When Christ died, the curtain that separated the people from God was ripped from top to bottom.  The holy of holies was opened.  Why was that?  What did God do when he ripped the curtain?  Remember that the high priest went in behind this curtain only once a year to put the blood of a perfect lamb on the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people.  They needed mercy.  They tied a rope to the priest so if he touched anything and died--as God had told them would happen--they could pull him out. Let's connect that with Christ's death as the Lamb of God.

The first people at the tomb were women. Mary Magdalene, and Joanna,  and Mary the mother of James and other women that were with them.  We are told that they went back and told the disciples that Jesus was risen.  (Luke 24: 1-10) (The first evangelists were women!!! Imagine that.)

We are told that Mary Magdalene went back to the tomb and was weeping.  Christ appeared to her,  (John 21: 11-17) and  said, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and to your God.

But much later, he appeared to Thomas and said, " (Vs. 27) "…reach here your finger, and behold my hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into my side…"

My opinion is this:  Between those two events with Mary and Thomas, Jesus took the perfect sacrifice, his own blood, the blood of the perfect Lamb, and laid it on heaven's mercy seat of God to atone for our sins.  The holy of holies was opened for you and I to have access to the Father, "…my Father, and your Father…" Having done that he returned to the disciples and commissioned them to tell the world that it truly was "finished."  We do not have to make sacrifices or go through a priest ever again.
.
He said "Don't touch me…" to  Mary.   And then he said to Thomas, "Touch me."  If you study the Old Testament, you will find that the sacrifice for the mercy seat had to be perfect.  Unblemished.  In the case of Mary touching him, Jesus needed to be pure, untouched, perfect when he went to God with the sacrificial blood from his own body.  But later when he appeared to Thomas, that had already been done.

So that's my opinion concerning what happened immediately after  he rose.

In reading the Bible, I find that sometimes I come to my own personal conclusions about what it is saying.  I am going to give you an opinion about something that happened after Christ died and rose again.  (It is going to take two or three days to do this--so bear with me.)  You need to check out people's opinions for yourself.  Mine included.  Sometimes I change a word to make it more understandable when I am writing from two or three translations.

You remember when I was writing about the holy of holies, I told you that the high priest took the blood of lambs 'inside' to the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people once a year.  Well, God saved them the same way he saves us.  By faith.  They had faith in Him that their sins were covered.

But God sent a perfect sacrifice.  He sent his son to die for our sins.  It is His blood that atones and now covers us.  We don't have to sacrifice anything for our sins anymore.  Christ did that for us once and for all.  Paul says, "This Good News…makes us right in God's sight--when we put our faith and trust in Christ to save us.  This is accomplished from start to finish by faith." Romans 1: 17a

If Christ hadn't been adequate to cover us once and for all, then every time we sin, he would have to be sacrificed again.  Over and over.  Which is exactly the system that the Jews had.  What then would be the point of Christ's death.  It wouldn't have accomplished anything different or new.

Romans 3: 21-22 "But now God has shown us his new way to heaven--not by "being good enough" and trying to keep his laws, though not new, really, Scriptures told about it long ago.  Now God says he will accept and acquit us--declare us not guilty--if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins."

Okay.  I'm getting there.   So when Christ died on the cross and shed his blood, it needed to be placed in the holy of holies on the mercy seat for our atonement. (I know, this is rather deep and detailed.) However the earthly holy of holies in the temple was only a prototype of the altar in heaven.  That was the altar where Christ's blood had to go.    Hold that thought……my opinion is coming tomorrow…….. This is all hard to read, but don't give up.  Jesus is going to do something that is really neat.

The Old Testament was written (most probably) over 2500 years ago for a culture that is completely different than the culture you and I live in.  Men owned everything.  Women didn't inherit property and were totally dependent on men.  If you were a widow, your life was especially difficult.  This is all still true some places in the middle east.  Women are not valued.  Many do not have a voice.

Paul said:  "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus….There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond (slave) nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Jesus Christ."  Galations 3: 26, 28  He frees us from stereotypes.

