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Nancy Parker Brummett

Nancy Parker Brummett

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Take My Hand Again

The Love Passage

February 14, 2023 by Nancy 8 Comments

Of all the places in the Bible that talk about love, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians is known as the “love passage.” In it, Paul describes love as patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not proud, rude, self-seeking or easily angered. He says love keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Moreover love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Paul was writing to believers in Corinth, but the Word is speaking to us about loving in this way today.

Young couples getting married often choose this passage to be read at their weddings—even those who may not have studied the Bible at all—just because they know the content is appropriate for the occasion. We should pray they will go back and read it again, paying close attention to Paul’s instruction, so his description of love can become the basis for a long-lasting marriage.

Yet who of us can live up to Paul’s standard of loving, as described in this passage? Truly no one can unless he or she first draws from the unending source of God’s love, unless the Holy Spirit supplies all the love needed for any and every situation.

Once we understand the nature of God’s love, we will understand how calling on His love to fill us up will make it so much easier to love others, even seniors we know who may be having a bad day. God’s love is unconditional, meaning there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less and nothing we can do to make Him love us more. God demonstrated His love for us by sending Christ to die for our sins so we may dwell with Him forever.

God’s love is trustworthy. It will never fail us. God will never say, “I can’t help you love that difficult person, you’re on your own.” Rather He will say, once we ask Him for help, “Sure, take some of My love, and give it generously.”

1 Corinthians 13 ends with verse 13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. What a sad world this would be without love. Let’s celebrate it on Valentine’s Day and every day, and praise God for giving it to us in abundance.

 

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: 1 Corinthians 13, God's Love, love, Salvation, Valentine's Day

Find Your Friends

July 21, 2022 by Nancy 21 Comments

A needlepoint sampler I inherited was stitched by a great aunt in 1933 and reads, “To a friend’s house the road is never long.” The road my husband and I took from Colorado Springs, CO, to Montrose, CO, to see my friend Betty is 230.9 miles long, the estimated time extended by construction delays in the Black Canyon. It felt long that day. So when we pulled into Betty’s driveway and saw her pretty home with the hanging flower basket and manicured yard, I breathed a sigh of relief. When we stepped inside to be greeted by Betty sitting in her favorite recliner, the road no longer seemed long at all.

Elizabeth Van Liere (Betty) and I met many years ago at a writer’s conference although neither of us can remember exactly which one. We just remember that we immediately “clicked,” having our love for writing and our love for the Lord in common. She published her first book, Dare to Live, Devotions for Those Over the Hill, Not Under It!, in 2011 at the age of 87. Her second book, Dare to Laugh, Devotions for Those Full of Years, was released four years later.

Available through Iron Stream Media or Amazon.com.

Yet Betty had been writing and publishing articles, poems, children’s stories and devotions in periodicals for at least 60 years before venturing into book publishing. “The first little story I wrote was about a rooster,” Betty recalls, “and I sold it to Jack and Jill Magazine.”

I knew Betty to be a faithful attender of writer’s conferences, but when I asked her if she’d ever had any formal education to prepare her for her life as a writer she quipped, “No. I was born smart.” Clearly, that’s true. God also gave her the gift of laughter making her a delight to be around. Her witticisms have often appeared in the comments she consistently adds to my blog posts, and she’s encouraged me in my writing time and again. Recently she shared news of my new book, The Hope of Glory, Volume Two, with ladies at her church.

When I told Betty that we wanted to stop in to see her and gave her the date she said, “OK, I’ll try to hang on.” We’re so glad she did! It was a joy to just sit and visit about her life, learning things I never gleaned from the warm relationship we’ve developed over email and Facebook these many years. I learned she was born and raised in Holland, MI, and that she and her husband Chet visited Germany, lived in Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon, and wintered in Mexico for years before his death from cancer in 1991. Her family now consists of their four grown children, 10 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. She and her daughter Joanne share the home in Montrose.

While her husband pursued a career in the automotive industry, Betty often worked in high school libraries in towns where they lived, and I can’t imagine a better fit for her. When I asked her what’s next, she said, “I’m going to go up, that’s what!” pointing up to heaven. She will be 99 in November.

