Those touch and goes at El Toro California in 1958 and 1959 were especially important.  They had a new plane, the F4D.  They called it the Skyray--and it had never been aboard a carrier.  Ken was the safety officer for his squadron and also the LSO. (Landing Signal Officer.  Back then, they didn't use a green light to get on board, they had an LSO on a platform on the side of the 'boat' waving them aboard with paddles.  He had a chute--kind of like a water slide chute--behind him so that if a plane crashed, he could fall backwards and slide to the bottom of the ship.  And not get hit.)

So Ken was getting everyone ready to qualify in the F4D to land on the carrier.  The plane was built to go from ground to altitude in the shortest time possible.  He said that when you lit off the afterburner, it was like riding a rocket.  Problem was, it took so much gasoline that when you got up there, you didn't have much time left because you had burned all your fuel up getting there.

It was a super dangerous airplane.  They lost so many of them that they started calling the ocean off shore "Skyray bay."  I was at the squadron one day and a pilot came in holding his helmet, dripping water everywhere.  Nobody seemed surprised.  It must have been a regular occurrence.  They would have to eject and end up in the ocean.

The day came when Ken took them all aboard.  Twenty-seven of them.  (One million touch and goes on ground beforehand.)  In the two weeks it took them to qualify on board, they lost four planes.  Killed one pilot and broke another one's back.  It seemed normal by that time.

They took the planes and squadron to Japan one week later (for a year) and never had another accident.  Amazing.  They were running the Korean and Japan perimeters because the Migs were testing them.  Trying to see how fast they could scramble from ground to air.  It was the cold war and Russia was aggressive.

I had two babies in diapers when he left.  I was just glad he was alive.  And thankful for the chute.

Monday, my sister's husband Mark had triple bypass surgery.  (Everything went well)   All of us met at the hospital to wait with her as he was in surgery.  My brother Bill was there with his wife Janet.  They are the ones that were missionaries to China for thirty seven years.  He is a doctor.  He got his degree from OU by selling his soul to the Navy.  After he graduated, he owed the Navy four years so he went to flight school and became a flight surgeon for NASA and for a while he was the astronauts' doctor.  Gus Grissom, and Mercury project.  Yes, he was there when they were killed.  He has a million stories about airplanes and riding tandem with every yoo-hoo that needed a check.

My niece Lindsey was there as well, (her husband is in the Air Force in some aviation capacity).  The three of us got to telling stories about carrier landings.  Lindsey had wondered about why they did a million touch and goes, and Bill and I got started telling about carrier landings in stormy weather, at night, pitch black, on a deck that was pitching up and down while rolling side to side.

So many guys got killed because they couldn't land the aircraft correctly. You had to land at full power because  if the the tail hook boltered,  you would miss the wires, and had to have enough speed to go around again.  Thus, the touch and goes.  You practice landing a million times on the ground, trying to catch wire so that when you do it on the carrier, you get it right.

Ken said that the scariest thing he ever did for those twenty-one years of Marine Jet Aviation was night cat-shots off a carrier.  That superseded getting shot at every day in Korea and Viet Nam.  And if it was in a storm, you knew that when they blew you off the end of the carrier into the inky black soot of night that you were going to have to find your way back to the carrier and land.  He called it "Hours and hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror."

At El Toro, I used to get tired of the whine of the jets all day long as they practiced touch and goes, but was thankful they had done it when they went aboard the carrier.

There are three categories of sin. 1 John 2 :16 "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."

1.  Lust of the flesh.  All those sexual temptations that pull us away from God's plan for us.  He told Adam to be fruitful and multiply.  He made a man and a woman and blessed them.  Genesis 1:28 "And God blessed them, and said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply..."  A man.  A woman.  A partnership to "replenish the earth..."

