Flashback Friday: Secret Love

 

This first Friday of the month of April marks the birthday of Doris von Kappeloff,
(1922-2019) better known to the world as the legendary singer/actress Doris Day.

Image courtesy/Movies! TV Network

  In 1953, Doris starred in the title role of the western-musical film, "Calamity Jane"
 during which she sang the beautiful romance ballad, "Secret Love".

When Doris first heard this song after its co-writer Sammy Fain visited her home,
she recalled her reaction as, "I just about fell apart." She knew she had to record this song.
  Later, when she recorded the song for Warner Brothers studios in August, 1953 musical
   director Ray Heindorf told her after her first recording session with the orchestra,
"That's it. You're never going to do it better."

"Secret Love" was released as a single record on October 9, 1953 by Columbia Records
 just three weeks before the premiere of "Calamity Jane".  The song was among
the Top 20 best-selling singles (reaching Number 17) on the Billboard chart in
January, 1954, and reached the Number 1 spot the following month.

"Secret Love" was also nominated for Best Song at the 26th Academy Awards in
March, 1954.  In 1999, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Doris Day's signature song brings back happy childhood memories of my mother singing
"Secret Love" as we drove along in the car on one of our summer weekend family
 drives, which usually included a stop at the local frozen custard stand 
 on the way home.  Those were the days!

Secret Love

(1953)

Doris Day

Friday Focus: Conflicting Feelings

 

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful;
He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted,
He will also provide an escape, so that you can stand up under it."
(1 Corinthians 10:13)

Temptation By The Devil

(1865)

Gustave Dore

(1832-1883)

French illustrator and etcher

Image courtesy/Art and the Bible

Strange and mysterious is my life.

What opposites I feel within!

A stable peace, a constant strife;

The rule of grace, the power of sin:

Too often I am captive led,

Yet daily triumph in my Head.

I prize the privilege of prayer,

But oh! what backwardness to pray!

Though on the Lord I cast my care,

I feel its burden every day;

I seek His will in all I do,

Yet find my own is working too.

I call the promises my own,

And prize them more than mines of gold;

Yet though their sweetness I have known,

One hour upon the truth I feed,

The next I know not what I read.

I love the holy day of rest,

When Jesus meets His gathered saints;

Sweet day, of all the week the best!

For its return my spirit pants:

Yet often, through my unbelief,

It proves a day of guilt and grief.

While on my Savior I rely,

I know my foes shall lose their aim,

And therefore dare their power defy,

Assured of conquest through His name,

But soon my confidence is slain,

And all my fears return again.

Thus different powers within me strive,

And grace and sin by turns prevail;

I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive,

And victory hangs in doubtful scale:

But Jesus has His promise passed,

That grace shall overcome at last.

"Conflicting Feelings"
Subtitled, "The Conflict Within"
(1779)
John Newton
(1725-1807)
English Anglican clergyman
and slavery abolitionist

Thursday's Thoughts: Look Mom! No Israel!

 

"The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will stir up His zeal like a man of war;
He will shout out, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail mightily against His enemies."
(Isaiah 42:13)

 Texas and New York classrooms feature maps of the Middle East with no Israel.

Image courtesy/Daily Mail

"With the shocking rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the city and around
the country it is imperative that our public schools accurately and fully teach our students
about the history and origins of the state of Israel," Congressman Daniel Goldman (D-NY)
recently told the New York Post concerning maps displayed in schools like the one
shown above which do not show or mention the nation of Israel.

Below is an excerpt from the book, "Rebuilding Palestine According To Prophecy"
by George T.B. Davis.   This book was written and published in 1935, thirteen years
 before the newly established nation of Israel rose from the ashes of WWII
and the Holocaust to take her place among the nations of the world.

"The answer to this is very simple.  Long ago, it was prophesied in the Word of God 
 that *(the region of land known as ) Palestine should be rebuilt and restored
 in the latter days, and God is fulfilling these predictions to the very letter.

What God has promised He  always performs.   Is it not a privilege to be
living in a generation when we can see the prophecies of the Bible
being fulfilled before our eyes day by day?

The writings of the Old Testament abound in prophecies regarding the latter-day
return of the Jews and the transformation of (the region of land known as) Palestine.
  More than 2,000 years ago, Isaiah gave a graphic picture of exactly what is
taking place in (the region of land known as) Palestine today.

In chapter 61, verse 4, we read: "And they shall build the old wastes, they
 shall raise up the waste cities, the desolations of many generations."  

Image courtesy/Iberlibro (ES)

If you are fortunate enough to find a copy of this fascinating book, you will see that
God's plan to bring His people back to their nation was already firmly established 
thousands of years ago!  A remarkable transformation was taking place in the
land prior to WWII. Jewish people from all over the world were returning there.

