Jonathan, David's dear friend, was killed along with his father Saul, and two other brothers.  Which left the crown in doubt.  Saul's fourth (weak) son was crowned, but Abner, Saul's top general, ran the country.  And since David's armies outnumbered him, Abner decided to try and make a truce.  A truce that would reunite the kingdom of Israel with Judah.  Abner wanted to be top dog over all the armies.

So Abner sent a delegation to David outlining his plan to reunite the kingdom without war.  David accepted--and eventually was crowned as God's rightful King of Israel.  He had already been crowned as King of Judah.  Israel was now a reunited nation.

But Saul's armies had a hard time accepting David.  They had been loyal to Saul, and had spent years hunting David down with the intent of killing him.  David didn't push.  He slowly regained their trust by his skillful handling of problems that arose.  It took years and years.

Politics.  Behind the scenes rumbling.  Deals.  And more deals.  Human nature hasn't changed in three thousand years.  The thing we have to remember is that God always has a plan.  And nations rise and fall according to their ability to come in line with His plans.

When we look back on history, it is apparent what a nation should have done--but didn't.  America is going through a series of events that have taken her out of the will of God.  There is no way we can be "One nation, under God, indivisible...." at the rate we are heading down the primrose path to moral destruction.  One step at a time.  Intellectually compromising what God says is right with our rational explanations that "He really didn't mean what He said."  Until someday, what God says is no longer relevant.

 It would be a shame if someday, years in the future, students will read about the nation of America and say, "Such a shining example...but she went wrong.  She abandoned her integrity."

Has this already happened?  Or do we as Christians have hope of turning this thing around.  Just like Saul and David, We Americans are at war with each other.  Someone needs to call a truce and get us back on the path that God would approve of.

In my Sunday class, we have been studying David, Saul, Samuel, Nathan and next week Jonathan.  I find teaching history very difficult.  So many people besides the main characters, and so many funny sounding towns.  And funny sounding battles.

I like to teach application, and I didn't think there would be much of that in these historical stories--but I was wrong.  I guess when you look at the lives of people and their successes and failures, there is an application to be made.  Saul was really a sad case.  Anointed by God, he left the truth of how he got to where he was as King of Israel, and put God on the back burner.  He forbade sorcerers and fortune tellers, but when he needed help, that's who he went to.  So sad.  A sad story of a man who had it all, but forsook God and ended up with nothing that really mattered.

And David.  Good heart, faithful to Saul as God's anointed, but weak when it came to choices.  In his favor, he was always repentant.  ("Sorry" is not repentant.  Sorry means you got caught.  Repentant means you won't do that again.  Ever.)  Even though God had taken his blessing away from Saul, and anointed David, David didn't overstep, but waited for Saul's death before he tried to unite the nation and claim the crown.  He appealed to Saul's army to accept him as King--by treaty, not war.  It worked.  And then there is his mid-life crisis--Bathsheba.  That mistake cost him the life of a son and the lost respect of another son--a son he adored.  You may be forgiven, but there are consequences.

And Saul's son Jonathan.  How difficult it was for him to believe that his father would want to kill David.  He just didn't believe it until the proof was right in front of him.  David and Jonathan were friends.  Best friends.  David wasn't about to go after Jonathan's father and retaliate--even though he had a right to do so.  Anointed by God, David waited.  On God.  On God's timing.

That is the hardest thing I have to do as a Christian.  Once I know what I am going to do, I barge ahead.  Even though I know what I am doing is the right thing, the thing I am doing is not being done at the right time.  I get ahead of God.  All the time.

Good thing God doesn't give up on us.

Some birds flew over my yard, left a poop-present, and strawberries sprouted.  The strawberry plants have grown prolifically and are spreading like ground cover over one of my front planting beds.   My neighbor came over and picked strawberries the other day.  I didn't tell him where they came from.

My okra is up to my waist.   Another foot and I'll have okra.  I picked my first tomatoes--bright red and luscious.  I eat kale almost every other night--so sweet and delicious.  I am in the best time of year for me.  I love it.  All the work I have done is bearing fruit.  I do my part then God does His.

It has rained for the last three days.  Frog strangling rain.  My Koi pond is running over the rim--it is deep--and eight feet by twelve feet wide.  Rain is free water for me.  Edmond's water bills are very (Very) high priced.  Forty five dollars higher (at least) each month than in Pryor.