2.  The lust of the eyes.  All the stuff that gets us into financial trouble.  We see it, we want it, we buy it and then struggle to pay for it.  You want it when you are twenty.  You charge it when you are thirty.  You pay it out when you are forty.  You are sick of it and wonder what in the world you were thinking of when you are fifty.  And finally, you get rid of it when you are sixty.  Stuff.  Keeping up with the Joneses.  If you don't go shopping, you won't buy things you don't need.

3.  The pride of life.  This one almost ruined me.  Ken was asked to go in with nine other friends of his to form a Federal Bank.  After thinking about it for weeks, he finally decided not to do it.   But I was enamored by the idea.  It sounded "ritzy" to me.  So I asked him, "Are you sure?  It sounds like a great opportunity to me."  So he did it.  Much like Eve taking the apple to Adam.  The bank went belly up five years later, and I ended up putting everything I made for the next five years toward paying off the loan.  Pride.  That's all it was.

Stupid.  We didn't need it.  It was purely pride.  I never made a mistake like that again.  God taught me a very, very, very painful lesson.  Who cares how much money you have.  Who cares how new your car is.  The thing that people are attracted to is your stories about how you failed and God took care of you.  People want hope.  Hope that there is life after mistakes.

In Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam not to eat from a certain tree.  (Eve did not exist at the time.)  In Chapter 3:1 she is asked a question by a beautiful winged creature, a serpent,  "You can't eat of every tree in the garden?"  Isaiah talks about the flying serpent in Isaiah 14:29 and 30:6.

She answers that they can't eat from the tree and they can't touch it.  Exaggeration.  God said nothing about touching the fruit.  She must have learned about the forbidden tree from Adam--since she didn't exist when God gave his instructions to Adam.

The winged creature then says, "You won't die!"  The devil always lies.  John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil...for he is a liar, and father of it."  He promises something good, and delivers something else.  The father of lies.  We don't take lies seriously enough.  God does.

So she ate the fruit and gave some to Adam--and Adam did what God had personally told him not to do.  Adam knew exactly what he was doing.  The Bible says that Eve was beguiled by this serpent.  He was beautiful and he seemed "in on" some information that she had not heard from her husband Adam.  But Adam heard the restriction on that tree straight from the mouth of God.

Later in Chapter 3:14, 15 and 17, God places curses all three of them because of what they had done. The serpent (winged creature) was cursed with having to crawl around on his belly in the dust from then on.  This is the verse that gives the notion that the serpent that temped Eve was  a snake.  But the Bible doesn't say that.   It says that the serpent became a snake.  The snake was what the serpent was doomed to be after God put a curse on him.  As a point of reference, the word 'snake' is never used.

There is no way Eve would have been temped by a snake.  The serpent is described as "subtle".  He was beautiful.  Isn't that always the case.  Wrap sin up in satin and tie it with a bow and we will open it every time.  That's what is wrong with humans.  Only God can help us.

God help us.

Proverbs 18:22 "Whosoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor of the Lord."  That's good to know.

Proverbs 9:9 "Live joyfully with the wife that you love all the days of the life...which He has given you..."  

Ephesians 5: 33 "...let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

1 Peter 3:7  "Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel...being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered."

Ken made an "A" in  "Husbands 101."  It took a while--but he was a quick study and he aced the class.  I could live another hundred years and never find another one like him.  I wouldn't even try.

We didn't have a washing machine.  Much less a dryer.  I did the wash in the bathtub.  When there was a lot of it,  I stomped everything with my feet.  Like Lucy and Ethel stomping grapes.  It worked.  I would rinse the clothes and hang them on a line out back.  Half the time, the dirty Camp Pendleton wind blew the clothes dry, but they had to be washed again from the dust.  We didn't have wash and wear back then. Everything had to be starched and ironed.  I burned a few things before I got the hang of it.  My mom had done all the ironing.  One more thing I didn't know how to do.

Progress in the homemaking department was slow.  But just as I thought I was getting the hang of it, I found out I was pregnant.  (One more thing to learn how to do.)  The only baby I had ever held was my brother and I was five when he was born.

