For those of you who have faithfully read what I have written for the last three years,  I thank you.  It has given me a purpose.  Your comments mean a lot.  So I am asking that you not abandon me during this move I am making today through Friday.  I am deluged with things to do to get moved.  The vans  are coming tomorrow.

So....I am going to take the rest of the week off.  I will be back with you on Monday.

God bless you and keep you well.

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

I like to watch shows on television where people are doing something.  Making something.  Teaching something.  I admire people who have learned a trade.  Even if they are employed in some other field.  I have been watching tile layers, painters, appliance installers, vent cleaners, granite fitters, gutter repairmen, etc. for the past three months as they have worked on my new house.

I can't do any of that stuff.  They do it with such ease.

That's how it is when you know what you are doing.  It looks easy.  But when you try it yourself, that's another story.  I can paint.  The rest of all that stuff, someone else has to do.

I took my car in to have a couple of dings fixed.  Someone backed into me at church.  The guy that is going to fix it drove me home and I asked him, "Are you any good at fixing dings in cars?"

"Yes, I am."  He said with confidence.  "I'm going to college right now, but in the summer I like to work on cars."

Ephesians 4: 28  "...rather let him work with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that has needs."

I have been swimming for the past few months.  My instructor is so much fun that most of the time I forget how miserable I am exercising.  I detest exercising.  But I know that it is good for me.  This was the last day before I move.  I hope I find a teacher who is as good as Kim.  And as fun.

Ken always said, "If you are going to enroll in a class at college, take the teacher.  The teacher will be the reason whether you enjoy it or not."  I think that is true in everything.  People make the difference in our lives.

Proverbs 17: 22 "A merry heart does us good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones."

How true.  Merry people actually do make us feel better.

And I have always loved this Scripture:  Proverbs 27:17 "Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."

I hate leaving all my friends.  They had a luncheon for me yesterday, and we spent a couple of hours remembering all the years and experiences we had shared.  They helped me raise my children.  I helped them raise theirs.  There were wonderful memories.

It's not the end of the world.  I will make new friends.  But they won't be the same.  I've lived here since I was four years old--except for the Marine Corps years.  I know everything about them.  They know everything about me.  And love me anyway.

Proverbs 17:17 "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."

Proverbs 18:24 "A person that has friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."  And I can take that friend with me wherever I go.

One move that we made--from Beaufort, S.C. back to Pryor (Ken was on his way to Viet Nam)--all five of us had to go to the changing of command ceremony and were dressed to the nines.  Ken in his dress blues, me in a new dress and all three of the children clean and acceptable for five or ten minutes and hopefully for the entire hour.

I had stayed at the house until the last minute, and told the movers not to touch anything in the dining room.  Those were the suitcases we were taking in the car--all our clothes, shaving gear, makeup, shoes, children's books and toys, etc. that would get us through the next week--until the moving van arrived in Oklahoma.  "You understand," I told the guy in charge.  Don't pack any of the things in the dining room."

"Gottcha," he said.

When we returned--Ken was surrendering command of a squadron that he had been the C.O. of for the past year--the bags were gone.  The movers were gone.  The house was empty.  Totally vacant.

We traveled to Oklahoma in our Sunday clothes.  Every time we stopped for gas, Ken was the object of interest as he pumped gas in his red, white and blue uniform.  If we had had any money, we would have stopped for some clothes.  But outfitting five people from shoes to top hat is expensive, and we were broke anyway.  Military people are always broke.  (One move is like a good fire...and we were always having to replace things to survive.)  Wouldn't trade it for anything.  Wouldn't go back and do it again.

Matthew 6:27-28 "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span.  And why are you anxious about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet..Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these."

Jon came through surgery ok.  Will know more in a week when the biopsies are back.  Thank you for your prayers.

Ken has always been there when we moved.  He didn't box anything up, but he carried things and moved things for me as we got ready.  This is the first move I have made by myself.  I have missed him being here to help.

And--I have been anxious about it all.  Probably because of the nineteen moves I have made in the past.  I always wonder what the movers will smash.  I know they will, it's just a matter of what.

One move we made, the movers packed the van, locked the doors and were getting in the cab.  I wasn't there at the time, but our next door neighbor asked them if they had forgotten to pack our two metal trash cans.

