Ruby and my mom had another sister, Doris, who lived in Southeast Oklahoma.  In Heavener.  Her husband, Oscar, was a brakeman on the train that ran from Siloam Springs, Arkansas down to Howe--which was a few miles from their house.  In the summer, mom and dad would take me to Siloam and put me on the train.  Fun, fun, fun.  Everyone who had a job on the train knew I was Oscar's niece--so I was pampered.  And Doris was waiting for me at the end of the line.  Doris had a daughter, my cousin Patricia, who was my age.  They are all gone now.  And all those childhood memories are gone with them.  Life is full of sadness mixed in with the joy.

I was probably seven or eight when I started riding the train by myself.  Back then we had wonderful passenger trains--before Eisenhower built the interstate highways, and the semi trucks pretty much put the trains out of business.  The interstate highways were wonderful for America--no more patched up two lane roads.  But losing the trains was not good.  Now when I go overseas, I love to ride the trains.  The countries in Europe have perfected their train system.  It is excellent.

Once when I was going from Paris to Prague on the train, we had a sleeper car and during the night the Czech military boarded when we crossed out of Germany.  They got on at the front, and as the train moved across the border, the German crew got off at the back.  Interesting.  They avoided each other while transferring responsibility for the train.  The Czechs had guns and were in uniform.  I don't think there was any love lost between the Germans and the Czechs.

I was sick with a sinus infection, was half asleep and a little bit dopey, so when the Czech officer asked for my passport, I wouldn't give it to him.  I kept asking for a receipt.  He wouldn't give me one.  It was a standoff.  With Becky hissing in the background, "Mother!!  Give him your passport.  You have to give him your passport.  You don't have a choice."  I guess they could have arrested me so I finally relented.  That was a long, long time ago.  Back when the country was called Czechoslovakia.  Now it is the Czech Republic. 

I have a picture of my mother and her sister Ruby walking down the main street in Ft. Smith Arkansas that was taken in July or August of 1937.  They are dressed to the nines--they always were--and were laughing. 

Back then a camera was a luxury, so people who had a camera would stand on the corner and snap pictures of interesting people and sell them.  Mom and Ruby had been to the doctor's office and found out that my mom was pregnant with me.  They are both so happy in the picture.  Mom, because she was going to have a baby.  And Ruby, even though she desperately wanted to have a child, happy for my mother.

I keep the picture on an antique walnut entry chest in the living room and never tire of looking at it.  Mom and Ruby had each other.  I didn't have a sister for twenty one-years.  And even when Lisa came along, she was like one of my children.  Until the last ten years or so .  Now that she is in her late fifties, we are sisters.  It is really neat.  I can understand the love that Mom and Ruby had for each other.

Every Sunday, after church, my Mom and Dad, Ruby and Cleo, Gran and Pops, my brother Bill and Ann and I would eat dinner together.  And discuss how each of our parents taught the Sunday School lesson that day.  So every Sunday, I got the Bible lesson for the day at least twice.  Once at church and once at home over Sunday dinner.  Sometimes more--if there was a difference of opinion.  I grew up on fried chicken, gravy and Scripture.  And they all lived the life.  It didn't end on Sunday.  They were just good people.

Proverbs 22:6  "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Bill ended up as a missionary doctor to China.  Lisa founded a church and served as pianist.  Ann teaches piano and sings in her church.  Deuteronomy 11:19  "And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up."  That's what they did.

Today is a day that will go down...not in infamy, but in one of my happiest of memories.  I went to see my oncologist and she told me I could come off Tamoxifen--the cure that kills you in the process.  Hallelujah!!  It has been eight years post chemo and post radiation.   Eight years of horrible drugs with horrible side effects.  I wouldn't wish chemo on a dog.  No recurrence.  Thank God; I am alive and doing well by His grace.  Breast cancer is an epidemic, one in four women will have this disease. 

Which reminds me of a story my mom told me.  She was the fourth child in her family and her older siblings informed her that one in four people born in the world was Chinese.  And since she was the fourth child in their family, that she was Chinese.  She was only six or seven at the time, and she was devastated that she wasn't an American like they were.  She said she cried and cried.