But the most wonderful thing happened.  I made a friend.  My very first friend since we got married.  Mary Lib.  Her husband was the air officer for another regiment as I recall.  She was ten years older than me and had just had her first child.  She took me under her wing.  It was heaven to have a friend.  I got to go through the first months of her little boy's life with her, and by the time I had Pat six months later, I had graduated from "Babies 101."  I didn't make a very good grade, but I learned enough to get by.

It is amazing to look back and see where God has interjected into your life and provided you with what you needed right when you needed it.  At the time, I never saw His hand in anything.  But in retrospect, He was with me all along.

I had never felt so alone in my entire life. But God was there.  And He provided what I needed to get through all the steps of becoming a new person.  A wife.  A mother.  Not a kid anymore.  I don't think anyone I ever knew was more ill prepared for the job than I was.

Marriages are funny things.  I don't know what a normal marriage is.  I do know that I didn't have one.  Ken was gone all the time.  To the desert, overseas, or in the air.   The Marine Corps' mantra was that if they had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.  I learned pretty quickly that if I was going to make it, I would have to learn to take care of myself.  I had never done that before.

 I came from a strong Christian family that didn't have very much, but that took care of my every need. I've told you before that my mom had a passion for reading and made a rule that if we were reading something on her "approved" list, we didn't have to do housework.  Needless to say, I read all the time.  She also didn't want anyone in the kitchen with her.  My life was pretty well charmed.

When I got married, all of that changed.  Ken brought the paycheck in and said, "That's what we make.  You have to learn how to spend it.  You'll have to pay the bills because I won't be here most of the time."  I had never written a check.  I didn't even know what you would write checks for.  My folks never talked about rent, electricity, water, garbage, car payments, gas or anything else to do with money.  I had never thought about those things.  But I could quote Hamlet.  I could sew pretty things.  I could sing, play the piano, marimba and drums.  I could memorize and quote poetry.  I entertained the Lions club, Rotary club and various women's organizations on a regular basis.

It wasn't like I couldn't do anything.  It was just that the things that I could do served no purpose in a marriage.  It's a good thing that a guy looks at the outside package when they marry because  I came in a nice package--which I didn't know at the time, because Seventeen Magazine came every month to tell me what was wrong with me.  And according to Seventeen, that was everything.   But looking back at old pictures I am amazed that I was a pretty girl.  I never knew that.  Probably a good thing.  Pretty is as pretty does and I couldn't do much of anything useful.

My motives were all wrong--I know.  But it's the truth.  Never said I was perfect.

After a few months, Ken would come home and there was nothing for him to do.  I had done it all.  He didn't even have to mow the grass.  We never spoke about our argument and how he had over reacted.  He had been so mad that he had left for an hour or two.  When he came back, he had said, "I didn't have fifty cents to check into the BOQ."  And then he went to bed.

There are a lot of ways to say "I'm sorry", but after a few months I gave up on waiting it, and just kept on with my plan to make myself indispensable to him so I could walk out the door.  Yep, I was still mad.  He was going to miss me when I was gone because I had made life so much easier for him.

Then one night, after dinner, when I was washing the dishes, he got up out of the recliner, laid the paper aside and came to the kitchen and began to dry the dishes.  You know, there are a lot of ways to say "I'm sorry."

I melted.  How could I leave a guy that would finally "get it?"  That he had been a jerk.  That I was lonely.  That he was all I had.  That I needed his company.

So I didn't leave him.  For which I am eternally grateful.  It was a stupid idea anyway.

Proverbs 31:10-12  "Who can find a virtuous woman?...The heart of her husband safely trusts in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.  She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."

I was not virtuous.  I was spiteful.  But we both learned a lesson.  He realized that I needed attention, and I realized that I needed to carry my own weight.  It worked for 57 years.  I miss him.

