I’ve heard it all my life:  you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Imagine my surprise to find out you can catch quite a few flies with vinegar after all. 

              I read it in a cooking magazine.  Most gnats are fruitflies.  If you are having trouble with gnats in your kitchen, fill a small dish with vinegar, squeeze a drop of two of dishwashing liquid on it and set it out where you have the most gnats.  What interests a fruitfly is the vinegars formed in the rotten fruit, and that bowl of vinegar spells “rotten fruit” to their little sensory receptors.  Because of the surface tension on water, a fruitfly can land and not sink, but that drop of dishwashing liquid breaks the tension.  They land and sink, drowning immediately.

              I put one of these dishes out one day and an hour later found 18 little black specks lying on the bottom, never to buzz in my house again.  Now, every summer, I have two or three custard cups of apple cider vinegar lying around my house, and far fewer gnats than ever before.

              One of the cups sits on the window sill next to the chair that overlooks the bird feeder.  That bird feeder attracts more than its fair share of gnats in the summer too, and I have a suspicion that most of the gnats in the house sneak through the cracks around that window.  The screen is gone so I can see the birds better and the double window is up a foot so I have a place for my coffee cup on the sill.  That lack of triple protection means they can get in easier than anywhere else in the house except an open door.

              So the other afternoon I sat down to rest a bit after canning a bushel of tomatoes.  Keith was emptying the residual garbage pails of skins and seeds, and dumping the heavy pots of boiling water outside so the house wouldn’t heat up yet more from the steam.  I had just replaced the vinegar in the dish a few minutes before. 

              A gnat suddenly buzzed my face and I shooed it away.  He came back, but this time he headed straight for the window.  “Aha!” I thought.  If I just sat still I could see how it actually happened.  It was a real life lesson.

              He had gotten “wind” of the vinegar somehow and flew over to check it out at a prudent distance of eight or ten inches, which is several thousand times the body length of a gnat I imagine, and was certainly safe.  He flew away, but within a few seconds he was back.  This time he flew a little closer, maybe half the distance he had before.

              That happened several times with the gnat coming in closer and closer on each pass.  Finally, he landed on the window sill a couple of inches from the custard cup.  I could just imagine him sitting there tensed up and waiting for something to happen, then finally relaxing as he discovered that whatever danger he had imagined wasn’t there. 

              He flew again, but not away.  This time he hovered over the cup, doing figure eights two or three inches above the surface of the vinegar.  Then he landed on the lip of the custard cup.  At that point I imagine the fumes from the fresh vinegar were nearly intoxicating.  All that rotten fruit right down there for the taking, and besides, he had never had trouble before landing on a piece of bruised, decaying fruit, and this one was obviously an apple, one of the best.

              So he flew yet again, circling closer and closer to the surface.  “Now,” he must have thought as he landed on what he was sure was a solid chunk of overripe Macintosh, or Jonathan, or Red Rome, and promptly sank into the vinegar.  He didn’t even wiggle—it was over that fast, his drowning in what he thought was safe, in a place where nothing bad had ever happened to him before. 

              It works this way for humans too, you know.  What are you hovering over today?
 
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly: At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder. Proverbs 23:31-32.

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Proverbs 22:5.
 
Dene Ward
 

My sisters and I have been studying the prophets of the Old Testament, and I mean all of them.  Not every prophet was a literary prophet—meaning he had a book named after him.  Many people the Bible calls a prophet we seem to have totally missed.  One of our first tasks was to list them all and I am sure the first one will surprise you:

              Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.  Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” Gen20: 6,7.  When God himself calls Abraham a prophet you cannot argue with it.

              You have probably noticed several posts from the prophets in the past three years, all of which came from the class.  I imagine there will be many more.  When you reach my age and you have been "going to church" your whole life, you doubt there is all that much more to learn.  Then you study the prophets and the amount you didn't know is staggering—and humbling.  The thing is, I have studied a few of these men before, but I still learned more in the past three years than I have in the past twenty. 

              It helps to have a knowledgeable husband, but even if you do not, grab those Bibles and get with it now.  It will take me years more to finish what I have only scratched the surface of.  In fact, we might start the whole thing over from the top, but really, as we approach the last chapter of Malachi, we need a break.  The prophets can be a little depressing, especially when you see that we have the same tendencies as the faithless people they preached to.