Paul was making it clear that women have equal status as Christians.  This idea was anathema to the Jews.  And some modern day churches have not gotten the message.  But that's okay.  My gift as a teacher is not dependent on the church.  It is a gift from God.  I answer to him and him alone.  The Bible is very clear on the subject of what God expects of us as individuals.   I love the church.  I love being a part of the family of God.  And I try to tolerate people who have opinions that I do not agree with.  If they haven't read God's word, you can't have a reasonable discussion on any subject.

I agree totally with the Bible on the subject of the different roles in the home.  But that doesn't mean that I have ever given that right of authority over me to other men.  They are just men to me.  As Paul said, "…we are all the same…"

Some of the controversial verses concerning women come in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7.  These verses come after Paul says in verse 12, (Living Letters) "Here I want to add some suggestions of my own…"  King James version puts it this way, "But to the rest I speak, not the Lord…"  So Paul was giving his own opinions concerning men and women, not the opinion of Jesus.   Paul had been a strict Jew.  And he never married.  He was careful to say that his opinions were his and that they weren't from the Lord.

I say all of that to say this.  Be respectful of all people.  Read your Bible for yourself.  Don't take scripture out of context.  Don't argue.  God knows who you are.  We are all the same to him.  That is all that matters.    

When I was seven or eight, the man next door to my grandmother died of a black widow spider bite.  I was young and impressionable and the impression I had was that this kind of spider was deadly.  The next year, a black widow spun her web by our back porch and hatched hundreds of babies.  I remember when I found the web I was very frightened.  I had visions of all those babies growing up and biting people.  I found my father and he took care of it.  I am not afraid of spiders as a whole, but once you have seen a full grown black widow, you won't forget it. They are the blackest of black with a red hourglass on their under side.

It was forty years before I saw another one.  I was in my back yard paving a walk to our shed with bricks when I noticed that the bricks had a multitude of black widows in the holes in their sides.  I was very, very glad I had not been bitten.  I dispatched them all !!   And decided I better figure out where they liked to spin their webs, and more importantly, what their webs looked like.  I learned.  Because I was afraid of them.

They like dark, damp hidden spots.  Their webs have no pattern and are messy, and stringy.  Stretching in an irregular pattern--usually close to the ground.  With the spider hidden from view.  Waiting.

Yesterday, as I was sitting on my back porch, I saw that familiar web, close to my back door.  I would be able to recognize one of their webs even in my sleep.  I sprayed the web with a bug killer, and this morning the spider had crawled out into the open, out from under a rock.  She was done for.

Sin is like a black widow spider.  It likes to hide in our lives.  I likes dark places.   And its bite is fatal.
James 1: 12a, 13-14 "Blessed is the person that endures temptation….Let no one say, (when he is tempted) I am tempted by God:  for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither does he tempt anyone.  But every person is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed...which brings forth sin and sin, when it is finished brings forth death." (I have edited these verses--removing old English.)

The point is, when you and I do wrong, it has a name.  Sin.  It's a black widow spider weaving a web in our lives.  You know what is wrong with you.  You might as well talk to God about it.  He knows it anyway.  I have to do that regularly. Thank God for Christ who died for our sins.

Lately I have been worrying about my dog Bo.  He is eleven and has really slowed down this year.  Every time I let him out, he returns to the house and checks every room, looking for Ken.   He hasn't given up.  He always slept in Ken's arms.   He sleeps with me now, but he sleeps on Ken's pillow.

If you love your dogs, I am sure you have wondered about whether dogs go to heaven.  I have.  I have lots of trivial thoughts just like everyone else does!!  Well, I have always wondered why the Bible never addresses that subject.  Little did I know...

I have been reading the book that Paul wrote to the Romans. (Ken always said that if you only got to keep one book from the Bible that Romans should be your choice.)

And as I was reading, I found some verses that make me believe that Bo will get to join Ken soon.
Romans 8: 19  "All creation is waiting patiently and hopeful for that future day when God will resurrect his children."   Could it mean that 'all creation' might include dogs?   I realize that God's plan is for human resurrection, that we are the ones in need of salvation, but as I read on, I found this verse:

Romans 8: 22 "For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, suffer in sickness and death as they await this great event."  (That future day of resurrection.)  So if animals await this great event, they probably are going to share in it!!  I love the Bible.  It sets my heart at ease.

