I don’t like the tests that say, “Nothing to eat or drink after midnight...” and then they schedule you for two in the afternoon.  There must be someone in scheduling who has a sadistic streak.

Pat came and stayed all night last night, and is going to drive me into Okla. City.  She always takes care of me when I need help.  

It’s not just broken or hurt animals that she drags home to take care of, she takes care of everyone and everything.  She did not inherit that characteristic from me.  Or for that matter, from Ken.  She just came into the world like that.

 She has one of those new cars half gas, half electric. I’m not sure how that works.  I guess it is the future.  Because it takes so long to charge an electric car, people will want gasoline backup.  I’m not sure what the ecological impact will be--or if there will be one.  I heard that batteries cost in the thousands--to replace one.

Jesus had to walk everywhere.  In France, there are underground metros. Not very many cars.  America has so much land, we spread everything out and have to have a car to get anywhere.  We waste the space we have and are fast losing farm land.  Does anyone remember Victory Gardens?

 

My computer crashed.  I went to the bank to get help with my auto pay accounts.  No luck.....then I called the help line, and finally got someone to help me, but I have now lost all my access memory to other automatic entry places.  This new age of computers is hard for us old timers.  But here I am.  I’m up and running.  Finally.

I go in tomorrow for a test to see what’s going on to make me so nauseous.  We’ll see how that goes.   It’s one thing or another at this age.  I don’t seem to have any appetite...and I am one of those grazers who eats all the time and doesn’t gain weight.  Food is my “go-to”.

Then, just when I’ve got everything going again...my watch quits running.  It’s dead as a doornail.  I’m going to have to go to target or wal-mart and get a new watch.

The small things of life seem to roll me over.  I don’t want to get in the car and drive to get a watch.  I want to touch it before I buy it or I would let Jeanette order me one from Amazon.  Maybe I’ll do that anyway.

I’ll try to be happier next time I post.  I know you all don’t want to hear me gripe.  I don’t like gripers either.

Friday gets here too quick anymore.  The days seem long while I am in them, but they go so fast looking back.

I’ve been trying to read the book of Revelation again.  I’ve read it a zillion times, separated the seven churches, seven seals, seven angels, organized the topics, etc.... because John says I will get a blessing if I read it, hear it, and keep the things in the book. (Revelation 1:3)

If I have gotten the blessing for trying to make sense of it, I don’t know what or when I got it.  It’s like slogging through quicksand.  Maybe it was written for the people 2000 years ago when John wrote it.  Or the people someday who are alive when it is fulfilled. I don’t know.

There are a few passages I connect with .  My son Scott was an all-state tenor and has a beautiful voice.  He sang “My redeemer is Faithful and True” once at church and that phrase is in the book.  Chapter 3:20 says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock...” That is the only verse I memorized from the book and marked in green.

And yes, I read the “Left Behind series, listened to Ken’s dad preach on the subject and have various opinion books.  I keep trying...I want the blessing.  Maybe I already have it and just need to be thankful. 

 As far as the Bible is concerned, you are either a Jew or a Gentile.  Gentiles have no particular identifying characteristics other than that they aren’t Jews.  And Jews are a people who would have vanished if they hadn’t held on to their heritage to distinguish themselves.  They have to know that they are a Jew before they identify that way.  When they were told they were told that they were Jewish. So...they are a Jew.  

You can’t look at someone and know they are a Jew.  You can identify a Negro, Caucasian, or an Asian because they have certain physical characteristics.  But Jews?  They have simply held in their hearts who they are for over two thousand years.  And they choose to say they are Jewish...accepting the bias, discrimination and the accusations that they killed Jesus.

Current Jews didn’t kill Jesus, just like current Caucasians didn’t approve or own slaves--they are the descendants of those who killed Jesus, and Caucasians are descendants of those who did own slaves.  We need a do over.  Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  It might be a good time to do that.  We are who we are now, not who someone used to be.  We need to just love each other.

  

Yesterday I forgot to post.  I would like to say I was too busy--that I didn’t have time, but I wasn’t busy...I forgot.  In my defense...I have no defense.  I think I may be getting old.  I don’t know for sure what the number is when that happens.  I thought I was old when I turned sixty, but looking back, I was a kid back then. It was twenty-two years ago. 

I was thanking God last night for all the things I still have--that many of my friends my age have lost.  Hearing, eyesight, teeth, hair, mind--I think I still have my mind.  Sometimes we worry about things we have lost instead of being thankful for what is left.  I can still navigate my way to church and the grocery store.  I don’t need help getting to appointments.

But as you age, you go through series of grief when something is gone.  For me this year, it is the garden.  I won’t plant a garden again.  Scott always sends me “Jet Star” tomatoes.  I’ll plant those, but not the okra or beans.  The asparagus comes back on its own.  I’ll buy parsley plants.