Squig has spent the last three days shivering from fear.  It's bad enough that he's afraid of the thunder and lightening, but he is terrified of rain.  Stupid dog.  I have to go out on the back porch and literally throw him into the grass when he has to "go," and he stands there quivering and shaking, looking back at me to see if I really mean it.  Only then will he do what he has to do, then make a bee-line back to me.  We do the same thing every few hours.  I'm winning, but he isn't giving up easily.  I do love that dog.  I must?

I've spent the last five days taping and pricing fabric.  This afternoon, I'm taping and pricing fringe, trim, ric-rac, seam tape, etc.  This sale will be over this week.  The other one in July.  Some times it is fun to help.  Sometimes it isn't.  Today, nobody had scissors for me to use, or masking tape, or plastic bags--actually they had forgotten to bring everything I needed.  I had to bring it all home with me.  That's when it isn't any fun.

And when I get stressed, I eat cookies.  Vanilla Oreos.  I wouldn't eat them if I didn't buy them.

Actually, I'm pretty happy.  My grandson and his wife are looking at the house across the street from me. It isn't on the market yet, but will be by next week.  I hope they buy it.  I think they are going to.   That's enough to make any grandmother happy.

My friend Becky Bacon came in on Sunday.  Her eyes again.  The ophthalmologist found that a piece of scar tissue was the problem.  That was a great relief, since that is a problem that can be fixed.  We celebrated the good news by watching Hallmark movies for two days.

The scripts are totally predictable--and they are all alike--ending when the guy kisses the girl.  We ended up in stitches, emoting our versions of the dialogs.  Chick flicks.  Silly and goofy--Hysterical laughing probably a result of our relief (!)  that her last surgery hadn't gone wrong.

She has been here so often that she stores her favorite oatmeal and snacks in the pantry.  I don't have to worry about what to feed her, she rummages through the fridge when she's hungry and fixes her own coffee in the Keurig.  She comes in the front door with her suitcase, takes her stuff to the back bedroom and then settles on the sofa.  We should all have guests like that.   Actually, she isn't a guest any more, if she ever was.  We've been friends over 20 years.

She'll be back in three weeks to have the scar tissue removed.  I'll line up the Hallmark movies and record them so we can spend the week she is recovering, laughing,  It is a great thing for me to look forward to.  Laughing is therapeutic.

I called Joe and told him that the house across the street was for sale.  That it could be their summer home.  Edmond's only a couple of hours south of Pryor, but that should qualify as a vacation house.  He didn't hang up.

I do miss my Pryor friends.  But I am finally making friends here.  My new friend Jeanette has been struggling with the shingles. She has been miserable.

Carolyn has had her third foot surgery and been in a nursing recovery unit for the last week.  Her daughter is holding the fort down at home.  She was able to come from the East Coast to help Carolyn when she returns home.

I'm the only one of my friends who is doing great at the moment.  Praise God.  Thank you Jesus!!!

A number of you have called, emailed, or texted me to cut the hole in my wall and install the  door.  A couple of you said, "You are not nuts."  It was all the encouragement I needed.  My carpenter put me on his list.  I'm getting the door.  Thanks to all of you.

I woke up Sunday and my watch was dead.  Dead as a door nail.  The face didn't have anything at all on it--it was milky white.  What time was it!!??  I looked outside to check by where the sun was.  But it was raining and the clouds blocked the sun.  I have no clocks.  I began to look for my phone to check the time--gone.  Becky had brought a ton of fabric over for me to fold and price for an estate sale, and I had spread it out all over the living room floor to sort--so I assumed that my phone was somewhere under the fabric.  And until someone called me, I didn't know where to look.

I went in the kitchen to look at the time on the stove, but the storm had bummed up every electrical device in my house.  The timer said 11:45 and I knew that wasn't right.  I got partially ready for church not knowing what time it was, and finally my brain kicked in and I turned on the TV.  Sure enough, the time was in the corner of the screen.  And found that it was 9:24--to late to make it to church by 9:30.  I finally found my phone.  Plugged into the charger next to my bed.  I always unplug it first thing each morning.  I always carry it with me, then go get the paper and make myself a cup of tea.  I have a "get up" ritual.  So I never looked on the charger.