When I married Ken, he was  totally self sufficient.  He had been in the Marine Corps for nine years.  Was a Captain.  He had been to war in Korea and flown over a hundred missions, spent a year in Occupied Japan, a year in the Philippines, and was at the time in Pensacola Florida teaching cadets how to land on a carrier.  He wanted me to be his wife, but he didn't really need me for anything.  I didn't know how to do anything anyway.  I didn't know how to cook, to clean a house and had never washed a load of clothes.  That's the truth.  I was pretty well useless.  But he loved me.

After six months, he was transferred to California as the Air Officer, 7th Regiment, teaching ground troops how to coordinate an air strike.  He had long hours and it was tiring, dirty work.  He would come in at the end of the day dead tired.  Ready to eat dinner, sit in the recliner, watch TV and unwind.

I, on the other hand, had spent the day alone.  No job.  No friends.  No family.  No car.  Stuck on a dirt hill at Camp Pendleton with nothing to do but wait for him to come home.  He was the only person I knew.  I was just a kid.  Eighteen years old.

One evening when I was cleaning up after dinner, I asked him to come help me and dry the dishes.  My dad always did the dishes.  I didn't think it was a big deal, but Ken did.  "I've been on my feet working all day.  I don't want to dry dishes."  One thing led to another and we had our first argument.  He was tired, and mad.  I was mad too.   I just wanted him to come in the kitchen to be with me.

So mad, that I determined I was going to do everything that I could to make him need me and then, when he did,  I was walking out the door.  I started taking care of his uniforms.  Which he had always done.  I washed his uniform shirts and starched and ironed seven sharp creases.  Perfectly.  I learned to cook and asked his Grandmother and his Mother for his favorite recipes.  Food was hot every time he came home.  The paper was in his chair and his pipe on the coffee table.

The Bible said that Adam needed a "Help-meet".  I started playing at that role.    Continued..........

Everyone was surprised that I drove six hours to come to my aunt's birthday party.  I wouldn't have missed it.  It was wonderful to see all my family.  She has six children and they were all there.  Pat, Terry, Kathy, Marilyn, Mike and Jimmy.  There was a little boy running around that I knew was a direct descendant of my uncle Harvey.  Same mouth.  Same smile.  Sebastion.  Mike and Gayle's son.  Absolutely darling.  Isn't family great!!!

And quite a few of them read this blog.  I am flattered.  People that you never see caring enough to tune into a blog.

Genesis 12:1a, 3  "Now the Lord said to Abram...I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse.  And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."  I've certainly been blessed.

In the 107th Psalm, we have a list of all the things that God does for his children.  It starts by saying, "Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good; for his loving kindness is everlasting, Let the redeemed of the Lord say so..."  and in vs. 41-43 he ends by saying "He..makes his families like a flock, The upright see it and are glad...consider the loving-kindness of the Lord."

Our family is like a flock.  We are "Swans."  We come from a long line of Swans.  When I was growing up, there was a lady in Pryor that called me her "Little Cygnet" every time she saw me.  She would say, "You are destined to be beautiful.  You will be graceful.  You are a Swan."

I don't know if I met her expectations, but I always felt beautiful because of my name.  Even when I was an ugly duckling.

I am going to a birthday party for my aunt today.  She is one hundred years old.  Pat is going to drive me.  Becky is keeping Squig.  I will see all my cousins and their children.  Occasions like this don't happen very often.

You have to make an effort to connect with your family members that live a long way away.  I try to get my children and grandchildren together for one day each year.  Just so that they know who they belong to.  They're mine.  When I am gone, they will all go their separate ways.  That's how these things work.  But while I am still here, they are "My" family.  When I am gone, they will be "Their" families.

The family I am having the hardest time leaving is my church family.  These are the people that helped me raise my children.  They were there for me when I was sick.   They brought food,  they mowed the lawn, they took care of a million little problems that I couldn't take care of.  I helped them raise their children as well.  I am not going to have that kind of family when I move.  It makes me really sad.

