Today we are celebrating our sister Linda who arrived in heaven yesterday and found the answer to her lifelong prayer, “Be Thou My Vision.” We’re certain our Savior gathered her into his loving embrace and invited her to work and play in His Gardens of Glory.
Her artistic insights help us to see…
Linda’s amazing skill as an artist drew on the vitality and beauty of every part of God’s creation, but then went on to add her own soulful, unique interpretation as a Chief Steward of Creation. Perhaps one of the most glorious examples of this in our memory is a Cross Mosaic created out of broken pieces of pottery and glass for the family of New Hope Church.
We had been invited to pick out a piece of beautiful glassware or pottery we wished to represent our lives. Then we were asked to break those pieces to show how our lives have been broken in this sinful world. As we watched that pile of brokenness grow, we wondered what was to be done with it.
At that point two leading men of the church, Michael Stubblefield and Linda’s husband John, brought in two large rough timbers and laid them on the floor of the church – in the shape of a cross. Our “brokenness” was poured out on that cross to represent what happened to Jesus Himself when He died for us and opened the doorway to God’s redemption of our lives. Afterward, Linda graciously took the timbers and the broken pieces of glass and pottery and promised to create something that would represent how we find life in the death of Christ.
What she came up with is stunning!
The artwork she produced with the help for husband John is a beautiful mosaic in which every life that had been broken was somehow represented. The mosaic is on plexiglass with a light behind it, showing that God’s light can take the brokenness of our lives and shine His light through it and make it beautiful. In between the broken pieces she included bead work with the words of the scriptures that speak of Christ’s love for us – how woven into every part of our broken lives there is an amazing, beautifully good purpose created out of everything he allows to happen as we follow him.
Linda’s inquiring mind helps us to never be satisfied with simplistic answers…
Linda might have been a philosopher ─ a philosopher who found color in a black and white world and couldn’t help but wonder how it got there. As teachers of God’s word, we were stretched time and time again to think beyond the clichés of the Christian world by her thirst for clarity and understanding.
She would ask difficult questions and keep asking those questions until we had exhausted our searching and finally had to rest in mere glimpses into the glories God was seeking to share with us.
It was not uncommon for us to be studying to preach or teach and ask the question of what we were preparing, “Would this make sense to Linda?” We still wonder as we teach, “What question will Linda ask of what we have to say?” 0h, for more like her that push us to search for the truth in everything! Oh, for more like Linda who invite us to live unafraid of questions.
Linda’s kind and generous heart is a guiding light for our journey…
When there was a problem, a need, or even just a task to accomplish, Linda was first in line to help. She helped paint several rooms in our house, even though she felt pain as she worked. Our dining room table often held sewing projects where she helped work out patterns as well as helping with the final results. Our front yard contains rocks she painted, intricate rock animals peeking out from under our porch.
The people of our church benefited from her green thumb as she shared her plants and extra produce. She read of the First Fruits offerings in the Old Testament and faithfully dropped off the first of the harvest of her garden and orchard at our home each year. She spent countless hours setting up for special events at church, for sharing her beautiful yard for a women’s tea or entertaining friends.
But one of the things Linda excelled at most of all was prayer. She knew how to hold people up before God and ask Him to step into their lives with His power and strength. It was so inspiring to pray with her, for as she poured her heart out to the God she loved, she drew those who heard her closer to God’s throne as well.
How she loved her family and how she enjoyed her grandchildren! Julia was privileged to be part of outings for tea parties or shopping trips to Eugene with she and her granddaughters. She was always thinking of ways to influence them toward Jesus and encourage them in using their gifts and talents in creative ways.
Linda was one of those unsung heroes of the faith, a person who loved God and lived out their faith without hypocrisy or pride. She was one of the most real people we’ve ever known.
