Dogs were supposed to live outside.  I didn't need another problem in my house with four kids.  So the collie stayed outdoors.  His name was White Feet.  We called him Feet.  He was a great dog for all the kids on the block and was the goalie for Scott's soccer team.   "Best goalie we ever had," was Scott's opinion.

Back then, people left their dogs in the yard if the dog was gentle and nobody complained.  And since Feet was so great with children, everyone on the block took care of him.  All the children adored him.  When the kids went to school, he went too.  When they went inside the building, Feet came home and waited for the noon recess bell to ring.  When it rang, off he would go to play soccer.

But one day, he vanished.  Nobody knew where he was and we were all crushed.  Kids  from school kept checking our house to see if he had returned.  But he didn't.  We assumed that somebody had stolen him.

A few months later, as I was going out the front door, I heard a whimper and lying there on the front lawn was Feet.   His paws were raw on the bottom and bleeding from walking for who knows how far.  I brought him in the house.  Any dog that loves you enough to tear up their feet trying to make it home deserves a little "house" time.

The word "Faithful" comes to mind when describing our dog Feet.

There are nine characteristics of the Christian life.  Feet, even though he was a dog, had them all.

 Galations 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance…"

We should all be as good as a dog.

We moved with the cow  because Ken had finished his Masters and got a job teaching at a Jr. College in Miami, 55 miles northeast of Pryor.  He wanted to commute, but I didn't think that was reasonable!  We needed to sell the house and move.  Which we did.  The kids wanted a farm, so we bought a tiny four room house with a huge barn on ten acres. The barn was stellar.  He house wasn't.  I spent the next year trying to enclose a breezeway and put two bedrooms and a bath in the garage.  Scott got the hall closet.  We put both girls together in one bedroom and we took the other.  Which didn't work out at all.  So Ken and I ended up sleeping in the breezeway and the girls got a room apiece.  Anything for peace.

The barn was perfect for the cow.  And a horse.  And chickens and collie dogs.  And useful animals as well.  Cats.  That lived in the barn keeping the mice at bay.  We also had a possum that visited every night and depleted the chickens.  When Ken took a shovel and headed to the barn to dispatch the possum, Becky began to cry and beg him to give the possum just one more chance.  He didn't.   You can't redeem a possum.

Scott was 9 years old, Becky 13 and Pat 15 when we moved.  And I was pregnant.  Certainly the last thing on my list of things I ever wanted to be again.  Once again I was hanging sheetrock, insulation, and painting ceilings.  Barely able to move since I was carrying a ten pound baby.

We lived 10 miles from town and all I did that year was drive kids back and forth to school events, sports events and church events.  By the end of the year, I had to agree with Ken that we had made a mistake to move.  So six weeks after Jonathan was born,  we sold the farm and moved back to Pryor.  Between Ken going one way and me and the children going another, we had moved nineteen times in sixteen years.  And that wasn't the last move we made.

Luke 9:58 "And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has no where to lay his head."  Ken and I were starting to feel like Jesus must have felt.

In 1963 (or 64) we bought a new car.  America's Chevrolet dealers each received a  golden anniversary  car to sell to celebrate the fifty years they had been in business.  Ken bought me one. (Hold that thought a minute.)  It was really nice.

A few years after we bought the car, after Ken retired, we had been keeping a calf fenced in the space between our house and the house next door.   (The mama cow had died, and the people next door couldn't keep running out in the country to feed the calf, so we got the calf if we would feed it.  I can't remember why in the world I agreed.)  I'm sure there must have been some city ordinance forbidding cows in the yard in downtown Pryor, but all the kids on the block loved the calf and took turns feeding it, so there were no complaints.  It turned into a pet.

Ken got a job 55 miles away so we moved.  We had to get the calf--which was now a cow--moved to our new place..  With no pickup.  So Ken took the cushions out of the back seat of my beautiful Golden Chevrolet, and with the tail hanging out one window and head out the other, the cow got transported.  Ken said cars would pass him and stop, point at the car as he passed by, and he could read their lips.  "I told you there was a cow in that car."

I usually try to tell a story and then connect it to something from the Bible that is applicable.  However, the only Biblical connection I can make from all that is that when the Israelites made a golden calf as an idol, Moses threw a fit and melted the calf down.

I didn't throw a fit, but I almost had a meltdown cleaning my car.  

As long as I am talking about prayer, think of it this way:  You know how, when you walk into a room full of people, you look around for someone that you know.  And you gravitate toward them and say, "How are you," or "It's good to see you," or "I hear you got a new car," etc, etc, etc.  It's not that we have anything important to say, it's called being friendly.

Well, think of prayer that way.  Be friendly with God.  Since he is a spirit, and since he is everywhere and watches us and tells us he will listen to us, you might just want to say "Hello God, I've been thinking about you today."  I think prayer is simply talking to God.  Staying in contact so that you aren't using him like an insurance policy when something goes wrong.  He wants to hear your voice.  He wants to know what is on your mind.  Jesus says he is our friend.  We need to act like one.

I find myself reminding him of people who need help.  Friends, family, neighbors.  And the world.  It is in such a mess.  He even tells us to pray for our leaders.  I just talk to him about things.  And ask him to do something appropriate.  Since I can't know the future, and he does, I want him to do what is best.

