It has been raining all day.  A soft, slow pitter patter that soaks into the ground instead of running off.  It is very unusual to have a rain like this in Oklahoma, so close to August.  Usually everything is burnt up by now.  We have set record cool days as well.  I am certainly not complaining.

Squig is afraid of rain. And noise, and strangers, and, and, and…. I had to carry him out into the yard and set him down two or three times today.   I couldn't get him to go outside by himself.  He was shaking all over in fear before I could get him back into the house.  Of course we both got soaked.  Why is he afraid of rain?  I don't get it.  Bo, on the other hand, isn't afraid of anything.  Bring it on.  I didn't know dogs had personalities until we got Squig.  I thought a dog was just a dog--like Bo.

But Becky's three dogs, Maya, Annie, and Max; and Pat's two dogs, Cowboy and Riley are also as different as night and day.  Becky is babysitting a border collie named Sadie and she is unique as well.

When I was growing up, I thought all families were alike.  When I went to school, I thought all the people in my class had Christian parents, big loving extended families that ate together every week, and went to church three times a week and nobody ever said a curse word.  How little I knew about them.  My life was perfect.  Many of theirs weren't.  I must have had my head in the sand.

At my high school reunion this month, we all sat around a talked about how little we really knew about each other's lives.   Some of them went through great difficulties.  Had I known, I could have been a better friend.

You can live with people, go to work and to church or ballgames or whatever,  and never know they are hurting unless you take time for them and listen.  Listening is hard work.  I wish I had been more observant.  All I can do is try to be more observant now.  In Genesis 4:9 we hear the first question that a man asks of God.  "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Of course you are.

 

Forty two years ago I lost my health.  I say that to say this.  We had to have help.  Four children were a full time job and I could no longer do much of anything.  So we sucked it up financially and hired a lady to help us once a week.  She was sent by God himself.  A farm woman with three boys. Three years later when I was starting to function again, Ken didn't want me to let her go.  So year by year she stayed and helped us raise our children.  Looking back, I don't know how she did all the work she did.

But as the years went by, she couldn't do it all anymore.  So I bought her a self-propelled vacuum sweeper that pulled her around.  She was blind in one eye and slowly lost her sight in the other.  She would iron by holding one hand on the board as she guided the other.  Yes, there were a few burned shirts.  She wanted to work so bad.  What was I going to do?  She had grown old and  all the other people that she worked for had let her go.  He husband had died and her boys had left.  She had never learned to drive so she was lonely.  I would go out in the country every week and get her and then take her home.  I cut her hours one by one each year (not her income) because she was wearing out even though she insisted she wasn't.

Last year, at the age of ninety-four,  she broke her leg.  When I go to see her in the nursing home, she asks me to take her home.  "Who is doing your ironing?" she will ask.   "I don't tell her that everything is perma-press and hasn't needed to be ironed for years.  I don't tell her that for the last few years I've had another woman because as long as Leota felt like she was useful, she was happy.  She had memorized my furniture's curves over the years and even though she couldn't see what she was doing very well, she would dust by the shape of the wood, carefully removing knick-knacks and putting them back exactly where they went.  She was an inspiration.  She is an angel.

Hebrews 13:2  "Don't be forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."  


 

It was my daddy's birthday and I wanted to get him something that he really wanted.  I was only nine or ten, and didn't have a clue what he would want.  So I asked him.

"I would like a promise," he said.
"What promise?"
"Promise me you will never smoke."  My dad was a heavy smoker and even though he eventually quit, he knew how hard it was to quit if you smoked and how easy life was if you didn't.

So I wrapped him up a promise for his birthday.  In all the years he lived (to 94) I don't remember another birthday present that I gave him.  But I remember that one.  And I kept my promise.  I never smoked a cigarette.  There was no way I would ever let him down.

I've never tasted beer.  Which is also due to another  promise I made when I was thirteen.  Our town drunk went to the second world war, got the top of his head blown off, survived with a  plate in his head and came  back to Pryor sober.  He accepted Christ as Lord of his life and never drank again.  He and his wife were the cooks for our church youth group.  His nickname was Poodle.
        One Sunday he lined us all up, told us to put our hand on the Bible and swear that we would never drink.  I swore.  And I kept my promise.  There was no way I would let him down.

I think my dad and Poodle saved me from a lot of misery.  I also think I am bull-headed.  If I say it, I'll do it.  Which might not be a bad thing. You never know what your influence will be.  Make it good.

