A Bit of This and That and Another Thursday

I was busy today.

I woke up and starting working on my Bible study lesson. Hubby and I are working through Beth Moore's Believing God. I had a hard time getting into last week's lessons and had suggested maybe we dump the rest of the study. Boy, am I glad Hubby said we should just stick it out and finish it. This week's lessons are very good. A little hard and sticky and heart wrenching, but good. I was engrossed in it for 1 1/2 hours this morning!

My next task of the day was to clean the Master bath and bedroom. Yuck. Not my favorite job and I even managed to twist my knee and put a scratch in Hubby's dresser. Now I can hardly walk. Wonderful. I told hubby I was pretty sure this meant that I need to hire someone to clean my house. :)

Despite my knee, I managed to make a yummy, wonderful Beef Stew (courtesy of Pioneer Woman's website), Cornbread (I added some frozen corn to my regular recipe and it turned out pretty darn good! At least I thought so...) and Blonde Brownies.

After supper Hubby told me I had to take a nice, hot bath. What a meany, huh? It actually felt really good on my sore knee. Hubby even cleaned up the kitchen. I like that guy. A lot. I think I'll keep him. Forever and ever.

I have such exciting Thursdays, don't I? I wrote about another Thursday here.

Today ended with an amazingly beautifully gorgeous sunset.

 

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
   the name of the LORD is to be praised. Psalm 113:3

Oh Why Not?

I haven't been very consistent in participating in Joyce's fun questions of the week. Just decided to jump in today  -- because it's fun!

1. Have you ever been 'asked' to report for jury duty? Were you chosen to serve? If not, were you happy or disappointed?
I have only been "asked" once for jury duty. It was when my children were very small. I wrote back and asked to be excused because I was their only child-care. I was excused!
When our daughter was 19 she was "asked" to report for jury duty. The draw-back was she was a college student 500 miles away. She had to jump through several hoops to get excused including getting the college to send her schedule to the county. Good grief!

2. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being very), how mechanically inclined are you? Give an example to back up your answer.

I don't think there's a number low enough that matches my mechanically ability. I know nothing about cars.  I take that back. I know how to take my car to the mechanic to get it serviced! Hubby and I are pretty good at getting our cars serviced on the recommended schedule. I'd give me a 10 for that! 

I do know how to run my sewing machine. Repair it? No. Last year I gave my old sewing machine to my daughter. I spent several minutes telling her how to thread it and how to oil it and a few other things. I was so into what I was doing that I never noticed my son-in-law showing my hubby how to fly fish --- in the living room ---- right behind me.

3. Beets-cabbage-cauliflower-butternut squash....of the four, which is your favorite fall vegetable?
Beets: Yuck (Did you know that at McDonald's in New Zealand they put a slice of beet on the hamburgers?) (Such an informational blog you're reading, huh?)
Cabbage: Okay
Cauliflower: Not Bad
Butternut Squash: I don't think I've ever eaten one, except in a frozen meal ravioli.
I love acorn squash (I know it's not on the list, but I wanted to talk about it anyway!) with butter and brown sugar. Sadly, I was never able to really sell it to any one else in the family, so I rarely fix it.

4. What do you recommend to overcome self-pity? 
Get yourself busy doing something to occupy yourself and get your mind on something else.
Read Psalm 139.

5. Do you enjoy classical music?
Yes. I have a CD with cello music on it that I just absolutely love.
(Although when I am in the car alone, I would rather listen to music that I can sing loudly to. :) )

6. October is National Book Month...what's on your reading list this month?
I love to read! I always have a stack of books waiting to be read.
I'm about finished with reading The Help. We saw the movie a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. I started reading the book after that and can barely put it down. I admit to staying up a bit too late reading a couple of nights this week. And yesterday I went to the grocery store and just sat in the car in the parking lot reading for 45 minutes while it was raining. I haven't quite decided what to read next. I have a stack of them in my night stand. I have the Yada Yada House of Hope Series, two Francine Rivers books, (Her Mother's Hope and Her Daughter's Dream) and several more.

