2016 flies away

     2016 is quickly becoming just a spot in the rear view mirror. Every year seems to go speeding past faster and faster. It is getting to the place where I barely have time to enjoy the years. They are past before I can do something really crazy, but I do struggle not to conform too much to the rules.
     I kinda like to do things when told you should not do them. I guess that is the juvenile refusal to grow up.

    When Sharon and I were in the Mojave Desert we came across this sign.  Sure the sign says heat warning, hiking is not recommended. What a good reason to go for a little jaunt on a 109 degree day.

You don't have to worry about fighting the crowds when out for a hike in the "Valley of Fire" in July.

     Sharon and I took the family up to Northeast Iowa for a few days because this was the year we have been married for 30 years. Sharon wanted to celebrate last year already. I wonder if it seems it has been "longer" she has had to put up with me than real time can measure.

     Micah was leading our exploration of a trail when he and Matthew decided we could just cross the fence where the sign was posted DO NOT CROSS and continue walking, and sliding down the rock face, and being lost. We finally were able to scramble back up the bluff about straight up and get back on the trail. I do wonder where those boys get the idea they can just wonder off the trails. There was a certain justice here though. When they were younger there was a time or two when they were in tears asking "will we ever find our way back". Ha, now I could ask them the same question.

     When Sharon and I visited Dordt, we went to see Matthew at work. The above scene was what we saw. Ah, yes that old Spoelstra work ethic kicking in. Put your feet up and read. (by the way I just misspelled Spoelstra and spell check thought I was trying to type strapless,hmm.) 

     Tony is in his second year at Dordt. I am starting to remind myself of my father. "Tony you need a haircut". Wow! we were never going to be those old staid people that our parents were, were we? When Sharon and I are in Cedar Rapids we visit with one of Matthew and Tony's professors. We get a kick out of it that she tells people she teaches our sons (plural). I bet people would be surprised to see the lack of family resemblance one of our "sons" has to the rest of our boys.

     We spent a lot of our spare time working on houses this year. As you can see from the above picture I am best at leaning against something while supervising. I find the work is much easier if one of the boys does it, although I reserve the right to say "you did that how?" in that kind of disgusted parental voice all children know and love..

Yep, your right, neither one of those pictures is me working either. 

     They do good work though. Here is a picture of the kitchen of a house we bought that had been rented by an owner who lived out of town and was not watching his property. We had torn out the broken cabinets and broken ceiling, but that was the condition of the floor. I am pretty sure there was a little recreational medication going on by the former tenants. We met a boy about 11 years old who had been living here with his extended family. He said "my uncle isn't right in the head." Wow we figured that out even without a psychiatric evaluation.

     Same area finished and ready to rent. It's our little bit of reformation in a broken world. While the boys slave away I think of myself more as the purchaser. I find the house to purchase they do the work.

     See, here I am asking the age old question of life, "is that floor solid". I do believe some day after jumping on one of these floors I will find myself in the basement bleeding going "help I've fallen and I can't get up."

     God has blessed our family greatly in the past year. It is my prayer that God is deeply involved in each of your lives as well. May 2017 be a year of rejoicing in our Lord and Savoir.

Learn from History

‘Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The quote is most likely due to George Santayana. i think the problem today is not that people do not remember the past but that they have no idea what actually happened in the past. There were stricter gun laws in the " wild West" than we have today. The shootout at OK corral was over the law against carrying a gun into the town of Tombstone. The Earps were deputized to stop the Clantons from carrying loaded weapons into town. 

Today everyone wants to have the "right to bear arms" I would like to have the right to live without reading about another mass shooting of innocents. If they could ban the carrying of weapons in the town of the old west, where guns had to be checked at the stable or the Sheriff's office when you came to town why can't we have the same laws today over 100 years later. it seems to me that having to hand over your weapons on entering a town in the wild west did not bring an end to freedom.
I am so tired of hearing the phrase " only a good man with a gun can stop a bad man with a gun". Ask the families of the dead police officers how well that is working out. The police officers were trained to handle and fire their weapons but the bad guys with a gun still killed them.

I am so tired of hearing the phrase "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Yes people with guns kill people. 
I am not opposed to hunting. I am not opposed to target shooting. I am not opposed to owning guns, but let's get them off our city streets where they do not belong. If we were not a nation where guns were in everyone's hands the counselor in Florida would not have been shot by the police. No one would have called 911 because they mistook the toy the autistic man was carrying to be a gun. Yes criminals will still get guns, I know that, but almost all people can not protect themselves against a criminal by owning or carrying a gun. 
Let's return to the sanity of the wild west and ban guns in our towns. Let's allow the law enforcement officers to know that most of us are not armed and let them arrest everyone they find with a loaded weapon. I am willing to give it a try because what we are doing now is not working.
I think Albert Einstein spoke eloquently about our situation with guns. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

Waiting for Jesus

Wilma Spoelstra broke her hip on Friday. Her right hip broke January 23 and then in March she had a stroke. Life has not been the best of times for Mom in 2016. 

She survived the surgery yesterday to replace her hip. I am not sure that is what she wanted. When she broke her hip in January she had a moment of clarity just before the surgery to replace the right hip and said, "if I die on the operating table, it would not be the worst thing." Later when she was in skilled care for therapy she could not understand why she could not walk. One evening I said "mom you broke your hip, you may not ever walk again". This really sad look came over her face and she looked down for a bit, then she got a smile on her face and she looked back at me and said, "yea, but I am old so it can't be for long".

Here Mom is surrounded by some of her grandchildren at Emily's wedding. 

She has survived so much it is almost hard to image something could actually end her life. She survived brain cancer, almost bled to death from a polyp bleeding in her colon, Broke her sternum and several ribs in her 70's, Has had high blood pressure since she was 50. Her heart is a mess and has been for 20 years, suffers from A-Fib and has been shocked a couple of times to get her heart back in rhythm. She has COPD and at times has trouble breathing. I am sure I am forgetting a few maladies she has survived.

When Dad died 3 years ago I think she spent 6 months just looking at the wall and wondering why she was still here.

Mom as a teenager

This is Mom and me back in the late 70's. 

         I don't know how long God is going to leave Mom here on this earth, but I do know that she knows God has a place prepared for her forever. She is just waiting and sometimes impatiently for Jesus to come get her. It has been painful to see Mom in pain, frustration and sorrow this year, but it has also given me an opportunity to ask several people, " Mom is assured of her place in heaven, are you?" God does things His way and in His time Mom will get to go home.

She will healthy and happy when she gets there.