Proverbs 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."  Proverbs 23:29-30, 32 asks these questions:  "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has babbling? Who has redness of eyes?  They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.  At the last it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder."

Proverbs is the Bible's book of wisdom.  Don't read it if you don't want to be wise.

I went to see my three children this last week.  Pat lives in Harrah, Jon in Moore and Becky in Edmond.  (Scott lives here in Pryor.)  And like I always do, I went to Edmond's Antiques where Becky has a booth, (actually four booths) and puttered around.  Brenda was there.  She is my new friend.  She started reading this blog and decided to take the challenge of reading the Bible again.   She said that she forwards my blog to others  when I say something she thinks they might like to read.  That's a good thing to do. Maybe it will help someone.

I thank God for friends.  Family is wonderful, but friends are, too.  Kathy bakes me hot bread and chicken and dumplings.  Sally comes to my house and does my hair, Charlie and George fry fish and share, Trudy brings me garden vegetables, Coy takes out my garbage cans and brings them back from the street, Amy sends me a card every week or so to encourage me, Shirley drove to Porter and brought me peaches, and that is just off the top of my head.  There are so many others.  Bill drove out to my house and got my car and detailed it. Suzanne mailed me her recipe for Orange Brownies.  And on and on.

And then there is Carolyn.  She has been my friend since we were in the ninth grade.  We talk every day.  We go out to eat.  We go to the movies.  She is teaching my class this month for me so I can have a break.  She is determined to see that I take care of myself.

Proverbs 17:17a "A friend loves at all times…."
Proverbs 18:24 "A person that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."

John 15: 13 "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
John 15: 15 "Henceforth I call you not servants…but I have called you friends…" (Jesus)

What a friend we have in Jesus.  (That is such a great hymn.)

There is nothing like home.  When Ken left Vietnam, he told me that God willing, he would never leave America again.  He said you wanted to kiss the ground when you got home from Spain, Greece, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Okinawa or where ever the USMC sent him.  He was true to his word.  He never left again.

He also said that God willing, he would never sleep under canvas or on the ground again.  Once I wanted to go camping at Roaring River with the kids and all our side of the family.  Ken said, "Have fun, or I'll go if you want to rent me a motel room."

I didn't understand that feeling of "America" until long after he retired and I started traveling.  It was fun to go; the feeling lasted about five or six days.  Then I was ready to come home.  Every time my plane would land in Tulsa I promised myself I wouldn't leave again.  I don't know how he lasted five or six months at a time.   A number of times he was gone for thirteen months in another country.

I would get the itch to go again.  He never did.  He was so contented to stay home.  He would drive me to Tulsa, put me on a plane and say, "Have fun."

But this last couple of years, I have been been content as well.  I like to putter around in my garden.  I like to get up in the morning and read the newspaper and work the puzzles.  There's nowhere I really want to go.

 Luke 9:58   "And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man doesn't have anywhere to lay his head.

I am glad, so thankful, that I have a home.

I went to Harrah to see my daughter Pat and she had a story to tell me that lifted my spirits.  It seems that she was towing a friend ( a trail riding partner) who had a broken down pickup.  He had been through a lot and was very discouraged.  He needed the pickup to carry his equipment to shoe horses.  That is how he makes his living.  Which doesn't include calling a wrecker or a tow truck.  All they had was chains, so they hooked up them up and started dragging.

They they were almost to the mechanic, when a policeman stopped them.  He talked to the guy who was being towed and due to total stress, it didn't go well.  So the policeman went up to my daughter in the other pickup to give her a ticket.  "I guess you are wondering why I stopped you?"

"I guess we were doing something that wasn't safe?"

"You are towing without a tow bar.  And the guy you are towing isn't very happy."
"I didn't know chains were illegal," she told him.  "I'm sorry, but my friend needed help and this seemed like the the only way I could help  him.  We are almost to the mechanic, you can see him from here.  My friend has to have a pickup today to do his work.  So after you ticket me, can we pull on up there to the mechanic?"

"I'll follow you.  No ticket.   You help your friend, I'll help you.  Use a tow bar next time."

Pat said, "When I got home, I wrote the patrolman a letter and thanked him.  I told him that it isn't very often that you meet someone that would look beyond the situation and see that my friend just needed some help.  That's what "Pay it forward" is all about.  Legally he could have written me a ticket."

Isaiah 41:6  "They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage." 