On the way to Tulsa for my appointment, Becky and I were discussing people that made lasting impressions on us.  She said that when we moved to Pryor in the middle of the school year, (when Ken went to Viet Nam), she was in the second grade.  And they put her in a desk behind a boy named John.  She said she was pretty dumb-struck by his hair.  "He was Indian and had lots and lots of black hair."  She had never seen a boy with hair.  All the men in her life up to then had been Marines.  With high and tight cuts.  Wives cut their hair, and almost all sons as well had a high and tight.

And when she was in the fourth grade she had a teacher that was really scary.  On the first day the teacher stomped in and wrote "Discipline" on the board, then turned around and very sternly informed them that if they didn't have discipline that they would never amount to anything.  Becky said, "I didn't know what that was, but knew I better get some in a hurry."

It is funny the things we remember.  Becky said that she didn't remember a single thing from that fourth grade year but that first day and the word "discipline."  I guess that was enough. 

My mom had an older sister that was her best friend: Ruby.  They were inseparatable.  Ruby's husband Cleo was my favorite uncle, and  I loved the two of them like I loved my parents.  Ruby had not been able to have a child and she and Cleo were like second parents to me.  But seven years after I was born, she got pregnant and had my cousin Ann.  When you look at pictures of that event, they look like the Madonna holding the baby Jesus.  Ruby adored Ann.  She adored me.  We both adored her.  (Ann is my cousin here in Edmond that I mention from time to time.  We are like sisters.)

Later in her life, Ruby also had Alzheimer's.  (They say it can run in families.  But none of the seven people in the next generation were afflicted.  Or the generation after that who are now in their late fifties.) 

Ann cared for Ruby for years and years.  I think she did a much better job with her mother than I did with my mother.  Ann is a very compassionate person.  I am a fixer.  I tried to fix things for my mother that couldn't be fixed.  I think both of us did the best we knew how.  We were there when they needed us.  Just like they had been there when their mom needed them.

While I was still living in Pryor, I came to see Ruby in Edmond where she was the Alzheimer's care unit.  Ann told me she had been immobile and hadn't spoken for months.  It was so sad.  When I entered her room, I said, "Hello, Roobie-doobie.  I love you," just like I always did.  She opened her eyes and said,  "I love you, too."  Ann said she never spoke again.  Love conquers everything.

"A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  "John 13:34  Some people are easier to love than others.  Ruby was one of those.

One of the greatest blessings of my life was my family.  On my mother's side, they are all gone now.  Gran, Pops, five aunts and five uncles.  They shaped my life.

My mom was a math teacher.  She was born around 1914, so being a woman in the field of mathematics was very rare.  She was the geometry guru for the State of Oklahoma.  She beat out all of the men when they went to mathematics competition at state.  I still have the medal she won.  She taught math for many years in Pryor and her students loved her. 

But later in life, in her mid seventies, her mind began to falter.  She had Alzheimer's disease.   They say it is the disease that kills the family.  I think they are right.  It is terrible to watch.   Especially for someone as bright as she was.

There came a day that she was dangerous to herself.  She would sleep in the daytime; my dad couldn't get her to sleep when he did, so he was always suffering from lack of sleep.  She would find the car keys in the night, after he had dozed off, and slip out to go "somewhere."  And get lost immediately in a town she had lived in for sixty years.   She didn't know where she was most of the time.

Dad kept wanting me to tell him what to do.  I was honest with him.  "You can't go on like this.  She needs to be somewhere during the night where she is safe.  And so you can sleep.  And that means she will have to be there in the day as well.  But you can go see her every day, and stay with her for as long as you like."  It almost killed him when he made the decision to find a place for her.  But she liked the Alzheimer's unit.  It was full of people and she really loved to be around people.  Lisa and I fixed her room up with her own drapes, bedspread, pictures, etc., so it seemed like home to her. 

One day, I went into the unit, and she had gathered everyone up and had them all sitting at a table.  She was standing at the end of the table teaching.  Teaching math.  She recognized me, and said, "Janie, these people don't want to learn.  I don't know what to do with them."   But she was enjoying herself, so I told her to keep trying.  Not to give up.   "...for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Philippians 4:11b.  She was always content.

