I missed my blog today. I'm sorry. I'll do better next week. Promise.

One of my elders approached me last week and asked if I would consider teaching a class of teenagers. "Sure.  I will teach them.  But will they listen.  That is the question. Will they listen to a 76 year old lady?  It's been twenty years since I worked with that age group."

He promised me that they would.  Personally, I doubt that.  There is an age, somewhere along the way, that older people become invisible.  I remember when I was in my thirties that my mother told me that she missed being a part of "things".  "They drop you," she said.  "They quit asking your opinion.  They don't include you anymore when a decision is being made."

"Who is this 'they' that you are talking about?" I asked her.

"The next generation.  I don't think it is intentional, but when you totter when you walk, or have trouble finding a word, they think you are brain dead, that your opinions and wisdom are outdated."

I told her that she just needed to jump back in and that she had just gotten out of the thick of things, but she said that she had volunteered a number of times.  And now that I am older, I am amazed at how right she was.  In many churches the voice of older people is dismissed.  Contrary to God's word.

I will try to teach teenagers.  Maybe they will listen.  I certainly have something to say.  And stories to back it up.  Everyone loves stories.  I am going to give it a try.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Deuteronomy 32:7 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask you father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you."

Wisdom takes time to obtain.  You don't have very much of it when you are twenty.  Problem is, you think you do.  That makes it hard to listen.  You will never regret listening to the voice of experience.

My friend Jim Long said that when they began unloading the men onto the beach at Normandy, that the ship was too far out.  They were in water over their heads.  And many of the men couldn't swim.  Their equipment was so heavy that they sank to the bottom and many of them drowned without ever reaching shore.  He said he took his equipment off and discarded it and swam to the beach.  There were plenty of packs and guns lying around where men had died.  He picked up what he needed and kept moving.

I can't even imagine doing something like that.  They were so brave.  Where does that kind of courage come from.  Many survivors say it wasn't courage, but fear.  But they did it anyway.

The greatest fear I have ever faced was when a tornado was coming and I was trying to get my children to safety.  But I was not terrified because I knew where safety was, and how to get there.  I am sure you have faced fear as well.  I hate being afraid.  The thing I fear is usually not nearly as bad as the fear itself.  Fear is a terrible emotion.

When I was young I was terrified of water.  I was afraid of drowning.  I'm not afraid anymore.  I was afraid of heights.  I still am.  I feel like I am being sucked over the edge of something.  Visiting the Grand Canyon was especially uncomfortable for me.   I had to back up.  My children thought I was nuts.  I have never been afraid of speaking before the public.  But they say most people are.

Who knows where fear comes from.  I used  to be afraid of dying.  I'm not fearful anymore.  I have reached the point in my life that whatever God wants, I want.  It is a great relief.

Psalms 27:1  "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Psalms 23:4  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."

People talk about the "steps" to salvation.  And I guess that is as good a way to describe it as any.  You are trying to get somewhere--to God--and are taking steps in that direction.  But really, it is all done for you.  Jesus did it.  The part you have to do is:

Recognize the condition you are in.  It isn't pretty.
Believe that God came to earth to die for your condition.
Repent.  Not just sorry, but ready to change.
Give Christ all rights to your body and soul.  Which is trust.
Know that Jesus rose from the dead.  And you will too.  His blood covers your sin.

There isn't anything you can actually 'do' but surrender your will to God.  He does the rest.

It is Memorial Day and it has been raining all day.  A steady downpour.  We desperately need the rain but it's gloomy and brings back memories of all the young men that I knew in the Marine Corps who died in service for their country.  They were so young.

Once, when I was in France, we took a train and then a cab to Normandy.  I did not realize that most of our young men who died while landing there on D-Day were buried on that spot.  It seemed like there were crosses for miles. All in a row, one after the other.   We were on the cliff looking down at the beach.  The German pillboxes are still on the cliff.  It was a shooting gallery.  I started weeping and couldn't stop.  One of the men in my church made that landing. (Jim Long)  I asked him once, "How did you survive?"  He answered, "By the grace of God.  You couldn't go back to the ship, so you kept running forward. "  And I thought of the poem written by John McCrae in World War I:  (In part…)

In Flanders field the poppies blow,   Between the crosses, row on row…We are the dead.  Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.  Loved and were loved and now we lie in Flanders field.