My daughter Pat has raised horses most of her life, and she said that horses are going to heaven for sure.  Because in the fifth chapter of Revelations, as John watched a vision unfold before him a Mighty Angel said  "Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and to unroll it?"  Which was answered in chapter six: "As I watched, the Lamb (Jesus) broke the first seal and began to unroll the scroll.  Then…I looked, and in front of me was a white horse.  Its rider carried a bow, and a crown was placed upon his head…"  The chapter continues with mention of other horses who will be there at the end times.

Like I said, I am having trivial thoughts.  But I really want my dogs to be in heaven with me and Ken.  However, it is much more important that you are there.  Dogs can't repent.  People can.

In the book of Romans, Romans 14: 1,3b,4 "Give a warm welcome to any brother (sister) who wants to join you, even though his faith is weak.  Don't criticize him for having different ideas from yours about what is right and wrong.  …For God has accepted them to be his children.  They are God's servants, not yours.  They are responsible to him, not to you.  Let him (God) tell them whether they are right or wrong…God is able to make them do as they should."

Why in the world have we become so critical of our Christian brothers and sisters?!!  Sometimes I believe that we kill the spirit of the wounded.  Paul was very clear in the letter to the Romans that we are to welcome people in whatever condition they are in and love them.

I don't know about you, but I love to be loved.  It is a tonic for the soul.  And I love the people who love me.  Don't you?  How can a person resist love.  And when I get a compliment, I glow.  

Scott tells me that some of you in Bartlesville are enjoying this.  Thank you for your encouragement.

My mom taught us to listen carefully and when someone says something nice about someone you know, pass it on to them.   I have tried to put her teaching into practice and when I pass a complement on, it feels really good to see someone's face light up.

And when you hear something nice about yourself, if you are like me, you find yourself wanting to live up to their opinion of you.  I find myself trying to do better.

As Christians, we are to bind up the hurt.  Lift up the weary.  Encourage the weak.  And above all, love each other.  Jesus himself told us:

St. John 13: 34-35  "A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you that you also love one another:  By his shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another."

Ken's father was a Baptist minister.  Everyone called him 'Preacher'.  When a tornado hit Pryor in April of 1942, the Baptist Church was one of many buildings that was totally wiped out.  The twister came right down main street and killed over fifty people in a town that was very small.  When I started first grade a couple of years later, many of the children in my class had lost a parent in that storm.

Preacher had been a brick mason before he went to the seminary.  He organized the men in the church into a building crew and they rebuilt the church.  One of the things that he did that made a lasting impression on my life was to install huge stained glass windows.  Four or five down each side and one large one on the front of the church that was a picture of Jesus shepherding a flock of lambs.

I was only five when they built the church, and through the years I remember looking at the windows when I probably should have been listening.  They were beautiful.  I was baptized in that church.  I was married in that church.  I called it "My Church" even though it belonged to God.

Years later when the building was too small and needed to be replaced, most of the windows were stored and  stayed in storage until after I was grown,  and my children were gone.

One of the things I promised myself I would do when I  retired from teaching was to clean off the old paint,  and see them used when we built our new auditorium.  I did that.  Two or three people helped me and we scraped paint for days and days.  It felt good.

Now when you drive down main street in Pryor you can see some of those stained glass windows.  It is not nearly as beautiful as it was in the forties, but the glass pulls at my heart.  Memories.  There are very few people left now that remember what it looked like back then.

Psalms 122:1, 7a  "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord…Peace be within your walls…"

I wish I could go back there one more time.  I can, but only if I close my eyes.


 

There are some truly kind people in the world.  My next door neighbor is one of them.  He works the night shift and sleeps in the day.  On Tuesday night when he goes to work, he takes my garbage can to the street.  When he comes home at three the next morning, he brings the empty can back to my house.  He has been doing this every week since Ken has been gone.  Seven months.

