Peter, John, Paul, and James.  The four pillars of the fledgling church.  They were like the glue that held together all the other stones, the new Christians, that had been laid on the foundation.  Laid on the corner stone, the Rock--Jesus.  The Christ.

They were as different as night and day.  Peter--boisterous, emotional.  Action first, think later.  Weak one day, strong as an ox the next.  But totally invested in being what Jesus wanted him to be.  His faults were very visible, but he was committed to feeding the sheep that Jesus had left behind.  Never again would he fail his Lord.  He eventually would be crucified upside down defending the faith. You wouldn't expect anything less of him.  He was a force to be reckoned with.

John.  Quiet, kind.  A man who loved others--he loved Jesus completely.  A man you could count on.  Dependable to a fault.  A peacemaker.  The man you would want beside you if you had to go to war.  The right hand man of Jesus.  He called himself, "The one who Jesus loved."

Paul.  Defender of the Jewish faith--until Jesus struck him blind on the road to Damascus.  Until Jesus asked him why he was "Kicking against the thorns."  Asking, "Why was so hard for Paul to identify Jesus as the Messiah?  Paul was the Biblical scholar.  An academician.  Able to bring the Old law and the New freedom together.  A man who stepped down off his high horse and went to the Gentiles with the gospel.  Never again looking back, he poured his soul out reaching souls.

And James.  Principled.  Determined.  Able to hold men true to the course set ahead of them.  A man that men would follow.  Steady.  A defender of the faith.

The four of them were not best friends.  They were brothers in Christ dedicated to the gospel and willing to die for it.  Which three of them did.  John being the only one who wasn't--he was exiled to Patmos.  I think they recognized the strengths that each of them brought to the work they were called to do.  They supported each other, chastised each other, took strength from each other and changed the world by spreading the story of Jesus.  The greatest story ever told.  The gospel of Christ.

Jesus was rejected by his hometown.  They knew him as a citizen, not as the Messiah.  You remember that Jesus said, "...no prophet is accepted in his hometown."  Luke 4:24.  And yet, James came to believe Jesus was the Messiah, even when most of the people in Nazareth rejected Jesus.

James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.  The other disciples looked to James for guidance.  When you read the four short pages that James wrote, you can't help but be amazed at how many verses will be familiar to you.  Verses you learned as a child, or along the way.

Verses that reflect his strong unfailing faith in the God of the Jews.  Such as when he said, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."  (The most perfect of all the gifts being God's Son, Jesus.)  James had an abiding faith in the goodness of Jehovah.

James' strongest message in his letter was on the point of Christian identification.  He said over and over again that the way you are proven to be a Christian is by the works that you do.  No other writer drives that statement home like James does.  He says with authority, "What does it profit my brothers, if a man says he has faith, and doesn't have works? Even so faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead, being alone."  He is saying--in the most forceful words of all the disciples--that faith will produce good works.  Faith first, works as a result.

One of his most memorable verses concerns what faith in Christ doesn't mean.  It isn't simply believing that Jesus is God's son.  James says cheap belief is not enough:  "You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble."  And the devil certainly isn't a Christian.

Read James.  It can be done in ten to fifteen minutes.  He is blunt.  Concise.  Demanding more of his reader than the other disciples do in their letters.  He is a, "Where the rubber meets the road" kind of guy.

James is an interesting book.  Written by Jesus' brother who was very Jewish in his writing.  In this, his only letter, he writes to the Diaspora (dispersion of the Jerusalem Christians) who were scattered.  Jewish Christians who were fleeing persecution.  People that James felt responsible for.

Can you imagine what it must have been like growing up in a household where your older brother was perfect.  A brother who never did anything wrong.  Who obeyed his parents in every way.  I think that living with Jesus would have been difficult.  James could never live up to his older brother.

And James must have heard the stories about the circumstances of his mother's first pregnancy.  I'm sure other boys teased him about his mom's "Virgin birth."  However, his father Joseph probably would have told his children about the truth of Mary's first pregnancy.  Would have told them how an Angel of God came to Joseph and told him not to be afraid to take Mary to be his wife.  Would have told them about Jesus being the Son of God.

But it was much later when James became a believer.  He watched Jesus for years and years as Jesus fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament, and one day, somewhere along the road, James became a believer.  Jesus was the Son of God.  Jesus was the promised Messiah.

So when James opens his letter to the Jews who have fled Jerusalem, he gives the shortest introduction in the New Testament.  Everyone knew who James was.  He didn't need to introduce himself.  He simply says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting."

He declares himself to be a servant.  Of God, and of his half brother, Jesus.  Whom he declares to be not only the Christ, but also to be his Lord.  And James' declaration is to every tribe in the Jewish nation.  All twelve of them.  He vindicates his mother's virgin birth.  He vindicates Jesus.  It takes a very big man not to be jealous of a sibling.  Born of the same mother, James declares that Jesus is the son of the living God. The promised one. The Christ.

Yesterday was the day the Connection Group chose to fast and pray.  I had never done that before, and had never considered the fact that those two things always go together in the Bible.  It was an interesting experience for me.