John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

And Ken is at rest in the fields at Arlington.

People ask me when I was "saved" and to tell you the truth, I don't know.  For some people it is instant.  For me it had a beginning and an end over time.  It began when I answered that voice within and responded in the only way I knew how.  I was moved.  I wanted salvation and so I went forward in a church service and "got it."  I didn't repent because I didn't have anything that I knew of to repent from.  I was only seven or eight years old.

But  I took a step in the right direction.  I responded.  Don't ever stop a child from responding because you don't think they know what they are doing.  I knew what I was doing.  I was answering God's voice.  There is a verse in the Bible where Jesus says:  "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."  St. John 11: 27-28.  I was following the best way I knew how.

I think God "had me" at that point.  I was in his hand.  But I really didn't understand much.   As I grew up, I knew I was missing something.  I decided it was because I really hadn't understood the meaning of Baptism and so I was baptized again.  Dunking me in water again didn't help my condition.

By the time I was twenty three I recognized that I was sinful.  Greedy.  Selfish.  Proud.  Basically I was a Pharisee.  I needed to repent.  God convicted me (again, by the tug in my soul)  I repented.

But still, something was missing.  It took three more years and a dear friend's advice before I finally found peace.  "You don't trust God.  Oh, you do with yourself, but not with Ken or your children.  You think you are in control and if you let go, God will take one of them from you.  You need to give them all back to God and let him decide what is best.  They're his anyway."

I had already lost one child.  And I thought it was God's fault.   She was right.  I didn't trust God.  And that was my final step to salvation.  He had held me in his hand.  No one could pluck me out.

It took weeks and weeks before I worked out just exactly what "Trust in God" would mean in my life.

So if you believe there is a God, you have taken a step of faith.  Now you have  to decide whether you meet his standard, or not.  Obviously you and I do not meet his standard of "good."
Isaiah put it this way:  Isaiah 6:5b "…Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.  For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."  And Isaiah realized he had come up short.  "Short of the glory of God" as Paul put it.

You can't earn it.  You can't buy it.  You can't steal it.  You can't attain it.  It has to be a gift.  But a gift with conditions.  Like we read yesterday, "…it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast…"  That defines grace.  You don't deserve it, but God is going to give it to you.

Here are the conditions.  Admit to God that you are sinful, woe is me, undone, unclean and sorry you have hurt him due to your actions.  Sorry is not repentance.  So repentant.  You must repent. Somewhere in the depth of your soul, give it up.  Commit your future to his standard.

God has a plan to redeem you.  It is the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, "Let me die for what they did.  Put their sin on my account."  And God did.  But to us, the most important point  is that he conquered death.  He rose again.  Believing in the resurrection is critical.  It was witnessed by thousands of people.  We want to live again after we die.  We want to be forgiven.  Christ's death makes it possible.  When we stand before God and he says, "You are guilty," Jesus will come and say,
"I've got that covered.  They repented.  They lived for me and not themselves."

And that is where the third part of salvation comes in.  1. Faith,  2. Grace,  3. Good works
If you are truly repentant, you will grow.  Good works are a result of salvation, not a cause.  You can no longer say, "Well, that's the way I am.  I can't help myself."  You can change because you have been given a new spirit.  "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live;  yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."  Galations 2:20  He gave himself.  It was a gift.

That's salvation.  He changes you from the inside out.


 

The entire question of salvation centers around three concepts.  Grace, faith and works.  How does a person get there?  What is salvation?  Where does it begin?  Salvation from what?

I love the answer to these questions in Ephesians 2:8-10  " For by grace you are saved through faith; and that is not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any one should boast.   For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (good works)."

