Once when Becky and I had gone to London, the Muslims were protesting in the street that we were on.  They had formed into a marching group--kind of like a parade--and were carrying really explicit anti-American signs.  "Try not to look like an American," she told me.

Now how do you do that.  American tourists just look like Americans.  The first give away is a fanny-pack.  We left, but had to be rerouted a couple of times by the police because there were protests in other areas.  It was interesting.  I had never seen anything like that.  I'm used to parades being nice things.  This wasn't.

Another time, when we were taking a train from France to Czechoslovakia, (which was after the Velvet Revolution) the Czechs and the Germans had a train they "shared".  It stopped at the border and the Germans got off the back of the train as the Czechs were coming on the front in uniforms (and with guns) asking for our passports.  That was unnerving.  I was really sick with a sinus infection--probably a little bit delirious-- and I wouldn't give them my passport.  "I want a receipt," I told the man with the gun.

"Mom," Becky kept telling me, "Give him your passport."  But I didn't want to do that.  I didn't think I should have to do that.  "In God have I put my trust:  I will not be afraid what man can do unto me."  Psalms 56:11  "Give him the passport," Becky hissed.  I finally did.  The gun and the crossed arms of the soldier finally convinced me.  Maybe a little afraid is okay.

Becky has been overseas 3 or 4 times a year for the last 28 years and sometimes I went with her so we could take one of her boys while she worked (for Conoco) and the boys and I played--hopping trains, exploring castles.  But all good things come to an end.  The last time we were in Rome, I told her that I was never going to Rome again.  The cobble stone streets were too hard to walk on.  I am glad I had the opportunity to do all that.  It was fun.

My sister Lisa came last Saturday and helped me hang more pictures and shelves.  It is a job to get them level unless someone holds them up where I can make sure they are right.  And of course, on all the little Italian carved gold shelves, we put lots and lots of doo-dads that I hadn't yet found a place for.  She also hung two huge pictures over the fireplace and arranged more stuff on the mantle.

Stuff.  But it's mine, and I like to look at it and remember where I was when I bought it.  Or who gave it to me.  Cranberry glass.  Elfinware.  Turquoise swirl.  Royal Dalton.  Stuff.

I've been smiling ever since she went back home.  It's like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  God willing, the next time I move it's going to be six feet down.  I can't go through this again.  In my life, I have moved 24 times.  Enough already.

This morning at Bible study, the subject was Abraham and his wife Sarah.  They lived in Ur, and God told Abraham to pack up his stuff, and all the people who would go with him, and move.  Move a long, long way off.  Knowing that he would never see his parents or home again, he obeyed.  He and Sarah took off into the unknown.

I can only imagine how Sarah felt.  What did she get to take with her?  What memories did she have to leave behind.  Imagine how sad that her mother must have been.  I am reminded of the homesteaders who headed West in covered wagons.  The hardships they endured.  The families they left behind.  They say that there was "stuff" scattered all along the wagon trails heading west, that had to be abandoned.  We women do like our stuff.

Jesus said, "Take...no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:24.  Or in my words: One day's trouble is enough for one day.  Everyday we have to decide what to leave behind. And I'm not talking about stuff.  Ken is gone, but I have to keep on living the rest of this life.  You can't stop living because things change.  But it doesn't say you have to like it.

My dear friend Becky Bacon called me this morning to say, "Don't ever stop writing--it is such an encouragement to me."  I can't begin to say how much that meant.  I don't see her anymore since I moved.  Since I haven't figured out how to get feedback,  I sometimes feel like I am hollering into a canyon and the only thing I hear back is the echo of my own voice.

I would post my Email address, but every nut case on Google would send me those goofy messages--you know the ones I mean.  I am sure there is a way to hear from all of you, but if you don't have my phone or Email, well, I don't even know you are out there.  If I was a computer literate person, I could figure it out.  But I'm not.  And until someone comes to help me, I will just have to wonder about all that.  I hope you enjoy it, but who knows.