It wasn't a problem for the morning since I don't like breakfast anyway.  I've never found much of anything that is considered "breakfast food" that I find appealing.  If I eat anything for breakfast, it is something like cold pizza, or "leftover anything" from the day before.  I've been known to eat a can of hominy from time to time.  Or a can of black-eyed peas.

So I got through the morning without a problem.  I just didn't eat anything.  But along about eleven o'clock, I started getting hungry--which brought to mind just why I wasn't eating.  Every time I thought about food, I thought about why I was fasting, and prayed for a friend who was in deep grief for her family.

That's why the two--fasting and praying--go together.  When you are hungry, and deny yourself food, you remember to pray.  Over and over through the day, you recall why you are fasting in the first place, and it causes you to pray for the thing that you are fasting for.

I told the class that I would give up meat, seafood, and bread.  Bread being the biggie for me.  But I was able to give up everything.  Now, I think I could do it again.  Before yesterday, I wasn't sure.  I think that if I started at six in the evening, I could make it till six the next day.

But it would have to be something big I was fasting for.  The huge grief our friend our friend was suffering drove me to try it.  We all prayed off and on all day.  Maybe that's why God encouraged it in the Word.  It sure makes you concentrate on the content of your prayer.

I learned something.

I'm still trying to get pictures on the wall.  There are a zillion of them.  Every stage of life for my children--birth to marriage.  Every stage of life for my grandchildren--birth to marriage.  And now, I am doing the same entire cycle for my great grandchildren.  The oldest is six and the youngest is five days.  Thirty one people is a lot of people to keep track of.

So I am not going to put them all up.  There is no way I can do that.  Picking which ones to go up is by a matter of elimination.  The pictures I like best will come first.  Of course, I'll hang the wedding wall.  Probably back in the guest room.  I had it in my bedroom, but now that I've moved, that won't work--no room for it anymore.

I didn't have any problem picking the ones I wanted in the family room where my chair and the TV are.  There were 10 of them I put up immediately.  The family room is done.  Done.  And so is the living room.  Done.  So it is really easy to sit down and ignore the rest of it.

I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday about moving, and what you would keep if you downsized.  The only thing I have that I can't live without is Squig.  Pictures would be a distant second.  The rest of it, I don't care.  Just Squig.  He will be eleven years old in a few months.  I know he won't live forever, but I don't want to think about that.

I am seriously considering getting another dog now, so when "the day comes," I won't be left totally alone.  Problem with that is--I want a dog that is placid and friendly.  Sweet natured and loves to snuggle.  I wish I could clone Squig.  He is a perfect companion.

My choir director changed the practice time from 1:30 in the afternoon, to 10:30 in the morning on Thursdays.  It has fouled up my "do nothing" time.  Like Ken used to say, "I get up in the morning with nothing to do, and go to bed with it half done."   Squig and I are on the exact same schedule.  We do a lot of nothing together.

I talked to my friend Sally yesterday.  She moved to Hattisburg, Mississippi a couple of years ago to be near her daughters.  But Ernest wanted to return to Pryor, so they sold their new house, and for the time being have moved in with one of her daughters.  "Such a relief," Sally iterated--and said that owning a house was like a noose around your neck to keep you from moving when you want to.  You can't just up and leave when you own a house.

Ernest has some medical issues--he has a wonderful doctor at the VA hospital there who is treating him.  But when things get straightened out, they are free to stay, or leave.  The house is sold.  First step first--sell the house.  Then you can do whatever you want to do.

Our lives are controlled by stages.  First you marry and are free to stay, to go, to do whatever you want to do.  Then you have a child, or two, or three and are involved in the things small children do.  What you and hubby liked to do is lost in a distant past.  Everything is about the little children.  The third stage is soccer, baseball, gymnastics, piano lessons, etc., etc.  Fourth stage is teenagers--and the drain on your emotions that is involved.  What are they doing?  Where are they?  When are they coming in?  You loose control once they have a car.  This stage goes on and on until they leave.

The fifth stage is when they marry.  Everybody comes home for Christmas, but after a while, that vanishes.  They are at the spouse's home, or perhaps the second child comes home with all their children, while your third child is hitch-hiking across America during spring break--but things are manageable on a small scale.  Home is still home, and sometimes everyone is there at once.

But slowly, that ceases.  Everyone is staying at their homes for the holidays--and you go to their house.  They don't want to go to your house--they are starting "the stages of life" for themselves.  Their lives.  And your family begins to break up into new and separate families.  You aren't the center of their lives any more.  And that's the way it should be.  And the last stage: you don't need the big house anymore.  You need less to take care of.  And you begin to evaluate just what you really need--and realize that it isn't much.  As for me, an AirStream is sounding pretty good.  Maybe that's why so many retirees buy one and hit the road.  Once again fancy free.  Your kids aren't coming "Home" again.  They have their own homes.  And so it goes.  It's the cycle of life.