Help the person who needs your help.  They may need courage to face the rest of their day.

I have been teaching (on Sundays) from the book of Ezekiel for the last two months.  This is the Old Testament book that I said I was never going to be able to read because it was too hard.  I tried it last year and gave up.  I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  But wouldn't you know, the powers that be in high places decided that this was what we would study from our summer quarterlies.  Go figure.

So I buckled down, got a simple translation, took it a little at a time and eventually it made sense.

Ezekiel was a priest of the Levitical tribe, thirty years old when God spoke to him and said "Stand up, son of dust, and I will talk to you."  God told him to warn the Israelites that if they didn't repent that they were going to be destroyed.   Things went downhill after that.   The people didn't repent and their temple was destroyed.  They had no place to go and speak to God, no place to find him.  God had promised that he would meet them in the temple and now it was gone.

Ezekiel lost his country, his church, his health, his wife, his freedom.  He was taken as a slave.  All the children left in Jerusalem  were killed or taken as slaves.  He ended up in Babylon with nothing.  And yet God continued to call on Ezekiel to prophesy to the people.  They were scattered everywhere with no place to return to.  Nothing was left.  They had put their trust in the assumption that since they had the temple of God, that God would always be there for them.  But God had enough of their sins.  He gave up on them.

What a terrible thing to happen to a person--God gives up on you.  And yet we see people who continue in their wrongdoing and because nothing happens immediately, they think nothing will.  Wrong.  Back in the 1800's, Billy Sunday preached a powerful sermon called "Payday Someday".

 Ezekiel 22:30 "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."   We need Christians to stand in the gap.  If we don't, who will?  Our country needs our witness.

If we do not study history, we are doomed to repeat it.

My dog Bo has epilepsy.  He is eleven years old and this has been going on for five years now.  At first, one pill a week was enough, then two, three, and then a pill every day.  But even with the meds,  he had a seizure.  So now the meds will have to be increased--a temporary fix.  I took him to the vet today for a blood scan to see how much more phenobarbital he can take.  If he can't tolerate any more, well then I will have to consider what will be next.  And I don't want to think of that just now.

Bo was Ken's dog.  He slept with his head on Ken's shoulder and now that Ken is gone, he sleeps with me.  Lately he has been crawling in my lap when I am reading.  He doesn't stay long; he is just looking for some place where he belongs.  I am not exactly the right thing.   But he keeps trying me out.

I never intended to get attached to a dog.  I got Bo because I read an article that said that a dog would help lower your blood pressure and at first, Ken's pressure was high.  It worked.  And of course, I couldn't help but love Bo because he loved Ken.

My daughter Becky had a dog named Maya that was also eleven years old.   A few months ago, Maya had a stroke.  She couldn't stand up or walk or anything and of course Becky had to decide what to do.  "What would you do if this was your dog?" is what she asked the vet.  She knew the answer, but it's easier when someone tells you what is the right thing to do.

Like I said, I don't want to think about that right now.  Maybe more phenobarbital will work.  But the truth is, Bo is lonely and I am not ever going to be exactly what he wants.

I understand how he feels.  It is kinda like the story of Naomi and Ruth when Ruth says: "…intreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for whither you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge.. and where you die, will I die…if ought but death part you and me."  Ruth 1: 16-17

I'll do what I have to do, but, I won't like it.

My mother loved to dress me in frilly, embroidered things.  I was a dig-in-the-dirt-climb-a tree kind of girl--to her dismay.  But she never gave up.  She enrolled me in every culturally enlightening type of class that was available--to my dismay.  Now, I am glad she persisted.  But then, it was agony.

A good day for me was to catch crawdads in the ditch in front of our house.  Bugs, snakes, and locusts were high on my list as well.  If it could crawl, I wanted to catch it.  I caught a crawdad once with hundreds of tiny babies clutching the underside of her tail.  Of course I brought it home.  I put it in a large pan and slid it under the refrigerator.  Out of sight, where it wouldn't bother my mother.   By the next morning, there were baby crawdads all over the kitchen floor.  I had failed to get a pan with high sides.   My mother was not pleased.  She cringed at all the critters that I loved.

I wonder why God put my feminine mother, and me, her tomboy daughter together.  I certainly wasn't what she expected when she had a little girl.  She was a good mother and I was lucky to have her.  Blessed.  She taught me a lot.  I taught her a lot as well I am sure.  Probably not anything she particularly wanted to learn.

