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    A Word from “Brother” Jeanne
    A Word from “Brother” Jeanne
    A Word from “Brother” Jeanne
    Ebook143 pages1 hour

    A Word from “Brother” Jeanne

    By Jeanne Webb Davis

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    About this ebook

    The word that Brother Jeanne brings is simple, sometimes humorous, and very insightful. These autobiographical essays started as a column for a church newspaper. The column was well received, with many looking forward to seeing what Brother Jeanne would say next.

    Some of the issues Jeanne addresses are:

    How do you find hope for joy and peace when the world around you is so chaotic? How can you live with Gods presence filling your life in this dark, depressing world? How can you trust that God is real, when skeptics are everywhere? How can the church make any real difference in the world? How can a Christian always act with love and kindness in the midst of meanness? How does Gods grace touch our lives? How do we find time for God when we are so busy?

    With humor and a very mature wisdom Jeanne attempts to answer these questions in her essays. She also employs preacher stories from her husband, David Davis, and her father, Lance Webb.

    You can find hope in this straightforward read. You can be touched and engaged and even entertained as you see the word that Brother Jeanne has to say!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInspiring Voices
    Release dateOct 24, 2013
    ISBN9781462407569
    A Word from “Brother” Jeanne
    Author

    Jeanne Webb Davis

    Jeanne Davis has been a musician for over fifty years, teaching, playing the organ and directing choirs. At the age of fifty-five, she became a Methodist minister in Dallas, Texas. She found her voice in the pulpit as a preacher. She is a widow with two adult children, a grandchild, and a great-grandchild.

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      Book preview

      A Word from “Brother” Jeanne - Jeanne Webb Davis

      Copyright © 2013 Jeanne Webb Davis.

      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 publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      Inspiring Voices

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.inspiringvoices.com

      1 (866) 697-5313

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0757-6 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0756-9 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917335

      Inspiring Voices rev. date: 10/15/2013

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      1. An Introductory Word

      *It’s All About Hope*

      *Brother Jeanne?*

      2. Life in the Church

      *Preacher Stories*

      ~~ David and the Nursing Baby

      ~~ Jeanne and the Infatuated Sheep Lady

      *Wistfully Searching for Saints*

      3. God and our Grief

      *A Gift of Grace*

      4. Intersecting with God through the Church

      *The Heart of a Church*

      *Being God’s Child*

      *A Family of Faith*

      *. . . Better Things To Do*

      5. Filled Up Lives

      *Busy! Busy! Busy!*

      *At Rest In Action*

      *Perspective on the Moments of Life*

      *Leaping For Joy*

      6. The Presentness of God

      *Magic Moments*

      *God Was Present Anyway*

      *Intentionality*

      *Praise and Thanksgiving*

      *It’s No Accident*

      7. Those Consequences!

      *Then What?*

      8. Oh No! More Change?

      *Facing the Future With www.whatintheworld.org.*

      9. Love and Grace

      *The Call To Love

      *Loving the Unlovely*

      *The Haughty Black Knife of Anger*

      *Please! Out-love My Cat*

      *Perfected by Grace*

      *There’s no Grace in Computer Solitaire*

      10. Half-Way Christians and Apostles

      ~~ The Apostle Paul

      ~~ The Apostle Sonny

      ~~ Apostles You and Me?

      11. Words for the Various Seasons

      ~ ADVENT ~

      *Thanksgiving Explosions*

      *Running From the Darkness*

      *Abundant Life*

      ~ CHRISTMAS ~

      *The Important Stuff*

      *Unslicking Our Sophistication*

      ~ THE NEW YEAR ~

      *Our Adventurous Future*

      *A New Year’s Fog*

      ~ WINTER AND LENT ~

      *Waiting Out the Bad Stuff*

      *Good Morning Day*

      *Disasters and the Fragility of Life*

      *Jesus Is In the Boat!*

      *The Children*

      *One Child Who Beat the Odds*

      *Reality Check!"

