Murphy's Law

"I'm going to the farm to meet Greg," my husband said Saturday morning. I didn't mind, I was moving slowly and wanted to shampoo and do my hair anyway.  Also, I thought it would be a good time to make some leisurely phone calls.  I'd been wanting to talk to our daughter Amy, but there was no answer.  They all have cell phones, so I tried Shannon, her husband.  Silence.  Neither daughter picked up, either, so as a last resort, I called our grandson Reid.  When he didn't respond, I got into the tub and put a glob of shampoo on my wet hair.  Just then the phone rang.

"Mimi, did you call?" Reid queried.  I explained the scenario to him and he was clueless about his family's whereabouts.  "I'm at work," he said.  Okay.  I finished up and had donned my robe with a towel around my head when Howard came home wanting to take a shower.  (We have only one bathroom.) I would do my hair in the bedroom.  I had barely started, when I heard a thudding crash.  Workmen had been making loud noises all morning doing street repair, so I thought it was that. 

"Come and help me!" I heard from the bathroom.  Oh, no, he must have fallen! I thought, rushing down the hall.  Howard was half-sitting and half lying on the floor, tangled up in the shower curtain with the shower rod and hooks entangled, too.  He had slipped in the tub. At least he wasn't hurt!  But I couldn't get the curtain unwound because he was on part of it.  I finally freed him, and seeing he was okay, I went to answer the ringing phone.

No, it wasn't Amy, but a dear friend who had moved away a couple of months ago. I had to talk to him, so there I was, hair damp and stiff with mousse while we visited until Howard came to talk to him.  Someone with a local number I didn't recognize had been buzzing in, but I would call them back later. Turns out it was an elderly lady at church.  "The reason I let it ring so long was that I was waiting for the answering machine to pick up," she said guilelessly.

It was past noon by the time I rescued my hair and we finally got ourselves together.  I had been wanting to find a casual spring outfit to wear to our future granddaughter-in-law's shower next Saturday, so, even though it was grey and chilly, I hit several stores.  How frustrating!  Anything I liked, they didn't have in my size, or if I found pants, I couldn't match a top with them.  One outfit was a possibility, but it needed sandals, and it might rain the day of the shower (no pun intended). 

If  it turns cool, a pair of the new pastel sneakers would be nice with it, I thought.  The store didn't have any of the right color, nor did the next two stores.  I tried the clothes on at home with some sandals I hadn't worn yet, and they worked!  Now if only it won't rain on Saturday!

Running on Empty

"I just felt out of gas," was my husband's way of describing the way he felt a few days ago as a description of his loss of energy.  Since he was also dizzy and having a headache, we checked it out with the doctor.  He ordered medical tests, even an MRI, although the symptoms could have been from elevated blood sugar.

I have been  helping Howard out all week, especially with the tasks of feeding and watering the chickens.  Today we were doing the chores as usual, and I was relieved to find plenty of water in the pail from yesterday that we could use to fill the chicken waterer.  No dragging the heavy hose for me today, thank goodness.

After gathering the eggs, we were ready to go.  The beautiful morning had grown positively hot!  I opened the car doors to let the heat out and waited for Howard to get in.  He turned on the key, but the car didn't start immediately.  When another try didn't start the motor, I asked suspiciously, "Are we out of gas?"  None was registering on the console dial, and sure enough, I could see a big "E" on the indicator.

"No, we're just parked on a slope and it's not getting to the engine," he said.  "We will have to push it to a level spot."  No way could we do that in this hot sun!  Then he remembered there was a gasoline can in the garage at the top of the hill.  I volunteered to hike up after it, although after I made the trek the contents in the can felt scanty.  I sat at the wheel ready to start the engine after he poured the gas into the tank.

"What's wrong?" I asked, after several minutes.  He had the cover off the nozzle and was trying to remove the spout  from the can.  No gas was getting through the spout!Turns out it had a safety device preventing him from pouring it!  Now what!  Our road service had expired, and all our family was at work or school.  Lord, help us! I prayed.

I tried the engine again and it started!  When we leveled out, it showed 24 miles of gasoline left!  Thank you, God!  But when we got on the highway, nothing was registering.  Thankfully, we made it to the station a few miles down the road.

We had a good laugh about it with our son when he came over to pick up the little girls after school.  Oh, and we had good news to tell him.  Howard's MRI came back completely normal!  If he is out of gas now, it's because of the stricter diet regimen I have him on!

His Mysterious Ways

"Are you going to be here tonight?" the director of our Sunday night singspiration asked as I was leaving the church yesterday.  I said yes, but we might not sing, remembering my misgivings last time.  "Then read something," she suggested.  I thought about that, then on the way home I had an idea.

Our son had recently given my husband  a book of hymns with the stories of how they were written. "Howard, why don't you sing tonight and do one of the songs in the book Greg gave you, and I will read the story behind the song!"  I had already read one that we could use.

