My family and I love summer … going to the beach, playing golf, riding bikes and hanging out at the pool. Growing up in the North has made living in South Florida feel like summer all year round. Somebody said to me the other day that even South Florida has seasons. I won’t debate here if that’s true or not, but I will tell you that in New York, where I grew up, summer didn’t last too long. That’s what makes living in South Florida so much fun for our family. We love summer.

Among all the wonderful activities we enjoy during the summer, one in particular is not outdoors. We enjoy getting some snacks and sitting down to watch America’s Got Talent. We love that show. We have watched as a family every year it has been on. We really enjoy the beginning of the show when people from all over come to audition – people who have absolutely no talent, yet believe they do, people who are very talented, but have no idea how gifted they really are.

The part of the show that we love the most is the variety. You never, and I mean never, know what you’re going to get. I mean where else can you watch a magician, a singer, a family riding motorcycles in a giant ball, gymnastics, Latin dancing, three 6-year-olds rapping and a guy diving 40ft. into 12 inches of water, on the same show, on the same night? Only on America’s Got Talent. We find our favorite acts, and then we cheer them on as they move toward the finals.   We look forward to the acts that surprise you, like the little girl last year, Jackie Evancho. She walks onstage and looks like the cutest little girl you’ve ever seen, then she sings opera like a seasoned veteran of the stage. Or, this year, the guy walks on stage, an African American, with dreadlocks past his shoulders, who looks like he just walked in off the street, and then he sings, “My Kind of Town” and you swear you’re hearing Frank Sinatra. We love that show.

Life is like that. I get surprised every day. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” That tells me that God’s criteria is not the same as ours. God looks at what He can do through people, not what people can do on their own. God looks for people that will be willing to give their lives to Him so He can mold them into something useful and be able to fulfill God’s purpose for their life. That’s what makes church so interesting. Just like America’s Got Talent, you never know what you’re going to get. And people will always surprise you.

At our church, we are studying through the book of  Ephesians. Ephesians 2:21-22 says this, “In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you, too, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” What Paul is saying is that God, not you or I, chooses who He wants to use. He says, “You, too, are being built together.” There is a place for you! He needs all kinds of stones for his dwelling.  Looking for a place to fit in, a place to feel loved and welcome? That word “built” actually means “fitted.” That’s what God wants to do with you. He wants to fit you, into His dwelling. That’s why I love our church, like Americas Got Talent, you find the variety that makes God’s family so wonderful.

Deron Peterson is is the Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach.

From the time I was a little Rabbi … I mean, a little boy … I was taught that everything that G-d put on this Earth can have a very holy purpose. Of course, it often appears the reverse is just as true. Using the free will with which we have been endowed by our Creator, we also have the ability to take something and use it for evil.

I guess one of the easiest examples would be the creation of Atomic Energy, which also brought about the Bomb. The same creation, the same use of man’s ingenuity, and we come up with a good thing and a bad thing. Then again, perhaps the day will come when we will find a holy and creative purpose for the bomb rather than using it as a weapon of mass destruction.

Then there is nuclear energy, which also seems to have been used for two very different purposes and, yet, we find that if the good purpose is used and a plant has a leak, well, then it doesn’t appear to be so good … does it?

Still, I am a big believer in what I learned early on in life … that everything, even the things we consider to be the foulest of the foul, can have a good and holy purpose. We just have to be wise enough to figure out what that purpose might be.

I found a great example of that just a couple of weeks ago in a fascinating news story. So let me ask you something, when you were at the height of your fitness level, did you ever put on a pair of those white athletic socks and a pair of sneakers and head off for a long walk or a jog? And, if you did, did you ever have a time when it started to rain but you just kept walking anyway? When you finally got back home, you took off your sneakers and if anyone was near you, they took one whiff of those socks you were wearing and yelled out, “PHEW” or “P.U.”

Now, I have to tell you, as much as I believe that everything on this Earth can be of benefit, I never had the ingenuity to come up with a benefit to dirty, stinky white socks. But I guess I wasn’t using all the creative power that G-d blessed me with and, that’s okay, because someone else was using theirs and they found a very holy use for … that’s right … dirty, stinky socks.

I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but malaria still takes the lives of close to 100,000 people each year from across the globe and most of the lives it takes are children’s. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes infected with the disease and when one of them bites you, look out.

Well, researchers in Tanzania found that mosquitoes are attracted to the wonderful aroma of dirty, stinky socks. That’s right, just as we can’t resist walking by a bakery without getting that whiff that draws us in, those socks, those dirty, stinky socks draw the mosquitoes in like … well, like flies.

So if you put up mosquito traps and have a batch of smelly socks on them, it lures them much the same way a piece of cheese may lure a mouse into a trap. So don’t be surprised if one day you see a headline that reads “Dirty, Smelly Socks Save the Lives of 100,000 Children.” May it come to pass and may each of us use our ingenuity to find holiness in the most unlikely of places. Let us say, Amen.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County. 