Today I tackled the three drawer antique chest that sits by my chair.  It is the place where everything goes when you don't know what to do with it.  I moved it from Pryor without taking anything out of the drawers and it was crammed.  I must have been shoving stuff in there for ten years.   It was interesting.  You name it, it was in there.  I threw a ton of stuff out.  Ball point pens by the dozens--ones I would never use because they have too wide a diameter and they hurt my hand.  Gone.  Six or seven little eye glass cleaner squares.  Twenty or more nail files and a bunch of fingernail clippers.  Pieces of paper with names and addresses and phone numbers of people I can't even remember.  All gone.  I am sure everyone has a drawer or two like that.  It is now organized.  I am pleased with myself!!  I had put it off because there were so many other things to do.

I kept at it, which is unusual for me.  I like to do things in pieces.  Step one--then do something else.  Step two--then get something to eat.  I eventually get the job done, but I am not a start and finish kind of gal.  It was an all day project.  In the middle of all that, I had to go to the Orthopedic doctor.  I had put that off as well.  But my back finally had to be attended to.  I am one of those pain tolerant kind of people.  It has to get horrible before I do something.  I Hadn't ever checked it out.  Just knew I hurt.  It wasn't good.  Scoliosis.  Slipped vertebrae.  Curved spine, etc., etc..  Old age. Arthrits.

I'm going to Paris in October sometime and have to be able to walk--which I've been avoiding doing much of.  I've tried a few times to do a block, before I give up.  That's not going very well.  So. We are starting a round of pills.  And see if that helps.  If not, on to step two.  Etc.   He told me that I am going to have to use a cane.  I guess that officially makes me an old woman.   Growing old is embarrassing.  You start looking like an old person.  Humiliating.  Pitiful.  I don't feel old in my mind, but the container is falling apart.   Time for duct tape and chewing gum I guess.  Psalms 71:18  "...when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed your strength unto this generation, and your power to every one that is to come."  I'm not done yet.  My hair is still the color it always was.  Brown.  I have never colored it.

I wrote you the other day that I was teaching from the book of first Samuel.  It is one of the stories we learned in church if you went to Sunday School when you were young.  Kind of like David and Goliath, Noah and the ark, etc.  I wondered what this story in our Bible was supposed to teach me.  It is interesting.  It is informational.  But I have had a hard time figuring out what I was supposed to learn from it.

You recall that during the night, Samuel heard a voice calling his name.  So he got up and went into the room where Eli was sleeping and said, "You called me?"  This happened three times, and three times Eli said that he didn't call Samuel.  So finally, Eli gave Samuel some guidance when Eli realized that God was speaking.   He sent Samuel back to his room and told  Samuel to say, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

I decided that the message that we are supposed to get from this story is that sometimes we aren't familiar with the voice of God.   God wants to speak to our hearts and we don't recognize His voice.

Sometimes it comes from someone like Eli.  And when we hear it, it connects somewhere in our deepest self.  It is personal.  I know that many times I have heard a preacher say something that turned a light on for me.  But other people--who heard the same thing--didn't see the relevance in it.  God spoke to me.  I got it.

Other times, when I am musing, not really thinking about anything in particular, an answer to a problem I have been having pops into my head.  I usually look up, and say, "Thank you."  I know where the answer came from because I had previously turned it over to Him.  God's voice comes from His word.  Read the Bible.  He speaks through it.

 Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

Jon and Jennifer came over today and brought Brady--who is four--and Tate--who is 18 months.  I was so glad to see them.  They both teach high-school in Moore and Jon coaches and Jennifer is in charge of the cheerleaders.  They are really busy.  Watching  them corralling those two boys makes me wonder how I didn't lose my mind with four.

I picked my first tomato.  My okra is up to six inches now that it is hot.  It should be up to four feet soon.   Next year I will plant more things.  But this year was too hectic with moving and renovating.  Now that the bathroom is finished I feel settled.  Rather at peace.

I just completed my 66th Bible verse in the book I am writing for Amy.  I'm trying to write a short comment about the meaning of each verse.  I think if I do six a day, I will have it completed by her birthday in September.  Maybe sooner. 

I told you that I planted a pink dogwood and that I have planted one almost every year for a number of years with no success.  I hoped it would live.  I had high hopes that this one would make it.  It didn't.  It died.  I am never going to plant another one.  I can't count how many I have killed.  There is a time to admit you have been defeated.  So I planted a tulip tree.  It is doing great.