I recently read a book by Jennie Allen titled Find Your People. In it she encourages readers to experience the power of friendship as it was meant to be; to go out of their way to find and maintain friendships. I’m so glad I found Betty.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: aging, authors, Books, friends, Friendship

You’re Invited to a Book Signing!

April 18, 2022 by Nancy 5 Comments

(Colorado Springs and Denver friends, this is mostly for you! Hope you can stop by. I know you will enjoy meeting Lois. She turned 87 on Easter. This is her third book and she has two more in the works!)

Legend’s resident author Lois Johnson Rew and Bible study leader Nancy Parker Brummett invite you to join them at a Book Signing Event introducing their new book releases. Lois will be signing her historical fiction novel, The Carnelian Ring, and Nancy will be signing her devotional guide for older adults, The Hope of Glory, Volume Two. Both authors will have previously published titles available for purchase as well. (Cash or check only please.)

 

When: Saturday, April 23

Time: 1:30 to 3:30 PM

Where: In the Front Lobby of Legend Assisted Living

2368 Research Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80920

 

Refreshments will be served and we look forward to seeing you there!

 

Directions: You can’t turn in to Legend going up the hill on Research. The best way to come is to get off I-25 at Briargate Parkway, then go up the hill to Chapel Hills Drive and turn right. Go to Research and turn right. The first right turn off Research is Legend Assisted Living.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: Book Signing, Legend Assisted Living, The Carnelian Ring, The Hope of Glory

Vintage Volunteers

April 8, 2022 by Nancy 17 Comments

April is National Volunteer Month so I decided it was a good time to honor some volunteers I know.

Virginia scoots around in her wheelchair from table to table in the assisted living facility’s dining room. She volunteered to keep the holders for the sugar packets on each table refilled each day, and she takes her volunteer responsibilities seriously.

Lois comes to my The Hope of Glory class with her knitting in a tote. Each week she shows us the progress she’s making on the next cozy hat she’s knitting for a baby in the hospital. How grateful new parents must be to receive this handmade gift, and even if Lois never gets to see their delighted faces or see the hat on a tiny head, she keeps knitting. She also regularly reads to fellow residents with vision problems, including Joanne.

Joanne always assumed that she would spend her golden years tutoring students and reading to others, but macular degeneration derailed her plans. “I asked the Lord what He would have me do instead,” she explained to our group, “and He told me to pray for the younger generation because they need to be lifted up in prayer. So now that’s my volunteer assignment.”

And my friend Phyllis, 93, has volunteered at a thrift shop that supports community philanthropies for almost 30 years.

It’s a privilege to know older adults who still have the heart to volunteer at a time in their lives when they could so easily sit back and say, “Been there, done that. It’s someone else’s turn to volunteer now.” Rather than be complacent, they see a need and rise up to meet it. They say like Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8, “Here am I. Send me!” I call them vintage volunteers.

Passion. Commitment. Hope.

Recently I was asked to address a group of volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Colorado, and I identified what all volunteers need to succeed: passion, commitment, and hope.

Our passion may be whatever makes us extremely happy or extremely angry. Whatever consumes our thoughts and inspires us to sign up or write a check. Once we identify a passion for some cause, we are more likely to volunteer.

And every volunteer needs commitment. It’s commitment that makes us show up for our volunteer shift even when it would be easier to call and cancel. And it’s commitment that moves us to complete any task we see that needs doing, even if it’s not in our volunteer job description.

Without hope, we wouldn’t volunteer at all, would we? We volunteer our time and resources because we hope our involvement will make a difference. And we hope because we care.

If you have elders in your life with time on their hands, help them recall a passion that motivated them in the past. If possible, identify some task, however small, that they can do to feed that passion. Encourage them to be committed to this volunteer effort and instill them with hope that what they do will make a difference. Vintage volunteers have so much to offer, and volunteering in any way adds purpose to their days.

First published in Pikes Peak Senior News.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: commitment, Giving, Hope, knitting, Older Adults, passion, vintage, volunteers

To Love and Be Loved

February 11, 2022 by Nancy 17 Comments

This time of year there is a lot of emphasis on love in our society, but too often the focus is on romantic love and little thought is given to other types of love. The love of parent and child, of grandparent and grandchild, or of one friend for another are all incredible forces of love worth celebrating. We can show our love to the seniors in our lives by reminding them that love is both timeless and ageless.