We say we will write.  But we don't.  We say we will get together.  But we don't.  Every time Ken and I moved, we left dear friends that we never saw again.  You keep in touch for awhile but your lives get busy and you can't keep up.  You drift apart not because you don't care, but because you lose track of the details of their lives.  There is a song that we sing: "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be..."  I hope all my friends are there.  I want to catch up on things.  It is going to take at least one eternity.

Everyone has verses in the Bible that are especially encouraging to them.  Here is one of mine.

Hebrews 11:6  "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."

I want the rewards that only God can give.  The prerequisite for that to happen is that I must diligently seek him.  Diligently.  Daily.  Wherever I am.

And I truly  want to please him. The verse says that without faith it is impossible to please God.  I want my life to reflect the attributes that only Christ within me can explain.  My human nature isn't always pleasing.  I keep working on it.

All of that is conditional on the fact that you must believe that "God Is."   The verse says that if you are going to pray to God, you must actually believe that he is.  That he exists.  It's not a "Just in Case Insurance Policy" that you use--hoping that there really is a God.  Believing that he exists is a prerequisite to prayer.

It is a little passage with a lot to say about God and our relationship with him.  I am amazed how many people believe in an abstract God instead of a personal one.  He is your God.  He loves you.  He made you for fellowship with him.  He is on your side.  He is not just waiting on you to make a mistake so that he can whack you.  He is waiting on you to speak to him.

God is an ever-present friend in times of trouble.  Psalms 37:39 "...the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in times of trouble."

April is almost half over.  It seems impossible.  I waited and waited for spring.  The winter seemed so long and dreary and I wanted to plant tomatoes.  But I still haven't got them planted yet.  I can't decide which town to plant them in.  I probably should plant them in both towns so that someone else can enjoy them when I move.  "Do unto others as you would that they should do to you."

I have planted pecan trees almost every time I have moved.  I've never picked a pecan.  I move again before the trees are mature.  Someone is enjoying my pecan trees.  I'm like Johnny Appleseed.  I just like to plant stuff.

God didn't plan for us to eat meat anyway.  In Genesis 1:29-30, "Behold, I have given you...every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat....wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat..."  Fruit and herbs.  They say the Italian diet allows people to live to be one hundred.  They don't eat much meat.  They eat beans almost every day.

We ended up eating meat when God sacrificed an animal to cover the bodies of Adam and Eve.  Genesis 3: 21 "Unto Adam and also to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, (He killed an animal) and clothed them."  They had made aprons of leaves.  (vs 7)  God asked, (vs 11) "Who told you you were naked?  Have you eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?"

The entire sin mess we are in was because of food.  But it could have been anything--the sin was that they disobeyed God.

We're still doing it.  And we still fool ourselves into thinking that everything will turn out okay.

Stop doing what you are doing that you know is wrong.  Just stop.

The Nova series on some of the history of the books of the Bible has been interesting.  Until 6 AD, the world worshiped many Gods.  But after the death of Jesus, the world adopted the Jewish model of One God. A supreme creator.  A God that we are responsible to.  A God that expects something from us in the form of a response.  Polytheism no longer rules the minds of men.

It is either "Yes."  Or, "No."  Concerning the existence of God.  There are no other answers.  This is what makes the Bible such a powerful book.  It traces the history of a group that first accepted the idea of "One God."  The children of Abraham.  Who gave birth to the Israelites.  It is one of the oldest chronicles of a nation of people on record.  We compare all AD and BC writings against it  because it has proved so marvelously accurate.

Over and over some archaeologist will make a discovery that they think disproves some story in the Bible only to have to retract, and declare the Biblical account accurate.  The more they dig, the more  they find that the Bible is true.  This book on which we base our faith is a road map to history.

I believe the Bible is completely accurate in its message.  You may want to dicker over a "thee or thou", but the message is true.

There are a number of Sunday night programs on right now concerning the Bible and the life of Christ.  I have found them interesting, in that they are not "hokey" like so many Bible documentaries are.  And so far they have been fairly accurate.