      ~ EASTER ~

      *Upside Down and Inside Out!*

      *A Noisy Angel On My Shoulder*

      ~ MOTHER’S DAY ~

      *God Our Mother*

      ~ PENTECOST ~

      *Oh Yes, Lord! Make Us New!*

      ~ THE FOURTH OF JULY ~

      *Jury Duty*

      ~ SUMMER ~

      *Air-Conditioning Our Dog-Days*

      12. My Invisible Trail

      13. How Do We Know?

      This book is dedicated to my only grandchild and my great-grandchild

      Shannon Kitchens Fagan and Cara Fagan

      As you grow older may you find the hope and joy that God’s Grace can always provide.

      1

      An Introductory Word

      *It’s All About Hope*

      Experiences—Feelings—the stuff of life!

      Observations—Opinions—Beliefs—the way we make sense of life.

      Happiness—Hilarity! Sadness—Despair! Wonder and Joy!—the end products of our living.

      The following little essays or commentaries are about the facets of life that I have described above. I must admit that they are quite personal since they are my very own observations, opinions, and beliefs about some of my own experiences and feelings. They often reveal my slant as a woman pastor in the United Methodist Church—one whose husband, father and grandfathers were also Methodist preachers! Occasionally the essays lead to hilarity and sometimes they mirror sadness. To some they have served as thought provoking words.

      I am emboldened to share my stuff with you because of the encouragement I have received from members and friends of Lakewood United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. In 1996 I started writing a weekly column for their church newspaper. I was serving as a part-time associate pastor there while trying to overcome my chronic health problems that were keeping me from a full-time pastorate. Many of these essays are from my column which also was entitled A Word From Brother Jeanne. (More about the Brother Jeanne business later!)

      I’m no spring chicken—having been born in the third decade of the 20th century. I’ve had my share of joys, and accomplishments, tragedies and despair. But, the most important fact of my life is that I have discovered hope where none seemed to be. This was no personal achievement. It was a gift—as I have been led and guided and inspired by the Spirit of Jesus Christ—that has been made known to me through the lives of my parents, through the life of my church, and most profoundly through my study of the Scriptures.

      Hope is a very good and necessary thing, but sometimes it is hard to come by! At one point in my life, when hopelessness was pulling me under, I took up the Psalms several times a day and began praying my way through them. I posted my most needed verses all over my house and car, in my purse and even in the music room at the school where I was teaching. Here are some of the words that spoke so dramatically to me and brought about my hopeful transformation during those hard days:

      "Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;

             my eyes grow weak with sorrow,

             my soul and my body with grief . . .

      I have become like broken pottery . . .

             My times are in your hands."

      (from Psalm 31, NIV)

      "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;

             in you I trust, O my God . . .

      No one whose hope is in you

             will ever be put to shame . . .

      Show me your ways, O Lord,

             teach me your paths;

      guide me in your truth and teach me,

             for you are God my Savior,

             and my hope is in you all day long."

      (from Psalm 25, NIV)

      "We wait in hope for the Lord . . .

             In him our hearts rejoice . . .

      May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,

             even as we put our hope in you."

      (from Psalm 33, NIV)

      I feel a great debt to the many scriptures and the many people who have spoken to my needs throughout all these years of my life. As I continue to learn about God’s gracious love, I know that I want to share what I have learned with as many people as possible. Telling stories about incidents in my life becomes my platform for sharing. Maybe some of the stories will even make you laugh.

      Come on in and see what Brother Jeanne has to say!

      *      *      *

      *Brother Jeanne?*

      As a young teenager I knew that God was calling me to be a preaching minister, but it was in the 1940’s and that seemed a ridiculous idea for a girl. Since I had musical ability, I decided that being a Minister of Music would be a good compromise. Forty years later—after two music degrees, working as an organist, choir director, soloist, public school music teacher, AND minister’s wife—I knew the compromise really wasn’t working!

      As I reached my 55th year, my preacher husband, Dave, was the one to recognize first that I simply had to go back to God’s original call. It was going to be expensive and complicated, but finally I took him up on his challenge to me to go to seminary and join him as a clergy person.

      During my first semester at Perkins School of Theology, he delighted in kidding me about becoming Brother Jeanne! He had always discouraged his various congregations from calling him Brother Dave, so it was extra funny for him to be calling me Brother Jeanne. He even admitted that his extra incentive for getting his doctorate in ministry was so that

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