I always feel a certain sadness at this time of year.  The tomatoes and okra are gone.  I should have planted turnips--or some cold weather veggie.  Something I could go outside and pick.  Next year.

I've almost quit listening to the news.  It's all bad.  It seems like every day it is worse than the day before.  I remember when they put Ken and his Marine buddies in a trench in Nevada--1957--and blew up three (yes, three) atom bombs over the top of all of them.  They were less than 1/2 mile away from ground zero.  The government wanted to see what would happen.  Gee.  Duh.  Ken came back to California--where we were living--wondering what would come from the power of such a bomb.

Of course, those Marines in those trenches died, in the coming years, at an alarming rate--from leukemia.

It's been a long time since we've had a nuclear bomb scare.  Or test--until North Korea started rumbling this last year.  I remember them.  Every one.  From Japan, to the Chernobyl reactor fiasco.  I doubt N. Korea has any idea how terrible retaliation with nukes would be--from the USA.  Arrogance kills people.  Mostly innocent ones.  Nagasaki, Hiroshima.  I remember those.  I was seven years old at the time.  I was eighteen when they lit those three over my husband.

I keep thinking about wars and rumors of wars--as the warning in the Bible says.  My grandmother's brother fought in WW1.  He survived physically, but spent the rest of his life sitting on a concrete curb in downtown Heavener, Okla.  In WW1, they had few, if any, dentists for the guys who had abscesses in their teeth.  They were miserable with pain in their mouths.  The answer: hand out paregoric.  Which is highly addictive.  Back then you could buy it over the counter.  Thousands and thousands came back from that war addicted to paregoric.  Back then, nobody cared.  The governmental victims of war.  My great, great uncle was one.  I remember him.  Ruined by the conditions of war.

War.  Guinea pigs from necessity.  So.  Let us pray for peace.   Among each other, peace at home, in our churches, in our nation.   Peace.  

When I'm not "running" with the people of God in my church, I am reading.  Five or six books every week.  And yes, I am a speed reader.  My favorite genre is crime mysteries with a legal gist.  I know, for a person like me that seems to be an oxymoron.  But I like to read about good triumphing over evil.  Truth winning out.  The underdog overcoming adverse circumstances.  The book I just finished has it all.  It even has forgiveness between a son and his father.

It's hard to find a great mystery writer after you have read all of John Grisham's books.  So I asked the OK City Metro Library to send me samples of work in the legal, mystery and crime category.  Authors that I hadn't read.  They have a program for seniors where they mail you books in a purple waterproof zipper bag and you return them postage paid in the same zipper pouch.  It's free.  It's a great service.  I get six books every week.  And I read them.  (I admit that I skim over the descriptions of what a person is wearing, what color the flowers are and most adjectives.)

So many of these writers have sunk to a new low on lurid language, sexual filler, and filth.  Each week for the last month I have rejected most authors.  I call the library, explain why I don't want to read any more of that author's books--and they send me different publications.

Yesterday, I got a book by Todd M. Johnson: "The Deposit Slip."  It was one of the best mysteries that I have read in ages and ages.  I think it is his first book.  He was able to keep my attention for six hours.  I couldn't put it down.  And believe it or not, not a single bad word.  The closest it came was when the bad guy "uttered an expletive."  Without telling me what the expletive was.  Thank you Todd Johnson--I'm tired of the expletives that are now so commonplace in the world.  I'm sick of them.  His plot involved a bank and a wounded veteran.  It was unique.

I've always thought that when you can't speak without cursing, you have a very poor command of the English language.  Mr. Johnson commands the English language.  I called the library, and found that he has a new book out this year--they are mailing it to me.

I had John pull up the rest of the tomatoes and okra--they had quit bearing so I don't have to go pick anything outside.  It has been really cold lately.  I'm going to curl up this afternoon with a book.

On Wednesday nights, I go to teacher's meeting.  There are 10-15 people in the room who have been teaching Bible all their lives.  Some for over 60 years.  They have studied it, explored many translations, and read hundreds of related materials dating back to the time of Christ, and beyond.  They are Biblical scholars.  Well versed.

So when I go, I usually have questions that I think perhaps someone there can answer--questions that should at least provoke discussion.  And I always wait until the session is almost over so I won't disturb the lesson.  Last week my question to them was: "Why do you think that God chose a man like Aaron to be the high priest of the Jewish nation?  He obviously was a man of weak character.