My grandson Steven is coming over in the morning to help me put some things I don't use very often up on high shelves.  I would do it myself, but getting on a ladder has become dangerous.  I totter.

This blog is random and silly.  I'll try to write something interesting tomorrow.  Today it reads like a life report.

I was always afraid of water.  When I was in the eight grade, one of my classmates drowned in Grand River.  (After  they built the dam, it was renamed Grand Lake.)  As a result of my fear, I didn't learn to swim for a long time.  I loved to dive--my maiden name was "Swan"-- and I perfected a swan dive.  Problem was, there I was out in the deep end--pretty much up a creek without a paddle. 

But my best friend at the time--we were in the ninth grade--was a really good swimmer.  And when I would dive into the water, she would pull me out.  I knew she wouldn't let me drown.  I trusted her.  So she and I would go with our friends to the pool and I would spend the day diving, and being pulled out of the water by my friend Betsy.

But because there was someone there to trust, a strange thing happened.  I wasn't afraid because I knew my friend would be there for me.  I began to dog paddle without even knowing what that was.  I learned to keep my head above water until Betsy got there.  And little by little, I learned to swim.

It is a good thing to have people around you that you can trust.  They are few and far between.  My friend Betsy is gone now.  She had Parkinson's disease and spent the last years of her life with very limited abilities. She suffered, but never once did I hear her complain.  Every Saturday, I would go get her, and her walker, and we would go to the garage sales.  She loved to do that.  There came a point when she couldn't get up the stairs in the house where she was living.  So we found a house on one level, hired a carpenter, and knocked out some walls that interfered with her mobility.  She was a trooper.  I miss her.  True friends are one of life's greatest blessings.   I miss all my friends in Pryor.  But I am making new ones here.  My greatest loss since moving is losing my credibility.  You don't think about things like that until they are gone.  Over time, people here will get to know me, but it will never be the same.  It takes years to build your reputation.  And friends.

"A friend loveth at all times..."  Proverbs 17:17
"A person that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  (Jesus)"  Proverbs 18:

I have been hand writing Bible verses in the notebook I am doing for my granddaughter.  And today, I came to a verse that is encouraging.  I had memorized it.  I use a green pencil to color the verses I memorize.  The green makes it easy to find the verses that are special to me to put in her book.

Romans 12:1-2  "I beseech thee therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God."

I heard a sermon on this scripture years and years ago that really stuck with me.  The preacher used it to encourage people who had missed God's perfect will for their lives and felt worthless.  He said, "We have all probably missed God's perfect will.  But God is gracious.  If you didn't learn to follow Christ as your Lord when you were young--with a good shot at getting it right--God still has an acceptable will for what's left of your life.  And if you have messed that up, he has a good will for you.  He wants to use us.  It requires that we be totally transformed to his will--at whatever point we come to Him in faith.  We need His good, acceptable, or perfect will.

I am reminded of a verse in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

I like the words from Romans, "...transformed by the renewing of your minds..."  It all happens inside your thoughts.  Clean those up and begin the transformation.

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:27  God does it all.  We just submit.

When my girls were growing up, they both took piano lessons.  The half hour of practice had to be worked out, so I had Becky practice in the morning from 7:00 to 7:30, and Pat from 7:30 to 8:00.  They hated the schedule, but were thankful when they got in from school that they had already practiced and had the afternoon and evening to themselves.

Becky enjoyed it.  She kept it up through the years.  Pat didn't--she would rather have been reading a book.  But both of them learned to play well.  Thirty minutes a day didn't hurt either one of them.  Scott however was harder to corral.  He didn't like the piano, and since I felt that each of them should learn to play an instrument, we got him a guitar.  Which he learned to play.

But Jon.  Child number four.  Well, by that time I didn't have any backbone left to force anyone to practice anything.  So I told him to join the school choir.  Which he did and became an all-state tenor.

In the 50's, everyone played the piano.  I did, too.  And spent four years in the band playing marimba, drums and the bell lyre.  I can still close my eyes and feel the September to November dew that covered the football field every morning from 7:00 to 8:00.  My shoes and bobby socks would be soaking wet before I ever got to school.  And that didn't even count as a class.  Band met in the afternoon.  And of course,  another hour marching at the Friday night game doing the routine that we had practiced every morning that week in all that wet grass.