             Zechariah, however, gave us a few moments of comfort.  While it, too, has its share of gloomy predictions, the night visions were particularly encouraging.  Those visions came to the returning exiles who found life harder than they had expected.  The Persian king may have been "on their side," but that did not clear away the rubble; it did not make the crops grow; it did not make the people they had to run out of Jerusalem like them any better.  Nearly a hundred years later, they still suffered, building the city walls with half the men working and the other half standing guard.  Later on, Nehemiah thwarted several attempts on his life.  But in Haggai and Zechariah's time, when the Temple was finally rebuilt twenty years after the first group returned, it was a pale shadow of that first gold-covered masterpiece of architecture. So God sent Zechariah 8 visions, evidently all on the same night, visions of comfort and encouragement.

                We, too, live in a pagan world that stands against everything we believe.  Some of us are mocked at work, at school, in our neighborhoods because we do not follow the crowd in our lifestyle, dress, and speech.  When we look at some of our tiny, struggling congregations, we wonder how this can really be the promised, glorious kingdom.  We try to reach the lost and though some come to see, it seems most turn around and leave because it does not match their vision either.  And so we, too, wonder sometimes if God is even aware of us, if He understands our disappointments and frustrations.

              We need the same encouragement those people did so long ago—every generation needs it--so here goes a brand new series, "Zechariah's Night Visions."  Due to my continuing history series, I cannot promise you will see them all on the same day, such as every Monday, so you will have to be a little more diligent about checking every week.  But I do promise that while these may sometimes be challenging, the encouragement they give will more than make up for that.  And you will more than likely learn a few new things.  Not too many churches pick up the book of Zechariah and study it.
 
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Rom 15:4)
 
Dene Ward

Nothing aggravates me much more than listening to someone claim to be religious, claim to love the Lord, claim to have the utmost faith in Him, and then live like the Devil.  It is false advertising at its worst.  Then our women’s Bible study reached James 2 in our study of faith and suddenly, it got a little personal.
 
             Although I am grateful for the convenience of chapters and verses that the scholars have added, it is obvious that they sometimes had their minds on other things when they threw them in.  And throw them it appears they did, like sprinkling salt on a plateful of food.  So what if a verse is divided in the middle of a sentence or a chapter in the middle of a thought?  The “what” is this—you forget to check the entire context because your eyes tell your mind that it started and ended right there, not on the page before or after.

              So we backed up into chapter 1 and found this:  “If anyone thinks he is religious…” in verse 26.  Another two verses back we found, “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer…” verse 23, which directly connects to the whole point of chapter 2: “Faith without works is dead.”  Chapter 2 itself begins with, “Show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  So from all that we easily concluded that being a doer of the Word (1:23), being religious (1:26), and holding to the faith (2:1) were all synonymous, and that it was easy to tell if a person fit the bill. 

              Follow along with me.  A person who merely thinks he is religious but in reality is not:  does not bridle his tongue, 1:26; does not serve others, 1:27; lives a life of impurity, 1:27;  does not love his neighbor as himself, 2:8;  shows partiality, 2:9;  does not show mercy, 2:13.

              I am happy to point out that those celebrities who claim faith in the Lord hop from bed to bed, and carouse at every opportunity.  Their language is foul and a criminal record of drugs, DUIs, and assaults follow them around like a noxious vapor trail. 

              But how about the rest of us, the ones who don’t have the paparazzi following us?  Do we serve those in need or are we too busy?  Do we love our neighbors, or only the friends we enjoy being with?  Do we talk about “them,” whoever they might be in any conversation, as if they were somehow “other” than us because of their race, their nationality, their lifestyle, their politics, even the clothes they wear?  If I do any of that am I any more “religious” than the Jesus-calling, promiscuous drunk I abhor?

              This discussion also led us to another defining characteristic of a true faith.  Look at those qualities again—someone who says the right thing at the right time, whose words are extremely important; someone who serves others; someone who is pure and holy; someone who loves as himself; someone who treats everyone the same, even the lowest of the low; someone who shows mercy—who does that best describe?  Isn’t it the one we are supposed to have faith in, Jesus, and ultimately God?