First, we all have a concept of good, and "not good".  Righteous, and unrighteous.  Holy, and evil.  It is all based on knowing good and not doing it.  Or knowing wrong, and choosing wrong.  The core dichotomy is rebellion from the good and attraction to the bad.  We have a character of rebellion against authority.  We have a character of disobedience--if we know the rule.  If we know what the best path is, we sometimes choose not to take it.  God calls it sin.

The Bible says: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."  Romans 3:23
So in the character of the human soul is a desperate need.  We need to be saved from ourselves.  And obviously, we can't do it.  And all of the good works in the world can't change our basic nature.  We are always one step away from fulfilling our natural character.  We need something.  We need God.

But to find God, you have to believe there is a God.  This is the question of the ages.  You will have to wade through that for yourselves.  But for me, as a scientist, there is no question.  I gave you my credentials when I started writing 370 plus entries ago.  Go back and read that if you want.  The physics, mathematics, biology and statistics all point to a supreme creator.  The great "I am".  The force behind the beginning, or the "big bang" or whatever you choose to call it.

That is faith.  That is where salvation begins.  But that is the first step.  You have to go further than just believing there is a God.   Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we have come short.

Short of what?  Paul answers and says we are short of God's glory.   What exactly is that!!! (Continued)

I have started swimming again.  Well, not swimming really, but water aerobics.  I decided to do something to give me some strength back.  I quit five years ago when I had chemo.  And then Ken's decline kept me at home.  But going back to a good habit I once had was difficult.  At least for me it was.  I thought about it; I considered it;  etc. etc. etc…for weeks.

But the day I dug around, found a bathing suit and put it on was the decisive day.  "Am I actually going to do this?" I asked myself.  At every step, I wanted to back out.  I do hate to exercise.  I would rather read a book.  Or anything else.  But I went.

And then, there was the next day.  And the next.   I've been going for two weeks and am finally to the place that I put a suit on, get a towel, trudge out the door, get in the car and drive five miles.  Why is it so hard to do the things we know are good for us and so easy to do the things that are bad for us?

I baked cookies last week. I don't know what came over me, I usually don't eat sweets.  It turned out to be seven dozen (after I had eaten a lot of the dough).  And then I ate way too many cookies.  It was not a good thing.  Sugar.  Shortening.  Flour. etc. etc.  It was like I couldn't stop eating cookies even though I knew that one cookie was okay,  but ten cookies and a ton of cookie dough wasn't.

I packaged them all up in packages of a dozen and gave them away.  Not because I am a good person, but because I knew I would eat  all of them if I didn't get them out of the house.  At least I did the right thing, even if it was for the wrong reason.  Everyone enjoyed them.

Swimming I did for the right reason.  Giving cookies away, I guess I did for the wrong reason.  Either way, I did a good thing.  It's the outcome that counts.  Remember the story Jesus told about the man that said he would help and then he didn't.  And the man who said he wouldn't help, but then he did?

Colossians 3: 17 "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."  It's the doing that counts.  Doing the right thing changes you.  Even if you don't want to do the right thing.  Do it anyway.

My first three children were raised as military kids.  Never finishing the school year where they started. And if they did finish a year, the teacher and half the children would be different by the end of the year.  Teacher's husbands got orders.  Children's fathers got orders.  It was like being in a bowl and being stirred with a spoon.  Nothing was constant.  As a result, they were, and are, very adaptable.  Whatever happened, you adjusted.  And I couldn't fix their problems.  They all three coped.

But after Ken retired, we settled down to stay in Oklahoma.  We were all relieved to quit moving. Then nine years later we had another son.  He was born here, raised here went to church with ten boys his age that were a constant in his life.  Nothing extraordinary ever happened.  We never moved again.  He graduated from high school with those ten friends.

When he was somewhere between ten and twelve, I taught a night class at the college where I was employed.  I got an extra check.  Jon had been asking to go somewhere, anywhere, to take a vacation.  And I couldn't go.  So I gave him the check from the night class, and told him that he could have the money to take his first vacation.  "You and your father go.  Have a wonderful time.  Call and tell me which way you headed and where you are."  Ken told me that Jon managed the money, and half of the time they slept in the car because Jon didn't want to spend money on motels.  He wanted the trip to last.