Louisiana is a casino state.  Much like Oklahoma is becoming.  I had never in my life been in a casino before.  But as we were heading North through Louisiana toward Oklahoma, we made a pit stop to get gas.  Since we were stopped, I decided to go into the service station and asked where the restrooms were.  The lady said they were out of order, but if I went through a door she pointed to, I could find a restroom in the adjoining cafe.

So, I went through the doors--into the cafe--where there were a number of people eating.  I asked if I could use their restroom.  "Well, Honey," the waitress said. (This is Louisiana.  Everybody calls you "Honey.")  "Our restroom is out of order.  But if you will go through those doors at the back, you can use the one in there."

So I went through the doors at the back and stepped into a neon light flashing room with every kind of slot machine I had ever seen on TV--with a disinterested girl at the front desk who told me the restrooms were further back.  At that point, I didn't much care where where they were.  I went to the back where she pointed, only to find the restroom and two stalls with "Out of order," signs on the doors.

Welcome to Louisiana.  It's a good thing I didn't have an emergency.  So now, if anyone ever asks me if I've been in a casino,  I'll have to say, "Yes."  But I'll add:  "Not on purpose, that's for sure."

When we went on the Alligator Swamp Tour, Pat said, "Mom, this is Louisiana.  I want to warn you before we get on the boat: all the men who run this tour are going to call you Honey, Sweetheart, Darlin', Baby, and Sugar.  Just roll with it.  They don't mean any disrespect."  Sure enough, that's what they called me.  (Nobody called me, "Ma'am.")  As we were leaving, I told the Cajun tour guide what Pat had said, and commented to him that the only thing he had missed calling me was "Sugar."

"Well, Sugar," he said, "I hope you will forgive my oversight, cause you are such a Sweet lady.  You'all be sure to come back and see us when you are back down this way."

Louisiana wasn't all that bad.

I have been blessed to visit many shores in the world.  I read somewhere that Oklahoma has more shore lines than any state in the nation.  It's hard to believe until you visit "Green country."  The north east part of the state has hundreds and hundreds of miles of lake shores created by the dams.  It is a fisherman's heaven.  And the Red River.  Twisting and turning like a snake.  With many shores.

I'm not a fisherman.  I have never caught a fish.  I'm not much for boats or lakes.  The first time I tried water skiing, they told me I wouldn't get up on my first try, but not to get discouraged.  One of Ken's friends had a boat and a house on the water in Pensacola.  They showed me what to do, I got up on my first try and made it around the lake.  I never did it again.  Once was enough.

The only reason I didn't fall off was because I was afraid of what might be in the water.

But one thing that was in the Pensacola's waters that I loved was the shrimp.  Fried, stuffed with crab, dipped in sauce, or just peeled and popped in your mouth.  There are so many things that God made that are perfect.  Shrimp, to name one.  A rib-eye from a young grass fed cow.  Oysters on the half shell grilled in an open oven.  Or raw topped with horse radish sauce.  I don't know anything God has made that I don't like to eat.  Except cinnamon.  It's not my favorite spice.

My Connection group is going to fast on Thursday.  We are praying and fasting for a member who is suffering from the grief her family members are bringing on themselves.  And because she loves her family, she is grieving as well.  We hurt for her, and will pray for her this week.

I have never fasted before.  I don't know how I will do it.  The members decided that everyone would give up eating--in as much as was possible--and pray for our member who is suffering.  I think that I will give up meat and seafood.  The hardest thing for me to give up will be bread.

I've often wondered why people in the Bible fasted.  Maybe because when you deny yourself something, it reminds you to pray for the purpose of your "fast."  I'm going to find out.  It will be hard.  Food is really, really important to me.  When I go to bed at night, I plan out what I am going to eat the next day.  It gives me something to look forward to.  This is going to be hard.

The only emergency we had was a mess.  We had been picking up shells on the seashore, making sure that they were empty of critters.  Pat carefully checked each one, declaring it empty.

But fiddler crabs are crafty little creatures.  That night after it was dark and we had gone to bed, we heard some scratching noises in the box where we had put the shells.  Pat got up and checked and sure enough, the biggest shell was inhabited, and moving around.  She was really upset.

Within a few minutes, other critters began to crawl around.  Fifteen shells were home sweet home for a family of fiddler crabs.  They have a way of folding up inside a shell completely out of sight.  "I can't believe this," Pat cried.  "I checked every one of these shells."

I've told you stories before about Pat.  She is my "animal healer."  When she was no more than four or five years old, she was dragging broken turtles home, cats that had lost their tails, squirrels that had been run over, etc. etc...she couldn't bear the plight of wounded animals.  Of course there were also animals--supposedly lost with no home--that needed her care as well.  She always had a menagerie in boxes, fish bowls, dog beds and such.  She loves animals and can't bear their suffering.  She either heals them or kills them with affection.

