and magnify God in the depths of your heart.  

Mary faced a future of embarrassment, rejection, hardship, scorn, even exile from her people because of her pregnancy. But she pondered those things in her heart and said,  

“My soul magnifies the Lord, (IN ALL THINGS)

And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. (NOT IN THE HARDSHIP SHE FACED)

For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; (EVEN ME?)

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. (SHE SAW BEYOND HER LIFE HERE ON EARTH AND BELIEVED)

For He who is mighty has done great things for me, (EVEN THOUGH IT SEEMS BAD)

And holy is His name. (AND HE LOVES ME)

And His mercy is on those who fear Him (AND HIS CONSTANT ATTENTION) 

From generation to generation. (EVEN US, TOO)

He has shown strength with His arm; (DONE SOMETHING PEOPLE CAN ONLY IMAGINE COULD BE DONE)

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.(HAS ALLOWED THOSE WHO WILL HUMBLE THEMSELVES TO SEE ANGELS AND MIRACLES)

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. (AND EXALTED THE ONES WHO BOW DOWN)

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty. (WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT PROSPERITY?)

He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, (THE COVENANT HE WILL NOT BREAK)

As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.” (WE ARE ALSO ABRAHAM’S SEED)        

(Luke 1:46-56, Allison’s notes in parenthesis)  May you get a stone today and believe forever in His indescribable, overcoming love for you. 

Allison