When I finished my degree in zoology she was thrilled that I had done well, even if it was in a subject she would not have chosen.   I still like snakes, bugs, tadpoles and snails.  All life was put here for the benefit of people.  Us.  God the creator entrusted us to care for the animals.

Genesis 1:21-25 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth (fish) abundantly...every winged fowl…cattle, and creeping thing…cattle, and everything that creeps on the earth…"  (He likes creeping things.  So do I.)  And then he created man and put him in charge of it.

The fish.  And the water they swim in.
The fowl.  And the air they fly in.
The cattle.  And all land life.
The earth.  And the soil
Creeping things.  The cleanup crew.  We are responsible for all of it.

A series of events occurred which put Paul in that pit, the jail in Rome.  The Jews had turned their wrath on him because he had taken up the case for Christ being the Messiah and was preaching that Jesus was the heir to the throne of David, and that he was the Son of God.  He was preaching this good news to the Gentiles--that made it even worse.  Acts:  9:23 "…the Jews took counsel to kill him."  (Acts is a book of history.  The only history book in the New Testament.)

This is the man that had gone to the high priest and asked for letters giving him authority to bring Christians back to Jerusalem for punishment or death.  But Paul met Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus to deliver those letters and was forever changed.  Paul knew the prophecies of the Old Testament.  Paul was a devout practicing Jew.  But  Paul did a one-eighty and became one of the most effective of all the disciples.  His changed life is a testimony to the truth of the resurrection.  He had seen Jesus.  Paul never looked back again.

All of his friends tried to talk him out of going back to Jerusalem because of the danger. (Acts 21:12) But he went anyway.  King Herod had already killed James the brother of Jesus, and had locked Peter up.  Paul was beaten and arrested and bound with chains.  He was allowed to speak to the crowd and said, "I and a Jew…educated in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, at whose feet I learned to follow our Jewish laws and customs…I persecuted the Christians, hounding them to death…but I met Jesus…" Acts 22:3

The crowd erupted,  they started to beat him, but one of the officers asked whether it was legal to beat a Roman citizen.  They asked Paul if he was a Roman.  "Yes, Paul said.  I am a Roman citizen by birth."  We learn in the book of Acts that  Paul ended up in jail in Rome before it was all over.

Thank God!!! Or he would have never written the letters we have today.  God used suffering to do good.  I don't believe that God causes all the troubles that we have.  But he certainly can use them.

Paul's story in the book of Acts is enough to make any Jew realize that Jesus is their Messiah.  He fulfilled their prophecies.  We too believe in one God.    Jehovah.   God who has come to earth to die for us and as Isaiah (in the Torah)  put it, "…put a new heart in us…take away the stony heart,".  A heart that does right because of God's Spirit, not because of tablets of stone.  We owe a great deal to those Jews who recognized that Jesus fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecy.  He was the Messiah.  He came to change us from the inside out, not from the outside in.

I have been to Rome a few times.   My daughter Becky takes me with her when she travels.  There isn't enough time to see everything, so she lets those who go pick out something we particularly want to see or do.  Once, I chose to see the place where Paul the apostle was locked up in jail.   I don't know what I expected it to look like, but certainly not what I saw.

It wasn't a building, it was a cistern.  A huge hole in the ground carved out of solid rock.  There was an opening on the surface where they let down a ladder.  And when Paul was in this rock cavern, they pulled the ladder out.  It was cold.   How he stood it without complaining I do not know.  He wrote letters to the churches from that cell.  We now are blessed with those letters in our New Testament.

In a particular letter he wrote to Timothy--who was like a son to him--we find one of the few times that Paul lets us know just how human he was.  He says,  "Please come as soon as you can….when you come, be sure to bring the coat I left at Troas…and also the books, but especially the parchments."  He continues:   "The first time I was brought before the judge, no one was here to help me, but the Lord…who gave me the opportunity to boldly preach a whole sermon for all the world to hear.  And he saved me from being thrown to the lions."   Paul ends by saying, "Do try to be here before winter."  II Timothy 4: 13-21.

I can only imagine what he was going through.  He was bitterly cold in that cistern.  He needed a coat before winter.  And the coat was in Troas.  But he especially wanted the books and parchments.