Well, she was distraught.  She put a little salt in some tap water and hoped for the best.  We didn't have a restful night.  Come morning, she told me, "We have to go back to the beach.  (Which was a good ways south of us.  We were already been on our way home.)  I knew that there was nothing that would calm her but to go find salt water and turn our fiddler crab family back out into the water.  I had learned long ago that when a wounded or lost animal was involved, I should just do whatever she said.  In all the years I've known her, I've never known her to give up where an animal with a problem was concerned.

Back to the Gulf we went.  I watched her trek down to the sandy shore and one by one make sure that all the creatures swam away unharmed.  She came back to the car smiling.  "I think all of them are going to make it.  I am so relieved!!"  And I know she was.  This isn't my first rodeo where Pat is concerned about an animal.  I should know, since I've been her mother for over 60 years.

We ate catfish, homemade mac & cheese, brown sugar yams and everything else at Cat Daddys.

Crab cake sandwiches, fried oysters, shrimp Po-Boys with sweet potato fries at Boiling Madd.

Ahi tuna, fried-green-tomato crab-stack with cream sauce, fried oysters and Giant Red Shrimp boil at Shaggies.   And watched the boats come in.

The seafood platter, (everything imaginable) with a Shrimp BLT and Key Lime Pie at Pirate's Inn.

I gained 2.8 pounds in four days and Pat lost weight.  Go figure.

I can't even remember everything we ate.  My plan was to eat seafood till I was sick of it.  I didn't get there.  I think I could have made it at least another week or two--or three--without a hamburger.

The only thing they didn't have was lobster.  Crawfish, yes.  Boiled and fried. Clams, yes.

The only thing that would tempt me to go back would be the food.

As you drive South, the trees change.  In Oklahoma, there is a mixture of everything until you reach Pine country.  Telephone-pole pine country.  It goes on forever.  And then you reach the oaks.  The Live Oaks.  With Spanish moss hanging from every branch.  Swaying.  Limbs asunder.  It is a Gulf Coast staple.  The long limbs look like they are reaching out for you.

The only thing that has changed in the last fifty years are the off-shore oil rigs.  They desecrate the beauty of the shores.  Black patches on the beach must come from their sluff.  The rigs block the non-ending water views.  They interrupt your serenity.  God certainly didn't put them there.  Everything else is His handiwork.  Do we really need that much oil?

If you like sand, go to the Gulf.  And eat your way from Oklahoma, then to Florida along the coast.  You won't regret it.  Sit on the beach and watch the waves come in and the tide go out.  It will calm your soul.  "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters..." Genesis 1:2b

I miss having a map.  You can hardly find them anymore. If you don’t find a visitor center when you enter a state you’re out of luck.  I remember the day when every filling station had maps.  Free for the taking.  Probably paid for with taxes from the state you were in.

I like seeing the “whole” thing all at once when I am on the road.  All the little towns and cattle gates along the way.  Now I have to ask my phone where I am and how far it is to where I am going.  The visual is only as wide as my phone.  You can shrink it and get more of it--but never what all I want to see.  I want to see the entire state with all its bumps, humps and indentations.  Kind of like God sees things.

I used to have maps of every state from the East coast to the West.  The southern USA.  I never made it to North Dakota--who would want to go there anyway, unless you lived there.  Kinda like Oklahoma.  But I threw my maps away.  Big mistake.

I grew up with maps.  I can remember my daddy stopping the car to read a map--trying to decide which way to go.  (My mom was never much a navigator.)  Four lane roads hadn’t been invented.  Half the roads were dirt--even though they were on the map.  Paved roads were colored.  There were cross hatches, dotted lines and a zillion other symbols for every other kind of road surface or place.  Railroads, ferrys, and such. 

North to South roads were odd numbers, East to West were even numbers.  Towns were sized by color and rings.  The state capitols were marked with a star. All the information you could ever want was on a map.  Visible to see--all at once. 

Siri doesn’t tell you about the draw bridge up ahead--or how long you are going to have to wait until the boat, ship, dingy, tug, barge, sloop, trawler, yacht  is going to take to get through.  All of which have the right of way.  Give me a map.  The more fold-outs the better.  I want to see where I’m going.  I want to see where I’ve been.  Both coming and going all at once. Ahead and behind, and everything in between.  

We never made it to Pensacola.  I knew--when I reached Gulf Shores--that there was no need to go further.  We went to Dauphin Island (not Dolphin) and drove both East and West as far as we could go.  The West end of the island was blocked by police who told us it was under water, and who pointed us to a beach we could access--where we piddled around and picked up shells.  The East end of the Island was under water and although we could have taken the ferry to the East end of the island, there was no need--you couldn’t get any further--thanks to the debris of “Hurricane Michael.”  As it was, we had to drive through water that was over the roads due to high tide.  Water lapped the sides of most of the roads.

One thing that I learned (that was strange) is that I don’t like sand.  Period. I don’t like it on my feet, between my toes, or on my hands.  And the sand of the Gulf is like white powder.  Fine. Sticky.  But beautiful. The white sand beaches of the Eastern Gulf are the most beautiful beaches.  That is true.