He was agreeable, and after lunch I heard him practicing on it when I went into the bedroom.  I found myself singing along absent-mindedly while I was straightening pillows on the bed.  It seemed he was singing it a little too slowly and I heard myself saying, "Do you want me to sing it with you tonight?"  He said okay,  and suggested that after two verses, I would read the story, then we would sing the two concluding verses.

The song was written by a minister of music who had doubts about the salvation of his soloist.  He said the Lord led him to write a song of invitation and have the soloist sing it.  He did, and after the message that night, the soloist was the first one in the altar and gave his heart to the Lord.  The song was Lord, I'm Coming Home, by William J. Kirkpatrick. 

One never knows how the Lord will direct someone.  Last Sunday, Howard had felt bad in church and we went to the doctor the next day.  He has been feeling better this week and was playing his guitar on the platform for the Sunday morning service yesterday, so when prayer requests were taken, I didn't ask prayer for him, but I thought I probably should have. No one else mentioned him, either. 

There was a visting pastor present in the service, and after the song service I was surprised to look up and see him on the platform kneeling in front of Howard and praying for him!  After church I asked him what prompted him to have prayer for my husband.  He said he just felt led to pray for him! His eyes grew wide when I told him Howard had been ill.  I'm glad there are people who listen when God speaks!  (Our song worked out, too, thank you Jesus!)

   

That Your Joy May Be Full

I just received a beautiful wedding invitation!  The lovely script on the envelope  with our names and address gave way to another creamy envelope inside with a personalized Pawpaw and Mimi on it. Our grandson, Grant, is getting married!

Not only that, we are expecting an invitation to our granddaughter Michaela's wedding soon--two weddings in June!  (Not to mention two highschool graduations in May!) Lots of  happy family celebrations are in store as our crop of grandchildren are becoming young adults.

Jesus attended a wedding in Cana as recorded in the Bible in John 2:1.  An embarrassing event occured when they ran out of wine, giving occasion for Jesus's first miracle.  Apparently it would have seemed inhospitable in that culture and reflected badly on the family to have inadequate preparation for such a celebration.

The other night I had a puzzling dream in which I had a lot of company sitting around my table set with nice dishes and water glasses.  I turned to one of my guests and saw she was not drinking from a glass, but from something that looked like a vase!  I immediately went to find her a proper glass out of my considerable stock of glassware.

With consternation, I saw  that the first glass I picked up had a chip in it.  I went to another set and selected another glass, but it had a chip in it, too!  I went from cupboard to china cabinet to dining room hutch with the same results.  I couldn't figure it out, but it was embarrassing.  Then I noticed one of the guests was in a wedding dress.  I particularly noticed her pretty white shoes as she lifted the hem of her gown to show them to me.  (Perhaps that was because I had been looking for shoes for the upcoming weddings.)

Later, as I reflected on my dream I thought about the marriage supper of the Lamb, and how there will be no imperfections there.  Jesus is coming for a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, Ephesians 5:27.  In offering my guest a glass of water with a chip or crack, I was offering her a leaky vessel.  To offer the water of life to sinners, our own vessel must not be leaky nor our testimony drained away.  We are to be continually filled with the Spirit!

Another small envelope was tucked into Grant and Jessica's invitation, an RSVP for dinner and dancing in the evening a few hours after the ceremony and cake reception at church. Dancing?  Well, I'm sure they had dancing at the wedding Jesus attended, and what occasion is more jubilant than a wedding when joy spills over right down to your feet?  I'm not a dancer, but I'm sure I'll enjoy watching the young people in their gaiety and hilarity in the euphoria that goes with a wedding!  After all, I have a personalized invitation!

A Word Fitly Spoken

My day started out on a good note when I accidentally ran across a comment made two days ago on a blog post written last fall!  For some reason I wanted to look up the post, Voila, Violas!,  I think because it's time to plant flowers.  When I got to the bottom of the page, lo and behold, there was an actual "Comment" from a perfect stranger!  Usually people don't leave comments there because it's a little complicated to post one.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to read, "You're amazing!! Makes me so happy to see Jesus in my Google search on Pansies/Voilas...He is here!! In every bit of my day...bless the Lord...and bless you!! on Voila, Violas!"   It was signed, Jesus Person. To me, it seemed like a word of encouragement from the Lord, as sometimes I wonder if writing Heartthoughts is even a benefit to anybody, although I would probably write it even if no one read it.  It was a special blessing that a fellow believer whom I had never met enjoyed and appreciated the Christian slant of my blog!

Then when I picked up my One Year Bible, I found the Old Testament reading for today was on Deborah, the prophetess, which is an amazing story of a very brave woman.  She was an ordinary woman, a housewife, that the Lord had called to be a judge and counselor.  Her courtroom was the shade of a palm tree, where as Judges 4:5 says, "...the children of Israel came up to her for judgment." 

Apparently, she also acted as military adviser, as she ordered Barak, a military general, to deploy an army of 10,000 men to defend the Israelites from harassing foes, promising to manipulate the enemy leader, Sisera, to come against them.  Furthermore, she said she would deliver him into Barak's hand.  Verse 8 contains the brave reply of Barak, "If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then  I will not go." Obviously he realized God was in her.

