Introduction

This was Pastor Geiger’s introduction to his 1988 booklet “In a Word…”

Over the years certain character traits Alice and I were seeking to instill in our offspring were gradually distilled into memorable pithy sayings. Some came directly or indirectly from Scripture, others were borrowed, yet others just happened. They all found their way into the fabric of our home, guiding both parents and children. Several of them have been woven into the fabric of the church family as well.

For the past several Christmases these have come back to me as gifts from my family, exquisitely calligraphed by Sue Bohlin, calligrapher par excellence and friend. They have hung on my study wall these years as gently daily reminders to practice what I preach and to pray for those dearest me that these lessons learned in the bosom of the family be remembered and lived in their ever-expanding worlds. They also reminded me to pray for you our larger Reinhardt Family, also dear to us, with whom we have shared most of these truths.

With Alice’s strong encouragement and Sue’s beautiful art work, we have prepared for you, our Reinhardt Family, these “Geigerisms” (as Sue calls them) as a token of our love for you and of our deep appreciation for all you mean to us and have taught us these seventeen years.
To the Reinhardt Family, with love.
Don Geiger
February 28, 1988

It’s Good For Your Character

“It’s Good For Your Character” for years has been an encouragement to dependability and duty in the Geiger household, a predictable response to plaintive please to postpone or evade routine chores. In time it left its mark on youthful characters. Inevitably, however, the younger Geigers caught on that parents needed character, too. Now it is a reminder to us all that God uses the routine, the difficult, even the painful to develop in us qualities of Christlike character that can be learned in no other way. IT REALLY IS GOOD FOR YOUR CHARACTER!

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our suffereings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts, by His Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us.”
(Romans 5:3-5 NIV)