Jesus was the perfect model of how we are to love, and He asked us to love ourselves, love others, and love God.

First, love ourselves. In Mark 12:31, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Yet because of messages they heard as a child, old wounds, failures, or even sin, older adults sometimes find it hard to love themselves. We need to remind them that we can all love ourselves because God first loved us. And He loves us unconditionally. He loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us so that we could dwell in His presence for eternity. He loves us enough to convict us of our sins and free us from even the guilt of them. He loves us enough to indwell us with the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us. He loves us enough to give us people to love and to be loved by, and a Creation to enjoy. He stuffs our shoeboxes with valentines!

(C) Voila

Second, we are to love others. In John 13:34, Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another.” Some people are easier to love than others. But we are even to love the unlovable. It may be unrealistic to believe that we will be able to love everyone we encounter unconditionally, but it is realistic to believe that we can consider choosing love as our first response in every situation. What a difference that would make in the daily lives of those in care facilities. Tell them it’s possible.

Finally, we are to love God. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He called this the first and greatest commandment. We love God when we worship Him and give Him praise. We love Him when we obey Him and trust Him with our past, present, and future. And we can do that at any age.

Let’s reach out to the seniors in our lives with the love that lasts—the kind of love worth celebrating today and every day. Happy Valentine’s Day!

First published in Pikes Peak Senior News, February/March 2021.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: God, Jesus, love, Seniors, Valentine's Day

Do Last Names Matter?

June 24, 2020 by Nancy 22 Comments

NametagsI’m on my third last name. I had the first two for twenty years each and this one has been my moniker for almost 32 years. Recently I began wondering at what point no one calls you by your last name any more anyway.

My mother-in-law was in a repeating cycle her doctor told us was common. She’d have a fall, go into the hospital, go to rehab, then go back home. Things would be fine for a while, but then the cycle would repeat—until the time she didn’t make it all the way back around and went to assisted living instead of home. This made for a lot of different hospital and rehab rooms.

Each room she inhabited would have a white board or a door plaque for the patient’s name. My mother-in-law’s name was Mary Frances Brummett. Not Mary. Not Frances. Mary Frances. Inevitably I would come into her room and see her name displayed as Mary. I would pull a pen from my purse or find the white board marker and add “Frances.”

Sometimes I’d be visiting when a caregiver came in with a chirpy, “How are we today, Mary?” One day I corrected one of these people and after she left the room Mary Frances said, “I’ve told them all but it doesn’t do any good.” Really? With all the other indignities she was suffering her last few years, why couldn’t she at least be called by her preferred first name?

And why were they calling her by her first name anyway? I’m old enough to remember when a married woman was no longer addressed by her first name. “The doctor will see you now, Mrs. Brummett,” was the way she would have been summoned in those days. Sales clerks in stores may have dared to address my mother as “Honey” or “Dear” if they’d known her for years, but if they wanted to make the sale they would also address her as Mrs. Parker, not Lois. Only those to whom she said, “Please, call me Lois,” would dare to do so.

When did everyone start calling older people by their first names? Was it some weird aberration of political correctness? Or did the HIPPA laws demand that we all become more anonymous and go only by our first names? I really don’t know, but I have to feel it contributes to older people feeling like they are not being given the respect they deserve.Stones

During this Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve only been able to piece together bits of information about the dear seniors who were in my Bible study at assisted living, a facility with a coronavirus outbreak, because HIPPA laws prevent the facility from telling me anything about their conditions. I’ve watched the obituaries faithfully, and yes, I’ve seen a couple of those dear souls listed. My consolation is that I know they went straight to heaven. I was never told their last names, and didn’t feel I should ask, so I’m left to identify them by their first names and photos.

Do last names matter? I suppose if you’re a descendant of the Rockefellers or a professional genealogist they do. Otherwise, I’ll add this to the list I’m accruing of lost cultural battles and just be happy to go by Nancy. I hate it when they mispronounce our last name as “Broomette” anyway. And the Bible says that when we get to heaven we’ll get a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it (Revelation 2:17). Wonder what mine will be? I hope I like it.

Filed Under: Take My Hand Again Tagged With: assisted living, Covid-19, HIPPA, Name, Older Adults, Respect, Seniors

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