In order to understand courage, you have to first experience fear. Without fear, you will never know if you have courage. Fear is very powerful and can paralyze you if you allow it to take control of your life. If we say that we never fear, then how is it possible to know what courage is? Fear will come, but we must face our fears and conquer them. Never allow fear to defeat you and control your life.

2 KINGS 23:3

3 The king took his place of authority beside the pillar and renewed the covenant in the LORD’s presence. He pledged to obey the LORD by keeping all his commands, laws and decrees with all his heart and soul. In this way, he confirmed all the terms of the covenant that were written in the scroll and all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

NLT

In 2 Kings 22 and 23, we read that King Josiah was a man who sought after God. However, his life changed when God’s Word was rediscovered. He called the people to a renewed covenant before God (see verse above). God moved through Josiah to crush the wickedness of his country like a hurricane crumbles houses as if they were made out of toothpicks.

Many of us need courage. We try to go through life with a John Wayne swagger, but we’re like milk toast (lacking backbone, not standing up for oneself), desperately in need of some courage. We need to stop whimpering and making excuses and start trusting God and His word. King Josiah died in battle, not running in fear. He was full of courage because of God’s word. How can we be full of courage? By knowing God’s word and following God’s word.

JOSHUA 1:5-7

5 No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.

6 “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them.

7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do.

NLT

We can be strong and courageous by knowing and following the word of God. We get strength and courage from having faith in God and His word. God promised to never leave us and He will always be with us. Stop making excuses and start reading your Bible every day. You know what? You may not battle a thousand, but begin your day by reading God’s word and praying over your life and your family. Decide right now not to allow fear to control you any longer. Many people just focus on their failures and never decide how they are going to start walking in the courage that God has offered to us.  Ask God to fill you with His strength and courage. Do not forget to read the Bible a little every day. God will answer your prayer.

Tony Guadagnino is a pastor at Christian Love Fellowship Church.

I was escorted to the woman’s bedroom where she and her private duty aide spent much of the day. The TV was on and it was on loud. It also happened to be tuned to the Christian Broadcasting Network. The patient being cared for was Jewish. She could not get up from bed nor from a chair without the help of her aide. I talked with the aide about how inappropriate it was for her to have an evangelical program on in the woman’s house, but she saw nothing wrong with her actions and, in fact, felt she was doing a holy thing.­ She also let me know that the woman she was caring for never voiced any complaint about her choice of TV, and that if such things bothered her, she could say something. I tried to explain that many people fear voicing such things, as they are afraid of how they will be treated afterwards – much like a patient in a health center is afraid to voice complaints about how this or that nurse or aide treats them. The aide told me that she was not forcing the woman to participate in any other religion but her own. Yet, the elderly woman was, indeed, being forced to listen to a minister preach ad nauseum about a faith that was not her own, and she was stuck doing so in her own home.­I talked with a rep from the company the aide came from and voiced my complaint, and, again, I was told if the patient was uncomfortable, all she had to do was voice her complaint. I again attempted to explain that the woman may well be afraid of repercussions, but was told that there is no rule against what the aide was doing. I then tried to explain that just because you are permitted to do something does not necessarily make it the right thing to do. And I had to wonder to myself how things would have been if the shoe was on the other foot.­ I then asked what they tell clients about the aides they send out and was told that they send out trained staff who do everything they can to comfort and care for their clients. And that is when I said, “If that is the case, then your staff should be trained to avoid doing things that would make it necessary for a complaint to be raised in the first place.”­

You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself … not my words, but words with a great message. So let me ask you … if you were the one stuck in the bed, dependent on someone else to tend to your needs, how would you feel?­

Don’t get me wrong, the aide is more than welcome to read her Bible silently or listen to a program with a set of headphones on, but a healthcare provider should not be subjecting the patient to something so foreign to the client’s own belief system.­

I know there are those of you reading this who feel that political correctness has gone way  overboard, but when your job is to comfort someone who is in a position of weakness via an illness or an injury… Well, may you always have enough control of your body and your mind to decide for yourself what to read and listen to in the comfort of your home and may those of us blessed to visit you be wise enough to avoid causing any added discomfort.­ As I remember, the rule of thumb is, if you can’t heal somebody, at least avoid causing any harm.­

Shalom My Friends,­ Rabbi Ezring­

(And please know that most of the health care workers I come across truly are angels. At least, they are in my eyes. G-d Bless them one and all.)­ ­

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.