They took off in the car and headed north, then east, and after a week ended up on the east coast.  They had a blast.  They got to spend one night in the National Observatory.  They were the last two people there, and the scientists asked them if they wanted to stay the night and look at stars.  Of course!!

When you look back on raising your children, sometimes you know you did the right thing.  There were a dozen things that I needed to spend that check on.  But that investment in Jon and Ken's life was priceless.  One on one time is indeed priceless.  In a house of six, that is sometimes hard to find.
 
 You can't possibly give all of them the same experiences.  By the time Jon was nine, the older three were gone. Those three had traveled all over America when they were growing up.  Jon hadn't.  He came home full of stories and remembers that trip with great fondness.

Proverbs 4: "For I was my father's son, tender and…beloved in the sight of my mother."

Romans 4: 15b  "…for where there is no law, there is no transgression."  I really like this verse I gave you yesterday.  Because it means that things that I did before I knew better don't count.   Because I didn't know the law about that thing.

That seems hard to believe.  But look at it this way.  The baby that rubs food in his hair is not accountable.  But the man who rubs food in his hair is.  The person who doesn't know a law is not accountable as far as God is concerned.  But it doesn't keep you from facing the consequences for what you have done.  There are behaviors that have consequences whether you know better or not.

I was picked up by a highway patrolman a few years ago.  "What did I do?" I asked him.  As far as I knew, I had obeyed the law.  "You didn't pull over when you went around me as I was parked on the right side of the road," he told me.  "You have to move to the left lane when I have someone pulled over on the right."

I Answered, "I'm sorry, but that wasn't in the rule book when I took my driver's test.  I didn't know."
He could have given me a ticket.  As far as the state was concerned, I had broken the law.  But as far as my conscience was concerned, I had done no wrong.

"It's a new law.  Next time, pull over."  From then on, I pulled over.  I now knew the law.  I had been accountable to the state all along.  The difference was that now I was accountable to God to do right.  I could have got a ticket either way. But my conscience was clear.

Not only does the Bible tell us about right and wrong, our heart tells us when we are wrong.  But if we persist in doing wrong, God gives up on us.  The most horrible scripture in the Bible to me is: Romans 1:28 "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them  over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient."

I do not want God to give up on me.  I do not want a reprobate mind.  I want to do God's will.  That is one way I know His spirit is within me.

Romans 4: 15b "For where there is no law, there is no transgression."  Transgression.  Or phrased another way which we don't like to think about.  Sin.

Nobody talks about sin anymore.  Probably because we all think we do right--in our own eyes.  Or because we have a family member involved in something that we know is wrong, but we have justified it in some way.  We are very defensive when someone suggests that we have done something wrong.

But to do something wrong, you have to have a judge.  Someone who has set a standard.  Your family, your state, your government, or ultimately--your God.

When people become Christians, they come with a lot of baggage.  They have no ultimate standard to live by.  If Christ is in their lives, if the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in their temple, God will write law on their hearts.  One thing at a time.

When a baby begins to eat real food, they throw it on the floor, rub it in their hair and get some of it in their mouths.  That behavior is no longer acceptable for a five year old.  The rules are revealed  as you grow.  You can't go back and rub food in your hair when you're grown and say that you didn't know better.

But the ultimate rules are God's rules.  And as we are growing, He reveals the next thing we need to do, or not do.  Once we know right, once we know wrong, then we are accountable.  That's why he gave us his words in the Bible.  So we can grow.

Micah 6:8 "He has showed you…what is good; and what the Lord requires of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

James 4:17 "Therefore to him that knows to do good and doesn't do it, to him it is sin."

You can sin by doing what God says is wrong.  Or you can sin by not doing what is right.  Not in your eyes, but in the eyes of God.  And really, honestly, we each know what we need to change.  You might as well talk to God about it.  He already knows anyway.

When you are a grandmother, you know so much more than when you were first a mother.  Specifically, what doesn't work.  And a lot of what does.

