Rev. 14:9 SHE LOVED THAT READING

"And the third angel followed them," (Rev. 14:9)

This has nothing to do with John's original message in Revelation, just the words in the verse... It's just that when I saw "THIRD ANGEL," I couldn't help but think about the 3rd "J" of the Oshiro girls. No, she is not an angel -- she herself would not claim to be one either -- but I do so thank God for the two sisters He has given me.

And during family devotions...I must take a detour here.

Some may think it only natural that we would have regular worship time. After all, being a missionary family, we were in full-time service, and that is to be expected of people that love God, right? Well...

How we struggled. When we were little, it was easier. But when we got into junior-senior high, everybody was always moving at different speeds and had different places to go. It was so hard to get all five of us together in one place to stop and read the Bible and pray.

But I really think it's true: THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER. I think with clashing of imperfect personalities, sinful created beings, some who have terrible communication skills, there are bound to be problems unsolvable by talk alone! But when family members know they all love the same Lord Jesus -- they have family worship together so know -- that pulls them through SO MUCH!

At any rate, we tried this and that, all sorts of things, to make it work. And I can say especially as teenagers, it was so important to see our parents' faith was real to them; it wasn't just the work they did. I know personal, vital relationship with the God of the Universe is one of the RICHEST things my parents have given me, and I think much of it was passed on during the sharing sessions we had in family devotions.

To parents EVERYWHERE: as patch-patch as your family devotions may be, or as terrible as your communication skills may be, or as it may feel like you don't know what you're doing as you hop around trying one approach and then another : KEEP TRYING! EVEN IF YOU MANAGE ONLY A DOZEN TIMES BEFORE THEY LEAVE HOME -- IT IS SO WORTH IT! GOD CAN WORK MIGHTILY WITH THAT DOZEN TIMES! PRAY HARD, AND HE WILL! (Oh yes. And do pray for your missionary families, that the parents will not be discouraged from bringing up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, even when it's hard to have family worship during teen years!)

I was distracted again. In our family devotions, One part was scripture recitation where my mom would type out long scripture passages onto booklets, having different readers assigned different parts.  Sometimes we read in unison, and other times we divided up individually. It was handy that there were 3 sisters in the family, because whenever scripture mentioned 3 different things, my mom had individual names typed to read those lines.

I Cor. 13, for example. When we got to "And now abideth," the whole family recited it in unison. But after that, we divided up individually. Joyce (the 1st angel?) read "faith," I (the 2nd angel?) read "hope," and my sister Janice (the third angel?), read "love." My parents would say, "these three," and we'd all say in unison, "BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE."

Janice was all smiles. She just loved that I Cor. 13 reading!