Oh, did we ever have the storms, yesterday! I JUST NOW am able to get on the Internet and it is intermittent, so will keep this short.
Nothing to say except that is why I am gone and I will do better soon.
Our own property is fine and we are fine, but the whole state has been renamed “State of Emergency”, for a while.
Hope the powers that be will excuse if I do not post-a-day every day.
Pray for us. Supposed to get more tonight. 🙂
Our five chickens would die without us. We have to check on them at least twice per day. It’s only natural: every critter in the four-state area wants to eat either our poor little hennies, or their feed. From time to time, a rat will even try to prevent their accessing their own water supply. It does this by piling rocks into the water trough, which is only about 1 ½” wide. One night of rat work can mean no water in the morning when the hens leave the roost and need a drink.
So we go down to the hen house every morning, remove rocks from the water, make sure no fresh coon tracks lie in the dust around the building, and hand out treats like bits of bread or cereal. They really love the first morning visit.
How about you?
Do you find yourself waking up to rocks in your water? What do I mean?
Maybe you have been asleep. Sleep is not bad; we all need rest. We can rest in the Lord or take an understandable nap. We suffer without it. Sometimes we might even snooze on the job—tsk! While our eyes are closed, though, sometimes the enemy slips in and harasses us in ways we don’t realize.
Once we wake up, we really need a drink. We haven’t met our hydration needs for a long while. That Living Water can be just the thing to quench that thirst, but where is it? Why is it not where it should be, where it always was?
Some rat has been inserting rocks. What we really need is the Solid Rock, but what we find is an irritating pack of pebbles. Foreign platforms, foreign ideas, foreign habits, small but many, are in the way, blocking our access to the life-giving, thirst-quenching water.
So we wait for the owner to come on down and help us. He clears the way to the water and we drink deeply of trouble-free water and find refreshing. Then, to make sure we love, trust, and remember him, he hands out treats: wonderful bits of nourishment we like better than the daily ration and that cause us always to wait expectantly for his return.
How is it with you? Have you been napping on the job? Thirsty? Not finding the water you expected where you expected it?
Wait. The Master will come to you and clear it all up for you.
And will treat you to something special.
They hoped he wouldn’t love me, but he did. They predicted we wouldn’t last, but we did. Vietnam tried to separate us, but it didn’t. They said we’d never get anywhere, but we did.
And at least half of it was due to the only man who would give up his seat to me, forty-something years ago.
We were hardly more than children, but love and stubbornness led the way. Milestone after milestone whizzed by until it seemed there was no stopping us.
Bumps in the road gave us strength, new direction, and adaptability, a great combination.
Now, six children homeschooled and raised up and out of the home, mostly it’s just us. And that was really all I needed in the first place—all the rest was frosting.
Buying and selling houses and cars, fixing broken things, building what we lacked, sweating at laboring, always taking the frugal route, he provided, always provided, so I would not have to leave our nest, was free to tend our babes in peace, not harried. I love the life I acquired with this man who spent himself so willingly for my freedom.
Then there is the wisdom. They say still waters run deep, and for him, it is true. When he spoke, the words were worth listening. When he spoke, other women feared.
And patience. Married to a woman who “needs a mute button”, he always listened, always listens. Always knows the answers to my confusions,
Let the world belittle marriage and commitment! Let them rant against fidelity and sanctity! Let them screw their brows into frowns and suspicions! Let them pretend they are happy without loyalty and truthfulness! Let them blow!
I cannot hear it.
I have spent my whole life with my best friend and would that I had another life to do it all again.
I have two brothers. God knows I could not have stood any more. And I don’t mean that in a mean way.
My brothers spoil me. They are extravagantly generous to me. If I had one more brother, I would pop.
First, they endured my obnoxious childhood foibles as a sister. I know they learned their extreme patience from living with me for all those years. If I wasn’t trying to get them to play dress-ups with me, then it was playing school. Which was worse? With me taking charge of everything, it didn’t matter!
Second, they grew up to be strong and loving husbands and dads. They gave me wonderful nieces and a wonderful nephew, and have raised and are raising them right. I rejoice in knowing they all, all, all are my family.
Third, they call me, visit me, write me, and bring or send me gifts. Just recently this lovely bouquet arrived at my door. I can hardly believe it. When they visit, the closest one travels about 500 miles. This is devotion, friends. I wish I could grow to deserve it.
But I see similar devotion in my sons, for their sister and it gives me such hope.
1. Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.
2. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . yours is the earth and everything that’s in it. –Ruyard Kipling
3. I can’t do everything in the world. –Kimberly
4. Things like picking up crosses and denying ourselves seldom find a place on our agendas. –David Faust
5. For excellence, ask an expert . . . for wisdom, ask a sage . . . for honesty, ask a child.
Abraham Lincoln was born on this date in 1809. 🙂
What then are we to make of suffering?
If we are The Called, in Christ Jesus, everything that happens to us is for some higher purpose, even when life DOES go our way. We can know for sure that the pain of suffering unfair treatment, like all other things, works for good. The Scriptures promise this.
I pray these blessings on you all. They are the whole reason He came, anyway. Right?
I wish I could know if your questions were for “maybe someday” or if you are actually experiencing real danger. There is such a huge difference.
If you think your husband might soon kill you or your child, you must get yourselves out of danger and seek guidance from strong Christians in your area.
Let me explain. The reason you stay married to your husband is that you have promised, before God, that you would do so. It is a covenant between you, your husband, your neighbors, and God. You promise your husband, “I will always be here, except for death.” You promise your neighbors, “I accept oneness with this man, so no one else can have him, anymore.” You promise God, “I will be a picture of your Church and her relationship to Your Son.” We do not break such solemn promises.
God gives us another covenant responsibility, though, when He gives us a child. You and your husband both have a huge responsibility to make sure the life of your son is good for those around you. It is wrong to bring to birth and then fail to train a child to be an asset to his neighbors. First, though, you have a responsibility simply to make sure he lives.
If your husband is threatening or trying to kill either you or your child, he is trying to end one of these covenants that you must keep. Therefore, you must do whatever it takes to keep yourself and your child alive. Flee. Hide. Get help, even police help, if needed.
Escaping death does not mean escaping the marriage, though. Once you are certain you are safe, then you must return to your husband, in safety. If this means counseling for either of you, or arrest for your husband, so be it. If he is jailed, you must witness to him, etc., as a loving wife would. You are not divorcing, just trying to keep the marriage covenant, just trying to keep the covenant with your son, by trying to stay alive.
I wonder, though, if your questions are hypothetical, that is, if you were supposing and just wondering. How easy to imagine that “the worst” might come, just because some hard things have come! It is especially easy to imagine worst cases when we are very tired and run down. Is this it?
One day, when looking up Noah Webster’s definition of suffering, I discovered a treasured revelation: He says, “ . . . We suffer with anxiety. We suffer by evils past and by anticipating others to come . . . ” Anxiety, past evils, and anticipated evils are all suffering we take upon ourselves. This suffering does not befall us; we take it up. It is not happening now, we borrow it from another time zone. The human creature amazes me.
You have been through a lot to have this child, but so has your husband. Certainly, it has not been all roses for him to have his wife out of commission for a year and a new baby in the house, to boot. Maybe his irritation and frustration have escalated just when your patience and strength have taken a nosedive. Maybe his decisions are blurry, too. Maybe the best thing for now is to wait. Wait. Have courage and wait. Cheer up and wait.
Home's Cool! 