7. What is your idea of 'cute'? 




For those of you that know me and have read this blog know that I am not a fan of dogs. But this one? He's a cutie. This is Megan and Zach's dog, Charley, with a ball I gave him (so he has more toys to play with). But evidently this puppy is too obsessed with this awesome ball I gave him, so it has to be put away. Despite all that I think this is a cute picture. I think Charley is definitely smiling, don't you?

8. Insert your own random thought here.
I can't think of a random thought so I'll just end with a Far Side cartoon. You're welcome.

When The Music Stopped, Part Three

This concludes the article written by my dad after my mom's heart attack two years ago.
(To read the first two parts go here and here.)

I identified with the Psalmist who is grieving and moaning, wailing with heavy hurt.  He does not cry out just once in a while, rather morning, noon and night.  It is an unceasing expression of woe regarding the sorrow of his suffering.

 I could do the same, and I did!

But note the words, “the Lord saves me” and “He hears my voice.”  We can trust our God’s promise that “He is active to transform circumstances to bring good out of evil." 

But it is almost too easy to recite that promise to others when one is still suffering from overwhelming, unhealed wounds.  That is religious phoniness. 

As long as our mind is not settled about an issue, we might as well be honest with God and with ourselves by pouring out our feelings about it.

Then on November 8,  I remember hearing a children’s message from 1 Thessalonians 5:18 about being commanded to be thankful in all circumstances, not necessarily for them.  The community of believers helped bring me back into discovering the way of God.  Isn’t that what the church is supposed to do?

Then I was assured that the Lord hears my voice.  We all know that when we complain continually to those around us, they get tired of listening and pretty well want to close their ears to our entreaty.

“In contrast the Lord will always listen to our cries, even if they are about the same subject for the billionth time.”

Being sustained by God is a way of saying we can endure.  It is the kind of support that begins the process of emotional healing. But the last part of the verse quoted, “He will never let the righteous be shaken/or moved” carries the connotation that it will not last forever.  We may fall, but we won’t be trampled in the dust when we are down. 

Last week as my wife was preparing for bed and looked at her toe-less feet she began quietly weeping.  Should I have told her that all things work together for those called by God, or should I have said, your tears are beautiful, for while your physical body has mostly healed, it seems apparent that your emotions are now catching up with the healing process?

The next night she claimed this verse from Psalm 119:92-93 as her own:

   If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

  I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.

There is still the pain of what is happening to my best friend and soul mate of 57 years.   But now, I’ve begun to again appreciate how deeply I am loved by God and of the suffering involved in bearing the cost of loving. 

Some of the circumstances of life bring us happiness.  Others bring us deep sorrow and pain.  But both happiness and sorrow rest on the bedrock of this one fundamental fact:  it is true that Jesus Christ suffered, died and rose from the dead and demonstrated for all time our reconciliation to God.  God will never take His eye from us.  The face of God is always smiling upon you. 

Always!  

Amen.

Like I said, it's been two years since Mom first had the heart attack, since that night that she started having shortness of breath and couldn't call out to my dad who was upstairs in their house. She texted him on his cell-phone "Help". He came to see what was wrong and ended up taking her to the ER.

Mom has recovered. She has learned to walk without her toes. Here is a picture of my parents at my daughter's wedding a little more than a year ago. She wanted to dance and they practiced at home in their kitchen.

How sweet is God for giving them some more years together?

When The Music Stopped, Part Two

Yesterday I posted a part of an article my dad wrote after my mom had a serious heart attack two years ago. You can go here to read that first post.

Like I said yesterday, the Triple By-pass surgery Mom had was the easy part. She had a myriad of other complications including: pulmonary edema, kidney failure, blood clots and a very a bad reaction to an anticoagulant  drug. That somehow caused the tissue in her hands and feet to swell and even damaged the tissue in her toes to the point that they needed to be amputated.

These are the things my dad had to deal with for about four months. Here's Part Two of When The Music Stopped. (A couple of paragraphs are repeated from yesterday.)

