mature

There are times when I feel very mature and then there are times I don't feel I'm much past the infant stage. So I looked up the word mature and found that it meant:

Seasonable, ripe, mature. 1.a) full grown, as plants or

animals b)ripe as fruits c)fully developed as a person

or mind. 2. fully or highly developed, perfected, worked

out, considered. 3. A state of full development (a person

of mature age).

Well, that all sounded pretty good. But then I thought of mature as applied to fruit (something the Word tells us we need to have). If it's not used, the next stage is rotten. So I realized there are some things I need to take into consideration when I'm taking a look at the state of my maturity.

Last month when I was sharing about faith I told you about the experience I had concerning the death of two of my sons. I thought I had reached maturity in facing that sort of thing. And I really feel that I have reached some degree of maturity in the faith area. It has been a comfort to me in many instances to know that God has sent His love ahead of any sorrow I must face. But then in 1994 a new experience began to unfold.

My husband, Ron, had decided to retire from the Space Center and we were going to North Carolina to be with a ministry there called, Apple Hill Lodge. Our friends, Harry and Louise Bizzell, were going to build a lodge in the mountains and we were going to be a part of the ministry. They had already built their cabin on the ridge above where the lodge was to be and we were going to build our cabin next to theirs. That had always been a dream of mine, to live in a cabin on a mountain top.

Our plans were all made. Ron retired, we rented our home in Florida to a couple with the option to buy, and we headed for the mountains. We stayed in a small camper for a while and began to build our cabin. Ron worked hard doing a lot of the work himself. The work was progressing on the lodge. Tom and Naomi Boyd, also friends of ours, had come to help with the building of the lodge and our cabin. Many times we could hear Ron's voice ringing out with the words "The hills are alive with the sound of music.."

But then one day Ron had been working alone on the cabin and I was helping at the lodge when I looked out the window and saw him beside our van motioning me to come out. When I got there he bagan to speak to me and I soon realized he wasn't making any sense. He knew he wasn't and it was frustrating him. My first thought was, Oh, my God he's having a stroke!

I ran to get Harry and Tom. As soon as they saw Ron they knew something was wrong. We need to get him to the doctor, they said. We took him into town and was able to see the doctor right away. He checked Ron over and said he needed to go to the hospital in Winston Salem. He felt they could do a better job of diagnosing the problem.

This was all early in the morning and we spent all day and well into the evening at the hospital. It was a day full of tests, questions and more tests. Finally the doctor in charge called me into his office. Mr. McCune has 5 tumors at the base of his brain. They are not operable but from his history we feel that it is melanoma, he said. Five years before this, Ron had a growth taken off of his back that had proved to be melanoma. Apparently he waited too long to have it removed.

As the cancer progressed, we soon found out we couldn't stay on a mountain top. We were able to spend a few weeks in the cabin but we knew the time had come to move on to a place where it would be easier to take care of Ron. We sold the cabin to the ministry at Apple Hill, went to Georgia, and stayed at Berean Ministries with Ed and Glenda Corley. Ron died there on August 1, 1995.

I spent a lot of time telling God I had been there, done that. What more did I need to learn. All I could do was lean on the lesson He had taught me about faith and trust Him to take me through. He did that and I know if it had not been for His presence, and the support of all my friends, I would not have made it through.

Ed Corley and Ron had been great friends over the years. Ed came every day and, at first sang with Ron while he could still speak and then sang to Ron when his ability to speak was gone. Ed was standing with me at Ron's bed side when he died. Another friend, Steve Synstelien, came from a great distance to help the last week of Ron's life. Steve slept on the floor by Ron's bed and was a great help to me.

What a wonderful blessing our friends in the Lord are. I thank God every day for the wonderful gift of friends.

********************

After Ron died, I spent about a year at Berean. During that time I took a trip to Ohio, where Ron and I are from originally, and saw some of my old high school friends. Among those I saw was my high school sweetheart, John Merical. I went back to Florida and began to correspond with John. Eventually he came to Florida and we were married.

Recently, I began to ask God what maturity is. And that's where this article began. I could see that in some ways I'm mataure and in some ways I'm not. In the instance of the passing of my two sons I can say yes, I'm seeing progress in maturity where faith is concerned. In the passing of my husband, Ron, I can see that even though I had faith to trust and by faith give it over to the Lord, I needed strength to really let go. Ron and I had been married 45 years. It was hard to be a pillar of strength. But I know I matured a little bit more after the experience.

I mentioned before that the next stage after fruit matures is that it becomes rotten. This is if it is not used. You need to either eat it or share it. You can't just let it fall to the ground and rot.

As I realized this I was reminded of one of my favorite Scriptures. Psalm 1:3

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers

of water that brings forth its fruit in its season.

Living here in Florida, we have an orange tree in our back yard. Citrus trees are the only trees that have blossoms and fruit on them at the same time. We are like that. We are mature in some ways and in other ways we are just in the blossoming stage. But God only expects each of us to have our fruit in our season.

I mentioned three of the definitions listed under mature in the dictionary. I would also like to look at number 5 in the list. It says;

Having reached maximum development of topographical

form or vigor of action, as with streams that have no plains

and that have begun to widen rather than deepen their valleys.

That statement really impressed me. I asked God to bring my life to that place of maturity. The place where I allow the Holy Spirit to dig the path of my flowing in Him to where it is secure and the rivers of living water that He has promised will flow and begin to widen and spill to the areas around me.

He has promised:

He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said,

out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

John 7:38

So now I have my answer. Am I mature? Yes, and no; But God is working on it. I'm like a tree and I have some mature fruit and also some blossoms that will become MY fruit in MY season. My responsiblility is to be planted by the rivers of living water. And where is that? Why it's within me, because that's where the Holy Spirit flows.

God speakes to me many times in poetry. I'm reminded of a poem He gave me a long time ago.

Do not allow what Thou hast purposed

for me to abort

Keep me in the womb of learning

and in the judgment of Thy court

untill all that has begun in me to fullness has come

Let not the mature man Thou hast

meant for me to be

prematurely come to birth,

lame, deaf, and unable to see.

Let me grow to fullness

that the voice of my spirit be not dumb.

Let my eyes be clear

my voice able to speak plain.

Let my ears hear distinctly

Let me be born with Thy Name

that I may be an heir

pleasing to Thee

A Full Grown Son.

In His Love, Jackie