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Julie and I attended the funeral service for Joy Torno Miller recently. We didn’t know either of them very well but we knew their families.
I used to do cattle work for Warren’s dad, Nelson Miller, on their home place where Warren lives now in Papalote, Texas. I also worked cattle for Warren’s uncle Edwin Miller. In fact Edwin told me one time that during the depression sometimes their meals consisted of Grasshoppers. Hard times. Anyway, two true south Texas families.
I bought some land in Papalote because I liked the area so much. I go out once a week to clear brush, work on fence, drive tractors, etc. And every time I go out I drive past Warren and Joy’s home. I got to where I would call Warren as I went out and visit with him. Invariably Joy would be in the conversation on speaker phone. I began to realize how much they liked people. Sometimes Warren and Joy would drive their golf cart out to my place and visit.
Joy’s health has not been great for sometime but still she would get out in the South Texas heat to come visit and never complained about her health. I worried about her a little bit. But she wasn’t a complainer.
I learned a lot more at the funeral. Warren said that on their second date he brought up the subject of marriage and Joy “penciled” him in to see what he would make of himself. After their only child, Keith, was born she told Warren if he wanted anymore kids he would have to deliver them.
See what I mean about sense of humor? My kind of people.
Joy was the second oldest of 5 kids behind her older brother Ray. Often times that oldest daughter becomes like another mother… and she was.
The youngest was my friend Tim Torno. When he was born Joy was 8 years old and immediately took him under her wings. He said Joy included him in everything including her circle of friends. She made him feel special and loved. Tim said he has never known anyone as hospitable as his oldest sister and he’s no pilgrim. He has served as an Elder for many years.
Older brother Ray said in High School when he would get home late from a football game or running track everyone would be in bed except Joy. She would wait up for him and have a plate of food on the kitchen table and listen to him recount what happened in the games. Ray said it was a tradition that Sinton football players would be walked out on the field by one of the girls. Years later he found out Joy had recruited girls to walk out with her big brother.
You can imagine what Keith’s life was like having all that “mothering” focused on him.
Food was big in Joy’s life and she had a knack for figuring out what someone’s favorite food was and preparing that for them. I wish i had known.
These last few years I would consistently see that Joy was in the emergency room or in the hospital. Whenever I would talk to Warren they were either going to the doctor or just coming home from the doctor. That takes a toll not only on the sick one but on the husband of the sick one. In fact at the service… Ray mentioned the quiet dedication Warren had to Joy.
I’m glad I went to the funeral because I learned so much from these two great life examples, Warren and Joy. And if someone had offered me a thousand dollars not to go I would have laughed in their face. Priceless enduring memories for as long as I have the capacity to remember.
Thanks Warren and Joy the world needs more people like you.
Facebook has something called an algorithm that figures out what you like to look at on Facebook and then sends you more of the same sort of thing to view.
Lately I’ve been getting a lot about people being killed at Auschwitz and Medal of Honor winners.
When I see those pictures of Jews with their heads shorn, wearing prison garb with the dates they were admitted and the date they were killed I feel compelled to read their stories and so I see more and more of them.
The one that got to me the most though was a young jewish girl about 8 years old with a frightened look on her face and a black eye. My guess is she was terrified and maybe crying and the German guard walloped her in the eye to shut her up. Then they injected her heart with a chemical and watched her die… probably an agonal death.
I’m sorry but for me there is a line you don’t cross and brutalizing and torturing a kid to death is that line.
Several of the Medal of Honor winners were awarded that great honor posthumously… they threw themselves on a grenade to save their fellow soldiers. The ultimate sacrifice of love. Several of the survivors made similar comments… because of this man’s sacrifice I got to go home to my wife and children.
On that great judgement day if my Lord and Savior asks Peter to slide over and to let me sit next to him and maybe he asks me for a little help on sorting all these people out.
And if that young 8 year old jewish girl comes forward and Jesus says… Rob what do you think? She was never baptized and never believed in me what should we do with her? I know exactly what I would say. Lord she was so young and innocent and she suffered greatly can’t we let her in?
Then if the German guard steps forward and Jesus tells me that a week before he died he professed belief what should we do? I’m afraid I would say (in my weakness) he tortured many… send him to the hottest part of Hell and let him burn their eternally because he crossed a line that he shouldn’t have crossed (maybe not yours but definitely mine).
And if one of those Medal of Honor winners comes forward and I was asked the same sort question I think I would say… he may have a lot of faults but the very last thing he did was he gave himself up so others could live.
Anyway I woke up the other night and all I could see in my mind was that picture of a young frightened jewish girl with a black eye and I just can’t get her out of my mind.
I would like to hold her on my lap on the judgment day and wipe away her tears and tell her that I loved her and she didn’t have to be afraid of anything any more.
Thanks Facebook for helping me to see the best parts of humanity and the worst parts. And thank you Jesus Christ for your great love and mercy.
Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” Isaiah 56:3-8
Eunuchs, of course, were males who had all or part of their genitals removed. If you want to be shocked do a google search on the methods used to create a Eunuch… fascinating and shocking.
In Deuteronomy 23:1 we find that Eunuchs had limitations on their spiritual service…
“No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord”
After the conversions on Pentecost and after Simon the sorcerer and other Samaritans were converted an un-named Ethiopian was baptized and he was a Eunuch. That was no accident.
The Jews did not like Samaritans (foreigners) and Eunuchs carried a social and spiritual stigma among the Jews. And what does God do? He brings them into his fold of beloved sheep to demonstrate that there is a new Law in town.