From 1964 until 2000, I would pick someone each year to pour myself into and teach them everything I could about the Bible.  Becky Bacon was one of those women.  I got started doing that after someone did that for me.

I read Dawson Trotman's testimony, "Born to Reproduce," and started handing the pamphlet out to the classes I taught.   The pamphlet is a challenge to reproduce yourself one person at a time in the Christian world.  That way, every year, you have doubled your effectiveness.  It's exponential.  If all of those women I shared with reached one more person every year, the number of women reached would be 2 to the 36th power.  That's a lot of women who reached one more person in a year.

You can't reach the world.  But you can reach one person.  If everyone did that, in twenty years that would be over a million people.  In thirty years, over a billion.  Pour yourself into one person.  Teach them everything you know about the Bible.  It's not that hard.

As for finding someone to teach, God takes care of that. 

Yesterday, I cooked the first roast beef I have made in my new house.  Becky went to the store and bought it to cook, but then she used the operative words, "You make so much better roast than I do, would you cook it?"

She has fed a couple of older people for years, and now that the wife has died, she continues taking food to the man and wanted to take him roast beef.  Sometimes it's beans and cornbread, or pasta casserole, or whatever.  We could all do better at that.

So I did the roast.  Peeled and mashed some potatoes that I had.  And added carrots to the meat before I removed it and made gravy.  It turned out perfect.  Delicious.  She took a plate to her friend, I took two plates next door to my friends who have been really good to me since I moved here.  Becky and I ate, and she took a plate home to Craig--and it was all gone.   That is how you cook a roast.

Craig took us to eat a couple of nights ago--Mexican--and every time we finish eating at this place, there is so much left over that I put it in a to-go bag and take it home and make roll up burritos and freeze them.  And there are usually 7 or 8 of them.  Which I like to eat for breakfast.   

Yesterday I gave you part of a verse about the clothes we wear.  Those verses also concern food.  Matthew 6: 25-26 "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink...Is not the life more than meat...Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Aren't you better than they are?"

I spend way too much time thinking about food.  I would probably be considered a thin person, but I eat constantly.  That is why I told you a week or so ago that I hope we get to eat in heaven.  That line in the verse that says, "Take no thought...for what you shall eat..." meant: Don't worry about where your next meal is coming from.   Surely it doesn't mean I can't think about eating.....!!!!!

   

For the first time in my life, I have a closet that holds both my summer and winter clothes at the same time.  I don't have to drag everything down the hall to another closet when the season changes.  You probably are thinking that I have too many clothes.  But that isn't the case. 

Everyone has those things that they only wear to weddings.  And then here are things that you only wear to funerals.  There are a few Christmas things.  The rest of it I wear.  Except..............the things that are too small.  They shrank???  I can't let go of them because they represent a challenge.  Surely I can get back down a size.  Or two?

Jesus only had a robe.  That's it.  He didn't have a closet.  He didn't have a house.

Every season, back when I was changing closets in the spring or fall, I would take the things I had worn that year to the other closet first.  Then the things that I still really liked would get moved next.   The rest of it, I would send to the mission.   But this year, I didn't have to take everything out of the closet and trot it down the hall since I have been able to get it all in one closet.  So I am going to have to come up with another system of figuring out what to discard.

I've always thought that God has given me what I have, and when I don't need it, I need to give it away.  Someone can use it.  I've ended up with empty closets and empty cabinets in this new house.  That's a good thing.  Less is more.

I think Jesus got it right. Matthew 6:28-29, 31, "And why are you worried about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these...Do not worry then, saying...What will we wear for clothing?"

Yesterday, I quoted Ezekiel 36:26 "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."

This is such a super verse from the Old Testament.  It was a promise--to all of the people that lived back then--that hope was on the way.  That God was going to give us a better way to deal with our nature--that part of us that is always tempted to do wrong. 