That kind of help is so wonderful.  He and his wife and little girl are just precious people.  In a world that seems to be crumbling, it is so uplifting to know that there are people who are helping others simply because they need to be helped.  With no thought of receiving anything in return.

That is what God has called us to do.  Help others.  Paul said in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 12: 6a-7a "God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well…If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well.  If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching….If God has given you money, be generous in helping others with it.  If God has given you administrative ability and put you in charge of the work of others, take the responsibility seriously…"

Romans 7: 6b  "…now (since Christ died for us) you can really serve God; not in the old way, mechanically obeying a set of rules, but in the new way, with all of your hearts and minds."

I can't do all the things I used to do.  (Which I find very hard to accept.)  But I can still bake cookies. And my neighbor has a sweet tooth.

Do something for someone.   Just because they need the help.  Quit justifying yourself with words like, "They shouldn't have gotten themselves in the mess they are in in the first place."  God puts people in our path.  Help the person he has given you.  Let Him straighten out the details.

It lifts your heart to help someone.

My friend Carolyn tells all my friends that nobody will ever be able to blackmail me because I've already told you all my faults.  That's probably true.  What is the good of having a fault or committing a sin unless you recognize it as sin, stop doing it, and warn others using your experience as an example of what not to do.  And why.  Your sins are going to find you out anyway, why not use them for the good of others.  You may save a life.

James 5: 16  "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed.  The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."

Pride is probably my biggest  downfall.  When I am good, righteous, etc.etc. I am very proud of myself.  That said, it makes it much easier to look around me and feel superior.  Which is horrible.  I recognize it and when I get like that, I immediately confess to God that I am neither good or righteous.  He always agrees with me.

We all like to feel superior.  It makes our sins fade into the background where we don't have to deal with them.

If ever there was a man who desired to be good, to be righteous, it was Paul.  He was so deeply into his religion (Judaism) that he felt he had to defend it at all cost.  So he began to hunt down Christians to silence them from perverting the truth.  He justified their death because they were a threat to what he thought the truth was.  We are seeing the same thing going on in the middle east today.

But Paul met the resurrected Jesus. Paul was on his way to Damascus to kill Christians.  Jesus appeared to him and Paul was forever changed.  He became the greatest Christian writer that we have.  His words just ring with truth because Paul confessed his faults to us.

Romans 7: 24-25a "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death (sin)?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…"  Paul couldn't achieve righteousness on his own.  We can't either.

Are you a Christian?  I don't know who is reading this, so I have no way of knowing.  I hope you are, but if you aren't,  maybe something I have said will convince you to speak to God about it.  I want to spend eternity with all of you.  I want to meet you.  I don't see any way that will happen on this side of eternity.  And it won't happen if you haven't given your life to Christ.

Life is so short.  I wish I could go back and relive some of the things that have happened in my life.  I didn't absorb the joy of living those special occasions or recognizing that they were special as I was doing it!!  I just kept thinking about the problems of the day and what I was going to fix for supper and what was on my schedule for the next day.   Something wonderful happens, and then it passes.  Never to be revisited.  You go on to the next day.  To the next ball game.

That is why people my age treasure their memories so much.  You found the love of your life, you had children, then grandchildren and all the things that go with their lives.  You raise your children, help raise your grandchildren, you are busy--and then they are grown and gone.  And you aren't busy anymore.   It just happens one day.

Since Ken died,  I wake up each morning with nothing to do and go to bed each night with it half done.  I understand that this is a temporary condition.  That I will learn how to live this stage of my life in a different way.  I  work crossword puzzles, I go to swimming exercise classes.  But nothing big.  Or very important.  It seems such a shame to finally have all this free time and not to know what to do with it.  I want to do something useful--and I will--I just don't know what it is yet.

After I write, I always re-read what I have written--and I just did--and it sounds sad.  I don't mean for it to, I am just reflecting on my life.  Now, I write a blog, teach a Bible class and play the piano and marimba for my church.  For now it is enough.
You will reflect on your life someday.  Give it to God.  I am so glad that I did.  It has made all the difference.  I live with great peace.   And unspeakable joy for the blessings I have had in my life.