Maybe the world will take note of the accuracy of the Biblical account of a man named Jesus.  Maybe the world will  take note of all of the new scientific evidence being found archeologically that proves the truth of the Biblical record.  That would be refreshing for a change.

I do not like to exercise.  I detest it.  I'm the kid who got a note from home so that I wouldn't have to go out for recess.  But.  My body is turning to flab so I am swimming every day.  And while I am exercising, I am watching the clock to see when the misery will be over.  It is one of those things that I know I need to do, but really, really, really don't want to.

Life is full of things we must (or should) do that we don't want to do.  We have to reach deep inside of ourselves and find the discipline to do them.  It isn't fun.

There are some people who don't have any discipline at all.  They float.  They think tomorrow will be a better day even though they have no plans to make that happen.  They think that for those of us who discipline ourselves it is easy, and we have it "good" because we are lucky.  You and I know that luck has nothing to do with it.  Hard work and not giving up and giving in--when things don't go right--pays off eventually.  "Eventually" is the operative word.

Like I said yesterday, following Christ means putting one foot in front of the other.  Every day.  You have to head in the right direction if you want to reach your goals.  If you want to reach God's goals.   All the footsteps in the world--if they are in the wrong direction--are just wasted effort.

Isaiah 40:31 "...they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; and they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, (one step at a time, daily) and not faint."

I think it would be cool to be an eagle.  Floating on thermals with a view of the world.  That's the kind of exercise I could live with.

The first prerequisite to following Christ is to deny yourself.  Luke 9: 23  "...If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."

I should have remembered this verse when I was eating a bag of Cheetos every day.  Fifty bags of Cheetos later, they don't taste as good.  All food  needs to be eaten with restraint.  Or you will end up overweight or sick.  And that is not how God intends for you to live.

"Come after me."  That means that Jesus gets to do the leading.  You get to do the following.  And the four gospels are very clear as to what he would lead us to do.  And what he would lead us to be.

"Deny yourself."  There are so many areas of our lives that we need to practice self-denial.  Food, drink, wasting time, sleeping late to excess...etc.  But just denying yourself and not filling the time with something better isn't what Jesus had in mind.  He meant for us to submit to his will.

"Take up your cross."  Maybe it is the cross of self-denial.  Maybe it is the cross of illness.  Or loneliness.  Or discipline.  Or finishing what you start.  Or exercise. Or.  Or.  Or.....There are things we have to do.  How we do them is what the world sees.  Somedays, I miss Ken so much that I hurt.  But what good does it do for anyone else for me to complain.  Or mope.  Or be sad.  It's counterproductive.  We were happy for 57 years.  I have that.  It was joy.

"Daily."  Luke--the physician--is the only writer who quotes Jesus and includes this word.  He made sure he got the prescription for following Christ exactly right.  You have to keep at it every day.

"And follow me."  This is a lifetime commitment.  You may stumble. You may fall.  But sometimes you will skip, hop or jump as you follow him.  Just be sure you keep your eyes on him and where he is going so that you don't trip over your own two feet.   He will make a trail for you to follow.

When I drove back to Pryor Friday night, there was a full moon (beautiful) in front of me--in the east and in my rear view mirror, there was a huge orange sun in the west.  I could see both of them at the same time.  Next to each other.  I never had that happen before.  Both of God's lights.

It was good Friday.  I have never understood why they call it "good".  Christ was being crucified.  There was nothing good about that.  Of course, I know he was dying for our sins.  And that is good.  But the sadness of his crucifixion.  The horror of his suffering.  His screams as God forsakes him--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The broken hearted followers who have seen their dreams shattered.

But then came the miracle of the resurrection.  Jesus conquered death.  For all time.   The result of that momentous instant is that we will spend all eternity with him.  We have eternal life.

Revelation 21:4 "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain..."