              Adoration equals imitation.  If I am not trying to become like the one I have faith in, my faith is a sham.  How can I claim to believe in a God who sends rain on the just and the unjust while holding back on my service to one I have deemed unworthy of it?  How can I have faith in a merciful God and not forgive even the worst sin against me?  How can I have faith in a God who is holy and pure and a Lord who remained sinless as the perfect example to me and make excuses for my own sins?

              Do you think you are religious?  Do your neighbors?  Sometimes what we really are is a whole lot clearer to everyone else.
 
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:22-25
 
Dene Ward

For twenty-two years on this rural five acres we didn’t have a carport.  For over two decades our vehicles were at the mercy of sub-tropical sun, thunder and lightning, hail, hurricanes, and even once an inch of snow.  Not a single time were the cars or trucks we owned damaged during that time.

              Eight years ago we had a slab poured and a carport erected.  “Whew!” we sighed with relief.  “Now we’re safe.”

              The next summer we were expecting guests and since the forecast called for a few showers, we moved the car out so the children would have a dry place to play.  Everyone left and we went inside to clean up.  When we came back outside to move the car back into the carport, a tree limb had fallen and put a dent in the trunk—a big one, and knocked off a half dollar size chunk of paint too.  All those years we were concerned and careful, nothing happened.  As soon as we thought we were safe, we weren’t.

              One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless, Proverbs 14:16.  How careful are you out there in the world?  Do you heed the warnings about evil companions corrupting good morals, and the Devil as a roaring lion hunting his prey (1 Cor 15:53; 1 Pet 5:9)?  Or are you so confident in your own righteousness that you are careless, moving away from the safety of the “carport?”

              How many times has a parent sent his child out with all the usual cautions only to have that child sigh and roll his eyes and say something like, “Yes, yes, I know,” shaking his head as he goes out the door?  I don’t care how well your life has gone until now, how safe and smart you think you are, one bad decision can ruin everything for a lifetime.  Keep it under the carport!

              How many times has a happily married man, supremely confident of his self-control, seen someone attractive, flirted a little “just for fun,” and wound up doing exactly what he never thought he ever would?  No matter how strong you think you are, don’t dally with the Devil—keep it under the carport!

              How many times has a Christian stepped over the line “just this once,” “to see what I’m missing,” or “so I know what I’m up against,” meaning to return immediately to the fold, but never making that return trip because that little fling cost him his life?  Life isn’t certain—keep it under the carport!

              You think I’m crazy don’t you, just because a limb fell on my car.  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice, Prov 12:15.

             And if coming from me isn’t good enough—and really, why should it be?—then how about God?  By the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil, Prov 16:6.  My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments, Psa 119:120.  Job said if he had done anything wrong, then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder, and let my arm be broken from its socket. For I was in terror of calamity from God, and I could not have faced his majesty. 31:22-23. If no one else can do it, then let God put the fear in you—keep it under the carport!

              We wear seat belts every time because we never know when we will have an accident.  We get our inoculations because we never know when we might be exposed to a disease.  We have smoke alarms in our homes because we never know when a fire might break out.  We do all these things because it’s common sense.  So are the things God’s Word tells us about how to stay out of the clutches of sin and the Devil. 

              You’d better believe that from now on, my car will stay under the carport!  How about your soul?
 
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3
 
Dene Ward

When I was fifteen, the teenage Bible class met upstairs in the building where the church assembled.  The stairs were steep and narrow.  After you become accustomed to something, you become careless, and one Sunday morning after the bell rang and the halls below were filled with talking and laughter, I headed down those stairs and stepped just a little too far.  The front of my foot bent forward at an anatomically impossible angle, and my downward plunge didn’t stop till I hit the bottom.

              Do you know what I did?  Even though my foot started to swell like a balloon on a helium tank, even though the doctor shook his head and told me it was the worst sprain he had ever seen, even though that foot bothered me for six months and the ankle always twisted at the least bit of uneven ground for the next twenty years—despite the gravity of the injury and the pain, the first thing I did was push my skirt down.  When I landed at the bottom of the staircase, it was up around my waist.  That lasted approximately 0.2 seconds.  Whoosh!  It was down and back to my knees once again.  Then, and only then, did I moan.