Which meant that with my piano practice, band, and choir, I spent almost three hours a day in music.  Things like that take practice. But once  learned, you have it for life.  It was fun. 

"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD..." Psalms 98:4,6

I am sure that God is aware that I pray on a very low level.  I can't imagine Him.  I try, but when I read about Him in the Bible, the descriptions are outside of my brain's ability to formulate an image.  He is high and majestic.  The bright and morning star.  Shining and glorious.  I've never seen anyone like that.  Neither has anyone else.  My imagination gets stuck.

Recall that on Mount Sinai when God spoke to Moses, Moses was told to turn away from the appearance of God--so Moses didn't see Him.  And then there are all the pictures that have been painted trying to depict Jesus--which you know aren't right--because there weren't any cameras back then.  Most pictures have Him depicted in the same way.  Soft.  Pretty.  No wrinkles.  Long brown hair.  Painters must have decided that if he was God, then he had to be attractive.
But the Bible tells us that there was nothing about him that was attractive.  His hands had to be callused from working as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. "He grew up like small plant before the Lord, like a root growing in a dry land. He had no special beauty or form to make us notice him; there was nothing in his appearance to make us desire him."   Isaiah 53:2.

So it is a dilemma.  I can't picture Jesus.   I can't picture God.  I can't even picture the two being one.  I try--especially when I am praying.  But it is useless.  My human limitations, as I said, keep me at a low level.  But since God created me, I am sure He understands my problem.

"Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."  1Peter1:8    I qualify for that: I love Him.  I believe.  I rejoice.  I have joy.

"Jesus said unto him...because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29  That's me.  That's you.  We get a blessing for trying.

A strange thing happened to me today.  I had gone downtown to Edmond Antiques to see Pam (the owner), and had taken Squig with me.  He was on a leash and was very polite, but he wanted to say hello to everybody.  He would walk up to people and sit down at their feet and wait for them to pet him--there were quite a few people in the store.  Squig loves everybody and assumes everybody loves him.  He is hard to resist.

 Pam had sat down to pet Squig and was talking to him, when this lady I had never seen before said, "I heard you say Squig.  Is that Squig?  I know Squig.  I read about him in Becky's mother's blog.  Becky is a friend of mine."  And then she asked if I was in the store so she could meet me.

So I got to meet someone I didn't know who reads my blog.  That was exciting.  She was lovely.  Now when I write something, I will have a picture of someone who is reading it.

I hope that what I write is something meaningful.  Yesterday I was on a rant.  I'm sorry.  Someone called and asked who was pushing me around about what I believe.  I told them, "Nobody, really; I was just sick of watching TV portraying Christians as red-neck idiots."

So many of the news media (Facebook, TV shows, etc.),  belittle our beliefs and cast the Bible in a "How can you be so stupid to believe in that", light.  They believe everything else that was written during that time period, and all the archaeological information, but not the Bible.  Which is one of the most valuable and exciting books of history ever written.   Even though Josephus--one of the historians of that time and not part of the Christian movement--validates  the historical truth of the Bible, those who choose not to believe don't do their research.  They discount it out of emotion.

Probably because you have to believe that earth and space and life came from a creative source.  The next step is a creator.  Christians call that creator God.  Once you do that, you are accountable to Him.  That is very unpopular.  Most people don't want rules.  Or accountability to anyone. 

God doesn't change.  His principles and laws don't change.  But many people want Christians to stop
using God's directives as a basis for moral beliefs.  They want us to loosen up and go with the flow.

It is difficult for the non-Christian to understand where we Christian people are coming from.  We are accused of being judgmental.  Or biased.  When in fact, when you became a Christian, you accepted God's authority in all matters where your own life is concerned.  His way becomes your way.  You are simply on a life-path that some aren't on. 

It is not my job to judge people.  That's up to God.  All I can say on that matter is that God has set a standard.  People chooses to agree with Him, or not.  Their choice.  Their disagreement isn't with me.