The mover looked at her, picked up a sledge hammer, smashed both cans flat, strapped them on the back of the truck and said:  "Have her take that out of the insurance.

The Marine Corps wives had a certain "Line" they liked to tell you.  "Three moves is like one good fire."  I agree with that.  If you got caught up in what would go wrong, you would go crazy.

I have a zillion moving stories.  So I am admitting that I am a little anxious.  But whatever they break, I know it is just stuff.  I am putting everything that I really care about in the car with me. And that's not much.  It's amazing how little counts when you are my age.

In Matthew 8:20, Jesus said, "...the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  I have a wonderful home to move into.  I don't have to wonder where I am going to sleep--where I am going to lay my head.  I am blessed.  God is good.

When I was a young girl, nine or ten, my Sunday School room had a picture on the wall of Jesus standing in front of a door--knocking.  At the bottom of the print was this Bible verse:  Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me."

It was a perfect picture of salvation.  Jesus knocks.  You have felt it.  You have heard that still small voice from somewhere inside you.  It demands a response.

The door where He was knocking had no door-knob.  It was a plain flat empty surface, because it could only be opened from the inside.  He will not force himself on you.  You have to choose.  You have to open the door.  You have to invite him into your heart and life.

I remember the first time I felt that tug on my heart.  Thank God I responded.  If you don't respond, it gets easier and easier to refuse His request to be a part of your life.  And there will come a day when He will quit knocking.

Psalms 103: 8-9a " The Lord is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.  He will not always strive with us..."  He will quit knocking.

Responsiveness to God is sometimes referred to as a "Tender Heart."  Because He forgives us, it is easier for us to forgive others.  The Lord's prayer says: "...forgive us our trespasses as (in the same way as) we forgive those who trespass against us."

My son Jon is having a critical surgery in the morning.  I am praying.  I would appreciate your prayers as well.

One of our church members is a missionary to Nepal.  He returned there last year after a year long sabbatical in Pryor.    Because he served as our associate pastor and because we love him and his parents, our church was vitally interested in what was happening in Nepal and especially to him, his wife and children.  Their little boy had to have some stitches, but none of them were seriously harmed.  Thank God.  Thousands lost their lives.

They reported an interesting event that could only have been orchestrated by God himself.  There is an organization called the Baptist Global Alliance that goes everywhere in the world when there is a disaster.  They are funded by our tithes and offerings.  Their mission is to do what the Red Cross is doing--in the name of Christ.  It is hard to believe in the coincidence, but they were training in Nepal when the quake hit.   They were on the spot as a relief team immediately.  They had been preparing to leave, but instead, they went to work.
 
The Baptist Convention has put together relief teams in each of the states in America.  They are manned by volunteers (anyone) who will train and perform to do disaster relief.  A few years ago, the Oklahoma team came to Pryor when we were devastated by an ice storm.  Trees and limbs were blocking roads.  Trees had fallen on houses and lawns.  It was a mess, and we had to have help.

Men came from all over the state with chain saws, pickups and went from house to house clearing rubble.  No charge.  Not even for the gasoline to get here. They do the same thing when we have tornados.  They were present in New Orleans for Katrina.  They stay very busy.  If you are wondering what one person can do to help, volunteer!!  There are all sorts of organizations that do good work.

One person can only say, "What can I do to help?"  A team can actually accomplish something.  Our good works around the world identify us as the people of God.  And those who have been helped will never forget that the people who love Christ came--when they were needed--and donated food, water, shelter, blankets, and helping hands in the name of Jesus.  No charge.  Free.  Just like salvation.  Check with your church, maybe they have some similar relief organizations.

You have had some time to think about where Jesus went for the three days after he died.

1.  He told the thief on the cross that they were going to go to Paradise.

2.  He came back in three days and told Mary that he hadn't yet ascended to the Father.  Which means that during those three days, he hadn't yet gone to heaven.  He had been in Paradise.

3.  In Matthew 27:50-53 "Jesus...cried with a  loud voice and yielded up the ghost.  And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake...and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared to many."

4.  Since they were saints, it means that their souls had been "held" ( I think in Paradise) until the ransom was paid by the Messiah who hadn't yet come--back when they had died.  Once Jesus paid the penalty for their sins, they were free to enter heaven.