It reminded me of Ken saying that a pilot would occasionally come in to land with his wheels up because of the list in his head for landing--he was sure he had put his wheels down because he had gone through his check list.  Even when the tower would tell him his wheels were up, the pilot wouldn't believe the tower--but sure enough, he hadn't lowered his wheels.  I hadn't unplugged my phone and carried it with me to get the paper.  I was "wheels up" because of the list in my head.

One of my friends came over the next day and helped me sort, wrap, tag and price the fabric.  It was overwhelming.  The lady was a quilter, I think she must have taught quilting because there were quilted sample blocks of every pattern known to exist.  And finished quilts that needed to have the edges bound.  And a zillion tiny cut pieces ready to be put together.  This estate sale is going to attract every quilter in Oklahoma.

People don't take pictures anymore--pictures you can hold in your hand and look at.  They are all inside their cameras--saved to a cloud, whatever that is.  My camera has pictures saved on it somewhere.  I never look at them.

But the pictures I took years ago, the pictures my parents took, I look at those.  You can touch them.  I don't like pictures I can't touch.  They don't seem real.

I have pictures hanging in my living area on walls, on buffets, on side pieces and end tables.  They are reflections caught from a moment in time.  There is one of my grandmother and grandfather.  Another of their entire family--my mom is probably fifteen or sixteen.  I have one of Craig and Steven on a street in Paris thirty years ago--he is leaning over his son (30 yrs old now) who is in a stroller. There's one of Becky leaving for college as a Freshman the day Jon is going to kindergarten.

There is one of my mom and her sister Ruby--Ann's mom--walking down main street in Ft. Smith.  They are dressed to the nines, strolling in step, arm in arm.  They have just found out that my mom is pregnant with me.  They are smiling.  They were best friends all their lives.  They are gone now.

I have a picture of my four children.  Young, their futures before them.  And in my bedroom, one entire wall is covered in wedding pictures.  My parents, Ken and me,  my children, their children, my aunts and uncles, and cousins--all on their wedding day.  Everyone is so happy.

I don't want pictures in my camera.  I want them out where I can see them.  And touch them.  There is a picture of Ken and me passing under the military arch of swords, of us cutting our wedding cake.  It is almost like I am there again.  I am young and have no idea of what is to come.

Moments in time.  Caught forever.  And someday, someone will ask, "Who were these people?"  I know that is true because when my mom and dad were gone, I was the one who cleaned out their house and went through their pictures.  I asked everyone in the family if they knew who all those people in the pictures were.  Nobody knew.   My mom had all her high school pictures of friends in an album.  I kept them for awhile, just in case.  I wonder who they were.

Yesterday I hemmed a pair of pants that I love--they had gotten ragged on the bottom.  I don't know when I have repaired something I wear.  But I couldn't think about not having this pair of pants.  Funny how you have a closet full of clothes and you wear the same things over and over--till ragged.

I heard someone say that once a year, they turned every thing in their closet around so that the hangers were hanging backwards.  Then at the end of the year, they removed everything that was still hanging backwards because obviously, they hadn't worn it in a year or they would have hung it up correctly.   I think that is a good way to get rid of stuff you don't wear.  Donate it to Goodwill.  If you aren't wearing it, there is someone who will, and who needs it.

While I was hemming my pants, I noticed that each stitch was exactly one quarter inch long.  Years and years of sewing, and I hadn't forgotten exactly what a quarter inch looked like.  And how that practice of stitching had given me an eye for measuring things in other ways.  I am glad that God gave me the gift of sewing.  Even though I sew very seldom anymore, I know how.  I will always know how to construct and know how to sew.  Once you learn something, you will always know how to do it.  You may get rusty, but with a very little practice you can do it perfectly again.

I am also tearing a dress apart that I haven't worn in ages, but it is a dress I love.  I decided that if I am going to keep it, I need to fix it.  So I am.  The sleeves are too short for me.

There are things in our lives that we need to fix.  They need to be torn out and be replaced with new behaviors.  It takes a lot of reevaluation to figure out what you need to do.  But it needs to be done.  We need to examine ourselves and decide what needs to be kept, and what needs to go.

We need to make peace with our fellowman in a time of great conflict in our nation.  We need to have a softer voice when we disagree.  Or maybe it is time we kept our mouths shut.  We need to love one another even though sometimes we are unlovely.  If something needs to be changed, get busy changing it instead of talk, talk, talking about it.  Get busy fixing.

"A little less talk and a lot more action."  (Yes, I admit--I listen to country music when I'm in the car.)