What I Did This Summer 2026

 

Do you remember your elementary school teachers asking what you did over the summer? Often it was the first opportunity to stand in front of the class, hoping to get the words out before one of your “friends” yawned in your face. Well, I hope you won’t yawn this time around as I share what I did this summer.

We took a bit of a detour this year, visiting our new grandchild on our way to our denomination’s annual conference. This detour allowed us to make a side trip to Niagara Falls and I now know why so many people visit this attraction. Niagara Falls, both the U.S. and the Canadian sides, are a great reminder of the awesome power and creativity of our Creator, serving as a reminder that our world has so much to explore. Just standing near the falls was better than any TV show or movie ever made, as the sound and the visuals truly stimulate the senses on a level that really must be experienced in person.

After leaving the Niagara Falls area, we traveled through Canada on our way to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the conference. While there we decided to visit the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. Ford is the first president that I truly remember from my childhood. Lyndon Johnson was president when I was born and Richard Nixon became president a couple of years later, but I was too young to remember the two of them. I do remember Ford and it was great to visit this museum and to learn about a president who seems to get lost in the shadow of his predecessor’s scandal The museum has a great collection and does a great job of telling the story of both a man and of a country as both navigated turbulent waters during the early 70s.

While those early summer trips were planned, my late summer adventures were totally unplanned and both involved flying, although in two very different ways. We were visiting some close friends when one of their family members called to see if anyone was available to help set up a hot air balloon. The pilot of the balloon needed to get in a few hours of flying in order to maintain his certification. While we were setting up the balloon, he asked if I wanted to go up with him. So, in the span of a couple of hours, I both added and crossed off hot air balloon on my bucket list.

I was able to keep my feet on the ground for our next flying adventure, as we were able to make a second trip to upstate New York. While there, we watched the Wings Over Batavia Air Show, which was amazing. At times it was hard to believe what a skilled pilot can do with an airplane or a helicopter. Did you know that a helicopter can do a back flip without crashing? The air show ended with a big fireworks display that included the use of drones and stunt planes to make this one of the biggest and best fireworks shows that I have ever seen. It was an awesome celebration of 250 years for our nation and a great way to wrap up my summer.

So that’s what I did this summer. What was your summer like and what are you looking forward to this fall?

Am I A Christian?

 

It was an unusually cold Thanksgiving, one in which we got an early snow fall. My cousins from the south were visiting for the holidays and were excited (perhaps overly so) to see snow for the first time. They woke up the morning after it snowed, ready to head outside with all of them yelling, “Snow! Snow! Snow!” Before anyone could stop them, they ran outside and dove in, without any coats or gloves or anything else that should have been part of the routine. And just as quickly as they had run out, they came running back in yelling, “Cold! Cold! Cold!” It was then that the decision was made that we needed to take them to buy some winter gear.

Later that day, during our shopping trip, I found myself sitting in the back of my grandmother's Grand Torino station wagon with my cousins. There were so many of us that we had to pull up the third-row seat, which in a station wagon faced backwards leaving some of us looking out of the back window. I’m not sure why but as we watched the traffic behind us, one of my cousins asked if I was a Christian. I told them all that I did not know. I was then asked if I went to church. In fact, I had three churches on rotation depending on whom I was with. My dad was Lutheran, my mom was Missionary Baptist, and my grandmother occasionally went to a church that I think may have been nondenominational. I visited at least one of those churches each week, although very rarely did I go to the same one two weeks in a row. So, my answer to my cousins’ question was, “Yes, I do go to church,” which I said with pride without telling them that my attendance was not voluntary. In response I was told that by going to church I was in fact a Christian.

For several different reasons, I was never comfortable with the idea that going to church made me a Christian. The idea that simply walking into a building made me a Christian seemed…well…empty. In fact, it seemed as empty as everything else in my life at the time as I lived…correction…survived the day to day of being a codependent teenager. God was the furthest thing from my mind, even during those two or three hours every Sunday morning and so I just could not see how going to church made me a Christian. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned that it didn’t.

It was at that time that a friend gave me a book that took everything that I learned in Sunday School, and in confirmation class, and explained how it all pointed to one man: Jesus. In response, I looked at Jesus for the first time and really started learning what He taught. From these studies I learned about God’s gift of salvation through which He offers life and freedom from the burden of sin. I also learned that how I respond to His offer determines whether I am a Christian or not. I accepted His offer and am blessed to be able to say that I am a Christian.

So, what exactly was His offer and what is it that makes a person a Christian? Keep an eye out for a future post where I will explain.

This is My Name Forever – Part One

 

Exodus 3:14-15

Was Moses still afraid or was he just curious?  Either way Moses asks a very logical question in Exodus 3:13. He asks God to tell him what he should say when the leaders of Israel ask for the name of the God who has sent him. At the time, Israel lived within the polytheistic culture of Egypt in which each god had a name and a specific domain in which to operate. I suspect this made it easy to know who to pray towards for whatever specific problem one might be having. Afterall, you didn’t want to inadvertently pray to the god of the Sun if what you really needed was rain.

So along with asking for direction on what he should say (and do), Moses was asking God to give him something that he could say to the people of Israel to help them distinguish Him form all the false gods of the land of Egypt. Most likely there were still some who taught and believed in the God of their fathers, but all of Israel had long been exposed to Egypt’s culture and religion. As a result, Moses’ success rested on Israel learning about this God who spoke from a burning bush and discovering what domain fell under His control. And so, Moses asks for a name and for an identity that he could give to the people so that they might know who it was that they should believe in.

For the record, I am not a Bible scholar and so I turned to a few different Bible commentaries to see what they had to say about God’s answer: “I Am That I Am.” (Exodus 3:14 KJV), which the New King James translates to “I Am Who I Am.” Several of the commentaries point to the fact that we really do not have the words to accurately translate what is said, with The Pulpit Commentary stating that, “I will be that I will be,” as a more literal translation.

I’ll write about what this statement likely means in my next post. Today, I just want to point out that God answered Moses’ prayer by revealing His glory: by revealing who He really is. The answer started with this somewhat cryptic answer but as we will see when we explore its meaning, the answer continued as God demonstrated His power through both the plagues and by delivering His people out of the oppression they were suffering at the hands of the Egyptians.

Moses needed to know God before he could fulfill his mission and the same is true for us today. I believe that if we earnestly pray, asking God to reveal Himself, He will certainly answer. It may take time to understand the answer, but in the end, I believe that we will be blown away by what we learn. Ask God to reveal Himself. He likely will need to do some work on your heart to prepare you for the answer, but once He does, you will have the opportunity to learn the truth about the one and only living God.