              Modesty was second nature to me because I was taught it as a child.  I have a friend who wouldn’t give the ER doctor her shirt, despite the fact that she was having a heart attack at that moment.  That’s the way we were raised.  That’s the way most people raised their daughters.  I’m not so sure they do any longer.

              This is something that most women do not want to hear.  They do not want to believe what I am going to tell you about good men.  They want to think that this only applies to bad men, to immature men, to worldly men, but it doesn’t.  It applies to them all because they are men.

              God made men differently than he made women.  He put something in them that makes them think and behave differently.  It’s a hormone, ladies, just like the hormones you want to use to excuse your less than stellar behavior at certain times of life, only it’s a male hormone. 

              Testosterone is what makes a man a man.  It makes him aggressive and protective.  That is why he romances you.  That is why he wants to provide for you and take care of you and the children you have together.  Good things, right?  It also makes him more easily aroused sexually.  He is not a “dirty old man” when he feels that way.  He is, quite simply, a man.  If he has to put up with your moods, you must put up with the side effects of his hormones too.  And just like you expect him to be understanding, he has the right to expect the same from you—without ridicule and without complaint. 

              Far more important than that, God expects it of you.  You must not do anything that could cause a man to sin (stumble, offend), and that leads us to the clothing we wear.  Granted, we are talking about good men, men who practice self-control.  Some men can lust after a woman who is covered head to toe in a horse blanket.  You can’t do anything about them and God doesn’t hold you responsible for that.  But when I hear a Christian college girl say to a young man, “I can wear my bikini if I want to--deal with it!” I know someone needs an attitude adjustment.

              Look at Romans 14 and, instead of thinking about the idolatry problem, think about the clothes you wear. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother, vv 10-13.  When we don’t care how our actions affect our brothers, we are despising them, Paul says, judging them, and we will have to answer to God for that.   

              Now look at verse 15, with just one slight word change:  For if your brother is grieved by what you [wear], you are no longer walking in love. By what you [wear], do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.  Are you willing to meet God having destroyed a brother by your insistence that you can do as you like and he should “Deal with it?”

              Every Man’s Battle is a book that every woman should read.  As I said, you won’t like it.  You won’t like thinking about the fact that the man you love is like that, but refusing to deal with the issue won’t change it.  Once you understand what your man is dealing with, you will be able to help him through it.

              And here is something else just as important:  Teach your girls about it!  Do you want to keep them safe in a world of predators?  Teach them how to avoid the traps.  How they act and what they wear can make a huge difference.  And listen to their fathers.  If he says, “She doesn’t leave the house in that outfit,” pay attention to him!  He knows better than you what could happen if she does.

              The fashion world knows exactly what it is doing when it creates the clothes women wear.  Unlike the women in the church who want to stick their heads in the sand, worldly women can tell you in an instant what a woman’s clothes do to a man. 

              This is a serious matter.  It’s about the destiny of souls, and God holding us responsible for them.
             
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! Matthew 18:6-7
 
Dene Ward

I have a friend who, before she retired, kept a bar of soap in her desk drawer.  Whenever a new young hire came in, it wasn't long before she was telling him about her soap and how much he needed to chew on it awhile.  If you have not noticed, the language around us is simply atrocious. 

               "It's just a word," one young co-worker proclaimed.

               "Choose another one," she tersely replied.

           Why anyone would think that filthy language was appropriate in a professional setting, I cannot imagine.  But then I go out in the world and hear children saying words I would never have breathed aloud when I was young—not if I wanted to sit down again any time soon.

            I am not just talking about the four letter words that people usually consider "dirty" or even taking the Lord's name in vain.  As a culture we have become crude and vulgar.  Lucy and Ethel had us rolling in the floor as we watched their antics on the candy wrapping conveyor belt and in the wine vat.  Now we seem to require a heavy dose of bathroom humor or sexual innuendo before anything is deemed funny. 

            And talk about hypocrisy—the same media that berates the president for his bad language gives us a show called "S*****'s Creek" and a movie called "Meet the F*****s" with all the attendant jokes that can obviously be made from those two titles.  I won't dignify them with their supposedly cleaned up names.