I can’t make it to the end of the block to walk Squig anymore.  Maybe my pain management doctor can fix that.  But so far, he hasn’t been able to fix me.  I’m still hopeful.  I’m sad for Squig that I can’t walk him.

I’m the oldest leaf on the tree in my family.  I think that’s called the matriarch.   My brother Bill is five and a half years younger.  I thank God for what I have left.  Grieving for loss is a waste of time anyway.  

 

The first time I went to Rome, Becky took me and four other women with her and told us that we wouldn’t have enough time to see everything, so we each needed to choose one thing that we wanted to see.  I chose the prison they held Paul in.  I wanted to see where he wrote his letters to us. (Ephesians is written “...to the faithful in Jesus Christ.”  That’s us.  

I expected walls, a locked door, a window...you know, a jail.  No, it was a cistern.  A place carved down into rock, probably granite--a cavern underground.  It was small, with an opening at the top around 2 to 3 feet round to get into it--with a ladder, which the jailer withdrew.  No way out.   No windows.  No light.  It made the verse he wrote to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:13) “The cloke that I left at Troas  with Carpus, when you come, bring it with you...and the books, but especially the parchments.”

Paul was trapped, cold, in a dark damp place. He wanted, he needed, his coat.  He also wanted something to read.  

When bad things happen to you, there may be a greater purpose God has in mind.  Paul would never have had time to write his great letters--that survive for us to read--unless he had been locked up.  He had been roaming the world for years spreading the gospel and preaching.  Now, he is locke up and is writing.  And we have his words.  Thank God.

The fact that Paul considered himself to be an apostle was probably based on the fact that Jesus had commissioned him.   Paul had been on the road to Damascus to punish Christians.  He thought they were trying to destroy the Jewish religion, and Paul was a Jew--a Pharisee.  He had  papers empowering him to punish the Christians.  Or kill them.  He had previously stood by and held the coats--when a mob had stoned Stephen for preaching the gospel. So killing Christians wasn’t outside Paul’s way of thinking. He considered them to be a threat to the nation of Israel. 

But Jesus appeared to him, and from that moment on, Paul was broken, humbled, repentant, and dedicated to Christ. He was given orders from a new high power--Jesus himself--to go to the Gentiles (whom the Jews hated) and give them the words of salvation.  Paul had considered himself elite.  But Jesus changed his entire life, motivation, and purpose.  He was never the same.  He realized he had been terribly prideful and wrong.  God loved the Gentiles as much as he loved the Jews.  God loved all people. 

Peter had asked those waiting on the Holy Spirit, (after the resurrection) to appoint a new apostle--to replace Judas.  Peter took it on himself to do this.  Neither the Holy Spirit, nor Jesus, had empowered Peter to do this, but Peter had an action personality.  The group chose Metthias, and you never hear his name again after that.  Paul most probably felt he was the chosen apostle, appointed by Jesus himself.  When you read a letter written by Paul, most of them will start with words like those in Galatians, “Paul, an apostle, (not by men...) by Jesus Christ and God the Father...”

I told my Sunday class that I didn’t particularly want to teach the first book of Kings--which was in our quarterlies--and if they didn’t mind, could we do a book that has more application messages for our age group.  Kings is history.  I told them they should read it.  But our age group needs application.  They agreed.

The great application writer in the Bible is Paul.  So we are going to do a few of his letters, starting with Ephesians.  We did the first chapter, and last Sunday, the second.  Paul is in prison, writing to a group of people he has never met and his style is different from the way he writes to the Philippians, whom he knew and had lived among and taught.

He starts Ephesians by saying he is an apostle--he almost always gives himself that title--and that he is writing to the “saints” in Ephesus.  But he adds another line: “...and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.”  That’s us!  That’s you.  That’s me.  He had no idea we would be reading what he wrote two thousand years later. 

Since he is writing to Gentiles he doesn’t know, he lays out God’s plan for bringing us into the flock.  “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself...”  I think I am correct when I say that you can’t disinherit an adopted child.  You can disinherit your own children, but adoption is a legal contract.  God’s got you.  He’s adopted me, too.

 Pat sent me a picture of one of the baby skunks.  It fits in the palm of her hand. (She has gloves on.)  They sent all six of them to pest control where they will feed them and take care of them until they are mature enough to release back into the wild.  I guess I’m okay with that.  Kinda.

June is half gone and I can’t catch up on this year.  It is evaporating.  All the tasks I was going to do aren’t done.  Today I am writing letters of encouragement for some kids who are going to Falls Creek.  My entire class is doing this.  Everyone likes to get a letter.

Squig is much better.  The vet who saw him the last two times is really good.  She listens to what I say and says that I am Squig’s voice.  She went through his past records and came up with a treatment system that worked.  