With all our love and many prayers,
Dave and Julia Ewert | March 2, 2019
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BE THOU MY VISION (Slane)
“Be Thou my vision / O Lord of my heart / Naught be all else to me / Save that Thou art / Thou my best thought / By day or by night / Waking or sleeping / Thy presence my light
“Be Thou my wisdom / Be Thou my true Word / I ever with Thee / And Thou with me Lord / Thou my great Father / I Thy true son / Thou in me dwelling / And I with Thee one
“Be Thou my shield / And my sword for the fight / Be Thou my dignity / Be Thou my might / Thou my soul’s shelter / And Thou my high tow’r / Raise Thou me heav’nward / O pow’r of my pow’r
“Riches I heed not / Nor man’s empty praise / Thou mine inheritance / Now and always / Thou and Thou only / Be first in my heart / High King of heaven / My treasure Thou art
“High King of heaven / When vict’ry is won / May I reach heaven’s joys / O bright heaven’s Sun / Heart of my own heart / Whatever befall / Still be my vision / O Ruler of all”
Eleanor Henrietta Hull | Mary Elizabeth Byrne © Public Domain
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Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:25-26 NASB
It’s at those times when the Caleb’s victory at 80 years of age is truly inspiring. Joshua 14:14 says that he was given Hebron in the hill country of the Promised Land because “he followed the LORD God of Israel fully.” What inspires me is that he was 80 years old when he led the conquest of God’s spiritual enemies – fighting uphill! Any soldier knows that’s not easy. Any old soldier thinks that’s just crazy!
O Lord, as I and the other gray hairs enter the spiritual battles before us today, we pray with the Psalmist that You will “Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless.” We remember that WITH You “we will gain the victory,” and that YOU “will trample down our enemies.” (Psalm 60:11-12)
We’ve had Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Now it’s time for Forgiveness Eve.
Forgiveness is a dynamic way of life that takes us ever closer to bearing the image of Christ with love and transparency to all those He brings into our circle. It is not a 7-steps-and-we’re-done kind of deal.
I’m leaning on your prayers this Forgiveness Eve.
Thank you, Lord!
This assignment is one of the most difficult of my life and I beg for your prayers.
Your brother,
Should’ves & could’ves have threatened my heart world again lately. I know they are the language of regret. I know they are in the background of grief over losses. I know the pictures they present to my mind appear so brilliant because they act on after-the-fact information. But I also know they are dangerous to soul health and can be used by our spiritual enemy to steal away joy, crush hope, and hinder faith.
The snowfall last night and into this morning left a foot of heavy, wet snow. After an hour of shoveling a walk to our cars, the weakness in my back and legs showed up big time and I had to come in and head for the Ibuprofen bottle. Grief over lost ability to work threatened to undue my snow-cheered attitude and once again I had to put the remembrance of youthful vigor in proper perspective – with God’s help. And now, after coming back in and resting, making breakfast for Julia and me, and doing the dishes, I think I’m ready to return.
My neighbor just showed up with his snow blower. Yeah John!
How thankful I am that though we may be a broken people, God is faithful.
But as He stands there, objects to life as it tends to go on and on in this sinful world, He is not just standing there like a brick wall. No, God is standing there with His arms open wide to us, saying, “I want to help you through this, I want to redeem you, I want to rescue you. I want to set you apart from all of this. I want to raise you up and some day take you completely out of all that junk. So God as this great OBJECTION to the sin and brokenness of our lives is also the great REFUGE and HOPE. And in His faithfulness we find all that we need in order to be whole people.
A few days ago, David and I were talking about our life as it is now, and David commented that this the very best time of his life. I agreed. We have lived very busy lives, David studying for his master’s degree, starting a church, working at pastoring for forty years with all the meetings, counseling, studying for sermons and teaching and me working at a variety of jobs, raising a daughter, maintaining a home that was built around hospitality, and teaching.
You hear stories of couples who, when they retire, can hardly stand each other for they are always in each other’s way. We are so not like that. Our lives have been so busy that we could go days without seeing each other for more than a meal or two a day and then falling exhausted into bed at night. The rest of the time we just tried to squeeze each other into our busyness. We longed for more time together being just “us.” Now we have it and we are loving it!
But God knew and He planned the very best for us and gave it to us wrapped up in a big bow!
Julia Ewert
I I had to chuckle at the moment for it brought a powerful truth to mind that has many times given me courage to try again, to keep imagining the possibilities and not give up on God’s promises:
EVERY season is needed to make the most brilliant colors – the most of what God has given to this life we live. And with those subtle seasonal changes come the diversity of colors that cheer the soul.
Recently my sometimes self-declared identity as a recovering pessimist is finding new energy – in the recovery process. The help, coming from Relational Wisdom 360 (
Toward a new understanding of joy
When I pray today against whatever thief would steal away my joy, kill off my hope, and destroy my faith, I remember that it’s not only a feeling of exhilaration or passionate, fierce determination the enemy would take from me, but a season of life being filled also with mellowness, tenderness, contentment, glad moments, cheerful smiles, good deeds, relief from stress, and satisfaction in a small job done.