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Ramblings from Retirement – How we handle hurt says a lot By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen August 5, 2021 I liked a TV series from PBS and the BBC that was called Downton Abby. In it one of the characters, Tom, tells another character Lady Mary that “being hurt is part of being alive.” He is correct and herein is a simple truth that many in our day and age have forgotten that life consists of a series of being hurt yet how we handle the hurt tells a lot about who we are as a person. Many try to escape being hurt at all and this is simply impossible. People get hurt. People die. People get sick. We are not guaranteed a perfect life, no one is and no one in all of history has enjoyed a perfect life except perhaps Jesus and he also suffered hurt in his life. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to te...

Trapped by sin! -- 2 Kings 17:5-12, 16-20 By Pastor Lee Hemen November 4, 2018 Two men were members of the same church. Both were active and were positive witnesses to the presence of God. One grew as a Christian vividly. God gave him victory over various sins committed before becoming a Christian. He became a strong, positive Christian influence in his workplace and community. The other man did not make worshiping and serving God his highest priority. Instead, he began giving into temptations seeking pleasure and possessions instead of a relationship with the Lord. Eventually, he gave up any visible identification with believers and the Lord. All 20 kings who ruled northern Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. None of them worshiped God only. None were descendants of David to whom God promised his family would always rule over God’s people. Ahab and Jezebel made Baal worship legal. God disciplined his people, but nothing turned them to the Lord. God sent prophets Elisha, Amos, an...

Weep over your sin! - Joel 1 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 8, 2016 My mother was a small bundle of fire that one did not cross. She is the one who made us march out into the yard and cut a switch off the lilac bush for our own whoopin'. If you do not know what a "whoopin'" is then you do not understand punishment. Her philosophy that is sadly lacking in our day and age was the punishment should fit the crime. We were never sent to our room, given a time out, or restricted from watching TV. Our punishments were dealt with immediately and a spanking consisted of only a couple of swats. In fact, we were expected to take our punishment and not "carry on" about it. Mom would remind us to stop our crying or she would "give us something to cry about". She knew we had to weep over the wrong we had committed or we would not quit doing it. Being remorseful was part of what was expected. One had to weep over their sin. We live in a day and age where far too m...