No tears.  No death.  No sorrow.  No crying.  No pain.  That is a place I want to go.

Without the resurrection, we would have no hope.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for,  the evidence of things not seen."  Hebrews 11:1
Our faith is based on the hope we have in Him.

When my mother was fifteen-sixteen, she sang with a trio that performed all over Oklahoma.  One night, after dark, there was a knock at the Wilson door.  Her father answered and was faced with a group of Ku Klux Klan members in white robes and face coverings.  "We want Margie Wilson," they said.

They drove her to a secluded area where fifty to one hundred other members were outfitted in their Klan robes.  "We want you to sing," she was told.

The other members of the trio had already been taken there.  They sang.  And sang.  Knees knocking.  Shaking. Scared to death.

"What was the worst part," I once asked her?

"When they took off their hoods and I could see who they were.  We were from a small town, and I knew most of these men.  It made me sick.  I would never again be able to meet someone on the street without knowing who they really were.  Klan members."

Secret things.  Hidden things.  Covered things.

Paul said:  "For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."  Ephesians 5:12

"He that says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now." 1 John 2:9

When I get up in the morning, there is always the decision of what to wear.  Am I going to work in the garden?  Clean the refrigerator?  Go to the grocery store?  Lately I have been putting on a bathing suit to go to the rec. center every morning to swim class.  An hour later, I go home and go through the entire decision making process again.  What to wear?  Pretty is no longer a priority.  Comfortable is the operative word.  Unless it is Sunday and then I make an effort.
         Then there is the sequencing of what I put on.  Underwear, pants, shirt, socks, shoes, and the horrible compression sleeve for my arm.  I used to hop into my clothes.  Now I tug and pull and end up totally irritated because I am so slow and clumsy.  Somedays I just give up and don't get dressed.  I  put on my fuzzy robe and read a  book.

Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God.  And he "sequences" the process.
       Ephesians 6:13-17 "Therefore, take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything, to stand firm...having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace...taking up the shield of faith...and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The final piece of the armor is the sword.  All the other parts of armor are defensive.  Our only offensive weapon is The word of God.  It is all we have.  But it is enough.

Paul says: Ephesians 6:11-12 "Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is...against the rulers...powers...and world forces of this darkness..." There is a real presence in the world that is evil.  And if he can render you ineffectual, he wins.  Paul tells us we need armor because we are in a battle.  We are at war with evil.

Get prepared.  Or you are going to lose.  You will always be at the mercy of the devil.

Today I saw some light at the end of the tunnel.  The tile went down in the bath and kitchen and utility room.  Thank goodness for progress.

I have been teaching this particular  Bible class at the church for four years.  The only thing  I have asked them to do, that I have tried to teach them is to say,  is "God Bless You," when they go through a fast food line or a grocery check out.  It is such a small thing to do and it blesses people.  Those who don't like it just look a you--and that gives you a chance to smile.  Everybody needs a smile.

I don't know if any of them have developed the habit.  But I have.  It just comes automatically now.  I reach for my food or my check out ticket and say, "God bless you."  It blesses me.

One of the benefits of teaching a Bible class is that I have to (Have To) study.  If I weren't the teacher, I would just read the lesson and sit and soak.  Study has forced me to learn and retain much more than if I were a student.  And that's been good for me.  I've learned a lot.

But reading for my own pleasure is my favorite method of Bible study.  If you aren't reading the Bible you are missing a great blessing.  It is God's method of carrying on a conversation with you.

Every time I read it, I find new meaning.  Something that I have read many times before says something new to me.  If you don't understand what you are reading, move on.  Someday that passage will make sense.  I personally think you ought to read the letters in the New Testament first.  They are short.  Then everybody should read at least one of the gospels.  (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John--the stories of what Jesus said and did.)  You might want to move on to the book of Acts.  It is a history of what happened to the disciples after Jesus died.  Very interesting.  Don't mess with the hard stuff if you are a new reader.  Read what speaks to you.  Just read.