What in the world was I expecting???  Was it the pebble beaches on the Riviera in Italy where Becky and Kim Larmon and I picked up sea glass worn smooth over the ages?  (Becky made us all necklaces and earrings out of the sea glass when we got home.) Was it the rocky shore of Maine, where Ken and I ate lobster three times a day--for the three days we were there?  (Ken wanted to see the sugar maples in the fall.)  Was it the granular California sand of Pendleton, Laguna Beach, La Jolla, Southern California--where my two girls were born?  Sand that didn’t get under your fingernails and stick like glue.

Maybe it was the marsh grasses of the Atlantic in South Carolina.  Beaufort.  Half way between Savannah and Charleston?  Grass on the sandy shores, full of skittering crabs and critters.  Where three of my children played every day and didn’t come home with sticky sand all over them.  I have lived on all the beaches.  They are memories now.

I have romanticized for the last fifty years about buying a small house on the Gulf to live in during the winter.  No more.  The only romantic thing about the Gulf was Ken.  It hadn’t been the Gulf at all.  That wasn't what I was wanting to visit.  My destination had vanished. 

Pat has been “Driving Miss Daisy” for the last four days.  I had wanted to go back to the Gulf coast for a long time.  I thought it was to see a friend of mine who lives north of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain, But as we got closer to the sand of the Gulf, I realized that I just wanted to go back.  Back to somewhere. Somewhere that I used to be.

“Where” isn’t there anymore.  It was the “Where I was” in 1956.  Six months in Pensacola, on the Gulf, where I started my 57 years with Ken.  “Where” was a feeling that I was wanting to visit.  Like I said, it isn’t there anymore.  Feelings are illusive.

The sand was just as white.  The shore stretched forever.  The Hermit crabs crawled the shore as well.  There were pink jelly fish--occasionally puffing in and out to move, and small fishes darting in and out of the waves.  But what I was looking for was gone.  I was young then.  Now, I am old. You can’t recapture your youth.  More importantly, you can’t recapture those who are gone.  They were a huge part of your life, an intricately woven description of “who you are.”  And then, in an instant, the “Who you are” is changed into “Who?  Who is? Who are? Who was I?  Or “Who am I?”

I was an appendage on the edge of a man who was larger than life.  Without him, I am only me.  Not us.  I lived his life. I was a companion, not an entity.

I am still the mother of five children.  I am still the grandmother of ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.  I am a Christian.  I am a mathematician.  I am a pianist, marimbist, college educator and some people say: Bible scholar.  But it’s not enough when you are less than half of who you were.  It is a lost feeling that can’t be completely found.  It can't be recaptured by going back where you started.  I found Ken on the Gulf.  He isn’t there anymore.  

But someday, I’ll get everything back--and more.  In the meantime, I will continue to find myself.  I am a writer.  I write stories.  That’s who I am for now.  It’s enough.

We went to Grand Isle yesterday--it was flooded so we couldn't get all the way to the end--but it was fun.  We picked up seashells and I found wonderful driftwood.  On to Dolphin Island and then home again today or tomorrow.

It has been wonderful.  I just wanted to see the salt water again, so Pat drove me.  Sugar cane plantations being harvested, Spanish moss waving from the live oak trees, the Mississippi river, boats and ships on every bayou, streams with draw bridges, Locks to raise and lower the water levels, and of course the water and the shore of the Gulf.  The smell of salt water, kelp washed up on the beach from the intensity of the hurricane.  Louisanna is not like Oklahoma.

I just regret that we couldn't get to Pensacola.  I started my married life in Pensacola and wanted to go back.  But hurricane Michael stopped everything up east of New Orleans.  I think the only way for me to do that is to fly to New Orleans and rent a car to drive the rest of the way.  Pat only gets 5 days at a time.  She will take me where ever I want to go.

We've had a lot of fun.  Shrimp, crab, oysters--the only thing we didn't get to eat was lobster.

Next time.

I'll write next week.
'

Last Friday, something unusual happened to me.  When I got up in the night, I sat up on the edge of the bed and kept on going over to the floor.  I remember thinking, "I'm having a stroke."  Then thinking, "You can't have a stroke, you're on blood thinners twice a day."  Then thinking, "Well, maybe this is it, I'm going to the promise land."  It was weird.

I finally was able to get up off the floor, but couldn't stand up.  Weird.  This went on for five or six days.  I would crawl to the bathroom, then crawl back into bed.  When I got up the next morning, I had no other symptoms and when I had been up for a while, the dizziness went away--only to come back again in the middle of the next night.  Normal in the day, stumbling around in the night.

I went to the doctor--who looked me over and tested me for everything, (I told her I had no other symptoms at all.)  She was stumped.  My brother came to visit on Monday, and he said that there is a little bone inside the ear that sometimes breaks loose and causes vertigo.  So, I guess I'll see an EMT.  Till then, when I wake up in the night, I'll scoot to the floor and avoid standing up.  No problem.

Looks to me like if you had vertigo in the night, you would still have it the next day.  But what do I know.  Well, I'll rephrase that.  I know that if it isn't one thing, it's another.

