STARTING 2018

Albert Einstein was right when he said time is an illusion.  One minute you have kids, and the next minute they're having kids.

As 2017 is done and in the books, nostalgia has caused time to lurch backward for me.  Why?

I've been watching old reruns of "Brooklyn Bridge" on YouTube.  It's my favorite Gary David Goldberg sitcom, written about his childhood recollections while growing up in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Bridge pictures a "time" of innocence that 2017 wouldn't recognize.

Just think about our pockmarked old year.  Besides all the vitriol on the airwaves, there was devastation from triple hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and awful fires out West that may lead to mudslides.

There were senseless killings by domestic terrorists in a TX church and at a NV concert...plus masked and hooded antifa thugs dressed in black and carrying clubs into the streets.

Then there were the men who behaved like brutes.

How we hurt the ones we love!  You only need look at this wife's face to know the humiliation that her husband brought upon her.  Imagine  Matt Lauer having to hurry to his teenaged son to explain the charges against him before they were made public. It is painful when your sins find you out.

Faithful men are to be prized.

Events like that are beyond our control, so Mike and I have been talking about the year-end review of OUR business.  We wanted to remember what God has taught us this year so that we will "get it" the first time through.  No one wants to go to summer school to have to relearn our lessons.

So this picture was us in 2017.  Even as our outer man is decaying, our inner man is CONTENTED, confident in God's sufficiency, and grateful for where He has us.  We love Butterfield and count it a real blessing.  

At ages 75 and 70, our dependence on the Lord is not just blah blah blah.  We actually believe the words that we've espoused for years. As we get closer to seeing Him, the truth that He loved us first propels us to go tell.

Besides, the Cruses can't complain.  We've felt our mortality this year, but what's a goozle-stretch or bone spur removal compared to what some friends are going through?  Getting older helps you focus on what is really important.

The Lord has sharpened our minds through Bible studies (Mike is teaching Genesis here at Butterfield and my BSF study is in Romans)....and undergirded our rocky places.  Our old year probably was like yours.  We loved our answered prayers, and we keep praying for things not yet resolved.

As we've gotten older, we have a better sense about what we can do and what we cannot do.  Some things only God can do.

A Romans 5 verse lit up that truth last month.  There are some unsavory characters that are described as the ones Christ came to save...the sinner, the ungodly, and the helpless.  That described Mike and I once, so that's why we're so grateful for His intervention in our lives.  We're all helpless without God's intervention.

Jesus is the only thing that doesn't change in life.  He stands true when all else moves...His kingdom is unshakeable and He promises to be with us forever.

Mike and I get up each morning and look to see if the other is well.  That's not macabre...it's just life.  We say daily that we are thankful for each other and thankful for the Lord's sovereign hand on our lives.

You know, some might think Gary David Goldberg wrote "Brooklyn Bridge" with more fondness than accuracy.  Maybe you think such innocence never existed.  Perhaps.  But we know FOR CERTAIN that there is such a place up ahead.  Mike and I hope to see each of you there one day.

Meantime, we wish you God's blessings in 2018...with our love.