The thing I wonder about is if they appeared when Jesus died, where was Jesus while these saints were walking about Jerusalem?  The more I read God's word, the more questions I have.

We do know for a fact that he conquered death.  Wherever he was, whatever he did, how much he suffered, he did it for us.  He paid the price for sin.

It doesn't do any good to speculate about what God doesn't tell us.  If he had wanted us to know, he would have said so.  However, as a student of the Bible you need to be aware when you encounter a gap in a story.  That way, at least you know what you don't know.

I am moving in two weeks.  It is bearing down on me.  Everybody asks if I am going to have a garage sale and the answer is "No."  I am so confused at this point I can't decide what to keep and what to give away, throw out, or sell.  I gave away everything that they took out of my new house to the workers that were laying tile and painting.  It got all of that stuff out of the garage.

But here, I look at something, wonder if I will ever use it, wonder if I need it, then can't decide--and throw it in the box with the rest of the stuff.  Since I don't know what to keep, my plan is to open boxes when I get there, take out what I want,  then leave the rest of it in the box and put the boxes in the garage.  I can narrow it down better that way than figuring it out here.

Then Becky can come over and have a garage sale.  Her neighborhood doesn't allow garage sales.  She will use the proceeds to buy a ticket overseas and use the frequent-flyer miles to get a ticket for her niece or sister or me to go overseas with her.  She has to take three trips a year to stay at the top of the frequent flyer list so that she gets triple miles.  It's a science at this point.  She flies a lot.  Four overseas trips a year.

It is a five hour round trip drive to Edmond and I have been making it every week for the past few months.  I get very weary.  I'm not the gal I used to be.  Last week I took  most of my winter clothes and hung them in the master closet.  That felt good.  

People say that God helps those who help themselves.  He has been helping me.  I haven't had any health problems since December.  Not even a runny nose.  I am so thankful.  And my strength is holding out.  I have lifted a hundred boxes full of stuff.  Every day I pack three or four more.

God is good.

I am not going to go to school and get another degree.  I am not going to get a job.  I am not going to learn to knit, crochet, tat, or any other finger work exercise.  I am not going to have any more children.  All of that is behind me.  Now, I live in the moment and it is very good.  I don't have to worry about all that stuff.  I get up, ask myself what I would like to do today, and make a choice to do, or not to do.

I admit that a few years ago, I did go back to college and take Italian.  Two courses.  It did me no good.  I can't even remember how to say the numbers one through ten.  I was on my way to Italy and thought it might be good to say a few words that made sense.  It wasn't.  I couldn't apply anything I had learned to real life.

Life is like having a quart jar full of pennies.  You spend them one by one, drop a few and don't even bother to lean over and pick them up.  Then one day you look at your jar and there aren't a lot of pennies left.  How are you going to spend them?  You wish you hadn't wasted so many of them.

Proverbs 3: 1-2 "...don't forget my laws.  Let your heart keep my commandments.  For length of days, and long life, and peace shall those laws add unto you."

I can truly testify that those are true words.

I've lived past my three score and ten.  It's been good.  I am enjoying the pennies that are left.  I love writing to you.

The conversation that I have been having with you about Paradise, Eden and the Tree of Life, are the type of conversations I was raised with.  Every Sunday, all the family--at least ten of us--ate Sunday dinner at my Mom's house.  And since all of the Adults were Bible teachers at our church, they would talk about what had come up in class.  Sometimes there were answers, sometimes only questions.

The path to salvation had long been settled:  Jesus is our Tree of Life.  He is the way--the only way--to God.  There is one sacrifice.  He was it.  Awaited as the Messiah--the Lamb of God--in the Old Testament.  The faithful were held in Paradise until his death and resurrection, and then freed to be with him forevermore.  They were saved by faith.  We are saved by faith. They looked forward, we look backwards to God's sacrificial Lamb, Jesus.  My family were Bible scholars and I was mentally saturated in Scripture all of my life.  As a result, I wonder and ponder  about the side issues such as:  Baptism can't save you or the thief on the cross couldn't had gone to Paradise--and Jesus said he did. "This day will you be with me in Paradise."   Jesus was baptized and he surely didn't need salvation.  But it is required as an act of obedience.  It identifies us as Children of God.

