Lois E. Scott - If You Want to Soar with Eagles, Dont Hang out with Turkeys: Gems for Christian Living

If You Want to Soar with Eagles,
Dont Hang out with Turkeys

Gems for Christian Living

Lois E. Scott

Illustrations by Caleb F. Scott

Edited by Fred W. Scott

If You Want to Soar with Eagles, Dont Hang out with Turkeys

Gems for Christian Living

Copyright 2010 by Lois E. Scott

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-2264-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-2265-1 (ebook)

iUniverse rev. date: 8/26/2015

Contents

This book is dedicated to our family, the Scott clan, pictured below at Caleb and Nicole Scotts wedding in 2008.

My wife, Lois, has generated and collected pithy one-liners for the past thirty-five years. These one-liners can cut through the froth to the heart of a topic with wisdom, common sense, and often with humor. They may give comfort to a hurting person or challenge a teenager as he or she struggles to deal with this world. I call these one-liners LOISisms .

With these gems she has guided and instructed three sons and eleven grandchildren, and she is now working on seven great-grandchildren. Friends and family have enjoyed and have been challenged by her kitchen bar stool ministry. Lois would echo the words of John, the Elder: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (3 John 1:4) Lois and I are richly blessed with a large and loving family, and they all have a strong faith in Jesus Christ. This is due in no small part to the faith and ministry of Lois, or, as the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. (2 Timothy 1:5)

Lois has the gift of compassion. She has an uncanny ability to know when someone needs an encouraging word or a good laugh. She ministers to family, friends, and those who have fallen on hard times. For twenty-five years, she has volunteered once a week at Loaves & Fishes in Ithaca, helping to serve a free meal to 125150 people who need a little help and a friendly smile or a hug. She is Grandmother to many of these needy people. Lois gave our collection of several years of Our Daily Bread , from which many of her gems came, to the library at the county jail so that the incarcerated also could be uplifted by these gems.

We hope these gems will give the reader a laugh or two. As the Christian comedian Ken Davis would say, Lighten up and live! If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, these gems may provide some food for thought as you live your life and raise your children. If you have not yet come to a saving relationship with the living Christ, Lois and I hope that some of these gems will challenge you to contemplate your relationship with Him, and hence your future beyond this limited time you have on this Earth.

Fred W. Scott

January 2010

In 1951, at the age of seventeen, I started my search for God. I frequently babysat for our dear neighbors, who were distant relatives, farm folk, hard-working, and salt of the earth folks.

This dear couple had two baby boys, and both had cystic fibrosis. Dickie died at the age of two and a half on the night of my high school junior prom. I had been with him and his younger brother just the night before. I realized his suffering was over and felt in my heart that he was in more competent hands.

However, I asked myself over and over, OK, God, why? If there is indeed a Godwhere are you?

Dickies brother lived for eighteen years, both in and out of hospitals. God was indeed merciful to these parents, for He gave them two more sons, strong and healthy boys.

My years from age sixteen (1950) to thirty-nine (1973) were exciting and happy years filled with high school, college, jobs, marriage, and family. Nothing earthshakingnormal, I would say, except for one problem. I truly had a God-shaped vacuum in my heart and knew something was lacking in my life.

My parents never went to the local church in town, but they let me go with the neighbors, my future husband Freds mom and dad. We learned Bible stories in Sunday school, but I cant honestly recall any lessons about salvation. To me, being a Christian meant you werent a Jew, so I was a Christian. As a family, though, we lived by the Golden Rule.

Coming from a dairy farm where we used Belgian draft horses to do the work, I learned at an early age to swear. I got the impression that swearing made them step lively, and swear I did until 1973, when this blaspheming just vanished.

My search intensified, and a certain group, popular in the Ithaca area, showed me a way of life that seemed exemplary. I felt compelled and drawn to listen and consider, but made no commitment. Thank God.

In 1973 the mother of a friend of our son Duane sensed this search in my life, and we went through the four spiritual laws together from a booklet printed by Campus Crusade for Christ International, entitled How to Know God Personally .

1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
2. All of us sin, and our sin has separated us from God.
3. Jesus Christ is Gods only provision for our sin. Through Him we can know and experience Gods love and plan for our life.
4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience Gods love and plan for our lives.

Here comes the hang-up. I made no commitment on the spot because of my pride and the shock of discovering I wasnt a Christian. Instead I went home to ponder. Everyone has questions for God, and mine were the apple pie typenothing new or different.

OK, God, what is it you want from me? My husband? One of my children? I opened my Bible down the middle, and guess what I saw? Psalm 127. This Psalm says: Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. He spoke to me through this simple but powerful Scripture, and what He said was plain as day. Well, bless your soul, Mrs. Scott, you know you cant make a blade of grass, so lets get on with it.

OK, God, You win. I prayed the prayer suggested in the Campus Crusade booklet: Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

No lightning or thunder occurred, but I knew I was different. Being normal, I wanted all my family members to be children of Godright nowor yesterday! However, I did not know how to share my newfound faith and freedom, and I discovered what it was like to be persecuted in my own home. That was a shock.