He was not going to hold us to a list of ten commandments, but was going to change our nature so that we want to do what is right.  That's called regeneration.

God said that He was going to change our nature by putting His Spirit into our minds and bodies so that we can think better.  So that we can change our habit patterns.  So that we can actually keep growing in a God-direction.

So instead of getting discouraged with ourselves, we have hope.  

In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said it like this: "Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

That's it.  All of it.  He was telling the Jews that that was the entire content of the law.  And that was the point of a Messiah.  That was all you needed.  An indwelling Spirit. 

"...the glory of this mystery...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."  My heart, Christ's home.

The last "You have heard it said" in Matthew 5 is: 
        Matthew 5:43, "You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy."
       And the last "But I say unto you," is an indictment for all of us.  Matthew 5:44-46, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you..."  I bet everyone in the crowd that day was shocked.  They had never in their lives heard anyone say something like that.  Just think:
1.  Love your enemies
2.  Bless them that curse you
3.  Do good to them that hate you
4.  Pray for those who despitefully use you
5.  Pray for those who persecute you
        Isn't it interesting that we take some of Jesus words to heart, and others--like the five instructions Jesus gave the crowd that day--we tend to skip over.  We don't like any of those things He said.
       And the next sentence out of Jesus' mouth was:  "That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven...For if you love them which love you, what reward have you?  Don't even the publicans do the same?"  What He said is that doing those things shows that we are God's children.

The law was impossible to keep.  But Jesus was telling them--and us--that there is an even higher law:  The law that God writes on our hearts.  Something we carry around with us all the time.

Ezekiel 36:26 "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
When we accept Jesus as God and Savior, he changes our hearts.  Otherwise it would be hopeless.

I met one of the women I was assigned to mentor last night.  Whoever put us together must have spent some time with it because it is a good fit.  We have things in common, and what she needs as a Christian, I happen to have the ability to provide.  I was worried that I would get someone who had needs that I wasn't equipped to deal with.  This is going to be interesting.

I ended last week in Matthew 5:17, "Let your light shine...".  And didn't follow up with the rest of Chapter 5, which is really interesting.  Matthew is making a point--to the Jews--that their laws didn't do the job that they were intended to do.  Their laws only showed them where they had failed.

Matthew quoted Jesus, as Jesus sat on a hill preaching to a huge crowd--and the Pharisees were in the group.  Pharisees were men who had pledged their lives to keeping the Mosaic laws, and what Jesus  is going to say will infuriate them.  He is going to tell the crowd that there is a way to live that is better than the law.  And Jesus spoke with authority.  The Pharisees were supposed to be the authority of the Mosaic law.  And Moses was an iconic figure in their traditions.

Who did this Jesus guy think he was anyway?  Didn't He know who they (the Pharisees) were?  Didn't he know that there was nothing greater than the Jewish Laws given by Moses?  This was blasphemy in their eyes.

Six times, Jesus said, "You have heard it said...".  And eight times Jesus said, "But I say unto you...".  He was contrasting the Mosaic laws with a new message-- His message.  And the problem for the Pharisees was, that when Jesus said, "But I say unto you ...", everyone was listening to Him.

Jesus has put the first link in His death sentence.  He is beginning to make a "chain" of events that will cost Him his life.   You don't mess with city hall.


  

Our church has started something that is new to me.  Women sign up to be a Christian "mentor" and others sign up to be mentored.  You submit an experience survey and they pair you up.  It is not random.  People are placed using a number of criteria.  The point is to make a relationship.

Tonight, I will meet the two women that were given to me to mentor.  This is going to be interesting.  From my background survey, there must have been something from my life that will be helpful to these two.  What is it?  I have no idea.  I do know that the staff that paired people up prayed for hours over those decisions.  It was not done lightly.

All of us need people to encourage us.  That is how we grow.  But sometimes we forget that we are the ones who are supposed to be the encourager.  We get so busy with our own problems and frustrations that we look "in" rather than looking out.  There is a world out there and it is hurting.

