Something to Ponder July 13, 2006

Wild Flowersby: Brenda Urbanek,

Each spring brings a new blossom of wildflowers in the ditches along the highway I travel daily to work. There is one particular blue flower that has always caught my eye. I've noticed that it blooms only in the morning hours, the afternoon sun is too warm for it. Every day for approximately two weeks, I see those beautiful flowers.

This spring, I started a wildflower garden in our yard. I can look out of the kitchen window while doing the dishes and see the flowers. I've often thought that those lovely blue flowers from the ditch would look great in that bed alongside other wildflowers. Everyday I drove past the flowers thinking, "I'll stop on my way home and dig them." Gee, I don't want to get my good clothes dirty..." Whatever the reason, I never stopped to dig them. My husband even gave me a folding shovel one year for my trunk to be used for that expressed purpose.

One day on my way home from work, I was saddened to see that the highway department had mowed the ditches and the pretty blue flowers were gone. I thought to myself, "Way to go, you waited too long. You should have done it when you first saw them blooming this spring."
A week ago we were shocked and saddened to learn that my oldest sister-in-law has a terminal brain tumor. She is 20 years older than my husband and unfortunately, because of age and distance, we haven't been as close as we all would have liked. I couldn't help but see the connection between the pretty blue flowers and the relationship between my husband's sister and us. I do believe that God has given us some time left to plant some wonderful memories that will bloom every year for us.

And yes, if I see the blue flowers again, you can bet I'll stop and transplant them to my wildflower garden.

Calling all Fantasy Football fanatics!!!!!

I am very interested in starting and hosting a Yahoo fantasy football league. I look forward to this time of year as I put on my Jake DelHomme jersey and pray that this is the year that the Panthers win the Super Bowl!!!

Here's what I need from you......Email me A.S.A.P. and let me know you'd like to get in on the fun. I'm looking at having 10 teams total so the first 9 people to contact me will be in. If we get enough for more than 1 league, I'll set up more leagues!

Let's shoot for Sunday August 13th being the last day to contact me. I'll then create the leagues and send everyone the invite link and we'll draft by August 20th.

My email address is darren@wbfj.fm Get signed up today and let the "Smack Talk" begin!!!!

Darren

Something to Ponder from Darren Wednesday July 12, 2006


Refining Goldby: Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., The Sower's Seeds

Near Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold and tellurium occur mixed as tellurite ore. The refining methods of the early mining camps could not separate the two elements, so the ore was thrown into a scrap heap.

One day a miner mistook a lump of ore for coal and tossed it into his stove. Later, while removing ashes from the stove, he found the bottom littered with beads of pure gold. The heat had burned away the tellurium, leaving the gold in a purified state. The discarded ore was reworked and yielded a fortune.

People are like tellurite ore. We have gold inside us, but it often takes some trial in the fiery furnace of life to transform us.

Something to Ponder.........PICK OF THE WEEK....... from Darren on Tuesday July 11, 2006

Trust in God, and Trust in Meby Max Lucado

I’ve often thought it curious how few people Jesus raised from the dead.
He healed hundreds and fed thousands, but as far as we know he only raised three: the daughter of Jairus, the boy near Nain, and Lazarus. Why so few? Could it be because he knew he’d be doing them no favors? Could it be because he couldn’t get any volunteers? Could it be that once someone is there, the last place they want to return to is here?

We must trust God. We must trust not only that he does what is best but that he knows what is ahead. Ponder these words of Isaiah 57:1–2: “The good men perish; the godly die before their time and no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to realize that God is taking them away from the evil days ahead. For the godly who die shall rest in peace” (TLB).
My, what a thought. God is taking them away from the evil days ahead. Could death be God’s grace? Could the funeral wreath be God’s safety ring? As horrible as the grave may be, could it be God’s protection from the future?

Trust in God, Jesus urges, and trust in me. Several years ago I heard then Vice President George Bush speak at a prayer breakfast. He told of his trip to Russia to represent the United States at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev. The funeral was as precise and stoic as the communist regime. No tears were seen, and no emotion displayed. With one exception. Mr. Bush told how Brezhnev’s widow was the last person to witness the body before the coffin was closed. For several seconds she stood at his side and then reached down and performed the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest.

In the hour of her husband’s death, she went not to Lenin, not to Karl Marx, not to Khrushchev. In the hour of death she turned to a Nazarene carpenter who had lived two thousand years ago and who dared to claim: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me.”


Darren Stevens
Morning Show Host/APD
WBFJ-FM
1249 Trade Street
Winston Salem, NC 27101
336 721-1560
darren@wbfj.org
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