I know that my living room and dining room are finished.  I'm ready for guests--if they don't go back into the bedrooms.  The guest bathroom is finished.

And I've slowed down.  I've even taken to sitting in my chair and watching Hallmark movies.  I think the worst of moving is behind me.  When Tony was here yesterday, he went to my old house, took down my Italian chandeliers and hung them over here.  He took the chandeliers from here and installed them over there.  The only thing I haven't moved over here is the drapes from my bedroom.  They match my bedspread.  The drapes and chandeliers were in the sale contract.  David and Jennifer didn't care when I got them.  I'll get the drapes next month.

Don't ever move.  It is a nightmare.  However, I love my new house.

Tony came this morning.  He said that Austyn was doing really well.  He got his transfer materials from the hospital out west to a doctor here in Edmond--who looked at the papers, pictures, x-rays, MRI's,  etc, then looked at Austyn and said, "I've never seen such traumatic injuries on someone who lived.  You should be dead.  You are a miracle."

His age was in his favor, and having an identical twin to transfer blood if it was needed.  I asked Tony how it had changed him and he said, "I'm calmer.  God is in control of all of our lives."

That's true.  But sometimes we forget.  I know that huge events like the ones that Tony and Austyn and Tyler have witnessed this last few weeks change us forever.  You can't go back to the place you were before.  You will never again be the same.

Austyn reads my blog every day--which is unusual for a 13 year old young man.  But we forged a friendship during the times that Tony has worked for me.  Especially during the move.  Tony was measuring tile, Austyn was cutting it.  Austyn and Tyler painted a huge part of this new house.  They both know how to work.

Right before they left on the trip, I called him with a phone problem--which he solved.  He had programed his and Tyler's phone numbers in my "family" quick dial.  I now have Austyn as my
computer guru.  I sure do love those two boys.

It is interesting how some people just capture your heart.  Tony started calling me his Grandmother a couple of years ago.  So I guess Austyn and Tyler are now my great-grandchildren.  Sounds good to me.  I'll just add them to my list.  That would give me 8 greats.

I'm watching Michael twist it's way toward the gulf shore.  My Becky thinks Pat and I are nuts to go South to the beach.  But I think it will all be over before we ever get there.  I'll watch it for a couple of days.  Then see.  I want to wiggle my toes in the sand and smell the salt water in the air.  And get my feet wet.

I just opened the computer to write my post--and it is making a funny whirring noise that I have never heard before.  I hope that it doesn't bite the dust.

Pat and I are going to the Mississippi coast soon.  And over to Dolphin Island.  She is driving.  We are trying to intersect with Hurricane Michael, but I think it will be all over before we go.   My brother Bill and Janet to the island often and say it is peaceful and quiet.

I was in a hurricane in Pensacola once, and another in Beaufort South Carolina. The one in Beaufort, was interesting.  The Marines came and boarded up our windows with plywood and gave instructions on what to do and how to prepare for it.

The aviators, including Ken, had to save the planes.  So they flew to Memphis or somewhere far away from the danger and spent the week playing Acey-Ducy.  They came home when it was all over.  The three children and I fended the hurricane alone.

Ken was always gone when interesting things happened at home.  He once said that we made stories up to entertain him.  A hurricane is not entertaining.  It's interesting,  but not entertaining.  You need to have plenty of water, food, and everything else to sustain life.  You need to fill the bathtubs up to the top so that you have water to flush the toilets--unless everything is flooded.  You sure don't want to flush in a flood.  It's not pretty.

Everyone wants to know why we are going to the coast.  I have a friend there who is 92.  I haven't seen her since 1967.  I'm running out of friends and want to see the ones I have left.  That happens as you age.  There aren't that many friends left who haven't "bought the farm," as Ken and the Marine pilots put it.

It's been a long time since I have seen the coast.  We lived on the Atlantic, Pacific, and the Gulf.  The Marines wanted their pilots to operate off carriers on every world coast--American and foreign.  I want to wiggle my toes in the sand.  And I don't even like sand.  But the sand on the Gulf is the best.  White.  At least on the East side of New Orleans.  And every day, God washes the beach.

I taught the 5th chapter of Galations Sunday.  The "Fruit of the Spirit" chapter.  Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, (patience) gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  Nine of the qualities of a Christian.  If you have ever wondered if God's Spirit dwells in you, examine yourself.  Do you exhibit those qualities?  I'm not saying that you are perfect all the time, every day.  But they are indicators of your inner self.  The "Who" of who you are since Christ came into your life..  I've got the first three of them nailed.  Love, joy and peace.  Every day.  All the time.

But patience, well, that has been a harder quality for me.  And if it weren't for God's grace, I wouldn't be able to improve in that category at all.  Because my nature is impatient.  But looking back over my life, I can tell that with the help of Christ Himself, I'm more patient than I used to be.

And "gentleness," well, you can tell by the way I write that I have a tendency to be blunt.  I say what I think when keeping my mouth shut might be a better way to go.  But once again, I can look back and see where I used to be, and where I am now.  God's not done with me yet.