           Do you think it hasn't affected Christians?  I hear words that I would never have been allowed to say without being punished all the time.  No, they aren't "dirty" words.  They're just crude.  Swear words aren't the only words Christians shouldn't be speaking.  I regularly delete posts on Facebook from my brothers and sisters that a Christian shouldn't have spoken aloud to a few, much less put out there for literally thousands to see. 

          Our culture has even managed to make it acceptable to use one of the ugliest phrases in our language, a phrase that would have ended up in a parking lot beat down when I was a child.  And the younger generation steadfastly refuses to accept its origin just because they can find no one who knows it either.  My poor husband wound up vilified once because he dared suggest that a brother shouldn't use that term, which refers to a homosexual act.  Even if the younger generation refuses to recognize the vulgarity for what it is, we older folks know exactly what it means and "everyone says it" never has been and never will be an acceptable excuse. 

             Is it really that important?  Paul says it is.

           And there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. (Eph 5:4)  That term "coarse jesting" is actually one word in the Greek and it isn't necessarily talking about dirty jokes.  It's talking about crudity, vulgarity, double entendres, and any other sort of coarse language.  It refers to bathroom humor, bodily functions, sexual innuendo and anything that should be unacceptable in polite society, and even more so among those who claim lives of purity.  Look at the rest of the context.

             But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. (Eph 5:3-5).

            Do you see the implications Paul makes?  If I speak like this, I am impure, immoral, and not fit to be in the kingdom.  That's how important this is.  We are supposed to be different.  How will it be known if we sound just like everyone else, and laugh at the same crude humor?  Remember the old Ivory Soap ads?  "99 and 44/100th percent pure," they claimed.  We should be trying for a purity even beyond that, but we end up looking like someone dropped us in a tar pit when we open our mouths.

             I am not some ignorant fool who does not realize that Paul spoke from time to time in figures that were shocking.  I would that they that unsettle you would even go beyond circumcision, (Gal 5:12) is a prime example.  But let me ask you this.  How much shock value would that statement have had if he spoke that way all the time?  This was a special circumstance.  People were losing their souls.  When this was read, I imagine there was a collective gasp as everyone suddenly understood how serious Paul was about the matter.  He would never had said such a thing otherwise.

            Us?  We sound like that constantly, just for laughs, or even about the trivial everyday stuff.  I feel like my friend—I need to carry a bar of soap around.  But I never imagined I would have to offer it to a brother.
 
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph 4:29)
 
Dene Ward

I hate to hear of a policeman gone bad.  He gives all the good ones a bad name.  As the wife of a law enforcement officer, I shouldn’t have to defend my husband’s career choice just because someone who isn’t what he should have been has shamed the badge, but the reality is, I do.

              Law enforcement officers aren’t the only ones who have this problem. 

              God spent an entire chapter on the priests of Israel who shirked their duties (Ezek 34).  Many good priests still quietly went about fulfilling their obligations, like Zaccharias, honored to serve in the house of the Lord, but by the time of Christ, too many were political animals, caring only for their own power and wealth, like Annas and Caiaphas.

              The Jews in the Old Testament, while still acting “as the people” Ezek 33:30-32, behaved in a manner unsuitable to God’s children.  They forgot who their Father was and shamed Him with their immorality, lack of compassion, and idolatry.  Yes, a remnant remained, but they too suffered because the majority represented the whole, and the world laughed Jehovah to scorn when He allowed them to be punished.  Yet He did allow it, because the representation of Jehovah’s children was shameful.

              In the New Testament, their descendants gave the people another bad name—“Pharisees,” which though merely a sect concerned with carefully keeping the Law, eventually came to mean “self-righteous hypocrite.”  It is easy to believe in a quick read that no righteous Pharisees existed, yet among them were Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Saul of Tarsus.  In spite of them, the general impression the majority left had Jesus regularly condemning them. 

              Things have not changed.  Just as a corrupt cop can give all policemen a bad name, bad churches can give all other churches a bad name.  How many times have I had to defend the group I worship with because some other group far away lacked compassion, failed in its duty to teach the whole gospel instead of just its own pet slogans, or refused to welcome the troubled, the disabled, and the sinner?  More than I want to count.