I didn't get a good answer.  So Sunday, I asked my class the same question--and one of the women said: "Why Janie, you have been telling us for weeks that any old bush will do if God is in it."   I hadn't applied that thought to Aaron.  I was pleased that she remembered what I had said about the burning bush.  That it wasn't the bush or the fire that was special, but the fact that God was in it.

God uses flawed people.  We are all flawed.  But if we are willing, God can do his work through us.  The only thing necessary is that we be willing.

After Moses chewed Aaron out in front of the hundreds of Israelites, Moses left Aaron in charge once again while he went back up onto the mountain--where God gave Moses a second set of tablets.  Ten laws that would now govern the people.  And Aaron, bruised, embarrassed and chastised went on to serve in the temple as the intermediary between the people and the sacrifices offered to God for sin.  His own sins included.  He became the man with a Godly purpose that God intended him to be.

God's people are not perfect.  But we band together to do his work.  We are stronger as a group.  And it is easier to be what God wants you to be when you are surrounded by people with the same goals.  As Ken always said: "Tell me who you are running with and I will tell you what you are doing."  Find a church.  "Run" with the people in that church.  Do something collectively in the church that uplifts and strengthens others.   Two are better than one, and a group of people with a purpose can change the world we live in.  Find your purpose with the people of God.

We are still studying Moses in class.  Interesting.  Yesterday, we looked at the events surrounding the first set of commandments.  The set that Moses broke.  But the real lesson ended up being about his brother Aaron.  What a contrast in personalities.

Moses left Aaron in charge of the people.  But after Moses had been gone to the mountain for a long time, the people told Aaron that Moses had deserted them and asked Aaron to make them a god to lead them on to where they were going.  So weak-willed, willie-nillie, want-to-be-popular, wishy-washy Aaron said,"Okay, bring your gold earrings and I will melt them down and fashion a gold calf with fire and a graving tool."  Which he did, and then built an alter in front of it and said, "There, have at it.  Do what you want."  He didn't even say, "Let's wait on Moses one more day."

The people worshiped the golden calf, ate, drank, and played--naked, out of control.  The kind of god that many people today worship.  A "There, have at it" god.  People today are like people in every age.  Prone to wander.  Prone to sin.  Back in the sixties they said, "If it feels good, do it."

But Moses was broken and distressed at what the people had done.  And especially at Aaron.  He asked Aaron, "What did these people do to you to cause you to bring such a horrible sin to them?"  And Aaron lied.  "Hey, cool it.  You know what these people are like.  They brought me a bunch of gold and I threw it all into a fire.  And guess what.  A gold calf came out."  In other words, "Not my fault."  He didn't mention the graving tool he used to fashion the calf--or building and adding an altar.

Moses was a man of integrity.  He was furious.  Aaron was not a man of integrity.  He refused to take responsibility.  God was even more angry than Moses.  God said to Moses, "Let me alone so that my anger can grow.  I'm going to consume and destroy these people and I will make a great nation of you, Moses."  But Moses, being the man that he was, prayed one of the most beautiful prayers in the Bible.  "No, Lord.  Think of what the Egyptians will say.  That you brought these people out of Egypt only to kill them?  Think.  You promised to make a great nation of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (Jacob).
Remember your promise to them  You didn't promise to make a great nation out me.  You need to reconsider what you are saying."  And God did.  Moses, prayed.  God changed His mind.  God listens to the prayers of Godly people.  Godly people with a godly purpose can redirect God's plans!!!

This year has evaporated.  And it has been strange.  I never saw an August in Oklahoma like the one we just had.  It rained and rained.  And there were only a few unbearably hot days.  September vanished in a whirl and October is more than half gone.  The analogy of sand running through your fingers is appropriate.

I had John, the man who helps me in the yard, pull up all the tomato vines.  I bet I have over 100 green tomatoes.  I'm giving them away as fast as I can.  They sit on the counter and ripen faster than I can eat them.  Last year I wrapped them in newspaper and put them in a dark place and still had tomatoes for Christmas.

Too much work wrapping individual tomatoes.  This time, I'm putting some of them in a drawer in the refrigerator and taking them out to ripen as I need them.  We'll see if that works.  The okra has about quit bearing.  Not enough sun.  I always hate to pull the stalks up.  It seems so final.  The cycle of life.  Winter is coming.

I am using seed from okra that my dad used years and years ago.  I always leave a few pods on the stalks to dry out so I have seed for next year.  And think of my dad.  He and Scott and I were the only gardeners in the family.  Now it's just me and Scott--out of 35 or more immediate members.  What's wrong with all of those people!!