And good works can't save you--although they are a certain sign that Jesus is Lord of your life.  There is no way that Jesus can live in your life and you can willingly, willfully do those things that cause Him pain.  That's not what love is about.  We obey.  Loving children obey.  And when we mess up, we immediately talk it over with God and ask forgiveness.  And we don't keep doing the same sin over and over.  That makes no sense.  How can I love someone and purposefully cause them pain.

The conversations at the kitchen table on Sunday were about "Fine-tuning" concepts in Scripture.  Some questions couldn't be answered, but my elders never argued, they just pondered.  It was an unusual upbringing for a kid.  But the blessing is mine.  The things that are "knowable" by study of Scripture, I know.  The things that aren't knowable, I ponder.  I have a million questions to ask when I get to heaven.

As long as I am writing about Paradise, I may as well finish what I am thinking.  In Gen. 2:9 God placed the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.  In Gen. 3: 24, he set Cherubims and a flaming sword to "keep the way of the Tree of Life" so that people wouldn't have access to it any more.  That's where the story of the tree of life begins.  In Eden.

It ends in the last book of the Bible.  In Revelation 2: 7  John writes (He is exiled on the Isle of Patmos) "To him that overcomes, I will give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

So the tree was in Eden.  And it will be in Paradise as well.  Since there is one tree,  I think that maybe Eden and Paradise are probably the same place. Perhaps we get to go back there.  In the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22:1-2  John writes, "And he showed me a pure river of water of life...proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb.  In the midst of the street of it, on on either side of the river, there was the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits...for the healing of the nations."

He continues in vs. 14, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."  The kingdom of God.

There is a city.  And there is a garden, and a river.  And there is a tree with twelve fruits.  The word Paradise means garden.  Eden was a garden.

That's all I have to say about that.  One thing that I am really thankful for is that the Bible says we are going to eat fruit.  That makes me very happy.  I love to eat.  Heaven will be wonderful.

I have written over six hundred posts.  I have always written about something that I know for sure--concerning the Biblical accounts.

But yesterday, I wrote about Paradise.  There are some things that aren't spelled out for us, and this is one of those things.  It is a place, but is is heaven?  Or as the Old Testament seems to suggest, is it the place where the faithful went when they died.  They had to wait for the Messiah to come, to die, to be resurrected, and pay the price for sin.  Permanently.  Up to then, their sacrifices lasted a year, then had to be paid again.  Over and over.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he said to Mary, "Don't touch me.  I've not yet ascended (to heaven) to the Father." John 20:17.  Where had he been for the last three days after he died???!!!  I think it was in Paradise.  He told the thief on the cross, "This day shall you be with me in Paradise."  Three days later, he ascended to heaven to make the blood payment for our sin.

When he died, the temple veil was torn in two, signifying that now, we can come into the "Holy of Holies where God is."  The sacrifice was made.

I have always contended that He told Mary not to touch him because he had yet to spread his sacrificial blood on the mercy seat.  The Old Testament is replete with references to the mercy seat and the temple had a mercy seat.  But after the price for our sins was paid, he returned to earth and appeared to many.  And He told Thomas, "Put your hand in the hole in my side, put your finger in the hole in my hand."  In other words, touch me.  It was finished.

Deep.  Maybe I will go back to writing about something that I know for sure.

God then curses the serpent, Eve and Adam--in that order.  The beautiful serpent is damned to crawl on its belly.  Eve will have pain and suffering in childbirth and her husband will be her ruler.  And Adam will have to till the ground--which will be cursed.  Thorns and thistles will grow in his crops.  And instead of God providing Adam's food in the garden of Eden, Adam will have to "sweat" to provide for his family, all the days of his life.  They had it perfect, and blew it.  All they had to do--up to then--was pick fruit and eat it.  Now--after they disobeyed--they are going to be cast out of the garden and have to work for a living.  Obedience is critical to God.

Every time I pull a weed, I can thank Adam for it.   I sure don't plant them.  And left to itself, my garden would be full of weeds.  They are a dominant species.  Everything else has to have attention to produce or bloom.  Not weeds.  They take over if you don't pull them out.  They cause work for us.  You can definitely see the parallel between sin and weeds.