My life has been a journey.  Yours has, too.  Those experiences are stories worth telling.  They will help someone who is suffering similar road blocks in their life.  I cannot begin to tell you how much it has helped me when someone shared something that had happened to them and how they dealt with it.  We all like to hear a good story.

Not all stories turn out happily ever after.  Suffering is part of life.  And when you have tunneled your way through one of those times with the help of God's grace, you are equipped to help someone else.  And that is what God has called us to do.  Love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

This program may be chancy.  The mentors are not trained professionals.  But we are listeners.  And that is what most struggling Christians need.  Someone to listen.  I can do that.  So can you.

Let your light shine.  
 

       I got through the first five chapters of Matthew yesterday in the class I taught.  In 45 minutes.  (That is a lot of material.)   I never teach a class from the Bible that I don't learn something, or solidify something that I already knew.   Here is the 2 minute version.

        Matthew is writing to Jews.  His primary purpose is to tell them that Old Testament Prophecy has been fulfilled in the person of Jesus.  The King has come.  And throughout the book, he repeats what Jesus had to say about the kingdom.  The kingdom of God.  The kingdom of heaven.  He starts by giving the genealogy of Jesus--His right to the throne.  And then in the last part of the first chapter, he explains that Joseph was not the father of Jesus by telling us about the angel's visit to Joseph.

       In Chapter 2, Matthew emphasizes the Kingship of Jesus through the story of the wise men who told Herod that they had seen a star and were there to worship the new King.  (Herod imploded.)

Matthew starts Chapter 3, by telling the Jews that another of their Old Testament prophecies had come true in the person of John the Baptist.  Matt. 3:3  "For this is he (John) that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord (the King), make his paths straight..."  (Fulfilled prophecy.  We base much of our faith on it.)

        Chapter 4 concerns the temptation of Jesus by Satan.  Jesus answers by quoting scripture.

Chapter 5 gives us the nine Beatitudes.  The "Blessed are you if...."  And in verse 16 Jesus gives us instructions:  "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."  You just got the 45 min. condensed version.

1.  Let your light shine.   2.  Do good works.   3.  Glorify the Father.   (4.  Just do it.)
Thy Kingdom come.

I am going to teach a class on Sunday since my teacher is going to be gone and asked me to fill in.  I am excited about that.  Opening the Word of God in the fellowship of others is always a good thing.  God said, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them..."  Matthew 18:20  God will be there.  It is like having a date.  Something to look forward to.  My life is pretty boring right now.  Like I said the other day, I get up with nothing to do and go to bed with it half done.

When my grandson Steven is in town, he usually takes me somewhere.  He called and asked me go go see Star Wars with him the other day.  We didn't get to go, but it was nice to be asked.

I find myself looking forward to the smallest of things.  I have a dentist appointment next week (I'm not looking forward to that) in Claremore, and there is a hole-in-the-wall diner there that makes the best hamburgers in the world.  Greasy browned buns and meat hanging over the edges.  I'm going to eat one.  And to top it off, they peel and slice their own potatoes for french fries.  Yum, yum, yum.  They have been there since the fifties--you know the kind of place I'm talking about.  Six booths and ten bar stools in a room no bigger than my bedroom.

We had a place like that in Pryor when I was growing up.  You couldn't go in, they just flopped a window open and handed you your hamburger.  It was on main street and couldn't have been any bigger than 6 by 10 feet.  Room for a grill and a cook.  Walking distance from school.
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I hope we can eat when we get to heaven.  It sounds like maybe we will.  In the last chapter of the Bible, in Revelation 22:1-2, it says: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.  In the midst of the street...was the tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits..."  I'm taking it that that means we get to eat.   Hope so.

   

Becky called me this afternoon and said I should come to an estate sale that she was helping Pam (Edmond Antiques owner) get ready for.  I went.  Unbelievable.  These people had inherited boo-coo  antiques from an aunt and packed them away for a million years because they didn't like antiques.  There were boxes and boxes of beautiful things.   I've been interested in things that are old ever since I was in high school.  They represent a discarded past and I think that type of history is interesting.