When the war started, however,  Jewish immigration to the land
 God gave to them was abruptly cut off.

 Then, after the war was over, the Jewish people, many of them survivors
 of the Holocaust, were again denied the right to live in the land which God
 gave to them, mainly due to the pressure of world politics in the region, but
again, God remained faithful to His people, and in 1948, a re-established
Israel rose up to take her place among the nations of the world. It was the
 greatest fulfillment of biblical prophecy since the first advent of Messiah.

  Now, as it was then, no misinformation on a map, or anti-Israel rhetoric
 is going to stop God from fulfilling His plan and purposes for His people.
Those who have chosen to stand against Him by attacking Israel will one day
be very sorry. In fact, they will wish that they had never been born.

"Behold He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber or sleep." (Psalm 122:4)

Please pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and the Salvation of Israel.  Maranatha!

* Emphasis mine.  There has never been a nation of Palestine.

American History Moment: The Pony Express/ " Orphans Preferred"

 

Once upon a time...in the days when much of America 

was still a vast, unsettled  wilderness...

A Pony Express Recruiting Poster
Image courtesy/Amazon.com

On this day in 1860, the first westbound Pony Express trip left St. Joseph, Missouri and
arrived 10 days later in Sacramento, California on April 14th.  The letters delivered had been
sent undercover from the East to St. Joseph and never directly entered the U.S. Mail System.
Only one single letter from that first batch of westbound mail to California
 is known to exist today.

Unfortunately, the Pony Express was not a financial success and went bankrupt
 in 18th months when a faster telegraph service was established.  

Nevertheless, this short-lived endeavor of transcontinental communications
 proved that delivery of the mail could be established and operate year-round.  

 Although later romanticized in dime store novels and through radio, television
  shows, and movies, the Pony Express remains a symbol of the gritty, self-reliant,
and courageous pioneer spirit of the men and women who set out to conquer
and tame the wilderness in the days of America's frontier past.

The Pony Express

(1912)

 Newell Convers "N.C." Wyeth
(1882-1945)

American illustrator and painter

Wednesday's Word: El Roi/ The God Who Sees Me

 

"And the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness,
and He said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where
will you go?"  And Hagar answered, "I flee from the face of my mistress,
Sarai."  And the Angel told her, "Return to thy mistress and submit to her."
(Genesis 16)

Hagar

Andrew Geddes

1783-1844)
Scottish portrait painter

National Galleries of Scotland 

The Egyptian slave girl Hagar had angered her mistress Sarai and fled from
Abraham's camp. She was now wandering alone in the wilderness.  According to
Matthew Henry's commentary, "Hagar was out of her place, and out of the
way of her duty, and going further astray, when the Angel found her. It is a great
 mercy to be stopped in a sinful way, either by conscience or by providence."

When the Lord asked Hagar, "Where did you come from?"  He was referring 
 to the privileges she had been blessed with in Abraham's tent as his second wife.
Although Hagar had not seen it this way, and her pride had been the cause of her 
  barren mistress' anger, she had left her husband and the security of his camp.

  More importantly, she had left the place where worship of the one true God
 was a daily practice and where the Lord Himself dwelt with His people.

"Where will you go?" the Lord asked Hagar.   Not only could she run into
danger traveling through the wilderness alone, but, if she managed to return 
 to Egypt, she would be retuning to the worship of the idols in that land. 

Henry's commentary attests, "Hagar could not but admire the Lord's mercy and feel,
"Have I, who am so unworthy, been favored with a gracious visit from the Lord?"

And she called the name of the Lord Who spoke to her, "El Roi" (The God who sees me).

Hagar also realized that God had not forsaken her and that He loved her and the child 
 she was carrying within her womb.  Although His covenant would be with Isaac,
God blessed the fruit of Hagar's womb, saying "I will multiply thy seed exceedingly,
that it shall not be numbered for multitude." (Genesis 16:10).

Hagar obeyed the Lord's command to return to Abraham's camp and humbly
submitted to her mistress.   She brought forth a son and called him Ishmael,
which means, "God hears."

Traditionally, he is seen as the ancestor of the Arab nations.

Forgotten History: The Camp Lejeune Cover-up: They Poisoned Our Own

 

Host Colin Heaton reports how U.S. Marines, their families, and civilian workers
unknowingly drank and bathed in water contaminated with toxic chemicals - while
the government knew and did nothing. Learn the shocking truth behind the Camp
Lejeune contamination scandal,  the cover-up that followed, and the devastating
health consequences that has affected thousands of people for decades.

The Camp Lejeune Cover-Up

FORGOTTEN HISTORY

(April 2, 2025)

The Right Way To Start The Day

 

"Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.  For He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence."
(Ephesians 1:3-4)

Turning From Wickedness

Jan Markel

(April 1, 2025)