If I sent my daughter Becky to her room, she was in agony.  Begging for mercy.  But if I sent Pat to her room, she  was in heaven.  She loved to be by herself,  and kept a room full of books.  

I went out to eat last night and there was a couple with a little boy around five years old.  The father kept screaming at him, and telling him "No" and yelling for him to eat his food.  The little boy was crying, screaming and nothing that the father was doing was working.

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

You can't treat children alike--because they aren't alike.  Raising children is hard.  You have to learn a lot about interaction patterns.  One day our youngest who was three, (born 9 years after Scott) was flipping the light switch up and down watching the light go off and on.  A friend who was there asked me why I didn't stop him.

"Well," I told her.  He isn't hurting himself.  He isn't hurting anyone else.  And in a minute, he will get tired of it.  A light switch is cheaper than Legos.  If I tell him to stop, then I will have to get up out of my chair and enforce it.  It isn't a wrong thing to do unless I tell him to stop.  And when I tell him to stop something, I better back it up with action or he will learn that "No" doesn't really mean "No".

Ken always said, "Say yes every time you can.  There will be too many times in life that you have to say no.  Don't sweat the small stuff."  He also used to say, "I would rather my children obey me because they love me than because they fear me."

Ephesians 6:4 "And you Fathers (and mothers), provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Paul said it this way:  Romans 4:15b "…for where there is no law, there is no transgression."  We make up too many rules because of what other people think.  Most of them don't matter.

Today, I was going through old drafts I had made and found this one.  With Easter coming up soon, I thought you might appreciate it......

After your children are grown, you find out all kinds of things that you never knew before.  When all four of mine get together,  it is a hoot.  I thought I had them under control when they were growing up. But obviously I didn't.

Scott always has us in stitches when he tells the story about the two girls crucifying him one Easter. We had moved to California for five months, waiting on Ken to retire.  We were living on base at El Toro in officer's housing.  Which wasn't much.  Two bedrooms and one bath. Adequate but nothing luxurious.  Pat was in the fifth grade.  Becky in the third and Scott was four years old.

There was a big tree in the front yard and the street was pretty busy.  Easter was coming up and unbeknownst to me, the girls got ropes and tied Scott to the tree with his arms out, fastened to a couple of branches--like a cross.   They told him he was going to be Jesus in their Easter pageant.  They made him a crown of thorns.  But the girls got tired, went in the house and left him there.   Naked as a blue jay except for a tea towel wrapped around him in an appropriate position.   Which the wind eventually fell off.

 I don't know who cut him down.   I also don't know why I never heard about it until they were grown.  You would have thought one of the neighbors would have told me.

At least they knew the crucifixion story.

Ephesians 6:1  ''Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right."

They didn't disobey.  I never told the girls not to crucify their brother.  If I had, I would have told them not to crucify him in the front yard on a main street.  Or at least to check occasionally to see if he still had his tea towel.

My son Scott took me to dinner on Mother's day.  It is probably one of the few decent meals I have eaten in the last few days.  My breakfast choices have been especially pitiful.  In the last week for breakfast, I ate a half of a left over chili coney from Sonic.  The next morning I ate a piece of bread with some left over brussle sprouts.  One morning  I ate a stale piece of leftover Christmas fruitcake.  Like I said, pitiful.

I just don't seem to be able to work up the passion to cook.  It's easier to just eat something. Whatever is stuck in the fridge.   I know, I know, I have to do better.  And I will.  I am.  But really, a Sonic coney, and brussel sprouts aren't bad.  They are just unusual.  Who cares if they are a normal breakfast.  The important thing is that I am eating.  That is important because I lost thirteen pounds and I don't have thirteen pounds to lose.

No, I am not depressed.  And no, I am not lazy.  It is just that for the last three years, I have spent many many hours cooking special meals.  I'm just "cooked out".   Ken couldn't have salt, milk products, tomatoes, etc., etc. and potatoes had to peeled and soaked over night to remove the potassium.  His doctor called me the "Food Nazi" because I so rigorously adhered to giving him the diet that he needed.  It made a big difference in his quality of life, but it took a lot of preparation.