Deborah not only went with him, but under God's direction, advised him of  the strategy to be used.  In the end, the victory was won, but as Deborah had predicted, the glory went to a woman--actually two women, Deborah and Jael, a fearless woman who drove a tent peg through Sisera's head. 

Deborah is remembered as a respected leader who listened to God and offered praise to Him ("Bless the Lord!", Judges 5:2.).  Her designation for herself was only "a mother in Israel."

I don't claim to be a prophetess, just a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.  But even as Deborah had a sphere of influence, so does every woman, and it is my prayer that some word I write will be a blessing to a reader (and it is a blessing to me when I hear about it!).

New Life

When our son bought property in the country last fall, the trees had already lost their leaves, so they all  had the grey, dead look of winter.  Some were obviously dead and had fallen along the banks of their pond (they made wonderful winter bonfires!), but we weren't sure how many were still alive or had been lost due to severe drought or age.

Now there is something to look forward to every morning as we drive to the farm on our "chicken chores" and are delighted at the daily change in the trees.  Some that we thought were surely dead have surprised us with a million little decorations, like ribbon bows, appearing overnight and covering the tree tops. Each tree has its own time-table. 

Many have been showing a hint of green for weeks and are now sporting small new leaves uncurling like little baby fists, while others are at different stages in their leaf budding.  The overall effect is one of many shades of green blending into a verdant sea of emerald.  It is one of my favorite things, especially when I see the lavender of a red-bud adding its pale beauty to nature's pastel pallette.

My husband has three bantum hens and a rooster in a wire pen with a nesting box of hay to collect their tiny eggs.  We noticed an egg in the nest today (they are often on the straw floor) and when we passed by the cage again, the smallest hen was sitting on the nest.  Probably just laying another egg, I thought.  But she remained on the nest the whole while we were at the farm.  Now I think she has the brooding instinct and was setting on the egg (possibly adding another to it!).  It would be unimaginably cute to see tiny baby chicks following her around!

The goose I thought was setting on a nest on a small island on the pond has disappeared.  False alarm, I guess.  She and the gander are both gone, probably to catch up with the rest of their flock heading north.  But a new possibility opened up today!  Someone wants to give us a couple of swans!  Swan Lake!  I can just see it now as they gracefully float on the scenic body of water.

Spring is such a season of renewal and new life.  I've been harboring a sweet secret that I learned a few weeks ago, but since they have announced it, I can say that we are going to be grandparents again!  Our youngest son and his wife are expecting a baby (boy, I hope) in November to add to their family of two beautiful little girls!  I am just as excited as I was when our first one was expected, 20 grandchildren ago!  We may be getting older, but there is nothing like a new baby in the family to make one feel young!

Turning Eight

What a wonderful celebration we just attended!  We had already gone to a family mini-birthday party for our 8-year-old granddaughter on Wednesday, but tonight was the camp out, weiner roast and adventure party planned to include her school friends and other friends of the family. 

The odds of it actually happening were not very high, what with wintry, wet weather the past few days.  But today, springtime returned with a benevolent sun and southern breezes.  We had really not planned to go, but when my husband heard the word, "hotdogs," he was up for it.

We drove up to a scene of remarkable beauty and rustic charm.  The "lake," the beneficiary of recent spring rains, spread wide and full in its picturesque curve, ripples lapping at the canoe silhouetted in the evening light as it was paddled, Pocahontas-like, by our daughter-in-law with her little Indian princess occupants.

Other adults sat visiting on lawn furniture and smooth stumps that circled a firepit where wieners and marshmallows would be roasted later.  We were on the verdant, grassy pasture slope of our son's farm.  A tent had been set up for the birthday campout, but first, rides on a sled pulled by the four-wheeler were enjoyed by the kids, logs of fallen trees had to be balanced on, and exploratory walks along the pond banks had to  be taken.

"Look at these logs!" I said to my husband.  They were lying in smooth repose, having lost their bark to an insect infestation.  "Look at the pattern on the wood!" I exclaimed.  The worm trails cut into their surfaces looked like some kind of ancient heiroglyphics covering the length of the logs.  They were beautiful!  I'd like to have a thin section for wall art for my living room!  My friend took a picture, and the flat image on her phone screen could have been a framed masterpiece!

We feasted our eyes on the panorama before us of horses grazing peacefully on the opposite shore, the sparkling water and the wide blue sky above  with a pale white moon riding high, ready to give its light when the golden sun sank beneath the horizon. 

By that time, we had feasted on cook-out food and were sticky from blackened marshmallows, so we headed home, wondering how long the brave ones and their chaperones would stick it out before they carried their sleeping bags into the farmhouse with four walls and a roof and a crackling fireplace as the night grew chilly.  Sleeping under the stars viewed through the mesh screens of the tent roof might prove a little premature, but at least the little braves would have been initiated into the delights of the coming season.  God surely has beautiful party venues!