I must confess that there were days and nights when the music stopped—repeated issues of pulmonary edema, kidney failure, constipation, then at 6:30 PM on October 28 watching her stop breathing, hearing the call for code blue, then seeing the pulse reading go from 53 to 35 to nothing… for a full four minutes. 

Would I be single again?  No one to share my life with!  Would there be brain damage?  I felt numb.  Was there a God?  How could I encourage my wife, when I was so empty?  Why not just crank up some happy thoughts like a Christian ought to do?

I was afraid.  I trusted God, I thought, but I was afraid.  I thought a Christian should not be afraid.  What is God up to? 

Psalm 56 provided encourgement.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you,

            In God, whose word I praise—

In God I trust and am not afraid.

            What can mere mortals do to me?

At the very time when we are afraid, that is the time for trust!  Then I read this paragraph from a book called My Soul Waits to my wife: 

Usually in times when we are frightened, we try hard not to feel fear.  Attempting to push it under, however, can bring a volcanic explosion of panic or terror when we can no longer keep the lid on all that anxiety we’ve been struggling to keep corked.  This psalm, by contrast, suggests a healthier managing of emotions—dealing with fear by accepting its reality and learning to trust in the midst of it.”

Emotions run like a roller coaster.  Fear, anxiety, trust, doubt.  Is my hope merely wishful thinking?  Where is God?  Does God really know what is going on? 

Then we read Psalm 13. 

How long, Lord?  Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts,

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me, and answer, LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

I realized that as long as I wrestled with my own thoughts I would never be able to move beyond being numb.  I had to let God be God and discover the way of God. 

Closely allied with our fears is our doubt, our lack of trust.  I think both are very real to most of us.  Both urge us to take God seriously, to ask of God the hard questions, then depend on God in substantial ways.  Sorting through our fears and our doubts enable us to examine our beliefs and filter out our wishful thinking about God from the challenging wisdom of who is God.

But the down moments would continue as the toes turned into raisins and it was clear they would need to be amputated and the triple by-pass surgery was the easy part.

Together we read from Psalm 31.

But I trust in you, Lord;

I say, “You are my God.”

My times are in your hands.

Our trusting does not depend on how good we are at trusting—for we wavered.  Our trusting depends on the trustworthy Lord of the universe.  We cannot trust other so-called sources of security—that would be making a god out of whatever we thought might relieve our anxiety.

Psalm 31 continues:

In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!”

Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.

Panic prevents one from accurately assessing the situation. 

I don’t need this.  My church doesn’t need this!  How can I fulfill my call when there is so much distraction?  If only my wife’s health were just the by-pass surgery and not this other stuff.  Why can’t I have time to heal emotionally?  Why does all this stuff keep coming? 

“Wouldn’t it be good, we think, if we could choose our struggles and choose how it comes to us?” (My Soul Waits)

But I needed to choose to trust God even when I didn’t feel like it or even if it’s a struggle I don’t want to have.

It was Psalm 55 that enabled me to renew my trust.

As for me, I call to God and the Lord saves me.

Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice…

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Several nights as I drove home from the hospital, I begged God, “Lord, have mercy on her!  Lord, have mercy on her!”  That was my “breath prayer” for the 15 minute drive through downtown, past churches, past the Dairy Queen.  Getting some peace by the time I was a few blocks from home. 

(Come back tomorrow for the conclusion)

When The Music Stopped Part One

Late one night two years ago this week, I received a phone call from my sister telling me the news that our mom had suffered a heart attack. What a scary phone call that was! We rushed to the hospital the next morning to see my mom in the ICU. She was so serious she had someone sitting at the foot of her bed through the night. I remember talking with her, reading a Psalm to her, telling her about a recent vacation (we were coming home from the vacation when we got the call).

As I was sorting through some old emails recently I came across one from my dad that had an article he had written attached to it. He had written this article about four months after that phone call from my sister. I asked him for permission to post his article here. I think the thought process of a spouse watched his beloved of 57 years struggle for her life is priceless. Maybe it will help a reader.

