Gary Chester- Helping men to win

Unhooked from Plastic

garychester.org 9/25/08    

I got hooked on plastic after graduation from college.  The plastic, and it's instant free money, seemed to grow on trees.  My wife and I ate of it freely for some months. 

 

I felt we deserved a payoff for having scrimped so much through the college days.  I had landed a TV newsman's job in Houston making enough so she didn't have to work and could stay right there in our rented apartment to focus on our infant daughter.  We were ready to outfit our little pad.

 

We scooped up new couches, bedroom furniture, accessories, and some pretty choice new threads for our selves. We were living high above the clouds.

 

Bills then started arriving with exorbitantly high interest rates.  It didn't take long for us to come down to earth.  I realized I didn't make enough to pay them off immediately.  This meant their outrageously high interest rates were about to plunge us into a black money hole. 

 

Reality rattled us. It gave us a wake up call.  We returned to scrimping like our ole college days. 

 

I started putting in over-time hours at the TV station in order to turn some extra coin.  It was back to more peanut butter, soups, and beans, along with a freeze on clothes, furniture, and entertainment expenditures (a bummer for two indulged adult kids).  But within about a half year, we were able to be debt free again except for a car payment. 

 

Ah! With the plastic paid off, a sigh of relief, and a good lesson on how debt can trigger unnecessary marital scraps.  At this point in my life, I had not yet experienced my own personal encounter with the living Christ, but despite this, I'm convinced he was looking out in advance for me any way (Jeremiah1:5).  Isn't it amazing how God loves us. 

 

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My 9/25/08 blog is a reprint from an earlier blog.

Bigger Boobs or More Inner Beauty

garychester.org 9/11/08

 

I've just re-read the responses to my 9/11/08 newsletter question, what would a Christian guy's reaction be to his wife who wants breast implants.  As I read them, I recalled this verse in the New Testament that to me hits home:

 

Don't be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes.  You should be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is so precious to God.  (1 Peter 3:3-4).

 

God's autobiography obviously is telling us the inner beauty of Christian wives trumps obsessions with outward beauty.  (By the way, non-Christian husbands will be won to Christ by their wife's inner beauty and love more than with their looks.)

 

To me, the part about inner beauty doesn't exclude hygiene, neatness, and grooming, but the fact is that true beauty really begins inside.

 

Ultimately, a boob job is a question to be decided by each individual couple.  Excluding any health or surgical risks involved, could such surgery be likened to the amount of make-up or jewelry a woman should wear (i.e. whether smaller or larger breasts desired)?  Or is it something much deeper?

 

To me, some gray area exists.  For instance, could the answer be different for a 32A woman as opposed to a 34B woman?  Is she doing it just because some girlfriends are egging her on?  Does she desire it because of a faulty conclusion that her sense of self worth is largely staked on augmented cleavage?  Is she obsessed with having the surgery regardless of her husband's viewpoint?

 

Another question: Is it really a woman's choice and not the husband's?  From a biblical standpoint, in the case of a Christian couple, there's no question both need to agree on the decision (Ephesians 5:21).

 

And eventual agreement will be assured upon perseverance in prayer together (Matthew 18:19-20).  Isn't it truly extraordinary how God favors a couple who prays regularly together.

Turbulence for Little Scotty

garychester.org  9/4/08

I wrote this blog months ago.  Since then, God has intervened in a truly miraculous way for the sake of this little one whom I love so much.

 

Six year old Scotty is heavy on my heart today.  I write with watered cheeks.  Your eyes also may be moistened right now thinking about a little helpless loved one in your family.

 

Scotty lives in a world of turbulence.  His Mother's in prison and his Dad's on probation.  This little guy's psyche is hanging in the balance.  He's been jostled among grandparents, aunts, uncles, step grandparents and step aunts/uncles - some with good and some with lousy influences.

 

The child hears conflicting messages on practically everything.  He hears anti-God talk from some, and about Jesus' love from others.  Some let him run wild and indulge him.  Others try in love to teach him right from wrong.

 

Scotty witnesses his Dad in bed with one woman and then another.  He also endures his Dad's bouts of depression, fits of anger, and associations with unsavory characters.

 

Because of the circumstances involved, my own hands are tied as to how I personally can contribute to Scotty's well being.  I feel like a player on the bench seeing his beloved team being trounced but can't do anything to save the day. I do what little I can when I can.

 

So, I rely on the Bible's assurances that God hears my pleas and cries, (just as He heard those of Jesus – Hebrews 5:7), for this little one.  This tyke is so tender in spirit and has captured my own heart.  I pray for God to rescue him somehow, someway and to protect his psyche.  I plead with God to supernaturally convey how much He loves him.

 

I know there are probably a billion kids on the planet living in adverse circumstances, many of which are worse than Scotty's.  Like Scotty, they are taking an emotional beating (and often even physical abuse) at a time when their young, tender and pliant psyches are being formed.  These young, moldable years will impact how they view themselves forever.  Many, unfortunately, will grow up seeing themselves as “throw-away” persons.

 

How we are reared early on, determines so much of our natural predispositions -- whether we're emotionally secure, anxious, afraid, angry, trusting, etc.  Yet so many adults have deluded themselves into thinking kids are resilient, able to always bounce back.

 

Stupidly, some adults think that the turbulence caused by the ones around little tykes doesn't affect them.  What foolish thoughts of denial.  They're just plain wrong - either ignorantly or unwilling to confront the facts.

 

Now for me personally, I need just to turn to God's immense promises in his Word for comfort.  I recall how He's come through with answers to my previous bombardments of heaven sent with watered cheeks and cries.