I have written over five-hundred blogs.  This is like a diary.  In reverse.  I'm telling you things that happened to me in the past.  And things I have learned through the years.

My grandson Brady is three.  His mom said he loves bugs and creepy crawlers.  The other day he saw a grasshopper.  So he got down on his knees and said, "Hello, little fella.  Wha'cha doin?"  Children are so innocent.  Jesus said that if we aren't like little children, we won't see the kingdom of God.

Our faith must be simple as well.  Hebrews 11: 5 "Enoch was translated that he should not see death…for before his translation …he pleased God."  I told you that I want to please God.  I read the Bible so that I can know what is pleasing to him.  It is our guide book.

In the very next verse (vs. 6), the writer of Hebrews says something profound. "But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

Science tries to find the origin of life.  And fails.  Science doesn't explain where this is all occurring.  Or where it all came from.  Or what was the first source.  Science also doesn't give us an explanation for our sin.  The world would say, "There is no sin.  If it feels good, do it."  But we know.  In our hearts.

But the Bible is simply the truth.  John 1:1, 3 "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 any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and life was the light of men"

We get to choose.  Science--which is ever searching but never arriving at final truth.  Or the Bible--which simply tells us the truth.  And it rings a bell in our hearts.  That's faith.  We choose faith.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.   It is so much fun having family together.

The Jews to whom the New Testament letters were written had a rich heritage.  They knew the stories of their ancestors and held the faithful forefathers in high esteem.  So when Jude mentions Enoch, those to whom his letter was written already knew all about him.  Jude must have gotten his information from other letters that were lost, or from oral tradition, because he tells us things that aren't recorded in the Old Testament. He calls Enoch a prophet.

What Jude tells us (Jude 1:14-16) is that Enoch told the people of his time that they were ungodly.  And that their deeds were ungodly.  Jude is concerned about the people who have come into the church and have began to divert the simple truth of salvation.  He uses Enoch as a godly example.

He tells us in Jude 1 that Enoch said that these people are constant gripers.  Never satisfied.  Doing whatever evil they feel like; showing respect to others only to get what they want.  Sounds like us.

We gripe.
We are never satisfied.
We want to do whatever we want.
We manipulate people for our advantage.
Why in the world do we think God will approve of us.

Enoch pleased God.  I keep trying.  I can't think of anything better than to please God.  I'd like to be like Enoch and just vanish to heaven and not have to go through anymore misery to get there.

The second man of faith that is mentioned is Enoch.  Hebrews 11:5 "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him:  For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

There is some confusion concerning Enoch's forefathers.  In Gen. 4: 18 we find that Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.  But the genealogy doesn't match the person named in Genesis 5:18, and 22. "Our" Enoch is named as a great-great-great grandson of Seth.

The Old Testament mentions him in only one sequence of verses:  vs. 22-24,  "And Enoch walked with God…he begat Methuselah…and lived three hundred and sixty five years…Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."  That's it.

Not much information.  What we know is that he was of the linage of Seth; he was the father of the oldest person in Bible history (Methulselah);  he walked with God; and God took him (the New Testament says translated him).  He didn't have to die to be with God.  His life was a walk with God.  That's it.

He is mentioned in Luke 3:37 as Luke gives the linage of Jesus Christ, all the way back to Seth and Adam.  And he is mentioned once more in Jude 1:14-15 "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these (I'll explain what "these" were tomorrow), saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed…"

Enoch was a faithful man.  He walked with God.  That means you put one foot in front of the other and head in the right direction.  One step at a time.

 The Bible I am using has 1,146 pages of print.  The record of the first murder appears on page 4.  It didn't take long for a killing to take place.  Adam and Eve had Cain, then Abel.

All we know about Abel is that:  1. He was a shepherd.  2.  He brought a sheep as a sacrifice to God.  3.  God declared him righteous.  4.  Cain killed him.    What a mess.  It could have been so different.