They have asked me to do a marimba concert at one of the Senior Citizen communities.  My choir sings there twice a year and I usually play a song or two on the marimba for them.  But an entire concert would leave these old wrists and hands in a pickle.   I guess I could play--until I couldn't--and call it a concert?  Who would have thought that something I learned to do at the age of 14 would still be something I could do at the age of 79?

It is a good thing to be able to function.  We take it completely for granted when we are young.  I think my mind is okay.  Would someone out there tell me when it isn't?

I have seen people healed through prayer.  Miraculously.  I remember a young child who was in the last stage of dying from cancer.  I was at the hospital with his mother, who was in a class that I taught.  We were waiting by the child's bed for him to take his last breath, when she begged me to pray for him that he would be healed.  I did.  But I didn't feel like it was going to happen through my prayers alone.  I called a friend of mine, explained the situation and asked her to pray as well.  She was a real "Prayer warrior."  She then called everyone she knew to start praying.  Probably over fifty people.

The child got better.  He lived to his teens.  There was no doubt that God answered the prayer.  But there have been other times that the case came out differently.  I don't think someone can say, "I'm going to pray for this person to be healed and if I believe they will be healed (name it and claim it) then they will be."  It doesn't depend on how much faith you have.  It depends on God.  He decides.
How little, or how much faith you have is not the issue.  There is nothing wrong with you.  You don't have to "Rev up your faith" to get God to listen.  If you are a Christian, you simply go to God and ask--knowing that He will intervene if it is in accordance with His will.  He does hear us.

Even Jesus had a healing "difficulty."  It certainly wasn't due to Jesus' lack of faith.  Jesus had total and complete faith in the Father.  In Mark 8: 22-26, a blind man was brought to Jesus.  His friends asked Jesus to touch him.  Jesus took him out of the village (away from the public view) and spit (!) on his eyes, put his hands on him, and asked the man if he could see.  The man answered and said," I see men that look like trees walking."  (I don't see clearly.)  So Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes again, and told him to look up.  He did and was healed.  (Read Keith Miller's "A Second Touch.)

Was it the spit?  Was it Jesus' hands?  Was it because Jesus touched him a second time?  Or was it because the man looked up?  Is there power in the method used?  Of course not.  Otherwise we would all be telling people to "Leave town.  Let me spit on you.  Now, I have to touch you twice--once won't do the job.  After that, you have to look at the sky and then you will be healed."   That would be the Church of "leave town, spit, touch twice, and look up."  The method is not the reason the man was healed.  Jesus didn't use a programed "method."  Sometimes God gives us what we ask for.  The secret is that you need to ask.  There are a number of incidents in the Bible where God changed His mind about something.  Why?  Because one of his children asked. That's when God decides.  

I told you that I read every day.  Today I am finishing a book from a "Name it and claim it" group.  Unless you want a course on how to "Raise people from the dead," I'd say you should definitely skip it.  I said I would read it for a friend before I realized what it was about.

These groups believe that you can heal anybody from any disease, and  that you need--you must-- rise to a higher level of Christianity by speaking in "tongues."  In other words, your salvation depends on how much faith you have.  If you don't heal someone from their sickness, or if you don't speak in tongues, there is something wrong with you.  Your faith is not complete.

I am always suspect of any teaching that adds something to the concept of "Saved by Faith and the Grace of God."  Jesus paid it all.  There is nothing more than that.  There is nothing you can "do" to improve on your salvation.  Jesus said you only needed the faith of a mustard seed.

The word "tongue" in the Bible always refers to language.  And at the time it was written, getting the good news out was difficult because of language barriers.  There is a record of someone speaking and another person understanding even though they were of two language groups.  When God needs someone to hear the gospel message, He can make that happen.  John said in his second letter that if anybody comes with another message than the gospel, don't listen to them or give them God speed.

The Bible says "gifts" were given.  There were many gifts people had, just like today.  But babbling so that God can better understand you better isn't one of them.  "Behold the Lord's arm is not shortened that He cannot save you, nor His ear heavy that He cannot hear you..."  God hears your every word.  You need to talk to Him about what concerns you.  Tell Him that you love Him.  He is waiting to listen in whatever language you speak.  Mine is English.

Some people are convinced that there is something "more" than a relationship with God through faith in Jesus.  They will cut to the chase of "healing and tongues" within minutes of meeting you.  I prefer to talk about redemption.  And what the fruit of the Spirit really is:  Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.  If you have those nine qualities, you are growing in His Spirit.  Speaking in tongues is not mentioned.