I do not hate people who differ from me.  Choosing God's opinion doesn't mean I have to hit others over the head with a Bible.  The thing I don't get, is why those who discover my position (and differ with me on certain issues), seem determined to label me as a bigot if I don't join them in their opinions.  I won't change, because whatever God says, that is what I will do.  I certainly don't think this path is easy.  But we are talking about God.  God.  His authority.  You give it to him, or you don't.

It says, "Come out from among them and be ye separate says the Lord."  At the same time, it says to love your neighbor as yourself.  It seems like the Bible gives contradictory guidance to us on this subject.  We are to love those who are different, but not join them.  Love all people.  Follow God.

You get to choose the things that you do.  You get to suffer the consequences.  One consequence is that I am never going to agree with some positions.  Do what you want, but leave me alone.  "And if it seems evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve...but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15  I've made a choice for myself.  You get to make yours.  Quit pushing me to agree with you.

The people behind me, West of me, just cut down two very old, enormous trees that shaded my yard.  I had wanted them gone ever since I moved here because I was afraid the wind was going to topple them over into my house.  They were really big.  And sky high.

Well, yesterday I heard this roar in the back yard and lo and behold, there was a crew out there with chain saws taking both of them down.  I was really relieved.

But with every good thing there seems to be a catch.  Now my back yard is so sunny and hot that I can't go out during the afternoon.  And planting a tree to alleviate the situation won't help me much since it would take forever to grow big enough to help.  And I don't have forever.

But given the two choices, trees or no trees, I am glad they are down.  I will just have to think about how I am going to create shade in a different way.  A new project!!!

The master bath is finished.  The utility room is finished.  So I can start thinking about something else to do. I think I told you not long ago that if I started another project, please...stop me.

I started a book of my favorite Bible verses for my granddaughter Amy's Christmas present.  I am writing them in Cursive and trying to do three verses a day--so that is a project that won't wear me out.  I just finished all my favorite verses in Matthew and am starting on the book of Mark.  I hope she likes it.

"Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might..."  Ecclesiastes 9:10  I'll write verses down every day.  That should keep my mind busy.

I have a friend who is going through a difficult time.  Her husband is very ill, and she is trying very hard to keep him going.  I know what that is like.  You want them to get better, but know that isn't going to happen.  Things are going downhill and there is no way to turn it around.

Problem is, you don't have any training for a time like that.  There isn't a guide for dummies book.  It is a "day at a time" kind of deal with no end in sight, and no idea what is coming next.

When Ken was near the end, I kept trying to fix him.  I didn't know how to let him go.  I was trying to be a good caretaker.  A good wife.  I remember one day I had fixed his favorite food and was trying to feed him and he wouldn't swallow.  It took me a long time to realize that he couldn't swallow.  He was done with swallowing.  And therefore, I was done with fixing his favorite foods.  That was over.

I had no practice in caring for someone who was dying.  With good intentions, I kept doing useless things.  I kept trying.  I was doing my best, but much of what I was doing was pointless.

My friend Sally told me about her grandson who has the gift of quietness.  He can sit for long periods of time and just "be" there.  Sometimes, that's all we need.  Silence.  I wish I had a little bit of that gift.  But I am a fixer.  I want to fix the problem--and some problems just can't be fixed.

Ken used to say, "This generation is afraid of silence."

There is a time for us to just be there.  And do nothing.  Our presence is enough.

"Be still, and know that I am God...I will be exalted in the earth."  Psalms 46:10.  The silence you sometimes hear is God speaking to you.

My fish now come to the side of the Koi pond when they hear me open the back door.  And they wait for me to stoop down and put my hand in the water to feed them.  They trust me.

Squig crawls up in the bed at night and sticks his nose under the sheet and waits until I lift it up for him to crawl under.  Then he curls up beside me.  He trusts me.  He comes up by my recliner and makes a little squeaking sound when he is hungry or needs to go outside.  He trusts that I will feed him or let him out--because I always do.  Without fail.

There are people that I trust.  I know they will do me no harm.  There are others that I shy away from getting very close to.  They are usually people who disparage other people.  I figure that if they talk that way about others, they will talk that way about me.  And I am sure they can find something negative to say.

Trust is a "growing" thing.  And our trust in God is at first just words.  Then it grows as He gets us through difficulties.  We learn that He is trustworthy, faithful and true. 