Now that it is just me, I can't figure out what I want to eat.  I have never thought about what I wanted to eat.  I just ate what he did.  I went through the pantry Saturday, for the Postal Food Drive, and emptied it out.  I kept what I would actually fix and eat.  Which wasn't much.

I've been reading the Old Testament every night.  I have never done that in order, only in bits and pieces.  Some of it is really hard to read.  But I have been  underlining the parts that I might want to go back and read again so that I don't have to wade through all the parts that were difficult.  The 'begets' etc.   I stumbled over a verse in Jeremiah that I had memorized years ago.

Jeremiah 15:  "Your words were found, and I did eat them: and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by your name, O Lord God of hosts." So I am digesting something.   And yes, I am going to figure out a new normal for eating.









 

 

I went to a high school percussion concert last night.  I especially wanted to hear the marimbas since I play the marimba.  I have been doing that for sixty two years.  Now only at church.  It brought back a million memories of high school band. Getting up in the morning and being on the football field by seven in the morning with a bell lyre strapped around my neck and going to school with soaking wet feet from the dew.

I also play the piano for our church.  I can't feel my fingertips (Chemotherapy--avoid it; it kills the nerve endings in your fingers and feet)  so it makes for some interesting finger work when I play.  But I am enjoying it.  I told you once that I went forty years without playing, but it is like riding a bicycle.  You don't forget how,  you just can't do it as well as you used to.

My daughter tells me that I never talk about my mother.  Well, I am who I am because of my mother.  She drove me.  I was a reader and would have never have done anything else if she hadn't pushed me to participate.  I speak at functions and teach because she saw that I started elocution lessons when I was seven years old and continued doing so for a number of years.  I have never been afraid of speaking in front of people as a result.  She believed that you should accomplish something.  Do something, don't just sit there.  I play the piano because she saw that I practiced every day before I could pick up a book.

I am sure you learned to do some things that made you a better person because someone pushed you a little bit.  Or encouraged you.  I was pretty sedentary so I needed a push.

Ecclesiastes 9 10  "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."

You will end up being able to do something.  I wish I had learned to play the guitar.
 

I have never liked ice cream.  It tastes greasy and I can't wait to go brush my teeth if I eat it.  So I don't. But then, I have never liked milk.  Same reason.  Or yogurt.  Whipped cream and cream cheese and sour cream are a little better if they are on something else.

But……..when I was four, my dad took me to the Ft. Smith hospital to get my shots.  And when we were done, he bought me a strawberry malt.  I remember the building, the flight of steps that must have been a mile wide and a mile tall.  And holding his hand.  I loved my dad.  He loved me.  Being with him all by myself was always an adventure.  He bought two strawberry malts and said, "We want nutmeg on those malts."  It was so very good.  I'm sure it was because we were together.

I got a strawberry malt yesterday.  It tasted like a memory.  And the memory tasted delicious.  I was four years old, holding my dad's hand.  The smell of nutmeg brings back the same memory.

My family had no money.  Dad walked ten miles to work to save the dime it cost to ride.  I wonder how he saved the money to buy me a malt.  And why he would spend it on me.  There were so many things we really needed.  But he bought me an "occasion".  There weren't many occasions in our lives back then that involved money.    And the memory is vivid.  And treasured.

I thank God for my Dad.

Psalms 70:17-18 "O God you have taught me from my youth: and hitherto I have declared your wondrous works.  Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, do not forsake me until I have shown your strength to this generation and your power to every generation that is to come."

I don't have gray hair.  Neither did he.  He died when he was 94, but he was never old.  I hope I never get old either--no matter how many years I live.

I love walnut.  When it is carved, it is hard enough that it doesn't chip.  And the color is so warm.  Every time I find a piece of old walnut furniture I want to find somewhere in my house to put it.  But of course I need more pieces of furniture like a moose needs a hat-rack.  My house is full of walnut.  With marble.  Carved and pleasant to my eye.  Totally out of date.