James 4:14 "You don't know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is a vapor  that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (My interpretation.)  Make your life count.

We believe the Bible because of fulfilled prophecy.  I find it interesting that when I watch Nova or the Discovery channels on TV, they are always using the Bible as a reference.  I also find it interesting that they seem to want to try to find the Biblical account in error--only to discover that it is exactly accurate over and over again.  We have based our eternal lives on the accuracy of the Bible.  It is a critical issue.

I remember being in London at a museum and seeing a series of walls that had been unearthed in the middle east.  They were elaborately covered with drawings of a battle progressing from scene to scene as the war proceeded.  Sennacherib was the winner of the fight.  The Bible records the battle.  The Old Testament writings are historically accurate and are now used by archeologists  in the middle east to look for, and validate their discoveries.

The world would like for you to doubt Biblical accounts.  That way, if any part of it is in doubt, you can't trust the rest of it.  When I started this blog, I told you that there were three main points on which you will be challenged.  The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the Genesis account.  Right now, the Genesis account is under attack.   I spent a month when I started this blog comparing the Biblical account with the scientific account.  You might want to go back and read that.  I found no error in the Biblical account when compared with scientific discovery.

I did find error in the way the outside world interpreted the Biblical account.  I also found error in the way Biblical scholars interpreted it.  My conclusion was that neither of them could read.  Or they were stuck on preconceived ideas concerning what the Bible actually says.

Jesus is the Messiah.  He is the Lamb of God, sent to be our atonement for sin.  He fulfills all prophecy.  You can trust the Bible.  It is God's word to us concerning our condition and his remedy.  Jesus.

The apostle Peter put it this way:  2 Peter 1:16  "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses…"  Peter, Paul, John and the others were changed men because of what they had seen.

There are two ways the word "Prophet" is used in the Bible.  One way is as a preacher or teacher of the Gospel message.  ( The story of Christ's coming, his death for our sins, his resurrection, and his intercession between us and God.)  The Gospel is finished.  That story is done.  We are told to share the Gospel message.  God expects us to do that.

The second way the word "Prophet" is used is as a person who can predict future events as revealed by God himself.  This type of Biblical prophecy is always about something God predicts will happen to the Jews, or predictions about the coming Messiah.  The book of Revelations is the last word of prophecy.  There will never be any more prophecy.   We are just waiting for the final fulfillment.

Since we Christians believe that all the Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus.  That is behind us.  The only Biblical prophecy left unfulfilled is the prophecy of Christ coming again.

There are over seventy prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ that Jesus fulfilled.  The statistical probability of one person meeting all of those predictions is higher than all of the people who have ever lived.  Jesus was it.  (You recall that I am a mathematician.)

We need to be very careful that  what we believe is Biblical.  God said we should not take out the dot on an "i" or the cross on a "t".  That means that all Prophecy has already been written.  So when someone comes to you and says they have a word of prophecy from God, just ask them where that is in the Bible.  If it isn't there, then they are not from God.  He calls them "false prophets".

Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Matthew 7:15   Remember, the devil is the father of lies.

We believe the Bible because of prophecy.  It is an amazing book that gets it exactly right every time.  There is no other book like it in the history of man.  Make a habit of reading it.

My grandmother had lots of food she had canned from the garden, but she was a hundred miles away in Wilberton.  So we would trade our food coupons to someone in Pryor for a tire coupon (Nobody ever had four good tires at the same time).  Every month or two, we would trade someone for gasoline coupons and go to my grandmother's house for the weekend.  Granddad had a little grocery store where people would come in and trade coupons for whatever they needed.  He would be able to fill up our gas tank because someone had traded him a gas coupon for some other kind of coupon.   Coupons were better than money.  Money couldn't buy a tire.

Tires were different than the ones we have now.  They had two parts.  The outside, and an inner tube.  You had to blow up the inner tube.  And on a one hundred mile trip, the tube blew out at least three or four times.  You never left town without a patch kit and an air pump.  I can still close my eyes and see my dad squatting beside the car with a jack and a patch kit, sweat running down his face, trying to get us to my grandmother's house.  Blowing a tire was a common human experience.