This was unbelievable.  There were things in this estate sale that I had never seen before, and some things that I had only seen in collectors books.  Beautiful cranberry glass--Mary Gregory, Fenton, Flow-blue, and on and on.  Gobs and gobs of it.  Not to mention carved walnut furniture in every room.  And marble.  No, I didn't buy anything.  Mostly because there was so many beautiful things that I couldn't take it all in.  And I need more stuff like a moose needs a hat-rack.

Women like pretty things.  Most men could care less.  But in our defense, I think God made us that way.  We decorate our homes.  We decorate our walls.  We decorate ourselves.  We love "pretty."

But as the old sayings go:  "Pretty is as pretty does."  And you have heard people say:  "She is pretty on the inside as well as the outside."  Both sayings concern the heart.  The attitude.  The thoughts.

We need to make sure that we decorate the walls of our heart with the same attention to detail that we spend on the outside of our world.  "For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance..."  Galatians 5:22-23a

We can all work on those attributes.  I've got a couple of them down.  I'm so-so on a few of the others.  But long-suffering?  Well now.  That's a different story.  Patience may be a virtue,  but it is not a virtue that I seem to have much of.  My spiritual work is cut out for me.  How about you?

So.  Ken was boiling, and every day he got madder and madder.  He was reassigned as the Operation Officer for the group as I recall.  Which should have made him happy.  But no.  It didn't undo all the bad things that had occurred.  Losing the squadron under the dishonorable pretenses of a Colonel who had lied was almost unbearable for him.  Losing 52 friendlies because the pilot, the man that replaced Ken,  didn't have any experience in the airplane, was even worse.  You just don't send someone into a fight the first week they are in-country that doesn't know what they are doing, especially when they are unfamiliar with the plane they are flying.  

So I wrote him and told him to get his Bible and a pair of scissors and for him to cut Romans 8:28 out of his Bible and throw it in the trash--because it certainly wasn't working for him.  I said that he needed a Bible that didn't have that verse in it.   Romans 8: 28  "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

He wrote me back and told me that I was right.  That we don't always see the big picture, and that he couldn't see it right now.  He was too angry.  He also said that he had told the Group CO that he could take his airplanes and shove them where the sun didn't shine--that he was through flying.  (His words, not mine.  I'm not a Marine.)

All of this happened at the end of six months in Nam.  He spent the next six months directing sorties, and when he came home, he said that it was the best thing that could have happened because it gave him time to mentally download some of the horrors of war before he came home.  He didn't have to be in the middle of the fire and destruction.  He already had over 100 missions anyway.

He spent twenty one years flying for our country, and was hit seven times in Korea and once in Viet Nam.  All of it under the protection of God himself.  "...according to His purpose."  He served as a deacon, a youth director and a Bible teacher for the next forty-four years.  He was my hero.

I am a random Bible reader and I write all over the pages.  Down the margins and the space between chapters.  It is rather like a diary.  I found a note in my Bible that I wrote to Ken while he was in Viet Nam concerning a certain scripture that applied to a problem Ken was having.

Ken had been given command of VMA 311 in Viet Nam--an A-4 squadron.  (He had been the commanding officer of another A-4 squadron for two years in Laurel Bay, S.C.  So when he went to Nam, he had a lot of hours in the A-4.)   Getting a squadron of your own during conflict, well, that was as good as it gets for a fighter pilot.  The highlight of his 21 year career.  He was ecstatic.

Two weeks later, he had to take a damaged plane to Japan and was gone from his squadron for a couple of days.  During that two days, the Commanding Officer of the group transferred the squadron a old buddy who had just checked in.  Ken was furious.  Raging mad.  The CO told Ken--when he returned from Japan--that the general had approved the change, which turned out to be a lie.