              But more to the point this morning, have I given God’s people a bad name?  What do my friends, neighbors and co-workers think about my brethren, not by what they have seen of them in person, but by what they have seen of me?  Do I, in fact, complain about them all the time?  Do I gossip?  Am I constantly angry and unhappy instead of cheerful and pleasant to be around?  Do I assist whenever I can, whoever I can, or do I have biases that anyone who knows me can list without a second’s thought?  Am I reliable, trustworthy, and honest to a fault?  How is my language and my dress?  We are foolish to think no one notices these things, and we bring shame on our Creator when they do.

              The church is one big House of Representatives.  When the world looks at us, it sees the Lord.  Would He be happy with the picture you are painting of Him today?
 
For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame, Hebrews 6:4-6.              
 
Dene Ward                                                           

In case you didn't figure it out from the last post, the answer to the question that probably sprang to your mind is, "Yes."  I do have a participation trophy.  I know many young women who are as innocent and inexperienced as I was at 18, which is the year I received my trophy.  I hope what I am about to say will help you avoid the experience I had.  Some of these things I learned as a direct result of the harassment I endured.  Some of them come from the wisdom of age or from listening to other women who endured the same kinds of things.  It's time we prepared our daughters for the real world, instead of pretending this only happens to someone else.  Sexual harassment comes in all shapes and sizes.  Some of it is fairly minor, and other times it is violent and criminal.  No matter which side of the scale, it is always terrifying and traumatic. 

          1.  Be careful what you wear to work or class or wherever you may encounter men who are in authority over you.  Yes, you may have the right to wear whatever you want to wear, at least as an American, but you may put yourself at risk as well as calling your reputation into question and giving the harasser "reasonable doubt" as he denies your allegations.  This one thing may be the most important thing I tell you.
          Don't wear anything that calls attention to your body—any part of it at all.  No tight pants, tight sweaters, short skirts, transparent blouses, or deep necklines.  Practice in front of a mirror how you sit, noticing what happens when you cross your legs.  Lean over as you would over a desk and look up to see whether your neckline falls open.  For good measure, make it a point to hold your hand flat on your neckline any time you lean over in front of anyone anywhere.
          Don't wear anything that shows a lot of skin—large expanses of leg, chest, shoulders and back.  If you are always cold, maybe it's because too much of you is uncovered.  Spaghetti straps might as well not be there for all the good they do, not to mention strapless.  A belly chain on an exposed midriff speaks volumes.  As I said, you may have the right to wear what you want to, but there is a difference between exercising your rights and lacking common sense.
          Fathers, if your daughters don't understand these things, tell them why this is so important.  You are her leader and protector, the one who is supposed to be looking out for her welfare, not throwing her out to the wolves.

          2.  If a man says anything about what you are wearing, tell him right then that the remark was inappropriate.  All right, so a male friend looks up and says, "Hey, you look nice today."  That might be perfectly innocent.  Some men have no idea what is and is not appropriate to say.  But if he says, "Wow!  I bet your husband (or boyfriend) likes that outfit," he is out of line.  If he says anything about the length, the tightness, the shortness, or the neckline, he is equally out of line.  Tell him so and then go document the remark in a notebook you keep just for that sort of thing, and keep that notebook safe and hidden.  Do not tell anyone else about it.  Then pray you will never need it.

          3.  Do not let a man into your private space.  Private space may be smaller in an office than in a parking lot, but still, no one needs to be standing so close to you that you can tell what he had for lunch.  If a man comes too close, step back.  If he persists, try talking loud enough for people to look up and notice, and if necessary say, "Back up.  That's close enough."  LOUDLY.  He will get the point.  Then document the encounter.

          4. Do not allow yourself to be cornered in a room.  Always pay attention to the situation.  Don't be caught unawares.  Keep doors open and make sure you have a way of escape.

          5.  Never, ever, touch a man.  Unless it is the polite, firm handshake of one professional greeting another, keep your hands to yourself.  If his collar is crooked, tell him so and let him go fix it.  Men read all sorts of things into touches, things that never cross a woman's mind, especially a chaste woman. 