Adam and Eve had another son (Seth) who is much more prominent in Biblical history.  But the writer of Hebrews chose to recognize Abel as the first man of faith.   In Matt. 23: 35, Jesus himself speaks of Abel.  "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel…"  In Hebrews 12:24 Abel is mentioned again. "…to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that (blood) of Abel."

That's all we know.

Except that in the greatest chapter on the subject in the entire Bible, Abel is the first person on the list of faithful men.  He didn't know Jesus.  He didn't have anything written that he could refer to.  He didn't have a church.  He didn't know much.  But he knew God.  Adam and Eve did one thing right--they told Abel about God.  And Abel believed.  He had faith in God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

We are saved the same way.  By our faith in the sacrifice that God has provided for us.  Jesus.  All salvation--Old Testament and New--is the very same.  By faith.  Faith in the promises of  God.  John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."  God will declare us righteous because of the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

When I was going through the book of Hebrews, I got to the eleventh chapter and was pretty overwhelmed with what to say.  It is the greatest chapter in the entire Bible on faith, but there were so many names of the Old Testament characters that I just skipped most of it.  Now I think I would like to go back and cover some of the reasons that those particular people were named as people of faith.  The chapter begins:  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen."

And then the litany of the faithful patriarchs begins--with Abel.   Heb. 11: 4 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous…"  His parents-Adam and Eve--had failed.  But Abel was declared righteous by God.   Genesis 4:2-5a "…and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord.  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the the fat thereof.  And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect…"  Why?

The Bible doesn't tell us.  The rules of sacrifice had yet to be given to Abraham, or Moses.   But God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins when they sinned--which was the first time an animal had been sacrificed.  (Gen. 3: 21 "…the Lord God made coats of (animal) skins, and clothed them."  Up until then, they ate the fruit of the trees in the garden of Eden.    God sacrificed an animal to cover their sin.  God must have told them why he expected a blood sacrifice.  What it represented.  Abel complied.

It makes sense.  All sin has to be covered by blood.  In the Old Testament it was the blood of lambs, doves, etc.  In the New Testament sin is covered for all time by the blood of Jesus  The Lamb.

So Cain thought that grain would be good enough.  God didn't.  It made Cain so angry that he killed Abel.  And when God came looking for him, Cain said those famous words, "Am I my brother's keeper?"  The answer is, "Yes."  We are our brother's keepers.

Raising children is tough.  You don't know what you are doing.  You are really just winging it most of the time, learning as you go.  Using the Bible as your guide--but it doesn't cover the fine points!!

One day, after Scott, Becky and Pat were grown and gone, Jonathan told me he wanted to talk to me.  Jon doesn't talk much, so my ears perked up.  We went into the living room, sat down, and I started getting nervous.  "Mom," he said, "I want to tell you something.  But you can't say anything.  You have to just sit there and listen.  I'm going to do something you won't approve of, and I don't want to do it behind your back."

"I don't know if I can do that!!," I said  All sorts of things had popped into my mind.

"Okay," he said--and he got up and left the room.  "Wait," I yelled.  Wait."  And he said, "Promise?"  So I promised that I would just listen.  That I wouldn't say anything. (Better than not knowing.)

"I am president of my Senior Class," he said.   "And tonight my friends--about fifteen of them--are going to climb the water tower with me and paint it.  I'm going up first.  We are probably going to get caught.  I didn't want the police to call you without you knowing in advance what was going on."

The police called.  But since one of the boys was the son of one of the policemen, they all got off with just a warning.  I guess since I knew beforehand what they were going to do, that I was an accessory to their crime. But the Bible doesn't cover water towers.  A promise is a promise.  I kept my mouth shut.  It is pretty neat to have a kid that doesn't want to go behind your back and do something he knows you won't approve of.  Sometimes, even when they are wrong, their hearts are right.

Psalms 127:3-5 "…children are an heritage of the Lord…as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man…happy is the man that has his quiver full of them…"  I've got four.

Yesterday was a day full of disappointments.  Have you ever had a day like that?  I think the secret to not being disappointed is to let God be in charge of everything.  I am a control freak.  But before the day was over, I was okay.   Disappointed, but okay.