And "goodness?"  In the eyes of the world, I would be judged as a good person.  But God, once again, isn't done shaping me.  He's getting me ready for heaven.  I've got two of the last three--faith and temperance down pat.  But meekness, I'm not so sure.

Examine yourself.  Can you see God at work perfecting Himself in you.  "Christ in you, the hope of glory."  Left to ourselves we would be doomed.  But Jesus is changing us from the inside out.

If you want to get a real hard check on yourself, look at verses 19-21.  Paul names 17 qualities that people who are't Christians exhibit--and he says that if you do these things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God:  Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like.  Stuff like that does not come from an indwelling Spirit.  Those are the sins of the world--the temptations put in front of us by the "Prince of the power of the air...who roams the world seeking whom he may devour."  I don't know which group you are in, but if it is this second group of behaviors, I would get on my knees and repent immediately.  Let God's Spirit in to change your life.

Jeanette calls me her "Little Humming Bird."  Because I eat all the time.  I'm hungry all the time, and that's the truth.  I eat five or six times a day--not counting snacks.  I've never understood people who only eat one or two meals a day.  Every two hours works for me.

I picked up the white car at the Lincoln dealer.  I thought the window was leaking.  No.  It's a leaking air coolant whatcha-ma-call-it.  $1,900.  Which I said, "Don't fix it."  It just became my winter car.  It's a 1999.  And they said they couldn't even get parts for it.  I would sell it, but it's not worth anything to anyone but me.  Perfect condition--but leaking condensation on the cooler.  Thus the solution is: don't run the air conditioner.  So....it is now a winter car.  The heater works just fine.

I'm watering shrubs by hand every day, because I can't figure the sprinkling system out.  I can't even figure out how to turn it on period.  I need a man.  Men seem to know all that stuff.  But I can bake a cake.  Or shorten a pair of pants.  I can do a lot of things.  I just don't seem to be able to follow written instructions.  Show me how and I can do it from then on.  But instructions on paper, huh-uh.

I can cut and hang sheet rock.  Wallpaper a room, insulate a house, tear down a wall.  I can hang anything that needs to be hung.  Shower curtain, picture, clock, etc.  As long as there are no written instructions to follow, I can figure it out and get it done.  But the sprinkling system eludes me.

When you think about Jesus and the things people did back then, well, life was much simpler.  Jesus didn't even have a house, or a bed, or a pillow.  There was no running water, electricity, gas heat, or any utility--no Keurig.  No plastic.  No microwave.  And I'm disturbed about a sprinkling system??

I bet they had an irrigation system in place for every home back then.  I know the Romans built aqueducts and elaborate systems of delivering water.  I walked across an aqueduct built with a bridge of stone arches when I was in Italy one time.  But in Jerusalem, I don't know about that.  I bet they didn't even have ground coffee, much less a Keurig.

I'm going to have to call somebody about the sprinkling system.  Which galls me.  I should be able to figure this out.

I took Squig to the vet in Guthrie.  Someone told me they were really great.  It's true.  And their prices are less than half of what they charge in Edmond for the same things.  I've been driving to Pryor to get Squig's teeth cleaned because it is so much cheaper there.  Edmond's problem is the ground that the buildings sit on.  It's made of gold.  Taxes etc. including cost of land.

It was Squig's teeth--which I suspected.  I'll keep him on Antibiotics until the fifthteenth and they will clean his teeth and probably pull some more.  He has terrible teeth.  Pretty soon, he won't have any teeth to clean. Guthrie is only 30 minutes from here.  Closer than Pryor, that's for sure.

The vet in Guthrie was a young--looked about thirteen--girl.  I really liked her.  So did Squig--and everyone else in the clinic.  What's not to like?  He's sweet and friendly and loves to be petted.  Attention is his middle name.

Craig must have read my blog about the rototiller because he texted that he had a man who was really good who would come and rototill.  That solves that problem.  Now I won't have to find out if I can rototill.  Probably saved my life.  Or my feet--I probably would have run over one of my feet.

I called my brother and told him about the Voo-doo and Black Magic electro-stimulator that Becky Bacon put on my spine.  He said that was fantastic.  He said that sometimes it works (as it did for me) and sometimes it doesn't work at all.  That's why people say it's Voo-Doo.  It didn't work for them.  But when it does, it is miraculous.  It surely worked for me.  I'm pain tolerant, and my pain level went from a 9 to a 1.  I still will probably have to have back surgery, but if I can live pain free in the meantime, that is a blessing from heaven above.

I am doing my yearly round of medical junk this week.  Pat came in to drive me around.  "Driving Miss Daisy."  Most of the time I don't need a driver.  But when they are going to inject you with something or other, well, that's different.  I've gotten cautious.  Which I have never been.  I don't want to be told "Don't do this, don't do that."  So I just call Pat and ask her if she wants to go to lunch.  "And by the way, would you mind if we stopped off at the so-and-so clinic."  Works for me.



 

Squig is running a fever.  I wish he could talk.  If he's not better soon, he's going to the vet.  I gave him half of a baby aspirin.  I hope that will do it.