One of the oddest things that has happened is that the two meds she gave him have changed his hair.  He used to get stiff white hairs on his neck. (He is solid black).  The white hairs are gone.  They quit growing.  Since he got the medication, he doesn’t have a white hair anywhere.  

She did a blood test and said his enzymes were out of whack.  Now, he has his “whack” back.  I am so thankful.

My daughter Pat has rescued animals all of her life, saved them, or helped them to the next world with her devoted attention.  If it is broken, she wants to help it heal.  If it is lost, she wants to help it find a home.

She works at the Luther library, and last week, a mother skunk decided to crawl under the library and give birth to six baby “skunklets.”

There are people who could have taken care of that situation, Pest control, the manager of the library...etc.  But, no.  This was a job created for someone like Pat.  She jumped right in and took charge.

I was having a heart attack because I know skunks are highly prone to have rabies...while she was assuring me that she knew what she was doing.  And I guess she did because the skunks are gone.  One at a time they were trapped and sent somewhere that was more appropriate.  I personally think that should have been heaven, but Pat wouldn’t do that.

They are cute little critters.  For a while.  And then they aren’t.  A German Shepard we owned got into it with a skunk;  The skunk always wins, and if your dog is the one that comes home with a fresh coat of skunk spray, you will be in for a miserable week of washing the dog and trying all the remedies people suggest.  Incidentally, tomato juice doesn’t work.

I survived.  Barely.  The last night after both boys left, I slept eleven hours.  If I ever mention working in Bible School again, please shoot me.  At my age, rounding up first graders is impossible.

If the leaders ask me to sit in a chair and tell the Bible story, I’ll do that.  But anything that involves getting up and down...no.  Or lining kids up to get a snack.  Or go to the bathroom.  Or move down the hall in a line to go to the craft room.  No.  No.  No.

That’s why God gives children to young people!!  They have the stamina to deal with them.

I am going to spend this week doing all the things I didn’t get done last week.  Or at least try and make a dent in it.  

I plan to watch TV.  I have no idea what happened in the world last week. I doubt there was anything good.  Anymore, everyone just fights.  Wars and rumors of wars--even among the American public.  I think people have forgotten how to discuss an issue...they just yell.  Listening is a lost art.

 I am teaching Bible School this week.  I will have two boys staying with me.  A fourth grader and a first grader.

Will all of you give me a week off from posting.  Maybe I’ll get back with you on Friday.

Thanks.

 Bible School starts Monday.  I will be a co-director with first graders.  This should be interesting.  I am not qualified to work with elementary age children I don’t think.  Teens are my age group.  We’ll see how I do.  I volunteered because I wanted my two grandsons to go.  The church must be desperate since they put me in with first graders.

Most workers don’t want to work with teens so when it was my turn to work with young children, I was always able to trade off with a worker that got assigned to teens.  But this time I volunteered.  I must have been nuts that day.

I hope they let me be the story teller.  I can do that.

I had an appointment with my doctor today...now come the tests to see why I have lost my appetite.  Everybody I know is trying to lose weight.  I’m trying to Not lose any weight.  Nothing tastes good.  They did all the blood work, and other etc.  And the doctor says I look fantastic on paper.

Which is great.  I think what I need is for Joe Bacon to show up banging on the door at three in the morning saying he has a present for Ken and me---named Franklin and Eleanor.   He had just landed, coming in from Maine and had two huge lobsters in a cooler.   I think that would restore my appetite.  It was a little unsettling to eat something Joe had named...Ken had no problem at all. 

Yep, I forgot to post yesterday...that seems to be happening more and more.   I guess I will have to admit that we get forgetful as we age.  I have a pattern of actions I go through the minute I get out of bed and if anything out of the usual happens, I am out of sync!

Today, I am going to the grocery store.  I haven’t been in more than two months.  Friends, neighbors and family have kept me supplied.  But there comes a day that you just have to walk up and down the aisles and see what is going on.  Or...I have heard...what is missing from the shelves.

Becky brought me a “King’s Roll” little sandwich.  Made with dried tomatoes, spinach, mozzarella cheese...it is perfect for breakfast.  I’m about to get a system going for breakfast so that I don’t eat the same thing every day.  I just pop something out of the freezer and zap it.

I am working on coloring the words “Holy Spirit” turquoise in my Bible.  I work on that every night when I go to bed.  Squig and I are both sleeping so much better now that he likes his “cage.”

I’ve just about given up on TV.  It’s nothing but the latest shoot-ups.  Our country is now the gang-murder capital of the world.  It’s depressing.  Something awful has happened in the minds of our young people.  Perhaps we should rethink the subject of Bibles in the classrooms.  The idea of a system of rules we should live by has vanished from the public arena.