Nobody wants that kind of stuff anymore.  Too antique.  Every young woman out there seems to want whatever their grandmother had, which is tupper-ware and red topped tables with chrome legs.
I wanted what my grandmother had.  Depression glass.  She and my Pops had a little grocery store.  Griffen tea came with a tall dark green iced tea glass.   Buy their tea and you got a free glass.  Now they are twenty dollars apiece.  If you can find them.  Gran had lots and lots of them that people didn't take.  They bought the tea and left the glass.  Stuff has meaning if your grandmother had it.

Isn't it strange what we want.  And it is all so temporary.  What is it about "stuff" that turns us on.  Most of it we don't really want after we get it.  In 1961 I thought we just had to have a Volkswagen camper.   It seemed so "hippy cool".   We bought it.  It didn't even last a year before we traded it for a more practical Chevrolet.  I wasn't a hippy anyway.

Ecclesiastes 5:11,15 "When goods increase...what good is there to the owners saving that you can behold it with your eyes.  As you came forth from your mother's womb, naked shall you return and take nothing…which you may carry away in your hand."

I think of all that I have spent on "things" and wonder what that could have done if I had just given the money to the poor.  It would have been better spent I think.

Mark 10: 21 "…One thing you lack: go your way, sell your stuff ( my translation) and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven:  and come, take up the cross, and follow me."

Guilty.

I went to Edmond for the weekend.  Both of my daughters live in that area.  There are a  lot of  antique shops there.  My favorite is "Edmond Antiques."  I love it.   It is a lot of fun.  Pam is the owner (you will love her) and there are dozens of booths run by others.  You can rummage around all day.

I have always enjoyed looking at things that came from another time, another place.  I was especially taken with the hats.  Beautiful women's hats that nobody wears anymore.  There are so many things to see that bring back memories for me.

 My mother wore a hat every Sunday.  She must have had a dozen hats of every color that went with some special outfit.  My dad wore a hat on Sunday as well.  And a suit and a tie.  We all dressed up on Sunday.  We wore our best.

That isn't what we do any more.  Someone with some better wisdom recognized that  not all people had "Sunday best" clothing and that they needed to wear sweats, overalls or jeans.  So now we wear whatever we want to.  Within reason.  Somedays I wear jeans now, sometimes a dress.  Whatever.  But there was a time when all the ladies wore hats.  It was nice to remember.

It isn't what you have on that counts.  It's what you have "in" that counts.

1 Samuel 16: 7  "But the Lord said to Samuel, don't look on his countenance, or on the height of his stature;  because…the Lord doesn't see as a man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."

Ezekiel 36: 26 "A new heart also I will give you and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,  and I will  put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgements and do them."

I would like for people to think that I have a "good heart".  You would, too.  We have to let it show.



 

My eldest daughter Pat picked up a stray dog on the road between Luther and Harrah.  It was nothing but fur and ticks.  She started knocking on doors, but nobody living on two or three miles of that road had ever seen it before, so she took it to my other daughter Becky and said, "You've been looking for another dog.  See if this one will do."

So Becky took it to the groomers.  They cut it's hair and underneath it all was a beautiful Schnauzer.  With a beautiful nature.  Very loving.  This was really a "before and after" moment.  Nobody would have wanted her before she had a bath and a haircut.  We named her Annie, from Little Orphan Annie.  She has been to the vet, had her shots, and found her place to sleep at night--at the head of the bed.

We were like that when Christ found us.  Fur and fleas and ticks.  But he saw something underneath it all worth saving.  We were lost.  But he picked us up, cleaned us up, and took us to God and said, "I have paid the groomer.  They have been to the great physician.  I am presenting them to you clean.  I will pay all their expenses from this day forward.  I am going to love them and take care of them from now on.  They are forever mine."

We were lost, but now we are found.  We were hungry, but Jesus fed us.  We were unclean and sinful, but Jesus paid the price to clean us and save us from ourselves.  We found a home with God.  We belong to Him.

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20  "What?" Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God and you are not your own?  For you are bought with a price:  (the blood of Christ)  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

You are part of a new family.  Act like it.  Don't embarrass your Father.