The discussion on Sunday was a question:  Was Eden Paradise?  When the Bible talks about Paradise, it usually is a place you go after death.  In the Old Testament, it was on one side of a huge gulf that separated the faithful from the unfaithful.  Those being "held" until Christ paid the penalty for sin.  And those being held for judgment.  The story of Lazarus is a good example.

Luke 16:19 tells us about Lazarus, a beggar laid at the gate of a rich man.  He hoped for crumbs the Bible says.  They both died.  Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man was in torment for his sins.  He cried across "a great gulf" to Abraham to have mercy on him.   But it was too late.  Then he asked that someone to be sent back to warn his brothers.  Abraham said, "If they won't hear Moses...neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

In Revelation, John tells us about Paradise and and says that the "Tree of Life is there."  In the gospels, Jesus says to the thief on the cross, "This day you will be with me in Paradise."  But three days later, Jesus says, "Don't touch me, I have not yet ascended to (heaven) my Father."  So Paradise seems to be somewhere besides heaven?  That is, up till the resurrection.  Then the saints went to heaven.  I'm out in the boonies here.  Just thinking out loud.

All this work on the new house has totally messed up my gardening.  My daughter called to say that the morel mushrooms were ready to be picked and I didn't even make it to her house.   Last year, we went down to the back of her farm where there were trees that had fallen and decayed.  That's where the morels grow.  I got so many ticks that the doc had to dig them out of my arms.  The next time I go picking morels, I'll use Deet!

I keep thinking I will dig up the asparagus plants and transplant them, but I'm not strong enough to dig deep enough to get them.  It seems a shame since you can't pick the spears until the third year.  I hate to have to start all over again.  My plants are at least six years old and producing prolifically.

I don't know why I care about asparagus anyway.  I gave it all away last year.  Didn't eat a bite of it.  And so far, I have given it away this year as well.  I keep meaning to eat some, but I don't.  The morels are another thing altogether.  They only come up for a week to ten days and then they are gone.  They are so delicious.  Next year...

I've been teaching my class from the book of Genesis.  We got to chapter three where God asks Adam  three questions.  "Where are you."  "Who told you you were naked?"  and "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you that you should not eat?"  To which Adam replied, "The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate it."  In other words, it was Eve's fault.  But primarily Adam was saying that it was God's fault because God gave the woman to him.

Put the blame on someone else.  Take no responsibility for what you have done.  As a result, you don't need to repent because what you did was someone else's fault.  And without repentance--true "I won't do that again" repentance--there can be no forgiveness.  The best way to live a life before God is to come clean about everything.  Every thing.  God knows anyway.  Isaiah said that God won't hear you when you pray if you have dirt on your soul.  I want to be sure God hears me.

One summer, Ken and I drove south to New Orleans.  A carrier he had operated off of was docked and we went aboard.  We walked to the front of the carrier's landing strip and looked over the edge.  There were dents in the front and on the edge of the ramp.  "That's Mack.  Right there, that's Burt...they didn't do what I told them to do."

When a pilot comes in low, the LSO uses his paddles to give him a "wave off".  Sometimes the pilot thinks he knows better than the LSO and keeps coming.  But the ship is in a valley--it looks like it is a long way below--but as he the pilot approaches, the front of the ship begins to rise back up and the pilot can't escape hitting the end of the ramp.

Life is like that.  We are positive that we know what we are doing.  That our way of thinking is better than God's way of thinking.  And before it is all over, we crash and burn.  You would think that we could benefit from the mistakes that others make.  But obviously, guys hit the ramp over and over.  They believe in their own abilities rather than the expertise of the LSO.

"It doesn't matter how many touch and goes you make on land, nothing can prepare you for a rolling, pitching deck,"  Ken said.  "You absolutely have to trust the LSO."

When landing lights replaced the LSO, you would think that nobody would ever hit the ramp again.  But they do.  Experienced, talented, intelligent people make the same mistakes over and over again.  They don't believe it when the yellow and red lights on the carrier deck are flashing.

That's why our car insurance rates are so high.  That's why military aviator's life insurance is so high.

Jeremiah 7:23 "But this thing I commanded them saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you."