When the tubes were totally ruined, we would cut them up into monstrous rubber bands and granddad would make us guns out of wood and clothes pins and the fun would begin.  The rubber band was stretched as far as it  would go between a notch at the end of the gun and a pin on the handle.  You haven't ever really been stung if you haven't played war with a rubber-gun.

When we would start home, we would load up with canned food from grandmother's garden.  It was a perfect childhood.  But for the adults, the responsibility must have been very hard.  It is only when I look back that I realize how little we all had and how much WWII touched every single life.  But nobody felt poor.  We had enough.

Phillipians 4:19  "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."  How true.  We never had anything, but we never needed anything.  I don't remember anybody complaining.  Everyone felt like they were part of the war effort.  They called the men overseas, "Our boys."

In the early forties, during World War II, the government built a huge"Powder Plant" in Pryor to make ammunition for the military.  My dad, along with hundreds and hundreds of other men moved to Pryor because of the jobs.  There wasn't anywhere for all of those people to live.  Pryor was just a little town.

So people lived in tents, or two and three families to a house--depending on the number of bedrooms.  And that was if you could find a house to rent.  There were only a few.  My dad commuted to work from Tulsa where we were living at the time until we finally found a two room house to rent.  I slept on the sofa.  I was four years old.  I have no idea why memories from our childhood are so vivid when I can't remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.

The government stepped in and started building two and three bedroom houses for the town as fast as they could build them.  They were called "The court houses."  There were seven houses in each court.  Three houses facing each other separated by a sidewalk with one house at the end of the sidewalk. Group after group after group.  Hundreds of them.  Acres and acres.  And even then you had to get on a list until your name came up.  They couldn't build them fast enough for the influx of people.  Of course, that meant that hundreds and hundreds of carpenters moved here for the jobs as well, along with plumbers, electricians, etc. etc. all of them needing a place to live.

Each house in the court had shutters with cut outs.  Candlesticks, moons, and five other designs.  We lived in a candlestick house and were so thankful to have a home.  Everybody was in the same boat.  Nobody had enough money to live on, but you couldn't buy anything even if you had money.  Food, tires, gasoline, everything you needed--was rationed.  You had to have a ration book to buy anything and you only got a limited number of ration coupons to spend.  Everybody traded coupons.  They were better than money.  A tire coupon was worth a lot.  All the rubber had gone to make tires for the war.

John 14:2 "In my Father's house there are many mansions.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you."

We won't have to wait for a house in heaven.  It is already under construction.  Continued….

Psalms 19:14  "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."  Words.  Words.  Words.

Matthew 12:36 "But I (Jesus) say to you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment.  For by by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned."

I am tired of hearing God's name trivialized.  Why do people use His name to swear by.  Or use Jesus name.  Or Christ.  I would love to hear the media use the name of Allah or Mohammed just once as a curse.  Equal opportunity blasphemy.  But of course, there is no power in those names.  You can only defame the name of God, because:  He is God.  He is the only God.

Jesus said , "I am the way…."  He didn't say that he was one of the ways.  He is the only way.  The only sacrificial Lamb.  No one else has ever stepped up to the plate and said I will die for the sins of the world.  For you.  For me.  It's personal.

Jesus said we will be judged by idle words.  We will be condemned by idle words.  That is serious.  Some people need to have their mouths washed out with soap.  I, for one, am sick of the language that seems to be common today.  As Christians our mouths need to be very, very careful.  We are the mouthpiece of God.  We speak for Him.  Who will listen to you if your mouth is filthy.  If you have no judgement in the way you speak.  They may laugh, but they won't take your Christianity seriously.

You can't use your mouth one way on Sunday in church, and another way when you leave.

James 3: 10  "Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing.  My brothers, these things ought not to be so."

These things ought not to be so.  Jesus said: Matthew 1234b"…out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."  Garbage in, garbage out.