He also wrote to the Philippians, "I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.  But even so, you have done right in helping me in my present difficulty."  Phil. 4: 13-14

I climbed down that ladder into the hole where he was jailed.  And now, when I read the letters that Paul wrote, I have a picture in my mind of him trying to write in the dark, probably with only a candle.  Dependent on others to bring him paper, pen, and whatever they could.  Hour after hour, day after day, waiting.  Waiting on a trial and a sentence.  Writing encouragement to Christians.  What a blessing he is to us who read what he wrote.

Today when I was going into the Recreational Center to swim, a class of school children were coming out in a line--about thirty of them with their teacher leading the way.  They were probably nine or ten years old.  One of the young boys had been assigned to hold the door open until everyone was out.  As I started to go in, he made sure he held the door for me to enter.  A young girl at the end of the line moved ahead of me and got the second door open so I could go in.  The teacher was long gone at the head of the line.  The boy and girl held the doors because they had been taught to honor others.

I said "Thank you so very much."  They said, "You're welcome," and smiled at me.   A small moment in a day that left me feeling good.  It is amazing how little it takes to make someone else feel better.  Those kind of feelings can be trusted.

I have been trying to get the women in my Sunday class to say, "God bless you," when they get their order at a drive in.  I hope they do it.  It  has pushed me to be more diligent about saying it.  More times than not, I get a smile and a "You, too."  It is such a little thing and it may be the only time they hear God's name when it is not being used to swear.

The small things in life count.  They lift our spirits.  I told you yesterday that what we do is more important than what we feel.  However, how we make others feel is an entirely different thing.  That comes from doing something for them.  We "do", they "feel".  I hope what we do is always good and uplifting, courteous and thoughtful, kind and encouraging.   There is enough cruelty and mean spitefulness in the world.

From the Living Bible:  Philippians 2:3  "Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on others.  Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.  Don't just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing."

Open the door for someone.

I have written over 400 blogs.  I think I have told you all of my stories.  So today I will tell you something that I don't think I've ever done.  I will tell you how I feel.  Just this once.

I don't trust feelings.  They come and go.  At times, if you are sad,  feelings might stop you from doing what you need to be doing.  Feelings are fickle.  But we all have them.  We just have to decide what to do with them.  What do you do when you get your feelings hurt?  What do you do when you are afraid?   Intense feelings eventually fade or--you hold on to them.  You harbor them.

Lately, I have been "feeling" abandoned.  I "feel" like Ken has left me here on an island in the middle of the ocean without a boat.  I know.  I know.   It is just a feeling.  But it surely has felt real.  It isn't depression or sadness or loneliness or anything like that…   Here is what this feeling is:

I "feel" abandoned.   I can't go back to the life I had--and I don't seem to know where "forward" is or I would go there immediately.   I truly believe that we are what we do, not what we feel.  I believe that when we do right, then right feelings will eventually come from that.  So I am "doing" things.  And looking for new things to do.   But there are things that I have quit doing as well.  I have quit making my bed.  Fifty-seven years of bed making and I've just quit unless someone is coming over.  I've quit cooking.  Fifty-seven years of cooking every day and now it is easier to stand at the kitchen counter and eat peanut butter with a spoon.

 I "feel" like I am waiting for someone to get me off this island, or bring me a boat and teach me how to row.   There is an old hymn that says: "Thank God for the lighthouse, or where would this soul be…"
That's me this week.  It will pass.  It is a temporary feeling.  I have not been abandoned. Wisdom tells me that.  

1 Corinthians 1: 3a,4 "What a wonderful God we have…the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships…And why does he do his?  So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us."

I love the rain.  I love the sound of the rain.

When we built this house ten years ago, I faced the covered back porch to the East. When  I let the dogs out this morning, I sat out there in a rocking lawn chair and watched the rain pour down.  The ground was so dry that there wasn't any run off although it had rained for hours.  Even though there was a lot of lightening and rolling thunder, it was very peaceful.

It reminded me of the time when I went to Hawaii to meet Ken--when he had R&R from Vietnam.  When the week was over, the three children and I were flying home  and the plane  got caught in a horrible thunder storm.  The pilot would gain some altitude and then the bottom of the air pocket would fall out and the plane would plunge.  We were literally tossed around in the sky.   Lightening hit the wings of the plane.  I was scared.  So I did what I do when I am troubled, I sang a hymn to my kids.  It's a really old one; you may remember it:

"I've seen the lightening flashing, I've heard the thunder roll.

I've felt sins breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul..."