My redeemer is faithful and true.  Psalms 33: "... the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does."  He does not fail us.  He is the one person that we can turn to in the midst of trouble.

Some people think that if there was a God, bad things wouldn't happen to them.  But the Bible tells us that the rain falls on the just, and the unjust.  Things happen.  We live in a world that is flawed.

"Thy Kingdom come..."  Where there are no more tears.  No more sorrow.  No more death.

Jason Crabb sings a song that says, "If you find that you are standing in the valley of decision, and the adversary says 'Give in', just hold on.  My God will show up, and He will take you through the fire again."  I love that song.  I play it over and over.  My God is going to show up!!!

Sunday, we continued the book of 1 Samuel.  The book starts with Hannah begging God for a son.  And making a vow that if God grants her petition, she will give him to God and to His service all the days of the boy's life.

Even though she is up in years, God grants her petition.  And when the child is weaned, she takes him to the temple and gives him to Eli, the priest.  I don't think that I could have done that!!!  Eli had sons who were very wicked.  He didn't discipline them.  They were absolutely evil.  Eli had not been a good parent at all.  But Hannah did what she told God she would do.  She took him to Eli to serve in the temple.

I'm sure she visited him.  I can't believe she would give up parenting and guidance of her son altogether--because Samuel grew to be a wonderful man in spite of the influence of Eli and his sons.  Samuel was full of wisdom.  He was the adviser to King Saul, and later King David. 

While researching the story, I was struck by how many women in the Bible were infertile besides Hannah, and later had a child. These are a few of the most well known.
     Sarah, Abraham's wife had a son when she was past childbearing age: Isaac.
     Rachel, Jacob's wife had Joseph and Benjamin.
     Sampson's mom.  (Unnamed.)
     Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  She was very old

Sometimes, children come late in life.  My mom had Lisa long, long after childbearing years.  Her doctor told her she couldn't be pregnant.  It would be impossible.  But she was.  And I got my one sister.  Lisa.  For which I am very thankful even if I was twenty-one when she was born.

On the other hand, there are millions of children out there, alone, needing parents.

Ken only told me "No" once in fifty-seven years.  And when he did, I was brought up short.  It was a new experience for me.  He had always supported everything I wanted to do.  I always had his unconditional support.  For everything.  Whatever.

So when he got orders to Viet Nam, I proceeded about readying all of our possessions into four shipments.  1. Uninsurable valuables,  2. Storage,  3. What Ken was taking overseas, and  4. The things I needed shipped for the year to Olathe, Kansas where I intended to live for the year that he was gone.  A number of the pilot's wives whose husbands had orders overseas were going to Olatha.  It would be a place where we wives could support each other.  Nobody in my hometown of Pryor was involved in the war.  Hard to believe, but it was like nothing was happening in Viet Nam to the ten-thousand people in Pryor, Oklahoma.  But in my world, everyone was involved in the war.

"No," he said.  "You aren't going to Olathe.  You are going to take the children and move back home to Pryor.  I am not going to spend this year worrying about you and our children.  I'm going to have enough to worry about getting shot at every day.  I want you where your parents are.  If something happens to me, you need to be where you have family.  So, No.  You aren't going to Olatha."

I was so shocked that I capitulated immediately.  "Ok," I said.  I had never heard Ken say "No."  Or make such a long speech.   He was always laid back.  Happy.  Content.

So I changed the shipping label from Olatha to Pryor.  He loved me.  I loved him.  I just hadn't been thinking about what his concerns were.  Odds were not on his side and he wanted his family securely settled in a home.  "We are going to buy a house.  When I get back, God willing, I'm going to retire and we are going to live in Pryor.  It's home.  It's our home.  We grew up there."

I did what he said to do.  I moved to Pryor.  And when he had done his time overseas, when he lived through that mess, that's what he did.  He came home.

I am getting ready to teach the first book of Samuel in my Connection group.  I have 12 women.  Some are married, some have never been married, some are widowed and some are divorced--as many as three times.  It is a very diverse group.  Some have children, some don't, and some can't.