It started because I had decided to put a bid in on a house close to Scott and Stacy.  The owner accepted my offer.  The contract was ready to sign--then he sold it to someone else and never came back to me for a counter offer!!  I had already hired a subcontractor to make some changes.   What happened???  I finally decided that God was in control and I needed to chill out.  It's just a house.

Then I went to see the specialist.  The one that had told me that as soon as all the blood work was back, that there might be something we could do about my arm.  There wasn't.  It didn't turn out that way.  I just have to live with it.  I have to be more careful and not scratch my arm.  That's the way it is.  But I have an arm.  I have good eyes.  I can hear.  I can walk.  I have a purpose.  I have fingers.  I play the piano for my church.  I teach a Bible class.  I have wonderful friends and family.  And all of you.

To top it off, the day was Nov. 19.  One year since Ken died.  Oh well.  Might as well get it all over on the same day.  I do miss him.  He would have said to me, "That's the way it is.  Get on with it."  He always just put one foot in front of the other and kept on keeping on.

My grandson called me awhile ago and asked me to "go hang out" with him this evening.  I think I will pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about my disappointments tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.  And God hasn't failed me yet.  When your grandson wants to spend the evening with a grandmother that is fifty years older than him, things can't be that bad.

I Timothy 6: 7-8  "For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world;  But if we have food and clothing, with these…be content."

Four years ago my church split in two, and two hundred and fifty people started a new church.  It was so hard.  I had grown up in my old church.  Baptized there.  Married there.  My children came to Christ and were baptized there as well.  My daughters were married there.  I taught Bible there for forty years. Ken's father was pastor there in the nineteen-forties.

But my new church is finally coming together.  We got a pastor a few months ago.  He is wonderful.  One of those people who loves people and truly cares about them.  He was a missionary in Cambodia for many years.   Now he is here with us.  It's our gain.

He has interesting sermons,  but I still go to sleep in church sometimes.  It's not his fault.  I don't think it's mine either.  It's just a factor of the mileage on my body.  I've found that if I write down the points he is making, I concentrate better.  He is very organized in his teaching and easy to follow.  I am so very thankful he is here.

You can listen to dynamic preachers on television.  But you can't build a church if the only thing you have is a dynamic speaker.  You need a shepherd.  Someone who is there in times of trouble and times of joy.

Matthew 9:36  "But when he (Jesus) saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."

Every church needs a shepherd.

When Scott married Stacy, he had two boys and she had two girls.  I got the absolute best two granddaughters and daughter-in-law in the world out of the deal.  Blended families can sometimes be difficult if not impossible.  But this one is awesome.  And the thing is, all three girls love me, take care of me, have me over for dinner often and volunteer to do my shopping for me.  They even come to my house and put fitted sheets on my bed.  (I no longer have the hand-strength to pull those corners on.)  All I have to do is call one of them and say, "I need a little help," and they come on over.

And of course Scott hooks up my back-flow-preventer every spring and takes it off in the fall so it doesn't freeze.  And changes lightbulbs.  And air filters.  And hooks up the hoses in the spring and rolls them up and puts them away in the fall.  And plants my garden.  He even buys the plants.  (I don't think he trusts me to get the right ones.)

You know, you can't make someone love you.  It is a gift they give you.  I am so blessed.  Stacy has been trying to get me to sell my house and move into town next door to them.  "So I can take care of you," is what she says.  Truth is, I don't need anybody to take care of me.  But it sure is nice to know that if  and when I do need something, she and the girls are there for me.

My other three children are two and a half hours away.  But if I need them, they come.

Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

In the Old Testament,  Ruth says to her Mother-in-law Naomi, "Intreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for wherever you go, I will go; and where you live, I will live.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God."  I can only imagine how wonderful Naomi felt at such a declaration of love.  She had Ruth.  I have Stacy.

I have the will power of an ox.  But.  I have the attention span of a gnat.