I don't know if it made my children any calmer, but it calmed me.  I had never had them on a plane before, but I wanted them to see their dad before he went back to Vietnam for six more months of combat.

The old hymns are such a comfort to me.  On nights like last night when I can't sleep, I sing to myself.  I'm glad I memorized them.  They are in my head when I need them.

Psalms 32:7 "You are my hiding place; you shall preserve me from trouble; you shall compass me about with songs of deliverance…"

Psalms 95: 1 "O come, let us sing to the Lord:  let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation."

  

People say that I never tell you anything about my children.  True.  So here is a little bit.

My son Jon is extremely strong.  When he was in high school his combined power was seven times his body weight.  They gave him a T-shirt and a pat on the back and then they  took his record down from the gym wall because it was such a discouragement to those who were coming along behind him.   He is built like an ox.  He played nose guard and simply moved the opposition out of the way.  When I would get mad at him, he could pick me up and tell me I was cute when I was mad.  He made all-state at fullback and played college ball.  He teaches Physics and science at Moore.

My son Scott on the other hand was tall and fast.  To look at the two of them you wouldn't know they came from the same family.  I was proud of them not just because they were successful, but because they tried to do what they did with commitment.  Scott played baseball and made all-state, then played for OU.   He had the privilege of being struck out (as he puts it) by Roger Clemens.  He has stayed in the game by umpiring for girl's softball.  He also helps me out by teaching my "all women's" Bible class as a substitute.  The ladies love it.

Ken was an all-state football half-back.  Played for Tulsa Univ. and the Navy.  My daughter Becky was an all-American cheer leader then went to OSU and became an industrial engineer.  The only normal people in my family were me and my daughter Pat.  We neither one understood why you would want to waste your time sweating.  However, she  ran horses  in the summer for the Tulsa YMCA, buying and training them for trail rides.  Blind and deaf children had special weeks  to learn to ride.  She started training people to ride while she was in high school and kept at it for over thirty years in the summer while holding down a full time teaching position in math.

To each his own I guess.  When all of them graduated, I breathed a sigh of relief that I never had to watch another ball game.  Which of course wasn't true, because I have nine grandchildren.  Sometimes I have wondered why in the world God put me in a family of athletes.  He certainly has a sense of humor because sports are one of the last things on my list to do, or watch.

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

When Ken got back from Vietnam and retired, we built a house.  I had designed the floor plan in such a way that my four kids could get to their bedrooms from either the back door or the front door without walking through the family room.  Without walking in front of anyone.

That certainly didn't work.  No one ever used the hallway that I had designed for them to walk through, of course.  So one day, I decided to take down one side of the hall  so that hall space could be incorporated into the family room.  Which I did.  I figured that if I could draw the plans to build the house, I could take down a wall.

I got a crowbar and a hammer and started tearing out sheetrock and studs, headers, wiring and floor boards.   The wall was more than twenty feet long, but I had it done by the next day.  It looked great.  I wondered why I had put a hall there in the first place.  (No, Ken didn't know I was tearing down a wall.  He was in Stillwater, at OSU going to school three days a week and  coming home on the weekends.)

And then, one of our friends stopped by to see what I had done and asked me a question:  "It looks to me like that wall was load bearing.  Did you check it out."
My reply:  "What is load bearing?"

I could design a floor plan, but I had no idea about construction details.  The whole thing could have caved in on me.  But God is good to the ignorant sometimes.
 
Proverbs 14: 1 "Every wise woman builds her house: but the foolish plucks it down with her hands." I don't know if that scripture was meant for me, but it certainly is relevant.

And yes, the first thing Ken asked when he came home that weekend was, "Did you check to see if it was load bearing?"  And no, he never cared what I did to our houses.  I'm pretty good with a hammer.

"Who-done-its" have always been one of my favorite kind of reading.  I love mystery.  I like to figure things out, or be in suspense.   I grew up on the "Bobbsey Twins" and "Nancy Drew."  I can remember when I was young, going to the library and getting six or seven books every week and reading them one right after the other.  (Back when I started blogging, I told you that my mother didn't make us do housework if we were reading a book.  So I made sure I was always reading!!)

But through the last ten or fifteen years, the language has become so bad that I am disgusted with all my favorite authors and have quit reading their books.  I have the same problem with television.  Where is Carol Burnett when we need her?