I am so thankful that God invented color.  Because I love yard work, I have planned my flower beds so that in March (which in Oklahoma is still very cold) my flowers begin to pop up and something is always blooming from then on until October.  The blue hyacinths are first, then the lavender and pink creeping phlox, followed by the peonies.  The pink azaleas bloom,  followed by the red ones.  And then the lilies.  Burgundy, peach, yellow then orange.  Along with purple astilbe and purple iris.

Now that it is June, the late azaleas are blooming and the short lilies are in full swing.  And there are buds popping out on the day lilies.  The phlox is shooting up long stems for next month.  And the crepe myrtles are starting to leaf out.  They will bloom in August.  Then there are the chrysanthemums.

I love it.  It is God's way of reassuring me that after a long and sad winter of grief, that He is still in the business of creation and that He wants me to be joyful.  My flowers bring me joy.

When my children were growing up, I made a rule (which they sometimes kept) that every time you came in the door of the house, that you had to pull five weeds.  No more.  Just five.  It kept everything under control.  And nobody ever had to work very hard at it.

Sin is like weeds.  If you keep pulling the sin out of your life, it never gets a foothold.  But like weeds, if left unattended, it will take over your garden and your life.  And ruin you.  God doesn't make rules to make us miserable.  They are there so that we may live with peace and joy.  He knows what will make us happy in the long run.  It has taken ten years to get my flower beds in the order that I want.  It didn't happen overnight.  I am so glad that I stuck with it and kept pulling out weeds.

Matthew 6:28 (My version) "Why do you worry about what you are going to wear?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not work at it, neither do they spin cloth."  And they are all such pretty colors!!!

Isn't God good.

 Scott (my son) sent me this message--which I didn't know.  

He said that years after Ken retired, one of the old timers used to love to tell Scott the story of how the Mayes County Sheriff tried to get his dad thrown in jail…  the Sheriff knew it was Ken,  but couldn’t prove it.  The FAA needed a tail number.  (From the plane)

But at 575 mph (500 knots) and at 50 feet above the deck…Ken would be out of Pryor on final approach at Tulsa International Airport in less than 3 minutes…there was no way to get a tail number.  And back then you didn't have to file a flight path.  No one knew where you were.  There was no way to know who it was buzzing the town.

Scott said that for 3 months on Friday evenings, the Sheriff   stood on Main Street between six and eight o'clock waiting for Ken to come down to tree top level (going around 600 Mph… get that speed in your head…. The Blue Angels don’t go faster than 360 mph--ever.)

Of course dad never flew the same direction twice.  Doing that would get you shot down in Korea and Vietnam…. He wasn’t stupid…     

Except for a few such youthful stupidities, Ken was a model citizen.  A deacon for our church for over forty years.  A Bible teacher for over fifty years.  And lived to tell about it.  I probably saved his life when I told him I'd marry him.  He didn't buzz the town after that. 

Isaiah 2:2a, 4b  "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established……and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."  Thank God.

Today is D-Day.  Thank some service person for their time in the military.  It means a lot.

Once, when I was writing about Ken's life, I told you that every Friday he would get in whatever airplane he could find that--wasn't being used by the Navy or Marines for that weekend.  He was in Pensacola, and had decided to fly to Pryor and try to talk me into marrying him.  If you missed that story, go back to mid-February.

I forgot to tell you about the first Friday. After work, (teaching cadets to hook wire so that they could carrier qualify), he put on a flight suit, crawled in whatever jet was available and flew to Oklahoma.  The first Friday that he did that, he came in from due East flying into the sun, and dropped to fifty feet over our house going rather fast. (Which was illegal, but in the early fifties those Marines did a lot of things that would get them locked up today. Besides which, there weren't many restrictions.)

What he failed to realize, was that in the nine years since he had left Pryor, they had built a water tower a block west from my house.   He saw the tower in time to flip sideways and miss it by a foot or two.  Our romance was almost over before it began.  I asked him if that was the closest he ever came to killing himself.  "Not even close," he replied.

That story is one of the reasons people from town were saying, "Marry him, so we can get some rest."  Of course some people tried to catch him, but he was there and gone before the noise (as he broke the sound barrier) was over.  It finally got to the point that everyone was expecting the boom on Fridays.  And being a little town, they were tolerant.  But I think there was a sigh of relief when I said, "I do," and moved to Pensacola.