A couple of days later, General Anderson had Ken to dinner at the O-Club and asked him what he was doing in Saigon.  "I'm here by your directive, sir."  To which the General said, "What do you mean?  I thought you were at Chu Lai commanding 311."  The General knew nothing at all about it.  Heads rolled.  But it was too late because that week, the replacement CO for VMA 311--who had been given the squadron by his old pal (even though he had no experience in the airplane), killed 52 friendlies.  He and his buddy who lied were to blame for the lives of 52 Americans.  I thought Ken was going to implode.  He had spent three years commanding an A-4 squadron stateside and had over a hundred missions in Korea.  The deaths of our ground troops was unbearable to him.  The fact that a Marine Colonel had lied was unforgivable.  He was angry, beyond consolation, and his letters home were full of it. 

Continued.........





  

When a man bought a shirt in the 40's, it had a one inch wide neck-band connecting the shirt to the collar.  If you couldn't afford to buy a new shirt every time your husband's collar became frayed (which no one I knew could) you learned a trick.  When we first got married, Ken and I were in that "no money" position, so his mother taught me what to do.

You take a razor blade and disconnect the collar from the neck-band, then you turn the collar over and reinsert it into the band and sew it all back together.  The frayed side is now underneath and doesn't show.  I turned many collars when we first got married.  And made children's clothes using fabric from adult things that had worn out elbows and knees.  Amazing what you can do when you have no money.  Today, we just throw things out.  Back then, everything was re-purposed.

I was really proud of the first Sunday-suit that I made for Scott (yes, I made some of his clothes, too).  It looked professional--if I do say so myself.  Problem was, when he put it on, I had put the buttons and buttonholes on the wrong sides.  I had never made a man's shirt or jacket from scratch before and I honestly didn't know that men and women's clothes had buttons and buttonholes on different sides.  Needless to say, he wouldn't wear it.

Most people in the 40's and 50's didn't have very much.  But since everyone was in the same boat,  it felt normal.  We never went hungry and we were never unbearably cold in the winter.  Summer, however, was a different story.  I didn't know anyone that had air-conditioning.  Everyone sweltered.  Now, when I say my prayers and get to the thanksgiving part, I have "Thank God for air-conditioning" on the list.  I do hate to sweat.  I don't want to go back to the good old days.

1 Timothy 5:8 (KJV)
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith...1 Timothy 5:8a   I guess that means we are to keep at it using whatever we can muster.

In 1944, when I would go to the grocery store with my mother, there was a freezer in the middle of one of the aisles that had horse meat in it.  Each part was wrapped in white butcher paper and labeled as to what was inside.  It was a lot cheaper than beef or chicken.

"Why do people want horse meat?" I asked my mom.  "Because they can't afford any other meat," she answered.  "They eat it!!??"  I was shocked.  "Yes, they do.  But we don't have to do that.  Your dad has a job.  We can afford chicken." 

It is no longer legal to sell horse meat for consumption in the U.S., but Pat (daughter #1) told me that horse meat is still consumed in Mexico.  "How do you know that," I asked her.  "Well," she said, There is an auction house where I go pick up horses every week or so that are too valuable to kill for meat, and I find them a home. They sell hundreds of horses every week and people truck them to Mexico.  You can't kill them in Oklahoma anymore, so they go somewhere that you can slaughter them for consumption.  The guys who buy them and truck them out tell me stuff.  It makes me sad."

"Some of the horses are young, used up as racing stock, jumpers.  Just not able to do those things anymore, so their owners send them to this auction.  But the auction house culls some of them that they think are worth saving and give people a chance to rescue them before they go on the block."
 She went on to tell me that it costs her $150.00 every time she picks one up, but it is worth it if she can find a home for the horse to live out its days.  "I can't save them all, but it is like the story of the boy who picked up the starfish on the beach and tossed it back in the ocean...I can save one." She gets on the phone and starts calling people.  It's like rescuing stray dogs and cats.  It's heart breaking.

