“Karen’s Notes!
Insights from a Glory-Bound Lady”

Selected Notes
Volume 6 Number 39
#283 ”Yes, Karen! It is Going to be a Great Day”

September 27th, 2023

We often smiled and were amazed at the Lord’s plan for us.
While she and I agreed on all the important things of life, we smiled at the Lord’s plan in putting together two folks named Michael and Karen who were opposites in many ways. She loved math. I am positive that part of my brain is missing. I loved history. She detested it. She was hard pressed on the essay parts of the test. As for me, essays saved my life (a little on the dramatic side, sorry!) more than once. She loved sunny days. I love the quiet gentle rainy days that come along.

I discovered something she wrote on a sunny day long ago.
I’m reading through Karen’s Bible study journal today, and specifically I’m looking at an entry for August 21, 2012. This isn’t a ladies’ seminar or retreat in which she was speaking. This is a topic through which she was reading and studying for her own personal Bible study. She was thinking of her life as a stranger or sojourner here in this world.

The verse she read: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Karen wrote: When the society is wicked, I need to remember that I am a stranger and sojourner. I need to remember:
My position. “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
My purpose. “That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world: holding forth the word of life…” (Philippians 2:15-16a).
My privilege. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ…” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
My prohibition. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him” (1 John 2:15).

I need to dare to be different because I am a stranger and sojourner here. Yes, it is sunny (with a smiley face) and it’s gonna be a great day!

Let me send you on your way with this.
It was my privilege to be married to this Godly lady for nearly forty-six years. She wasn’t perfect, but she truly lived for the Lord and wanted to count for Him. Bless her heart! If she thought society was wicked in 2012, I just wonder what she would write in her Bible study journal today. “Even so come, Lord Jesus!”

It was a sunny day on August 21, 2012. With the sunshine of the day, the promises of the Word of God and the joy of being a stranger and pilgrim on the earth, she said, “It’s gonna be a great day.” I pray that it will be a great day for you today!