I thought he must have been the James Dean of Naval aviation until I met some of the other pilots.  They were all equally nuts.  I guess that is how they survived Korea.  I told you he got hit seven times in his first twenty-five missions.  Unheard of today.  And he was one of many.

1 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."  
Ken was definitely fearless, flying a lot of power, in love, but the sound mind is questionable.  Who would do such a crazy thing.

Yesterday I wrote that Paul "Pressed for the mark."  He was running a race.  Eyes on the mark, the goal.  Letting nothing distract him.  Paul was racing against time.

I am not an athlete.  I never was, nor had any desire to be.  But somehow I had a bunch of kids who were.  All kinds of All-State and All-Americans.  It had to be handed down on Ken's side.  All that  it meant to me was exhaustion from sitting on benches to support my kids.  I wasn't even a fan.  I just endured it.  I never learned the rules of any of the games.  I truly don't like sports.  But I liked my kids.

The worst was baseball.  Double headers, hot summers, hard benches.   Not to mention sweat.  Who in the world likes to sweat?  I don't get it.  Scott started throwing things as soon as he could get a grip.   When he was small we had to take him off the baseball field many a time because he would get so mad.  (He had a temper)  He believed that the other guys weren't trying hard enough.  He just didn't understand why everyone couldn't do what he could do.  "They need to try harder," he would say.

God gives us different talents.   Scott finally learned that encouraging his team was much more effective than getting mad over things that they couldn't do.  He learned, made it to OU, got drafted, ruined his knees and shoulder and now stays in the game by umpiring girl's softball.  He loves baseball.  I don't get it, but admire his tenacity and longevity.  His knees are shot, but he still squats behind the plate giving those little girls the benefit of every doubt.  Encouraging them when they mess up.  Throwing parents off the field who berate their children.  In constant pain, happy as a bug.  He starts every game with, "God bless you, have a good game." You can still do that in Oklahoma.  He would do it anyway.

Proverbs 20:11 "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right."  Ken's mother used to say, "A child's play is his work.  Let them play."

I am so sorry I missed two days.  I tried to blog on an IPad, but couldn't type on something small like that.  I am old school.  High School typewriter with a ribbon and a roll bar  for paper.  Having graduated to a Mac Book Pro, which has a real Keyboard, I am done with substitutes.  And I left my Mac at home when I went to Edmond last Thursday.  And did a bunch of things I shouldn't have done and landed in the hospital again.  Third time this year.  Same thing every time.

I stuck a broach pin in my right finger.  Accident, but nonetheless, pretty critical in my case.  I lost my superior and axillary lymph nodes in my right side (breast cancer, five yrs. ago.  Okay now) and when the lymph tries to get to the infection (to heal me) there is no way to get out.  So  I start turning  rosy pink with infection all down my arm and the right side of my body.  Which, of course, is not good.

I hate being sick.  I don't like people who always talk about what's wrong with them.  I've had enough of it.  It is so inconvenient to the people around you.  There is no way to treat this but to go get hooked up to stuff at the hospital, which I also hate.  So that is where I have been--because I didn't go when I should have.  My daughter Becky and her husband Craig made me sign a piece of paper saying I would never wait again.  I was out of it--I don't remember signing a paper, but I guess it is true.

My children think I am stubborn.   I think I am independent.   However, I admit that this "right arm thing" is discouraging because I know it's going to happen again.  I am really careful.  I wear gloves most of the time when I am using my hands to do anything.  My daughter Pat even bought me some of those "Dr. Oakley the Vet. calf delivering plastic gloves that go clear up to your arm pit," so I could pick okra--which brings me joy.  I am reminded of Paul, the apostle.

II Corinthians 12: 7-9a "Because of the experiences that I have had were so tremendous, God was afraid I might be puffed up by them; so I was given a physical condition which has been a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to hurt and bother me and prick my pride.  Three different times I begged God to make me well again.  Each time he said, "No, But I am with you; that is all you need…"

It is what it is.  And I'm going to do what Paul did:  Phillipians 3:13b-14 "…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."