My daughter asked me why I never write about what  is happening to me right now.  I have told you before that the reason is, that I don't "get it" when I'm going through things. I just endure.

But I will tell you that today was one of the saddest that I've had.  The DVD of the Arlington service came.  (I will get it posted soon)  While I went through the last two years watching Ken deteriorate, I was just determined to do the best job I could of taking care of him.  We both knew he wasn't going to live much longer.   It is a terrible thing to watch.  Maybe I just put sadness on the shelf.  There wasn't any point.  It was what it was.  So we lived in the joy that we had.  We took rides in the country.  We worked crossword puzzles.  We lived in the moments.  The last moments of fifty-seven years.

And when he was gone last November, I wanted the service (that we had here in Pryor) to honor him.  I wanted everyone to see something of the life he had lived before he had retired from the Marines. My son helped me put it together and it was wonderful.  I was elated that we had given Ken the respect and dignity he deserved.  I guess I was too tired to be "in the moment" of sadness at that time.

And then there was a four month wait before he could be interred at Arlington National Cemetery last month.  March 20th. The ceremony was a thing of awe.  I knew it would be big, but had no idea it would be that huge.  Marine band, caisson, horses, more horses, hundreds of men in uniform.  It was overwhelming.  The presentation of the flag in honor of his service to his country.  One by one the Marines knelt to thank me.  And I hadn't even done anything but be his wife.  What an honor to be his wife.

Then we waited a month for the film of the ceremony to arrive.  It came today.  I watched it and sadness engulfed me.  It was over.  Everything I needed to do had been done, the last piece of a puzzle in place.  As I watched the film,  I was struck by the shortness of a life.  All the memories.

Here was a man who had a life well lived.  He loved God.  He loved Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.  He loved the church that Christ died for.  He loved people.  He loved the Marine Corps.  He loved his children.  He loved me.  And now he is gone.  I am so sad.  It is now over.  There is nothing left for me to do for him but wait.  And write.  Now I can look back and tell you about it.  Like my daughter said, I live in the past.  I just try and get through the moments.  I will keep doing that.

 I will see him again.  And then there won't be an end.  Ever.

Ken grew up in a family where his mother stayed home all of her life and took care of everything.  All the cooking, cleaning, washing, dishes, ironing, etc. etc.  So Ken had no concept of helping around the house.   I didn't grow up in a home like that.  My mom and dad both worked outside the home. I  didn't know about his kind of family.  He didn't know about my kind of family. In my family the work around the house was divided.  Since my dad grew up in a restaurant, he chose the kitchen.  Mom cooked.  Dad cleaned up.  It was that way with everything.  We all worked together in the house.  Kind of like family time.

Ken and I had only been married for a few months when he got orders to Camp Pendleton, California.  They train ground Marines there.  Part of that training was air to ground coordination.  That was his job.  It wasn't flying.  It was go to work early, get down in the dirt, long days, come in late, tired and filthy,  ready to take a shower, finally sit down and read the paper.

I, on the other hand, was eighteen, no friends, (not a single person) far, far from family in Oklahoma, on top of a treeless hill in the boonies, where I never saw anybody, with nothing to do.  All by myself all day.  Housework didn't take much time.  I read and waited for Ken to come home and talk to me.  To visit with me.  He had a  life.  I didn't."

After we had been at Pendleton for a few days, I fed him his supper, put every thing away and started on the dishes.  "Ken, come dry for me," I called to him.
"No.  I don't do dishes.  I'm reading the paper."  I had been alone all day.  I just wanted company.  I guess he thought I was trying to give him more work to do.  For me, it just meant we could talk to each other in the kitchen.  Miscommunication.

My feelings were hurt.  He was exhausted and irritated.  It went down hill from there.  And he got in the car and left.  An hour later, he came in the front door and said, "I'm broke.  I don't even have fifty cents to get in the BOQ."  (Bachelor's Officer Quarters)

"Then I guess you better stay here for the night."  We worked that out, too.
"Be angry and sin not.  Don't let the sun go down on your wrath."  Ephesians 4: 26