Saving the lost is the same thing.  They are on the auction block.  You can't save them all, but you can rescue one or two.  Your life is "light in the darkness" to the lost.  It may cost you something, but your reward will be great.  You don't have to win the world, just win one, the one that God puts in your path.

I think the world has gone crazy.  The hydrogen bomb that S. Korea set off is the latest.  I hear the U.S. is saying that it wasn't an H bomb.  Maybe not, but it was something very big and very bad.  Kim Jong Un seems to be determined to start a war with the world and specifically with the U.S. since we are allied with South Korea and pledged to defend her.  And anyone who gives him advice that he doesn't like, he executes.  You can't help but wonder what is going on inside his head.  I am sure South Korea citizens are nervous.  Pray for our missionaries there.

And then, there are the Christians in the middle East who are being murdered.  That entire area has become a killing field.  I sometimes wonder what is going on--how long will all of this last.  Evil seems to be winning.  And many of those who are perpetrating such atrocities have no desire for peace. War and death seem to be their game.

But then I remember: you and I know how it is all going to turn out.  God wins.   You and I are going to be citizens of a new kingdom where there will be no more war.  Thank God.

Jesus said: "But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet."  Mark 13:7

The day that Ken got on a plane for Viet Nam--where I knew he would get shot at every day as a fighter pilot--I was left standing in the airport with my three children wondering if he would ever come home again.  It is not a good way to live.  Pat was in the fourth grade, Becky in the second and Scott was not yet four years old.   I don't remember a year without war--somewhere--since then.   The world thrives on hate.  Satan is alive and well.

But God reigns supreme.   And we are His children.  Hallelujah!

Our church has what they call "Game Day" once a month.  Everyone brings something to eat, we have a meal and then I join the group that plays Mexican-Train dominoes.  We spent most of the time saying, "Who's turn is it?"   Or "Did you play yet?"  And laughing.  It is a lot of fun.  Yesterday we had nine women at the table and spent most of the time trying to figure out the rules.  Someone said, "Oh, we'll just make them up as we go along."  And we did.

I love to play games.  I love to work puzzles.  Every morning at my house is the same.  I have a routine when I get up:  Let the dog out, get his breakfast, take pills, etc.  But after I fix my hot cup of peach (sometimes lemon) tea, I go get the newspaper and work the Cryptoquote first, the Suduko second, the Bridge game of the day third, and finally settle down with the Crossword puzzle.

And then, I edit the blog I wrote the night before, post it, get dressed, and start the day.  In the winter, there isn't much to do.  And the things that there are to do, I don't want to do--or I would already have done them.  I have to force myself to do those things.  I try to do one of them every day, but never, never with a very good attitude.  I've told you before, I do things I don't want to do better when I am under pressure.  And I create the pressure through procrastination.   It works for me.

The Educational director of the church I joined hasn't found a place for me to work.  In seven months already!!! At my age, if God is going to get any mileage out of my Bible knowledge, I have to get with it.  I need to be teaching.  It is very frustrating.  I started teaching in church sixty years ago, and this is the longest time that I remember that I haven't had a class.  Do you know what your gift is?  God wants you to exercise the gifts He has given you.  Not using them is a waste of the time God has given you.  "Redeeming the time because the days are evil..."  Ephesians 5:16

Romans 12:6  "In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well..."
Just do it.

When I go to bed at night, I read my Bible for awhile, say my prayers and fall asleep somewhere in the middle of them.  I like to talk to God.  I can't imagine why He listens to me, but I know He does--and it is such a comfort.  Last night, I told Him (after reading in the book of Psalms)  that I wish I could adore him like king David did.  David wrote such beautiful prose with such beautiful words in the Psalms.  I am sure that God loved David so much partly because David knew how to praise God so well.  We all need praise.  And who is there to compliment God if we don't.