Ken was one of those people who, when he started something, he finished it.  And nothing would distract him.   He just kept plugging away until the job was done.  It drove me nuts.  "Can you come help me?" I would ask.  "When I get through with what I'm doing," he would answer.

I, on the other hand, can only stay hooked up on a task for a short time.  Then I have to do something else.  My ox-will-power sees that I finish all my projects, but not all at once.  I will have five or six things going at a time.  But every day I finish something.  Yesterday it was the dressing for the turkey--which is now in the freezer.  Then I did the cranberry sauce.  Then I read a book.  I hold the things I like to do--like read--out in front of me like a carrot in front of a horse.  It helps me keep plugging.

I think we are all supposed to be doing things.  Useful things.  It took me three or four days to make the dressing.   Get out the recipe.  Stop.  Get out the pan.  Stop.  Bake some cornbread.  Stop, etc.  I just kept stopping.  And starting.   And eventually I got there.

• Psalms 92:4 (KJV)

  "For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands."
  
  
  God finishes what he starts.  He doesn't tune in and tune out.   He is working in our lives.   All the time.  "Stop" is not in his vocabulary.   

Thank God that tomorrow I am going to get these tubes out of my chest.  I will be normal once more.  One of my dearest friends (who happens to work for Home Health) has come every morning at 6AM, then at 2 and lastly at 10PM to hook me up and give me the antibiotics.  Every morning and evening on her own time.  I'm not sick.  I don't hurt.  I'm just irritated (mad) with my condition.  How in the world did Paul say, "…for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."  Phillipians 4:11

I'm going to have to work on this "contentment" thing.  Contentment is not my nature.  But If I read that scripture correctly, it says that Paul had learned contentment.  I've got some learning to do.

My situation is just an inconvenience.  Paul's was torture, beating, and finally death at the hands of the Romans.  But he kept on doing the job that God had given him to do.  His condition didn't dictate his service and letter writing.  I am very thankful that in the midst of persecution Paul wrote letters.  What would we do without his letters.  They are a huge part of the New Testament.  We have more words about Jesus from Paul than we do from anyone else in the entire Bible.

All the writers of the New Testament wrote about Jesus, but Jesus din't ever write anything about himself.  And yet, Jesus is what the Bible all about.  He is the one we want to know about.  He is the one we need to know about.  And Paul tells us about Jesus better than any one.

So.  Concerning "learning" something that God wants you to learn, in verse 9, Paul says, "Those things, which you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do:  and the God of peace shall be with you."  

So I will have to work on the first thing--learning--and then Paul says I can receive peace.  I can try and be like Paul.  Because all the doctors who have treated me feel like my arm will get infected again.  And again.  I've got to learn contentment.  It's hard.

I have lived under twelve Presidents.  An even dozen.  Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnston, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

I have lived through the media, Republicans, Democrats and the public, ranting and raving about how terrible the President was.  All of them.  And yet, each one has brought us something that has lasted and been good.  I am personally grateful for the G.I. Bill.  Thousands and thousands of returning GIs (from WW2 especially) were able to go to college, get degrees, and make more money and pay higher taxes for the rest of their lives.  It was a program that was paid back dozens of times over in increased taxes.  The more you make, the more you are taxed.  Everyone won with that one.  Ken did--he taught on a college campus for 28 years because of the G.I. Bill.

The interstate highways.  Eisenhower saw the wonderful roads in Germany and put into action a program to connect our nation.  If you didn't live in the forties, you don't know how horrible it was to go somewhere on two lane (or one lane) dirt roads.  Highway sixty-six was about all we had.  It took days to get anywhere.  I wrote to you about my dad patching tires over and over as we tried to make the trip to my grandmother's house.  Now we take interstate roads for granted.

As we swing from the Democrats to the Republicans (nobody seems to like what they have had--for almost any four years of a presidency--and we are constantly changing back  and forth), we sometimes forget that the Bible says to pray for our leaders.  Whoever they are.  This is a wonderful, blessed country.  It has been interesting to watch history unfold in my life.