He is totally dependent on me.  It makes me feel bad when I don't know what is wrong.  He didn't want to get out of the bed this morning--which is not the norm.  Usually, he is the one who gets me up.  He hops out of the bed, comes around to my side and stands up leaning two paws on the side of the bed scratching the sheet and making woofing murmurs.  He knows better than to bark!

My children always tease me that when they were growing up, I never let them sleep in.  That I would open the door to their bedrooms saying, "I'm up for the day," in a sing-song manner.  As if my being up for the day had anything to do about them getting up for the day.  They say that when I got up, everyone else had to get up--because you couldn't possibly sleep with all the pans banging and clanging around in the kitchen.

I wasn't that bad.  But now, when some of us get together, Scott--the family clown--may run around with a pan and a metal utensil yelling, "Mom's up for the day."  Or "Mom said she's ready to eat."  Just to irritate me.

You may think that when your children go off to college, or get married, or get a job, that they will be on their own.  Not so.  They are yours forever.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  I actually like my children.  They turned out reasonably okay.  And in some ways, spectacularly okay.

But you will be relegated to the sidelines of their lives.  You are no longer running the show.  Anybody's show.  Which is the way it should be, but it is an adjustment.  You go from being their guide and director, to being...something.  I'm not sure what.  You aren't anything unless they choose to include you.  They call the shots.

But I have Squig.  He also calls all of the shots.  I am no longer in charge of anything.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  It's very peaceful.

I finished spreading all of the mulch, then used grass killer on the back bed I am setting up.  Now, I have to learn how to use the rototiller.  I miss my gardner.  I wish he would come back.  But the up side is that I have been getting exercise.  Which, let's face it, I need exercise and don't want to do it.

I may not be able to control the rototiller.  I've never tried.  Both John and Dean, my wonderful neighbors have said to call if and when I need help.  Which I probably will.  I'll know pretty quick after I try it if I can do it.  It's not one of those big rototillers, it's a little one.

Jeanette and I went to Panara for lunch to discuss a follow up for visitors in our church who fall into the age group of our class.  We don't have anything like that where we attend--channeling people who come to church into appropriate age connection groups.  We spent an hour mulling over ideas and came up with writing a personal letter to women who might like to join us with an offer to take them to lunch for a "Get to know you" time.  Purely social.

If a person attends a Connection group, they are immediately plugged in.  But if they only go to church, they get lost in the shuffle.  The information is there,  just not a system to get them visited by the correct age group.  Granted, sometimes they don't give their age.  No problem.

Maybe we can do some good.  I hope so.  In the past, people visit church and occasionally don't get a follow up call or visit from a class their own age.  They probably think we don't care.  Which is the opposite of the truth.

Ineffective.  Falling through the cracks.  Sometimes with the best of intentions, we fail.  Sometimes we don't even know that there is a problem.  Everyone who visits our church, gets a visit from some church member.  But what is needed is for them to get a visit from a connection group so--that the visitor can check out people who would like to get to know them--from their own age group.

Maybe this will work.  Jeanette and I won't know until we try it.

I have been a part of a group on Sunday night who are contacting people who have visited our church.  One of the requirements of participating in the group is to write an account of how you came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and how it has changed you.  So I am going to practice on all of you out there.  I have to do it in 250 words or less, which I doubt I can do--but, here goes.

I was raised in a family of practicing Christian people.  I heard about Jesus every Sunday in church, and everyday at home.  When I was 8 or 9, I went forward during the song "I Surrender All."  I surrendered all a child had to surrender.  I was a good kid growing up.  I never drank, smoked,  etc. nothing that was classified as "sin," and still don't to this day.

I was 23 years old before I needed to repent.  I was listening to a Billy Graham sermon on sin, and he didn't mention any of the so called sins I had heard about growing up.  He talked about greed, stinginess, spite, thinking you were better than others, and on and on.  Hitting me over and over.  I repented.  And prayed that my three girls wouldn't have such a hard time coming to repentance since they too were being raised in a Christian family.  That they would spend eternity with Him.  Within five minutes of praying that prayer, and laying our youngest daughter in her crib while I went to get her a bottle, she was dead.  One minute she was alive, the next minute, she wasn't.  I credited God with her death, and that my prayer had caused her death so that she could spend eternity with Him.

For four years, I struggled.  I couldn't sleep for fear one of my other three children was going to die.  That God would take one of them, too.  One day, a friend said, "Janie, you don't trust God.  You have given Him your life, but you haven't given Ken and your three children back to Him."   It was true.  I knew that I didn't trust Him with my family.

So, I told God I didn't trust Him.  He knew it anyway.  I had surrendered all as a child, but I needed to surrender all as an adult.  It was horrendously difficult.  But one day, a moment came when I was able to say, "You've got it.  Me, Mine, and everything I possess."  I can tell  you one thing for sure,  there is no peace in your life until you surrender, repent and trust God--you must do all three things.  I know.  Whatever God wants, I have surrendered.  All of it.