By Deron Peterson, Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach 

After some discussion and searching for the perfect spot, my wife and I laid down the blanket, a beach towel really, and settled in for the evening’s fireworks.  It was a typical 4th –    cookout, parade and now fireworks – all the things that make the 4th so special. As we sat there, Beth asked me what was my favorite 4th of July. We talked about the first time we took the kids to celebrate in Schroon Lake, the small town where I grew up. We talked about the time in Dallas where the fireworks were spectacular and a local radio station had coordinated the music perfectly. Of course, we also talked about the summer we met 19 years ago. In hindsight, this should have easily been my top 4th of July but, unfortunately, it wasn’t. Seeing the error of my ways, I asked if we could talk about our Top 3 Independence Days. It might surprise you to discover that we both settled on a 4th in the most unlikely of places. During our 18 years of marriage, Beth and I have lived more than half of them in Argentina. We both agreed that July 4th, 2008 was probably our favorite.

In 2008, we moved to the city of Corrientes in Northern Argentina. If you are at all familiar with Argentines, you know they absolutely love cookouts, “asados” as they call them, and will accept any excuse to have one. We decided to have our 4th of July Asado. We invited some other American missionaries living in Corrientes and an Argentine family, who had spent many years living in the U.S., over to the house. Samuel, my son, and I went into the city and spent way too much money on fireworks.

We were U.S. citizens, celebrating our country’s Independence Day while living in Argentina; citizens living in a foreign land. Beth and I spent almost 10 years living in Argentina, even earning “permanent residence” status, but at no time did we stop being U.S. citizens. We worked very hard to learn the language, to adapt to their culture and, for the most part, were very successful. In the end, however, we were still foreigners living in a foreign land.

Reminds me of Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”  When we put our faith in Christ alone for salvation, we become citizens of Heaven. Sometimes, we allow ourselves to become so wrapped up in the things of this world that we forget who we belong to, and where our home really is.

For however long we are left on Earth, we need to remember our citizenship is in heaven, and that is where our loyalties should lie. Our lifestyles should be based solely on Biblical principles. We need to know our culture, history, language and understand those we live with, but don’t need to worry about fitting in. When we stop trying to fit in, we can live our lives to the fullest, without worry, as God intended.

Independence Day is soon upon us. There will be fireworks that light up the night sky as we celebrate the many freedoms we are blessed with here in America that so many others across the globe are denied.

And yet, on the very same day that we will be celebrating our independence, I will be spending time with a number of people who have seen themselves become more and more dependent on others for their most basic of needs. Some of them are dependent on a dialysis machine to do some of the work that their kidneys used to do. Some are dependent on oxygen to ensure they get enough air to breathe. Some are dependent on others to change them, feed them, clean them and get them up into a chair. The truth is, we are all more dependent on others than we would like to believe.

And sometimes, even a temporary loss of some of our independence reminds us of that very fact. Take, for instance, one beautiful young woman who recently felt what it was like to lose a blessing many of us take for granted — the freedom to walk without pain. She suddenly had a lot of pain … it was in her foot, her heel, and it took away some of the joy in her life. Tennis, which she has an incredible passion for, became almost impossible to participate in. Dancing, which she has a knack for, became another activity she had to stop. And, as the pain got worse, she wound up in one of those special boots to take all the pressure off a specific area of her foot. On top of that, she needed crutches for a while. (Yes, I do have a bit of a ‘crutch’ on her)

So how do we help someone who is dealing with such a loss of independence, even though that loss may only be temporary? Well, in this case, I decided to use humor, albeit sick humor, humor that had her groaning and probably shaking her head, but humor that helped ease her burden. She was stuck in the house and spending a lot of time on the computer, so I sent her the following e-mail:

“I just BOOTED up my computer so let me see what I can come up with on the SPUR of the moment…”

“It’s Aboot time, its aboot space about two men in the strangest place…”

“Tell her aboot it…..”

“There’s a hole in the bootom of the sea…”

“Let me tell you all a story ‘boot a man named Jed…”

“One hundred bootles of beer on the wall, one hundred bootles of beer, take one down and pass it around, ninety-nine bootles of beer on the wall. (If you think I’m going to type out the whole song then you are more than a little bit wobbly)…”

“I’ve looked at life from boot sides now…”

“Wasn’t Abe Lincoln killed by a boot? John Wilkes Boot…”

“What do you call it when you kick a guy in the ear? A bootinear!”

“Everybody loves some booty sometime…”

“Booterflies are free and so are we…”

“Have you seen the greatest movie of all time? Mutiny on the Booty…”

“If you put your cell phone down on your foot, does that make you a phone boot?”

“Shake, shake, shake your booty…”

“If you come over to see me, are you making a booty call?”

“Oh what a bootiful morning, oh what a bootiful day … I got a bootiful feeling, everything’s going my way …”

“Have you heard the good news? If not, be sure and read the Good Boot…”

I hope some of you reading this will be able to come up with better ones to cheer up someone you know who is going through a loss of independence. In the meantime, hope you have a bootiful day…

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.