Paul said:  (and they were under a Roman dictatorship) Romans 13: 1 "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.  For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God."

God determines the future.  His plan is in motion.  He has told us the final outcome--not what is going on between now and then.  Politics just determine who we get to vote for and gripe about.

One of the men at the reception had lost a leg in Afghanistan.  He came home, was fitted for a prosthesis and asked to be shipped back, so they sent him back.  A Marine with only one leg is still a Marine.  He went on to serve the country for over twenty years.  It is humbling to be in the presence of such men.

I have great fear concerning the situation in Iraq with Isis.  Somehow, evil has descended in an unprecedented way.  And the people there seem to be unable to stop it.   I lived through WW2 and the Nazis and this sounds just about as bad in the wholesale way that people are being killed and tortured.

Our hope is in God.  "In God We Trust."  In the meantime, pray for the leaders of our country.   I personally don't want any more dead Marines.  On the other hand, I am thankful for our armed services and all those who serve our country.

I always get a little (a lot) squishy on Veteran's day.  I want to hug them all.  And having the Marine Corps birthday on the tenth, then Veteran's day on the eleventh keeps me squishy for two days in a row.  I am not a cryer.  But I can't get through two days in a row without tears.  My son Scott is a Marine, and came under fire in Panama.  His first Sargent in that excursion saved Scott's life  by tackling him to the ground as rounds were fired over their heads.  Thank God for mercy.

Isaiah 2: 2b, 4b "…in the last days…the Lord's house shall be established…and all nations shall flow unto it…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."

I personally can't wait.  I have lived under the fact of war--somewhere--my entire life.  And it has been personal--with Ken and both my sons volunteering to serve our country in the armed services.

I have never in my life been the 'guest of honor' before.   When all the presentations were done, I went to the back of the room to talk to a young Marine.  Someone came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Mrs. Jacks, would you mind filling your plate.  Everyone is waiting on you to eat first."  I turned around, and sure enough, the whole room was waiting.  I apologized profusely and told them that I had never trained to be a guest of honor and for them to go ahead and eat.  They wouldn't.  So I did my duty and filled my plate.

I was asked to give an impromptu speech--which was fine--my mind was filled with a million stories about Ken.  Which one?  I looked at the audience and they were for the most part enlisted men.  Men who had come under fire on the ground.  They knew that Ken was a Lt. Colonel.  A fighter pilot.  So I started by saying, "When Ken was eighteen, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and went through boots at Camp Pendleton.  But by a stroke of good luck, he was chosen to go to flight school where he was commissioned a Second Lt."  There was an audible shift in the audience.  The word "Officer" is always a line of demarcation.  They hadn't known that he had been enlisted first and gone through boots just like they had.  They were naming their detachment after him, but didn't realize he was "one of them."  After that, it didn't matter what I said.  They were with me.

I shared a story about how, at the age of eighteen and totally ignorant of the Marine Corps, I was pouring coffee in a receiving line at the Officer's Club in Pensacola when a man came through the line with lots of "Pretty Stuff" pinned on his uniform.  I asked him what he did in the Marine Corps and he said that he did the things that nobody else wanted to do.  After he passed on by, the woman standing next to me said, "Janie, that was the Commandant!!!"  "What's a Commandant," I answered.

I think funny self depreciation always puts an audience on your side.  It was a good night.  I was proud to be Ken's wife.

Well, Bo has had a big improvement.  He is laying on his back doing his Snoopy-dog dance and throwing his pig up in the air.  I think he was just happy to be back home.  One reason Becky is so concerned is that she is afraid I will try to pick him up and he will scratch my right hand or arm and I will end up back in the hospital.  So.  I won't pick him up.  If he can't jump up into the car, he just won't get to go.  I can do that.  But this is all just a temporizing measure.  He is failing fast.

Today is the USMC birthday.  I have been to many Marine Corps Birthday Balls.  Long white gloves.  Full length gowns.  I still have a beautiful silk organdy black hand-painted gown that I wore in l964.  It is beautiful.  I have a picture of Ken and me on our way to the Ball--and I am wearing that dress.