Everyone loves to hear nice things, and I am sure that God is no different--we are made in His image.  But I'm not able to do God justice when I praise Him.  I don't have enough words.  Or the right words.  So I usually just tell him that I love Him and appreciate his care over me.  And then start thanking Him for each individual thing He has done for me.  And fall asleep in the middle.

I don't know how people make it who don't have God as their friend and father.  The world is out to destroy you, to disillusion you, to defeat you and tear you down.  But when you have God in your life, you know deep down that He is going to get you through it all.  The thing that is best is that you know that you are not alone.  I do not like being alone.

 When you lose your husband (or wife), it is like cutting yourself in two and only getting to keep only one of the pieces.  If it wasn't for people who love you and a God who cares for you,  loneliness for the other half of yourself would weigh you down.  Things will never be the same, but the blessing of friends and family make it bearable.  You can't spend fifty-seven years with someone and "fix it" when they are gone.  Some things just can't be fixed.

One of the best things that God has blessed me with is friends.  And family.  Who love me and include me in their lives.   I don't have Ken, but I am not alone.

Something went wrong when I went to spellcheck.  Get the update??

With social media so prevalent it is hard to know what is true anymore.  Just because it was posted on Face Book or in the newspaper, doesn't mean that it is valid.  One of the hardest things in today's world is knowing whom to believe.  Or what to believe.

Since I don't go out much, I read and watch a lot of television.  Mostly the news.  It is amazing how I can get two opposite definitions of "truth" simply by flipping channels.  And the spiels are so sincere.  The expressions on their faces so believable.

The best I can do is pray that whoever ends up being our next president will get honest and truthful information on which to base their decisions.  So that we don't end up with a "Weapons of Mass Destruction War" again.  Or (if you are old enough to remember) another "Domino Effect" like Vietnam.  Both of those wars were based on false information and false assumptions.   Honestly entered based on misinformation.  And enough guilt to go around for both parties.  When you've lived as long as I have you get disillusioned by what politicians tell you.

I have never seen such animosity between the political parties as is going on right now.  Civility has gone out the door.  Where are our leaders?  Our statesmen?  I'm going to have to vote for someone next year .  I just hope that in the end, God gives me someone I can respect to vote for.  And someone that will tell me the truth.

Truth.  Jesus said, "I am the truth...no man comes to the Father but by me."  Only God can fix the mess the world is in right now.  Politicians may promise to save America, but God alone can do that.  I think we should probably be on our knees about now.

"God bless America, land that I love.  Stand beside her, and guide her..."  Please God.  Do that.

First day of a new year.  They seem to come quicker than they used to.  I always thought that when I retired, I would get all sorts of things done.  Not so.  I get up every day with nothing to do and go to bed with it half done.

But I somehow fill the day with activity.   Yesterday I went through all my receipts from last year, shredded most of them, and made a file for taxes.  And in the process found that AT&T had been charging me for a land-line that I didn't have.  I hadn't been very careful--since I moved--to check up on them.  Believe it or not, they are going to refund the money!!!  It only took three hours on the phone to get it done.  I was transferred at least five or six times.  Three hours of listening to that awful music they play while I waited!!!  Where is Southwestern Bell when you need them.

I long for the days when I called a number and someone alive and breathing answered on the other end.  I long for the days when I drove up to a gas station and someone came out and pumped my gas, washed my windshield, checked my tires and oil and ran my ticket.  All I had to do was watch.  I really, really, really don't like to pump gas.  I don't like to do anything that gets my hands dirty.

I woke up this morning to another earthquake--4.2.  Nothing fell off the walls this time.  Who ever thought that Oklahoma would become earthquake prone??  Luckily, after living in California four  different times and places, I am used to it and don't get ruffled.   If it gets to a 5.00, I might rethink.
I lived at the north end of the Golden Gate bridge once.  That was fun! 

My times are in God's hands.  I am more than glad to let Him decide what happens to me.

"He (Jesus) said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power."  Acts 1:7    Can't think of anyone I'd rather trust.