FUTURE GUEST BLOGGERS: Writers and tellers of family tales.

In forthcoming blogs I hope to feature other writers and their books, along with an ocassional family blog. During the next few days watch for a post from my older son Tony, who is helping me with promotion for my new novel and trying to help me learn some things about using social media.

Tony, an ordained minister, former pastor and counselor, Christian School teacher and principal, has worked retail with computers and the new Smart Phones. He enjoys technical "stuff" whereas his mother is lost with it. But we do have some things in common, such as writing, some of which he will share with you as one of my guest bloggers.

Watch for his blog, coming soon, about the lady to whom my book of local history, EARLY SETTLERS OF THE K-SPRINGS/CHELSEA AREA, was dedicated--things he remembers about her as his great-grandmother, along with stories he heard about her and from her while growing up.

This brave and interesting lady who, widowed shortly before her fourth child was born, farmed, taught school, raised a grandson, and recorded historical notes, along with births, deaths and marriages of everyone she heard of from the time she was a young girl in Roanoke, Alabama in the late 1800s.

I think you will enjoy her stories.  And you may want to share a few of your own as comments on this blog. If you have long tales to share, please "follow" this blog, IN HIS STRENGTH, then share your stories with us on our facebook page at shelbasheltonnivens,author. While you are on our author page, you might like to enter our drawing for a free copy of EARLY SETTLERS OF THE K-SPRINGS/CHELSEA AREA by "liking" that page, "sharing" it on your own facebook timeline, and writing a "comment" on it. (REMEMBER TO DO ALL 3 TO GET YOUR NAME IN THE POT FOR THE OCTOBER 1 DRAWING.)

PLEASE PRAY FOR MY BROTHER TOM

I, my sister Nina, and brother Joe went to the doctor with our youngest sibling, Tommy, yesterday. His doctor is an Oncologist with Birmingham Hematology and Oncology Associates. L.L.C. at the Shelby Cancer Care Center next door to the hospital in Alabaster. We all liked her very much. She is kind, seems very caring, but straight-forward and tells it like it is.


He has primary liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).  The doctor says it is in Stage 3, at least. Tumors are all in the liver, both lobes. The don't know yet if it has gotten outside the liver, which would be a Stage 4, the hightest Stage number

He is to be treated with a new chemo durg, Nexavar (Sorafenib), in hopes it will shrink at least some of the tumors/lesions. She says it will be slow acting, gave him info on the cancer and the treatment and some other things to be working on while she gets the med approved for him.

I looked both up on the internet. Sounds really, really, serious, but she seems to think there is some hope that he will get some better. Said it's a team effort, she will do her part (as long as he stops drinking his beer), he'll have to do his part, then we'll just have to trust God to do His part. She seemed glad to see so many of his siblings with him. Said he is going to have to have a lot of support.

I talked to him late this evening, and he sounds good. He's been working on getting his disability set up like she told him to, and was gathering up his beer cans, the empty ones and the full ones, to get rid of them.



Please say a prayer for him. Thank you.

THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ANYONE BUT ME

Have you ever had an experience where you had this feeling like you were the only person this has ever happened to?

When Tony, my first child, was born my husband Ken was overseas with the army. Back then, a military wife went to a military hospital to have a baby. It wasn’t like today when the military pays for her to use civilian doctors and give birth in a civilian hospital. So, I went to the nearest military hospital.

My husband couldn’t be with me and him thousands of miles away in Japan. So his grandmother was spending the week with me at the base guest house where I would be near the hospital for the delivery. But, after riding to the hospital with me in a taxi, she was sent back to the guest house to await a call about delivery.

This left me at the hospital without friend or family when my first child was born. And to top it off, I had never even seen the doctor before he walked in to deliver my baby. After the delivery, I had no one running into my room to hug me and tell me how beautiful my little boy was. No one to greet me and grin at me in the hallway as I was wheeled from the recovery room and into the “Maternity Ward.”

There were no private rooms, or even semi-private ones, but a long room full of beds occupied by new mothers, with curtains to pull between them for “privacy.”

However, none of this took away my joy and excitement.

When I was wheeled into the ward, the curtains were open and all eyes turned toward me. I recall seeing only a bunch of solemn faces in a sea of white bed linens. But I was grinning proudly from ear to ear as if to say: “Look at me. I’ve just given birth to a beautiful baby boy,” like I was the only one in the room -- in the whole world -- who had ever accomplished such a feat.

Ten years later, this “beautiful baby boy,” led me to a second such experience.

Tony had gone to kneel at the altar in our little church several times, where the pastor’s wife prayed with him. (I learned later that he was praying about God’s call to become a minister.) I had given my heart to Christ as a seven-year-old, and had tried to “be good” growing up. But many times through the years, I’d had doubts about my being a Christian because I didn’t always “feel saved,” and didn’t feel I was good enough to go to Heaven. Now, as I watched my child respond to prompting from God, the Holy Spirit began to deal with me, too.

Along about this time, I had read someplace that “Salvation is a fact, not a feeling.” Searching the Scriptures, I found the “fact” in Romans 10: 9 and 13: I’m saved when I call on God to save me, and confess Him as the Lord of my life.

