I hope I have not lost all of you.  I have been very ill for a week.  I had a procedure on Monday a week ago, and go back to the surgeon today for evaluation.  I don’t have cancer...Praise God in heaven above.

We are studying Daniel.  As brave as he was, you would think we would hear more about him.  He was prepared ahead of time--for the problems and danger he faced.  

God is not an insurance policy in case of fire.  You can’t wait until the moment of danger to get acquainted with him.

One thing I have learned is that He is there for me.  He cares for me.  I used to think that “God so loved the world...” before I came to realize completely that, “God so loved me...” It is not just a general statement, it is very personal.  He loves me.  He loves you.  That’s what is behind everything he does.

Trusting God is easy to say and hard to do.  We know what we want, and when we tell God that we are putting things in his hands, it is sometimes so difficult.  In other words we take our problems to the Lord and when we get back off our knees, we take them back with us.

Basically, we sometimes want to treat God like an insurance policy.  We want Him to be there when we need him, but we will take care of everything else.

Depending on God means not relying on yourself every time you have a problem.  There is peace when you really give a problem to Him.  But you have to let go of it.

We usually pray, “Lord I want your will...but...”  I’m working on that.  He has a bigger picture than our momentary desires.  There is purpose in what he does, and we are not the center of the universe--even though we think we are.  It helps to keep in mind that he really loves you.

After over 2500 posts, you would think I would find an easier way to do it.  But if it involves research, it ain’t gonna happen.  So every time I start to write to you all, I have to set the font size and type of font.

I eat in spurts.  One month (or two) it was sliders.  Then Quiche, then sweet and sour chicken, then fried rice, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and so on.  This month it is beef stroganoff.  I’ve eaten that every day for the last two weeks.

But basically, I’m not hungry.  I remember one time I asked Ken what he wanted for supper and he said, “Whatever you fix.”  He never complained.  But he followed that statement with, “Eating is just a habit, anyway.”  I guess being on the go, as a Marine jet jock, you ate whatever you got whenever you got it.  He just ate whatever I put in front of him.  Looking back, I appreciate that.

Today’s problems--according to today’s newspaper are: Making ends meet, and making meetings end.

I went to a meeting a few weeks ago that I never did figure out what the person in charge was trying to say.  Turns out, it didn’t matter anyway.

I had to get a new phone.  Craig took me to the AT&T store and a lovely young man was so patient to explain it to me.  However, I have been back there twice today already.  Technology passed me by and I didn’t even know it was coming.  So far, the new phone is driving me nuts.

The years I grew up in were so much simpler.  Carolyn and I talk every day about how difficult simple things are anymore.  My biggest problem every day now is figuring out what to eat.  Any time I cook (rarely) I freeze a bunch of small containers and when I pop one out of the freezer I call it a surprize-a-meal.  I never know what it is going to be.

We have been in the book of Daniel for the past few weeks.  The first six or seven chapters are interesting...the last are about the second coming.  What should we be doing before he comes back?  Will we be ready when he comes? Interesting to know about.  I’m not much of an end times teacher...I like to teach application.  But when I get up in the morning, I check the Eastern sky...maybe it will be today? 

The next weeks are from the book of Job, and one of the women said, can we skip that and do something from the New Testament?  I said, fine with me.  We will probably do Hebrews.  Wonderful book.  We just aren’t sure who wrote it.  

At the age my class now is, they want “now” teaching.  All of the Bible is wonderful, but some parts of it are more wonderful than others.  We did the stories about people when we were young: David, Solomon, Esther, Ruth, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Sampson...and so on.  They teach us good things, but Paul, John, Luke, Matthew, Mark...are wonderful writers.  And they tell us about Jesus.  That is the important story of the Bible.  

I must have told all of you--sometime in the past--about how Ken taught me too tie a bow.  Being a girl, you are supposed to know such things, but I could never get a bow to come out right. 

He said, “Would you like for me to show you how to do that?”  Always polite from the first day I met him.  

He stood behind me, reached around me to take both sides of the bow strings and said, “Hold the loose ties in each hand.  Cross the right tie over the left and then under.  Make a loop with the tie hanging down and hold it, and then wrap the right tie around and push it through with your thumb and tighten the bow.  Perfecto!

I’ve tied bows for my whole life and they are always perfect.  Who would ever have thought a Marine would know how to tie a bow.  They probably had regulation  bows for their combat boots?

    There was a buffet at the church last night that my class ended up not going to.  Jeanette had baked cherry pies--she is the number one pie master in the world.  So we are coming over to my house today to eat Jeanette’s cherry pie.  Yum.

    The lesson yesterday was over Daniel ending up as a slave after growing up in an upper crust royal family.  I noted that people (who don’t have to till the land or work at hard dirty jobs) have free time.  They have time to read, read and read. 

   We didn’t have much in the way of money when I was growing up, but I didn’t have to do housework--but as long as I was reading a book, I didn’t have to dust, or wash, or cook. As a result, I didn’t know how to do anything useful when I got married---but I had read all of the classics.  Different families stress different things.  My mom and her sisters--my aunts--pushed reading as a priority.  I don’t know if that is why I love to read--and now write--but I’m glad I was given the freedom to do that.  God uses what we were given.  Whatever it is.

 Posting on Fridays is always late.  Ann picks me up early, then I get home in time to let the dog out.  Then I go get my hair done--then come home and eat--and finally get around to writing around one o’clock.  And I am wondering why the word o’clock has a mark after the o?  Our language is just a bunch of words that we borrowed along the way from other nationalities.  Probably it is mostly English, but...

I finally got the paper I was writing on Moses edited.  Then sent it to Carolyn.  She is my master editor and rewriter.  If it doesn’t make sense to her, she will fix it.  That’s why her name is in the acknowledgments in the back of my book I published.

I imagine everyone who has seen “The Ten Commandments” movie pictures Moses as a hunk like Charlton Heston?  Well Moses wasn’t confident.  He had a hard time figuring out who he was--Egyptian prince, or Jew.  He chose his Jewish heritage, killed an Egyptian, and lost both identities and ended up tending sheep on the backside of the desert.  Dirty job.  Bottom of the kinds of work in those days.  And they weren’t even his sheep.