Karen’s Notes
Celebrating Six Years of Sharing from this Glory-Bound Lady
Volume 6 Number 19
Posting # 263 “Appreciating the Teamwork!”
May 10th, 2023

Here’s something you might not know about Karen.
So many are new to “Karen’s Notes.” Often following a post I will receive messages and notes saying something like, “I have just started following ‘Karen’s Notes.’ I wish I could have known her in person. Here’s something for our new folks that you might not know. Karen and I met in the third grade, grew up together and started dating in our senior year of high school. Following graduation, we both actually went to the same Bible college. She and I learned many lifelong lessons. I’m thinking of a lesson that mostly impacted me (and you will smile when I share it with you). However, it created a lasting priority for Karen and me as well.

As I read over Karen’s notes from the many ladies’ seminars and retreats in which she was the speaker, I am grateful for the impact that she had on so many. I am also grateful that she lived out in her home what she spoke and taught in public. At one of the retreats, she spoke of the importance of being an encourager.

“Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2).

I can’t share her entire worksheet. However! Here’s something that will be good for not only ladies but we men as well. Here’s what she wrote.
Are you an encourager? Do you routinely show appreciation to your pastor, ushers, deacons, musicians, Sunday school teachers and the many other servants? There are less thought of areas of service that we need to appreciate and encourage. These would include nursery workers, kitchen helpers, those who care for the facility, those on the prayer chain, those who have the gift of helps who bake, babysit, iron, clean, run errands and sit with the elderly.

Let me send you on your way with a smile.
Karen and I never forgot the great lesson that the Lord taught me personally. Before I arrived at Bible college in September of 1969, the four previous summers had me working at Indian Falls Lake. This was a park with not only picnic areas, but many campsites as well. It was nice that it was located near my home. Those four summers kept me busy doing what, you ask? The answer is that I was the official “tidy man!” In other words, I scrubbed bathrooms over and over and over again every day. Yep! You read it correctly. That’s what my four previous summers looked like!

So, at the close of summer in 1969 I had the silly thought, “No more public bathrooms shall I ever scrub again! Never! I am now ‘studying for the ministry’!”

Yes, I arrived at Bible College, learned of my dorm room number and who my roommate would be, purchased my books, and the last stop would be the Dean of Men to learn what my one hour per day work assignment would be. He shook my hand and said, “Michael, your work assignment is to clean the second-floor men’s bathrooms!”

What? I had said to myself, “Never again will I scrub bathrooms other than the one in my home with my family.” Never!

Karen and I laughed about me saying “never!”

I wouldn’t say “never” to the Lord, ever again. Oh, and by the way, it probably doesn’t work to say, “I will never be a millionaire.” The Lord will probably tell you, “That’s right, my child.”

So, this week, be thankful for everyone who is serving the Lord. Some of these dear folks are seldom thanked for their labor of love.