After spending some special time alone with God, making sure I was truly a Christian, I got a little “nudging” one night to go up and kneel at the altar with Tony. I didn’t understand why, because I knew now that I was a Christian, and the pastor was praying with him. But I knew I needed to go.

When I slipped out of the pew Ken followed me. Together, we knelt beside our son. The pastor's wife knelt to pray with us. I don't know what she prayed, but I didn't need to know; I was having my own conversation with God.

All I could say was a silent,"Thank you, God, thank you," over and over again. I didn't even wonder why I was saying it, for I knew that something wonderful had happened within me when

I obeyed the Lord's prompting to walk up in front of the congregation to kneel before Him.

That was forty-five years ago. I know I’m still not “good enough“ to go to Heaven, but Jesus took care of that when He died on the cross. And his Holy Spirit has taken care of my doubts, for as Romans 8:16 says Christ’s Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.

This is the "fact" that gave me the wonderful “I’m the only person this has ever happened to” feeling and made me grin that big, silly grin as I walked back to my pew that night -- as I did when wheeled into that maternity ward ten years earlier.

Both times, a new life had just begun.

My Greatest Joy

Well, it looks like about every two months is as often as I've been posting, so it's that time again.

I wanted to share about this weekend. A great Southern Gospel Singing Saturday evening by the Brasher family, also a great service Sunday morning, then two of our three "kids" here for Sunday lunch, a long nap afterwards and some time working on my column and the Rosalie of Rosebud story.

Most of the family is out-of-state right now: some living in Arkansas, Missouri and Los Angeles; some visiting in California and Denver; some on working vacation in Denver and Canada. They all used to come for Sunday dinner, but now they're too scattered. Oh, well, that's what we raise them for -- to be happy, responsible, productive (especially for the Lord) adults, living their own lives in their own way (or rather, in God's way).

A verse I have framed and sitting on a shelf above snapshots of the family on the livingroom wall says: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." (3 John: 4 NIV).

That's my main prayer for them, that they will walk in God's truth. Knowing they are physically safe and seeing them often comes after that.

THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW

I've just now checked my blog for the first time since my December 17 post about the "Jesus Tree," and I want to say a special "Thank you," to two people who left comments on it. One of the comments was labeled "PuraAbarca," (I hope that's not an obscene word. Please forgive me if it is) and the only message was the word "wonderful" followed by a line of dots. The other comment and the message were in symbols followed by a line of dots. Although I could not read your messages, and do not know who you are, I am glad that you read my message about Jesus and the gift of salvation that He gave to the world. Thank you for letting me know. I'm glad you were impressed enough to write. Shelba

QUESTION FOR READERS?
Can any of you translate the word on the first comment and the symbols on the second one for me? Thanks.

The Jesus Tree

Do you realize that not one of the four Gospel writers said that Jesus was nailed to the cross?

I've written and directed a lot of Easter dramas through the years, where we used the pounding of the hammer on a nail for sound effects. But I never realized, until a few days ago, that the Bible does not specifically say that Jesus was NAILED to the cross.

Pastor Greg had asked that each family in our church family either buy or make a tree ornament that somehow represents Jesus, then attach the related Bible verse to it and bring it to church yesterday morning to decorate a "Jesus Tree."

There was a huge, bare "Christmas" tree standing on the front platform of the worship center, and at the appropriate time during the service each family came up and hung their ornament on the tree. A few people, who had been asked ahead of time, told how their ornaments related to Jesus and what that means to them.

Well, Ken had a large nail -- more like a spike -- that he wanted us to use. So I went to the Bible to find the verse that says Jesus was nailed to the cross. And found that not one of the stories about his crucifiction says that nails were used. They just say that he was crucified.

According to history, during the time that Jesus died people were sometimes crucified by being nailed to a cross. But sometimes their hands and feet were TIED to a cross and they were left hanging there until they died.

We know, though, that Jesus was NAILED to the cross, because of a story that the writer of John's Gospel (John 20:26-27) tells us. When the disciple that we call "Doubting Thomas" heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, he said he would not believe it unless he saw the nail marks in his hands and put his finger where the nails were. So, a week later, Jesus appeared to him and told him to look at his hands and put his finger in the nailprints. And to stop doubting and believe.

I know that, to some people, it may sound a little morbid for us to talk about Jesus' dying at this season when we celebrate his birth. Especially if we hang a symbol of his death on a Christmas tree.

But, if it were not for his death and his rising from the dead, his birth would be meaningless. He would be just another prophet or teacher -- like the muslims' Mohammed.

However, as Jesus said to Pilate before he handed Him over to the mob to be crucified, "... For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world..." (John 18:37).

He could have called legions of angels (Matther 26:53) to his rescue, but he CHOSE to take our sins to the Cross so the world through him might be saved (John 3:16,17).

There's a song that talks about it being nails that held him to the cross, but love that made him stay.

I am thankful for Jesus' birth and for the freedom to celebrate it -- although the ways and the places we can celebrate have been severely limited in recent years. But I am even more thankful that he endured the pain of the nails that held him to the Cross and for the love that made him stay, so that I -- and all who receive His gift of salvation -- can be resurrected, too, someday to live with him forever.