You might say, "What difference will it make?  God is going to do what God is going to do."  Well, there are any number of places in the Bible that God tells us that he is willing to change his mind and reconsider.  And a number of times that he does change his mind because of someone's prayer.  If one of your children asked something reasonable and it was within your power to grant their request, wouldn't you give them what they asked for.  You would probably want to do the same thing God does--that is, do what is best for them.

I'm not a fan of long-winded orations.  Especially ones that use language that is stilted.  Acts 10:4
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees (and Baptists, and Catholics and Methodists, etc.)…for a pretense you make a long prayer…"

1 Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers:  But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil."

Eyes, Ears, Face.  Be sure you are on the righteous end of prayer.

I have a book called, "Prayer, Conversing With God."   The suggestion was made that you might try to visualize him  by putting a chair in the room and inviting him to sit down.  And then just talk to him.   You don't have to read a prayer out of a book.  Or memorize some chant.  Just use everyday words.

Tell him about how thankful you are for hot water.  For air conditioning.  For a car.  For the money to put gas in the car.  Think about all the little things that you and I take for granted that the rest of the world doesn't have,  and thank him.

Then compliment him.  I don't know about you, but I am always lifted up when someone says something nice about me.  Or thanks me for something I have done for them.  Or--and this is an especially big one--that they appreciate me!!  I can run all day on a little praise.  Some of the readers in Bartlesville tell my son--who works there--how much they enjoy what I write. Thank you.

Since we are made in his image, why would we think God would be any different.  He wants our sincere praise.  He wants to hear us say, "I love you."

There is an acronym that I sometimes use called ACTS.  Adoration, Confession, Thankfulness, and Supplication.  I have a tendency to get the supplication out of order and put it first.

My prayers are always short.  But they go on all day.  They are usually no longer than two or three sentences and start every morning when I go out to get the paper and thank him for the new day and the weather.  Whatever the weather is: rain, sleet, sunshine, heat, cold…it's all good for something.  I tend to say something like, "You did a good job on the clouds this morning.  They are really pretty."

Psalms 5: 3  "My voice shall you hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will direct my prayer unto you, and will look up."

Saturday night I went to the Bill Gaither concert.  I had never been before and as a matter of fact, I don't remember ever going to a live concert before.  I have seen many drama productions but no live music.  Pitiful, but true.   I was blown away.  I listen to them on TV, but  there is no comparison.  They are so talented.  David Phelps will be the tenor someday in the heavenly choir.   My friend Carolyn's son bought us the tickets for her birthday.  So nice.

I play the piano and marimba, but I very seldom listen to music.  I think I am the only person in the world who doesn't, but so much of it is monotonous, loud and irritating.   Ken always listened to classical music and when I got into the car, that would be what was on.  It was nice.  I played Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov, etc for recital pieces as I was growing up, so I do have some redeeming musical grace.  But I still seldom listen to the radio.   With the exception of Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson and Little Richard.  Which I know sounds out of character.  Go figure.

I like the sound of silence.  Ken used to say that people are frightened of silence.

At church on Sunday we sang the Doxology.  It has been "Out of Fashion" with the young crowd and it has been years since we sang it.  When I was young, it was the first song that we sang every Sunday.  "Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  Praise him all creatures here below.  Praise him above ye heavenly host.  Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost."  It felt like God was listening.  So many contemporary  churches have gone to the big band format.  Which is alright, but not for me.

Psalms 66:1,4  "Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands:  Sing forth the honor of his name: make his praise glorious….All the earth shall worship you, and sing unto you; they shall sing to your name."

If you are going to worship God, you have to have a thankful heart.   And scripture doesn't say that you have to carry a tune, it says, "…make a…joyful noise...".

I have been reading old letters off and on all day from my family.  Back when postage was a nickel.  We wrote letters in the fifty and sixties.  Hundreds of them.  All addressed by hand.  In Palmer penmanship.  (Which I heard the schools are going to quit teaching!!)  I have been sorting them for my children (who probably won't even want them) and discarding many of them and remembering a million incidents of our lives.  My mother wrote every week and my dad added a line.

And I finally started reading Ken's letters from Spain and Cuba from 1964-65.  He was gone for three and four months at a time.  They are full of the difficulties of being a squadron commander and not having enough gasoline to give his pilots the time in the air that they needed.  I doubt that I had any idea at all how much stress he was under.  I was twenty-six years old.  He was thirty-five.  I was just a kid.  He was a grown man.  Our lives were so different.   But somewhere in it all, we met in the middle and it was wonderful.  I would do it all over again, but life isn't like that.  We get to do it once.

This generation won't have letters.  There is something about touching paper, unfolding it, hearing it crackle that email doesn't give you.  A hand written letter is so very personal.  You can't just hit a key and broadcast it to the world.  It's yours alone.  You can fold it up and put it back in the envelope and take it out fifty years later and be transported.  You are young again.  Starting out.  Raising children.

I have only started on his letters, there are a lot of them.  I want to read them all  again.  I want to hear him say, "I love you, I am lonely, I can't wait to come home," all over again.

Paul, the apostle wrote like that.  His letters to his friends who were Christians are full of yearning to see them again.  He had a "Thorn in the flesh" as he put it,  that kept him from writing everything himself.  He probably had a scribe.  But he ended his letters by saying, "I will write these closing words in my own handwriting.  See how large I have to make the letters!"  Galations 6:11  And in Colossians 4:16 "By the way, after you have read this letter will you pass it on to the church in Laodicea?  And read the letter I wrote to them."  And here we are two thousand years later, pulling those letters out and reading them for ourselves.  It is a joy.