A little background:

Mom's heart attack resulted in Triple By-Pass surgery. The surgery turned out to be the easy part compared to several serious complications afterwards.

Here is Part One of my dad's article:

When the Music Stops

Do you remember the game musical chairs that we played as kids?  That’s where the chairs are all lined up in two rows, back to back with one less chair than the number of players.  The kids circle the chairs very cautiously because when the music stops everyone is to sit down in a chair.  And one person is always left out. In the next round, another chair is removed, until there is only one chair and two people.  One obviously got left out.  

It’s a game of losing, not winning.

As a kid we had to deal with the emotions of no chair, getting left out to stand by the wall and watch the others circle the chairs.

Maybe the game prepared us for being a grown-up because we can all think of times when the music stops—we are left out, left alone, we lost the game. 

I’ll guess that most everyone here has had some time in their life when the music stopped.  Maybe it was an illness that came on suddenly, a financial problem, a divorce you didn’t want.  Was it compassionate friends who think you should be “over” your loss now, or an envious liar who spread false rumors about you?  Or is it fears for the future or some misery from the past.  Is these days of economic distress and time pressures we all know those who are searching for work or some sort of security the world offers, yet keep coming up short. 

My wife and I have found quite a bit of consolation in the Psalms as we’ve been dealing with her heart attack and subsequent serious complications. 

I suggest that the Psalms are full of helps for us when the music stops.  There are a lot of images in the Psalms -- powerful, descriptive, suggestive images. Listen.

"My God is a strong rock.” “In the shadow of his rock I will rest." "In the shelter of His wings I will take refuge."

The images abound. God is seen as a safe harbor -- a shepherd's arms -- our life is one in which we pass through the valley of the shadow of death -- and we walk by still waters and rest in green pastures. The images are on every page. 

The Psalmist had visions and plans that often were often frustrated by his enemies to such an extent that David fears for his life.  These days our enemies are not usually people trying to harm us physically.  We might consider that they are those we experienced when the music stopped for us. 

I must confess that there were days and nights when the music stopped—repeated issues of pulmonary edema, kidney failure, constipation, then at 6:30 PM on October 28 watching her stop breathing, hearing the call for code blue, then seeing the pulse reading go from 53 to 35 to nothing… for a full four minutes. 

Would I be single again?  No one to share my life with!  Would there be brain damage?  I felt numb.  Was there a God?  How could I encourage my wife, when I was so empty?  Why not just crank up some happy thoughts like a Christian ought to do?

I was afraid.  I trusted God, I thought, but I was afraid.  I thought a Christian should not be afraid.  What is God up to? 

I'll continue this over the next two days.... stay tuned.

A Thursday in My Life

One of the things I like to indulge myself in is getting pedicures.  I had never had one before we moved to Singapore (13 years ago). That's where I was introduced to the magic of having someone else paint my toenails and give me a foot massage. Heaven.

I found a place here in Smaller Town, Minnesota that offers good pedicures for a fairly reasonable, not outrageous price. (I am willing to pay someone to paint my toenails so they don't look like a 5 year-old did it, which is what it looks like when I do it myself.) This morning I indulged in one more pedicure before my poor feet are tucked away for the long, long winter.

(Side note: When I tell people about my blog I usually tell them they'll learn more about me than they probably really want to know. Today's post is a perfect example. A-hem.)

Today's color is a nice fall color, kinda orangey-brown with sparkles. I don't remember the name of it because, have you noticed the names of nail polish lately? There are names such as I'm Not Really a Waitress, You're a Pisa Work and Meet Me at the Star Ferry. (Any of my readers know where the Star Ferry is?)

My feet are happy now and will likely have to wait five six seven months until spring for their next indulgence.

I spent the afternoon writing an email to a high school friend. I haven't seen her in a long time and like to be able to reconnect even if virtually. That first sentence in this paragraph implies that I spent the whole afternoon on the email. I really didn't. After I sent it I realized I forgot to ask her the question I wanted to ask her in the first place. Oh well. I'll just ask the next time.