And on that day and in that moment Isaiah’s prophecy came true.
Thank God that Jews weren’t the decision makers for who God would save… because it wouldn’t be foreigners or Eunuchs.
During the time of the Prophet Jeremiah and the reign of Josiah, King of Judah, a forgotten “Book of the Law” was found.
When it was read to King Josiah it shook him to the core and caused him not only to do away with all the idolatry and evil that had been tolerated and even promoted by previous kings but also to reinstate the Passover celebration… just as God had commanded Moses.
All of these prescribed regulations had been found in the forgotten “Book of the Law” that they accidentally stumbled across in some forgotten room of the Temple.
The text continues that this celebration of the Passover, in the 18th year of Josiah’s reign, had not been observed “like this” since the days of the Prophet Samuel. Samuel was prophet during the reigns of King Saul and King David. Josiah was the 16th King of Judah. That’s a long time not to celebrate the Passover as prescribed in the “Book of the Law” Think about what that means! Even King Solomon (among others) didn’t celebrate the Passover properly.
What would happen if we lost the “Book of Jesus Christ”? Perhaps buried on some shelf with hundreds of other books. Perhaps sitting on our night stands… un-opened, un-read and never fully understood.
What would happen if suddenly we opened the “Book of Jesus Christ” and found in it all the solutions for the problems in our lives and began to make corrections?
And then we stumbled across some directions in the “Book of Jesus Christ” for the New Testament Passover… the Lord’s Supper.
Imagine the turn from unfulfilled and bankrupt lives to lives of being blessed because we took a book off of the shelf and off of the nightstand and put it where it belongs… in our hearts.
Several years ago when I was still doing large animal work I was called out to a place on the Nueces river bottom to pull a dead calf out of a heifer. It was in July and it was pretty hot. The owner and I snubbed the heifer up to a post and I attached my “calf puller” to the calves front feet and gave it a pull. But the heifer too small and the calf too big for it to come out. So I attached the puller to one of the front legs and cut around the skin and pulled the leg off but the calf still wouldn’t come out. So I took the other leg off and attached my puller to the head. This time I got most of the calf out but the calve’s hips wouldn’t pass through the pelvic canal… it was “hip locked” So with the calf under tension I severed the calf so that just the hips and back legs were left in the heifer. So I reached inside and turned the back half around (no easy feat) so I could attach my puller to the back legs… it still wouldn’t pull. So then I pulled off one of the back legs and was able to attach to the remaining leg and deliver the calf out successfully.
I had not only been fighting the dead calf but also 100 degree heat and dust and fire ants. I think we charged less than $100 in those days but I was pretty happy with myself… not only the knowledge part of it but also the physicality part of it. Plus I had saved the heifer. I was the hero.
A couple of months later the rancher came into the clinic with another cow problem and asked to speak about it with the Veterinarian who owned the practice.
I was shocked, I had laid it all out for that guy and figured I had built some kind of loyalty and yet there was none… no loyalty whatsoever.
Here’s what I learned from that… don’t worry about what others think of you… just do your best and move on and let the Lord value and bless you.
I find that as an optimist I am frequently disappointed and only occasionally surprised. But I’ve never been disappointed in the Lord and am frequently pleasantly surprised by Him. Remember that in everything we do we are working for the Lord not some other human being.
“This is my covenant with you… every male among you shall be circumcised… it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you…. any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Genesis 17.
Circumcision is not required in the New Covenant. In the New Covenant we are “marked” with the Holy Spirit which is received at baptism. Acts 2:38.
“you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…” Ephesians 1:13-14.
Circumcison was a physical “mark” performed by men. They marked themselves.
The gift of the Holy Spirit was a “mark” given by God for those believers who chose to be baptized. He did the marking.
Circumcision was only for men… not women… but the Holy Spirit was given to all mankind… men and women equally.
In the Old Testament if you refused to be circumcised you were not part of Gods people.
In the New Testament if you refuse the Holy Spirit… given at baptism… then you also refuse and disrespect God and are not part of his people.
God marks his people today not based on ethnicity but based on belieficity. Let’s all believe and obey!
In Matthew 18, Jesus was teaching his disciples about forgiveness and he told them that if they were forgiving then they would be forgiven but if they were not forgiving then they would not be forgiven.
And then Jesus illustrated that concept with a story. A guy owed the King 10,000 talents of silver (presumably silver) which was such a vast debt that there was no way he could repay. Long story short, the King through his grace forgave the debt because the debtor asked for it to be forgiven.
But then the recently forgiven dude found one of his debtors who owed far less and choked his neck and had him thrown in prison when he could not repay.
Anyway, word (as it often does) got back to the King and the King calls in the dude and says why didn’t you forgive like I forgave you? No answer. The King loses his temper and delivers the dude to be tortured.
The story concludes with Jesus’ admonition to his disciples that the same thing would happen to them if they didn’t give heart felt forgiveness.
Now some might think about the King as being a sort of “Indian Giver”. The King extended grace and forgave but later takes the forgiveness back. It wasn’t permanent, irrevocable forgiveness.
It was a kind of conditional grace… conditioned based on the believers actions.
Get this… God can take his grace back and threatened the 12 disciples with that very thing… they could be delivered to the “torturers”
And if the twelve Disciples could be delivered to the torturers then so could we. Appreciate God’s free gift of grace and live lives worthy of it… be forgiving from your hearts.