          6.  Do not allow a man to touch you.  I know a woman who had to deal with a boss who made it a point as he walked past his female employees to be close enough and to have his arms just far enough out to brush their breasts as he passed.  In those days, no one turned a boss in.   But she learned quickly to cross her arms as he came by.  She said the first time he just snickered as he walked past.  He knew exactly what she was doing, but that also told him that she knew exactly what he was doing too, and so would her husband. 
         No one should be stroking your arm or rubbing your neck.  Certainly no one should put an arm around you or hold your hand.  If he tries, just move away.  Then document it.

          7.  Do not meet with your boss or professor, etc, after hours, alone.  If he says you have work to do together, tell him you need to call your husband (or father or boyfriend) to wait in the office for you, or if it is too small, in the next room—with the door open.  If he says all right, you were probably safe, but you never know.  If he is insulted, tell him you are sorry but it is a policy you and your husband, etc. have, nothing against him.  It should be a policy you have.  Take care of that tonight.

          8.  If anything does happen, go to whoever is in charge and take your notebook with you.  That is why you have been keeping it—to show a pattern of bad behavior.  If you have made it specific as to time, date, and specific words and circumstances, it will obviously be true.  But do everything you possibly can to make this unnecessary by exercising the common sense listed above.  The fallout will be difficult.

          I doubt this is everything, but I wish someone had told me at least this much.  As a Christian you have the responsibility to keep yourself pure and to do whatever you can not to cause someone else to sin.  We women call men "oblivious" all the time.  Some women are just as oblivious about this subject.

         From someone who knows:  trust me.  You do not want a participation trophy.
 
​Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! (Ps 119:1)

I'm sure you saw it on Facebook too:  someone issued Florida a participation trophy for participating in winter this year.  Especially up here in the north part of the state, we have had several hard freezes, sleet, snow flurries, and ice on the roads.  At least we know we will have a blueberry crop this year.  Our type of blueberries requires a certain amount of cold and the past two winters have been too warm for our plants to produce enough berries for one muffin!

              But I know this:  anyone who has not lived in the Midwest or Northeast still does not understand real winter.  We lived 100 miles south of Chicago for two years.  That experience was far more than two or three weeks of lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s.  Someone in Maine would probably consider that a heat wave.  A few cold weeks down here is nothing compared to several months of even colder weather up there.

              We have had the same experience trying to explain the heat down here.  When people further north see highs in the 90s they say, "Well, we get that hot, too."  Here is one difference: we have it day in and day out for a full five months with no let up.  Here is another:  we have humidity to match it; and a third:   the sun exposure, being much more direct, will sap the strength right out of you. 

              We tried to tell some people that once, and they just laughed.  Then they came to visit for a week.  It was only mid-June, so it wasn't really all that bad yet.  One morning the visiting lady went outside with me to help hang up clothes, oh, around 9 am.  We hadn't been outside more than five minutes before she suddenly gave a soft little "whew!"  I looked over.  She was red-faced and pouring sweat.  "It's sort of like a sauna out here, isn't it?"  she said, panting a little.  She could hardly endure a week of it.  And it was constant.  Once the summer sets in, there is no fluctuation.  A heat wave?  Ours lasts from May till October.  Being here a week in June still does not earn you a participation trophy in a Florida summer.

               So I have learned over the years to listen to others and to realize that unless I have had their exact experience, I really do not know what they are dealing with.  I have learned to withhold judgment until I gather more information.  I have learned to offer more sympathy and less castigation, and I never say, "I know how you feel," when I don't.

               I have been watching and listening to all these accusations of sexual harassment lately.  Nothing quite gets my hackles up like someone saying, "So why did she wait so long to tell?" as if her delay makes her story unbelievable.  Especially when it comes from someone without a participation trophy, and especially when it comes from a man.

               I will tell you exactly why she kept quiet.  Not just embarrassment, but total mortification.  And the more chaste a woman is, the less likely she will say anything.  If she has been raised as a Christian, to keep herself pure and to assume the best of others, her first thought will be, "What did I do wrong?" even when she did absolutely nothing.  She won't want to cause any trouble or bring attention to herself.  She won't want to embarrass her family.  She won't want to hold herself up to all the probing eyes and thoughts of people who will assume the worst about her and dare to bring up what she considers unspeakable suspicions.  Even if she is perfectly innocent.  And if the harasser is older, a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier, or in authority over her, she will be too scared to speak.  If she needs the job, the class, the promotion, the grades, or whatever it is she might lose if she talks, she will keep quiet for years, even decades.