I also wasted spent some time this afternoon trying to figure out how to get Three Stars on the Angry Bird game on my phone. Google it if you don't know what that is that I spend way too much time on but it's fun. (Great run-on sentence there, huh?)

For supper tonight I thought a mixed cultural meal sounded yummy. I made Fried Green Tomatoes (a little southern USA) and Fried Rice (a little Asian). The meal was finished off with a HoneyCrisp Apple for a little Minnesota.

So that was my Thursday. You're welcome.

(Rachel, dear, I want you to know I wrote this post just for you since you told me you like to read my blog and keep caught up on our lives. I hope you weren't too bored. Love you and your family!)

(For my other readers, Rachel and her little family are living in China and showing the Chinese people God's love. Read their blog and be encouraged. They are amazing.)

The Weekend of Movies

Weekends with my hubby? The best! What could be better than hanging out with my best friend?

What am I doing? Why I am writing a blogpost about my weekend before the weekend is actually over! I am so proud of myself.

Friday night we had a date night. Yes, after 27 years of marriage, I still love a date night.

There is a Golf Club in this tiny town. No we don't golf. Well, I don't golf, hubby does. I drive the golf cart. :)  Anyway... we joined the golf club for the winter season. Not for golfing, of course. Confused? There is a quite nice restaurant there (which, believe me, the words nice and restaurant and this town do not go together). Anyway... we joined the golf club for $5 so we can eat there through the winter. We did it last year and really enjoyed it. Very reasonable fee, if you ask me.

Friday night we had dinner there (yummy!) and then went to see the movie The Help. Have you seen it? It's a pretty good movie. The book is next on the list for me to read. I've been told it's a good read. (I must pause here to say how it was a big deal to see a movie in the theater in this town. The theater closed down several months ago and we have been without ever since and have had to resort to driving for an hour to see a movie. The theater here opened again recently under new management.)

I know this is all quite riveting, but, hey, when one lives in a small town in the middle of nothing, things like this count.

Saturday found us heading to a local apple orchard. If only we had little kids to take there for all the chaos fun they were offering. Goodness, there were a lot of kids. We just bought apples. Obvious, huh? But have you ever had a HoneyCrisp apple? One from Minnesota? They are THE best! I've tried imposter HoneyCrisps grown in other states, but they really do have a different taste. The ones grown here are sooo good.

Saturday evening we watched True Grit.  Can I say our reaction to that movie was: meh? I know lots of people loved it and even found some spiritual message in it. We just couldn't see it. Seeking revenge and killing seems not very spiritual.

Sunday found us doing the usual, church, lunch out and a nap and watching football. I'll just leave it at that. I will say that both of us did not participate in both activities. One watched football, one napped. Guess.

And now I will write about the most exciting thing that happened this weekend. Before I tell you about it, I'll show you a picture of it:

This is a picture of the kitchen window over the kitchen sink. What you don't see are all the bugs and ewww that were on the window and the screen. It's a big deal to me that the window is clean now because I've looked through all the yuck for almost a year. It was one of those jobs that I kept putting off. This house has windows that tilt in for easy cleaning. The trick is to figure out how exactly to do that. And this window is over the sink, so not very easy to get at. So I asked Hubby to help. He provided the muscle and the engineering know-how and I provided the Windex and the rag and the internet surfing. What does internet surfing have to do with washing windows? I wasn't just sitting there letting Hubby do all the work. I Googled the brand of window to figure out how exactly to get the windows tilted in for that easy washing feature. Once again, Google came through! (How did we ever survive before we had that resource?)

Now that I know how to work those windows, I have no excuse to start working on the other windows in the house. Sigh.

After all that rigorous internet surfing window washing was done, I decided to head to the basement to watch one of the chick-flicks I have recorded on the DVR. I settled in with my yummy HoneyCrisp apple and spoonful of peanut butter (best snack ever invented), and hit play for the movie 27 Dresses. It was a lot better than I though it would be, but I have no idea how it ended. The recording stopped before it was over! Sad. Now I think I'll have to rent it.

And now that there is only 25 minutes left to the weekend, I better hit the publish button.