At first it was only one word, then two.  Now I can't find any mystery fiction to read.  I don't understand why they all seem to follow the leader down the slippery slope of vulgar language and misuse of God's name.  I have always said that a person who uses such language has a very poor command of the English language and a very limited vocabulary with meager adjectives.

Words count.   When they become common and lose their shock value,  our culture is the loser.  It is very easy to follow the leader when bad language becomes common.  Movies, television and books make it hard to avoid anymore.  But God expects better of us.  We don't need to do that!!  More than that, we are training the next generation to speak.  They speak what we speak.  And I think they are running out of bad words.  Words lead to thoughts.  Thoughts lead to actions.  Garbage in, garbage out.

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."

God is not only going to judge our actions, but He is also going to judge our words.

Colossians 3:8b "…now is the time to cast off and throw away all these rotten garments of anger, hatred, cursing, and dirty language."   Just do it.  

Back in the "good old days", when we went to Wilberton to see my grandmother, I would go outside to the well and draw water.  Everyone had a well in small towns in the early 1040's.  Hers had a wood stave bucket held together with metal strips and a handle  that was attached to a pulley.   There was a metal wheel over the well that had a rope that you used to "pulley" the bucket down into the well and when the bucket was full you pulled it up.  The wheels turned and the bucket came up full of water.

The taste of  that water was much different than what we get out of the tap in our houses.  It was spring water.  Clear, pure and really sweet.  No chemicals.  And very cold.  I can still taste it.

Gran also had a Jersey cow.  Jersey cows are known for the milk they produce.  She and I would go to the barn and Gran would get a three-legged stool and milk the cow every morning and every evening.  I remember a stray cat that would show up when she milked and sit waiting until Gran squirted a stream of milk through the air.  The cat never missed the milk.  I think Gran and the cat had an arrangement.  Gran would see that the cat got milk and the cat would keep mice out of the barn.

We would let the milk sit until the cream rose to the top.  Then skim it off and put it in the churn to make butter.  Everyone ate butter on everything back then.  And they all lived  past their eighties.

All of that is foreign to people today.  Nobody goes to their grandmother's house and churns butter.  Very few people will ever see a well.

Jesus was going to Galilee and had to go through Samaria.  John 4:6a, 10 "Now Jacob's well was there.  Jesus….being weary with his journey, sat…on the well;  Then a woman came…to draw water: Jesus said to her, Give me to drink."  The woman knew the Jews hated the Samaritans and asked him why he was speaking to her, a woman.  "Jesus answered and said, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink; you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water."

The living water is free.  All you have to do is ask for it.

This weekend, I am going to my high school reunion.  We do this every two years.  My classmates fall into two categories.  Those who wouldn't go if you paid them to go, and those like me who enjoy hearing what everyone has been doing.  I like to hear the funny stories we tell on each other.  We truly liked each other, and we still do.

"Popular" was always someone else besides you.  There isn't anyone in my graduation class that felt like they fit in.  We are all amazed at how shy we were back then.  Those years before the "Sixties" were the last years of innocence.  Very few people had a TV.  I had never heard anyone say a curse word.  Air conditioning was for rich people.  If you took the car anywhere, you carpooled to save gas.

We had a water fan.  You put it in the window, filled it with water and the blades blew cool mist into the house.  I remember lying on my bed, under the water fan, reading a book.  It was the only way to stay cool in the unbearable Oklahoma heat.

Rain was a huge blessing.  People sat on their porches in the evening and talked about the weather.  Whether the wheat was going to burn up.  How much water was in their ponds for the cows. In the fifties, we weren't that far removed from the "Grapes of Wrath" and the dust bowl.  They still talk about the weather here, just not on the front porch.  We've lost something sweet because we sit in our air conditioned homes and watch TV.

I guess that is why people talk about the good old days.  For my generation, the days really were good.

Proverbs 7:10  "Don't long for the "good old days," for you don't know whether they were any better than these!"

You can't go back.  So keep on going forward.  We must live in the time that God placed us in.  Your time is now.

In 1944, before they changed the IQ tests, I was a genius.  It made my mother very happy.  Two years later, when I took the new test I was  just normal.  They had put much too high a value on math and spacial skills in the first test, which was right down my alley, so I had an unusually high score.  Those little round and rectangular odd shapes that you have to imagine "how they will fit together when you rotate them in space" were fun for me.  I love puzzles.  Algebra was my favorite subject.  All those x y, and z problems that you had to figure out were the best part of my day.  It's not surprising that I ended up at a college teaching math as a career.  It is wonderful when you get to work at something you love.