First Samuel starts with a story of a woman named Hannah who was nearing the end of her childbearing years--and had never had a child.  In those days, if you didn't have a son, it was a disaster financially.  Land was always handed down to the oldest son.  And if a woman didn't have a son and her husband died, she would be poverty stricken because women couldn't hold property.  So sometimes her husband would take a second wife in order to bear a son.  And that woman's son would then inherit the property leaving the first wife with nothing.  And no one to care for her.

Hannah's husband took a second wife after Hannah had been barren for many years.  So Hannah petitioned God and pleaded her case before Him.  1 Sam. 1:11 "Making a vow, she pleaded, Lord of Hosts, if You will take notice of Your servant's affliction, remember and not forget me, and give Your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life..."

Sometimes you get what you pray for.  I don't know how God decides these things.  But he listens to our hearts.  Some suggest that she was bargaining with God.  Perhaps, but I don't think so.  I think she was just asking for a son.  I think she was desperate and was going to the only Person who could help her.  And telling God what she would do if she had a son. 

I look at it like this:  If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I will work in my yard.  Sort of like an if-then statement.  One thing follows another.  I think she was telling God that she didn't just want a son for her own maternal desires but was willing to give him back to God.  Which she did.  And Samuel became the heir of his father's property.

Read the story.  You don't have to agree with me.  She could have been bargaining.

Monday, I went to Amarillo.  I had not been on that road going West out of Oklahoma since 1968.  I had forgotten how flat it is out there.  I mean f-l-a-t.  People think Oklahoma is like that, but it isn't.  Edmond is full of hillocks and trees.  And everything you stick in the dirt grows here.  And Pryor is in the middle of what we call '"Green Country."  Oklahoma is reputed to have more shore line than any state in the nation--we have so many lakes.  It would be Eden, but in Oklahoma we have tornados.

The white sands of Pensacola can lay claim to the most beautiful shore line in America as far as I am concerned.  If they didn't have all those gnats (no-see bugs) it would be Eden.  So I am going to stay in Oklahoma.  I can get away from a tornado, but you can't get away from the no-see gnats.

The last time I drove West, I was taking my three kids to California.  Ken had four months to do (after Viet Nam) before he could retire and he insisted that the kids finish the school year in Pryor.  But the kids and I voted not to do it.  After he left to go to El Toro, we piled in the car and started driving West.  Those memories flooded back as I was on the road to Amarillo.  They didn't miss anything important in school anyway.  And Ken was glad that we didn't listen to him. 

Becky and I had gone to see Ken's sister who has been ill.  I packed sandwiches because I knew Becky wouldn't stop.  She doesn't get hungry.  I am hungry all the time.  I must burn it all up because I don't gain weight.  We are going to Paris (I'll tell you about that tomorrow) and Becky asked me what was the most important thing I wanted to see.  That was an easy question.  "The pastry shops."  The last time she went to Paris, she promised to bring me French pastries, but had to leave that morning before the shops opened--so I was dissapointed.  Big time.   

Pretty pitiful when an eclair is more important than the Eiffel Tower.   But this isn't my first Paris Rodeo.  There will be time for both. 

I got this message on Memorial Day from my son Scott about Ken--and Ken's brother Bob--who was an officer in the Navy:
 
       STORY TIME! Bob and Quetta (Bob's wife) came to visit one time when I was just old enough   (seven or eight) to understand that Dad and Bob were both in the Military and what that meant.  I will NEVER FORGET what my dad Ken said when I asked him, "Why is Uncle Bob's Uniform different than yours?" He said... "Sam, (my dad always called me Sam), your Uncle Bob made a mistake and joined the Taxi Cab service.  Just remember this if you ever become a Marine...The Marines are for MEN and the The Navy is the service for SQUIDS and we don't like Squids. We love em but, we don't have to like em!"  And then he winked at me.  I  miss them both! 

Scott went on to join the Marine Corps.  He also came under fire by the enemy.  He probably got to war in a Navy taxi.  Ken, on the other hand, spent his years on Navy carriers manned by Naval Officers and men.  Three of them were groomsmen at our wedding along with four Marines.

Jonathan spent four years overseas in the Navy.  A Squid that Ken both loved and liked.  All of my men served their country.  I am really proud of them.  Ken was, too.

My dad joined the Army, and my granddaughter Amy served four years in the Army.

Thank all of you for your service.  And every veteran as well.  I know personally what a sacrifice that you made.  I saw it.