But tonight, my son Scott will be my escort.  He is a Marine.  In every sense of the word.  I have not celebrated November the tenth in over forty-five years--since Ken retired.  But tonight, I am the "Guest of Honor" at a dinner to organize the Marine Corps League Detachment (#1422).  It was formed in the last few months and this is their first meeting--appropriately on the USMC birthday.  They have named it the Stanley-Jacks Detachment after Ken and his friend Sgt. Monroe Stanley--a WW2 veteran who made four landings in the Pacific.  Including Iwo Jima.  (If you are just now joining my blog, read about Ken from the Feb.-Mar., 2014 blogs.)  They are heroes in this neck of the woods.

So I am going to pull something out of the closet that will be appropriate.  I want to thank all of these men for their service.

Say "Thank you" to a veteran.  They sometimes feel forgotten and we owe them.  I am reading "Truman" by David McCollough and have been reminded once again of how many of our young men died in WW1 and WW2.  And how close we came to ending the world as we knew it.

Becky--who has been watching Bo and Squig for me this week while I am laid up in this hospital--said that Bo is at the end of his tether.  He can barely get up.  He hurts.  She and Pat both say it is time to put him down. That is going to be really hard to do because one of the last things Ken said (to Pat) was, "Take care of Bo."  Bo was his dog.  I love him, but he chose Ken.  He slept on Ken's side of the bed every night curled up in Ken's arms.

But in Ecclesiastes 3:2 it tells us that there is "A time to be born and a time to die…"  I have just been afraid I would make a mistake on this and wonder forever if I let him go too soon.  Pat said, "Dad is waiting on him.  It's going to be okay."

But since Bo began having such a difficult time, I kept thinking that if I tried harder, if I took him to the Vet more often, if I changed his medications, or if I changed what he eats--that I could help him.  And all that did help, but I think he has a lot more bad days than good days now.

It's not "Putting him down" that is hard for me.  I can do that.  It is knowing that I have done all that I can for him and that today--or tomorrow--is the day.

After Ken told Pat to take care of Bo, he started to go back to sleep.  But then he said, "Take care of your mother, too."  That should give you a picture of how much he loved his dog!!  I was number two in the "Taking care of" sequence.  Of course Ken knew I was going to be okay.  He didn't know about Bo.

Question is, have I done enough?

I have found a new doctor!!!!  (Specialist) He is amazing.  He changed my medication and explained what is going on with my arm.  He talked to me for an hour and a half.  He wanted to know everything that had ever happened to me since I was a child.  I didn't know such doctors still existed.

I said, "I don't know your religion (he is from India), but I am sure that my God sent you to me.  He smiled and said he was Hindu.  "Well," I said, "I still think you are from my God."  He was so pleasant and cheerful.

Maybe he will let me out of this hospital tomorrow.  But I still have to have ten days of intravenous antibiotics at home.

Of course, my daughters think I shouldn't have gotten into my car and driven from Pryor to Edmond after dark.  But if I was going to have to be in a hospital (and I knew that was going to happen),  I needed someone to watch my dogs for a week.  And Becky is at home right now.  Anyway, I had a four hour window before I got to the fainting point so I knew I had time to drive it.

Both girls think I am hard headed, independent and stubborn.  I can't completely disagree.

My Bible is at home or I would give you a Bible verse.  I am counting on the words of Jesus that he said he came to heal the sick.  And that those who were well didn't need a physician.

No, I am not one of those people that think that God is going to heal you regardless.  People like that think that if you don't get well it is because you don't have enough faith.

That's not me.  I figure that God is in control.  That's fine with me.  My faith isn't what is sick.

My arm is infected again.  Five times this year.  So discouraging.  But, hey, it isn't going to kill me.  Just irritate me.  They stuck me nine times and couldn't get a vein--because I don't have any left that aren't solid scar tissue.  I figure I have been stuck over 700 times in the last forty years.  Enough of that.  If God is trying to teach me something, I'm not getting it.  But like I said yesterday, I never get anything He is trying to teach me until I am looking back.