              So stop judging.  If you are a man, don't say a word.  You have no idea what it's like.  You don't have a participation trophy.
 
​“Judge not, that you be not judged. ​For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. (Matt 7:1-2)
 
Stop by tomorrow for practical advice on avoiding sexual harassment.
Dene Ward

A few years ago. after an unseasonable two weeks in the month of January that left our azaleas and blueberries blooming, the live oak leaves falling by the bushel, and the air conditioner humming away instead of the woodstove, we finally had a night in the thirties and woke February 1 to frost on the ground—and on all those blooms.
 
             Keith rose earlier than usual to start the sprinkler on the blueberries so when the sun hit them as it climbed behind the trees in the eastern woods, the frost would be washed off and the blooms left undamaged.  He also built a small fire in the fire pit beside them, pulled together from the remains of a fire we had enjoyed the night before with a cup of hot chocolate. 

              Ever since we moved to this plot of ground we have had a fire pit for hot dog fires and marshmallow roasts.  Now with the boys gone, we still like to sit there on a cold night and talk.  We sit there in the mornings too, if coals remain, and some did that day, so, thanks to a considerate husband, I had a fire to warm me along with my second cup of coffee.

              The world was waking up.  Wrens warbled loudly in the shrubs, in between perches on the suet cage.  The hawks cried out as they flew overhead, hunting breakfast.  A neighbor’s cow bawled so loudly I wondered if it needed milking or was just hungry.  Frosted off brown grass may be crunchy, but probably doesn’t offer much nourishment.

              I watched the small fire and scratched Chloe’s furry head.  Suddenly the wood shifted, and the whole fire lowered a bit as the wood beneath completely lost its framework and became nothing but ashes.  Slowly and surely the rest began to burn and fall, and within a few minutes only a twig or two was left glimmering in the white debris beneath.

              One morning recently, when we were sitting by a similar fire planning a camping trip, we suddenly realized that we could no longer plan “twenty years from now” with any reasonable expectation.  I suppose it hit me first when I did the math and thought, if Keith makes it twenty more years he will have outlived all of his grandparents and his parents.  One of my grandmothers lived to 97, but then I realized that I take after my other grandmother more and that would give me only ten more years.

              I am not being morose.  After all, for a Christian, it means the reward is closer, but I think the day it hits you will suddenly change everything you say and do from then on.  It needs to hit you sooner rather than later—life is short, a breath, a wind, a shadow, the grass, the flowers—all of these things are mentioned in scores of places in the scriptures.

              We are just like that small morning fire.  Only half the size of a normal campfire and built on the half burnt remains of the night before, it was gone in moments.  But it still accomplished two things. 

              It provided some warmth in the early morning chill.  The thermometer next to the house said 37 that day, but Keith said the car thermometer, which was not next to a warm wall, registered between 29 and 33 as he drove to work.  In a nightgown, sweatshirt and denim jacket, I needed some warmth while I sat there.  So does the world.  It’s up to me to provide that warmth, which translates as comfort and compassion, to everyone I meet.  As Paul said in 2 Cor 1:3,4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  God gives us spiritual life so we can give comfort to others, not just for our own joy.

              The morning was still dim that day, and the fire also provided me with the light to see around me.  God appeared as a pillar of cloud to lead the Israelites during the day.  What about travel after dark?  And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. Exodus 13:21-22.  Isn’t it in the dark of trial, indecision, and despair that we need guidance most?  And when do our neighbors need our help the most?  God means for us to be a light, a city set on a hill, bright enough for all to see even at a distance.

              And then we gradually burn down and the light and the warmth disappear.  Or does it?  Don’t you still remember people who have helped you along the way?  Don’t you still recall their wise and comforting words and their kind deeds?  It only looks like the fire has died, for underneath those feathery white ashes lie smoldering coals that will still warm you and give you light.

              That’s what God expects of this small morning fire we call our lives, and the fire that keeps on giving will be the one that springs to life again on that bright and glorious morning to come.
 
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, Psa 90:12.
 
Dene Ward