It is interesting how we categorize people based on what they are skilled at.  It is a poor way to evaluate a person.  We judge them the same way based on the jobs they have, how much money they make, what kind of car they drive, what kind of house they live in.  All are things that don't matter.  What matters most are the genuine characteristics that they have.

The thing I value the most is honesty.  You are either honest, or you aren't.  There is no such thing as a "little bit" honest.  Integrity would be very high on my list.  Do you do what you say you will do?  Perseverance would be high on the list as well.  Do you keep on keeping on even when it's hard?  Kindness.  That has to be on my list.  There is never any need to be rude or thoughtless when interacting with others.   Generosity.  My daughter Pat says that you have to help the poor people that God puts in your path.  You can't help the entire world, but you can help someone.

There are so many qualities that draw me to a person.  They never involve the things they have.

Galatians 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance."

I am working on making a good test score on those things.  Join me.

I am writing into a void.  I can't see you.  I don't know who you are.  As far as I know, I don't have any way to hear you.   I wish I could hear all of your voices.

Writing every day is cathartic.  It is like wringing out a cold wet washrag and wiping your face.  Refreshing. I started writing before the invention of the electric typewriter.  Being able to write on an Apple and have someone read it immediately is truly amazing.  They say it is sitting out there in a "cloud" so that generations to come can read it if they want to.  That is hard for me to imagine.

Someone once said that your life is forgotten if you don't write.  I don't want Ken's life to be forgotten.  If I can give him any lasting gift it will be for coming generations to know what a truly incredible man he was.  We were all so blessed to be a part of his life.  It was exciting.  Because of the gypsy life we lived, moving 19 times in 15 years, our children are extremely adaptable.  Circumstances demanded it.  Nobody had time to sweat the little things.  So we didn't.  And they didn't either.  They had to cope.

Ken always said, "Say 'yes' every chance you get.  There will be enough times you have to say no."  He was right.  Our youngest Jon was in the fifth grade when "The Boz" was playing for OU.  Boz had a radical haircut for that time.   When Jon saw it, he asked me to cut his hair that way.  "Sure, I said.  "Get me the clippers."  I cut three or four curved stripes down both sides of his head.   It was cool.  That afternoon all his friends came home from school with him so I could cut their hair too.  "I'll do it if you will get a note from your mom."  What difference does hair make in the long scheme of things anyway?  

Ken always said, "I want my children to obey me because they love me, not because they fear me.

That's what God wants as well.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and you will have nothing to fear.

I have written difficult things from the scripture the last couple of days.  So I will lighten up.   Last night I was so sore I couldn't go to sleep.  I had been bending over, pulling weeds and planting ground cover.  It was hard work. But it was made all the more difficult because among all those weeds was poison ivy.

I put rubber gloves on to protect myself and pulled and pulled.  Why do weeds grow so well when flowers have to be constantly attended to?  What is the purpose of poison ivy anyway?  It is rather like that black widow spider I got rid of last week.  A nuisance that can cause you a lot of harm.

There are many things that I can't figure out.  Like: Where is "space"?  How far does it go?  What is the purpose of a tornado?  Why do we have to get the flu?  Why  do we have earthquakes?  Why did God create us and decide to love us?  Why would anyone sacrifice their only child for someone else?    What is love anyway?  Why do we feel it?  Etc. etc. etc.  I have no answers to questions like that.

Some things I know because the Bible tells me.  But even the Bible doesn't answer all the questions that I have.  God didn't tell us everything.  Only what we needed to know to become his children.

When I get to heaven I am going to have a million questions.  I wonder if God will answer them?  Will I get to meet Paul and Peter?    Will I meet my ancestors and learn what they went through?  Things that had a direct impact on  my life.  My mind wanders when I'm trying to go to sleep, and I think of a million things I want to know.  I thank God for the things he let me know.  He answered an awful lot of questions which the world needs answers for.  I'll have to wait for the rest.

I suppose that I should quit pulling weeds for awhile so I don't get so sore that I can't sleep and lie there and think up questions.  But the weeds are still there and have to be pulled.  I'm going to get it done.

John 1: 1, 3b In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made."  I don't think He made weeds right off the bat.  That happened later when Adam got his punishment for disobeying.  Genesis 3: 17   "Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to, I have placed a curse upon the soil…It will grow thorns and thistles for you…"  Too bad.