Ken always said, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."  He was stoic in the face of pain.  "You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Don't ever stop."  He was something.  I cannot express how much I miss him.  Every time I have to make a decision, I want to ask him what he would do.  What he thought.  I didn't always agree with his point of view, but it was comforting to know what he thought because he was very, very wise.  By the time we had discussed every side of an issue, I was much clearer on what I should do.

My paraphrase of Deuteronomy 32:30  "One shall chase a thousand, but two shall put ten thousand to flight."  That's a factor of ten.  Two minds are better than one.

I am "one" now.  I liked being two better.  

I think that I live in the past.  I don't figure things out until after they have happened.  And even then, sometimes it takes years before I figure it out.

When Ken returned from Viet Nam and retired, he told me that I had been a good sport moving all over the country with him (as a Marine pilot).  He said--his actual words--"It's your turn.  I want you to go do what you want to do.  I'll stay home and be a house husband and take care of the kids."  (That never happened of course--too much multitasking that came with four children--especially since he had been gone most of the time they were growing up.  But I thought it was really sweet and generous that he thought he could, and was willing, to give it a try.)  He was a good sport, too.

I had loved dissection (sharks, fish, cats, pigs, etc), Comparative Anatomy, and the other Zoology and medical classes I had taken while he was away.  I had dreamed of being a surgeon, but with four kids it seemed impossible until Ken encouraged me.  So I finished a pre-med degree and applied to Med School.  But before I could go, I got this terrible tumor inside my heart and by the time I recovered--three years and counting--I realized that I would never have the physical strength to stand up in an operating room.  Something I really wanted to do, and was ready to do wasn't going to happen.

What in the world was God thinking?  My health was shot.  I had spent years taking extremely difficult classes, working very hard to make all A's and wouldn't ever be able to use the degree.  (Organic Chemistry alone was like memorizing the Tulsa phone book.)  I would never have done it if I had known how it was going to turn out.  But God knew.  And all that knowledge became the foundation for teaching the book of Genesis to young people.  Teaching them how scientifically correct the Bible is.  And how it all meshed together with physical anthropology.  With no error.

Proverbs 4: 7  "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all your getting, get understanding."  I had a lot of knowledge, but it took awhile to gel into understanding.  God doesn't consult us when he has a plan.  He just works it out in our lives--if we are willing.

I spent part of the week in Edmond.  On Thursday, my son-in-law was trying to finish up a house he was planning to rent.  My daughter and I spent the day helping him hang rods and drapes.  He told us that a man had come up to him in the yard and asked if there was any work he could do.  "I'm almost finished," my son-in-law told him."  There isn't anything left to do."

The man said he would do anything.  That he and his wife were trying to get to El Reno, and that they had run out of gas.  He said that he had a job there.  He pulled out a piece of paper with the job offer for a welder on it.  "I need to get to El Reno really bad.  I don't want a handout," he said.  "I'll do anything you want me to do."

"Well, you could plant some grass for me.  There is a four foot square that needs a little work.  It isn't much.  Maybe fifteen minutes."

The man finished the grass, asked if there wasn't anything else he could do?  My son-in-law said "No" and gave him eighty dollars.  The man looked at him, looked at the money, and began to cry.  He reached out ant hugged my son-in-law and said, "God is good!!  You have blessed us more than you will ever know.  Now we can get to El Reno and get something to eat.  Thank you so much your help."

My son-in-law has always lived by the rule that you reward the working poor.  I don't know who got the greater blessing that day.   I know I was blessed just hearing the story.  Ps. 41:1  "Blessed is the man that considers the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."

"The person that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord…" Proverbs 19:17   "The person that gives to the poor shall not lack…."  Proverbs 28:27
 God put a man that wanted to work in the path of a man who was willing to help someone--someone that didn't just want a handout.  God has a way of doing things like that.