Lori's Rambling

This evening as I process the news of the sudden death of one of my college professors, my mind is swirling with memories. I first met Dr. Fairman in a new student orientation class in January 1994 when I transferred into Lancaster Bible College.  There were only about 8-10 students in that class and he made that class fun.  Dr. Fairman had such a terrific sense of humor and a great laugh, one that I still hear in my mind whenever I think of him.  Later on I had him for Bible classes as well.  Dr. Fairman was more than “just” one of my professors.  Because my job in college was in the Registrar’s office, which was in the same area as the Academic Dean and all the professors’ offices, I had an opportunity to know Dr. Fairman other than as a student in his classes.  I spent a lot of time hanging out in his office before or after work just talking.  Dr. Fairman was interested in really knowing people.  He didn’t settle for just the superficial, he wanted to know how you thought, what your

August 10, 2012  — A date that will forever be etched in my memory.  A date that was the most live altering day of my life so far.  In the past nine years, we have learned to live without Scott’s physical presence in our lives, although it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done.  Something that if someone had told me beforehand was going to happen, I would have said I/we could not handle.  I have heard that God doesn’t send you anything that you can’t handle.  I would disagree with that — God doesn’t send anything that HE can’t handle.  It is only by the grace and strength of God that we have not only made it through the past nine years, but, dare I say, thrived.  That is not to deny the rough patches and how hard it truly was, but when I look at Jaelyn all I can do is thank God that He brought us BOTH through so far with grace and strength.  This past year I think has been one of the hardest of the nine and I know there will be more rough ones to come.  This past year has

Today was the 8th annual Scott Bradley Adventurous Life scholarship presentation.  Last year I was not able to be there for the presentation due to changes as a result of COVID.  Unfortunately I was not able to be there for the presentation this year due to another commitment.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to write some thoughts that were shared during the presentation.  I am including those thoughts below, but the above lifestream from our church has the scholarship presentation starting around the 40:28 mark. Congratulations to Emma Hasting! “Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?’” Esther 4:13-14 (NASB) Every year as the time approaches for the presentation of thi

As I sit here thinking back on 2020 during the last few hours of the year, there are lots of things that come to mind.  Clearly this has been an unusual year to say the least with lots of uncertainties and huge national and world changes.  A lot of things seem to be a holding pattern pending control of COVID and a return to normalcy.  Yet when I look back I see a lot of growth and positives things coming out of this year.  Challenges have a way of forcing us to grow and change our way of thinking.   We added Piper to our family in May.  I had been telling Jaelyn for a couple of years that we weren’t getting another dog and if/when we did, I wanted one that didn’t shed as much as Trip and was a fairly quiet low-key dog.  But in the midst of quarantine and seeing the effects of this on Jaelyn and myself, those thoughts began to change.  When I saw Piper’s picture and information on a rescue site, I scrolled past and kept coming back to her picture.  Jaelyn likes to remind me that Piper

8 years.  There are days that it seems like we have lived a lifetime since Scott died. . . .and there are days that it feels like just yesterday and I find myself reliving the moment I found out and reliving the phone calls to tell family and friends.  Reliving the planning of his funeral and figuring out how life was going to work without him in it.  All of it a blur and yet so crystal clear at the same time - parts I will never forget the details and other parts that I don’t remember the details but others do. Days where I remember feeling split in two over grieving the loss and trying to help Jaelyn in her grief as well.   Anniversaries take me back to those moments and raw emotions. I remember faces that stand out and words that stand out from those first days and months — a hug from someone who had walked the same path a few years before and no words were necessary, a friend simply handing me a tissue box and telling me it was okay to cry when I told her that I couldn’t stop cryin

This is the 7th annual presentation of the Scott Bradley Adventurous Life scholarship.  Normally this would be presented during our youth Sunday honoring our graduates.  As this year has been anything but normal, things have been done differently this year and the scholarship was presented at the Senior picnic on June 17th, 2020.  There were two winners this year:  Juliette Forry and Kyle Myer.  Congratulations to both of you! This is what I shared with the winners of this year's scholarship.   Normally I would have the chance to share with you and your fellow graduates face to face some of the thoughts laid on my heart by God.  But as you have already realized this year is anything but normal.  There are many memes, cartoons, and shirts floating out there declaring this class the Quarantine class.  And certainly the way this year has gone will affect the way you see and think about things for years to come.   But my hope for you is that you do not take that as your identity or h