S.T.O.P.

In the last two months, since I discovered cancer had returned with a vengeance, I’ve really tried to look to God for my comfort and to release things to him. And most of the time, this works quite well. I truly feel he has given me peace, comfort and even joy in the process. I hope this is reflected in what I write.

But once in a while, I crash. Anxiety grips me by the throat and won’t let go.This week was one of those days. It hit particularly hard in the afternoon. I was alone and my heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do. I tried reading in my Bible. Nope. I tried reading another book. Nope. I prayed, I cried out to God for help. I was crying.

And God showed up so directly and quickly. First, we had received the Banner, our church magazine. As I quickly flipped through it, I noticed an article about Managing Emotions. One thing caught my eye: S.T.O.P

S- Stop

T- Take a break

O - Observe how I am feeling inside and outside and what it going on in the environment around me.

P - Proceed mindfully and prayerfully.

I decided I need to change the scene so I went outside. I could tell immediately that my heart rate was slowing down. I was walking and crying and trying to decide who I could contact to help me. (I have COVID so I can’t just show up at friend’s house or go somewhere)  Immediately, I receive a text from Betsy, a long-time friend and former co-worker. “How are you? Do you need anything today”. I felt there could hardly be a more direct answer to prayer. I told her what was happening and could she come and walk with me. She left work and came. That helped a lot.

When she left, I found a package from a friend from college years, Lorelei. In it was a comfy robe, so soft and cute. It feels like being wrapped in a hug. She made it and packaged it up a few days before so that it arrived right when I needed it. She had no idea that God would have it come at just at the right time.

The rest of my afternoon was better. I put on my Pandora Christian station and wrapped Christmas presents. We videoed with one of our grandsons who was sick and then a bit later the two whose program we missed. 

And yet, God continues on. This morning, I received a phone call from a friend and elder at church, Steve. He felt he needed to call and tell me a story. So he talked to me about his Sunday School class and it really did brighten my day.

There’s a song by City Alight - Jesus, Strong and Kind. This has been my theme song, the one I return to the most. You can always run to Jesus, Jesus Strong and Kind. Jesus came as my friend in 3 distinct friends who didn’t know at the time that he was using them.

I know that almost everyone I know would rush to my aid. I am so blessed. Many have showed up in various ways and will continue to do so. I’m thankful for each one and I know too that God has orchestrated it,  at just the right time. But I wanted to express how quickly and directly Jesus responded to my cry this week when I didn’t know how or where to turn. He took over and organized it, even planning it out before I knew I would need it. That’s our amazing God!

You can always run to Jesus, Jesus Strong and Kind.

Jesus Strong and Kind - see the video

Jesus said that if I thirst

I should come to Him

No one else can satisfy

I should come to Him

Jesus said, if I am weak

I should come to Him

No one else can be my strength

I should come to Him

For the Lord is good and faithful

He will keep us day and night

We can always run to Jesus

Jesus, strong and kind

Jesus said that if I fear

I should come to Him

No one else can be my shield

I should come to Him

For the Lord is good and faithful

He will keep us day and night

We can always run to Jesus

Jesus, strong and kind

Jesus said, if I am lost

He will come to me

And He showed me on that cross

He will come to me

For the Lord is good and faithful

He will keep us day and night

We can always run to Jesus

Jesus, strong and kind

For the Lord is good and faithful

He will keep us day and night

We can always run to Jesus

Jesus, strong and kind

Jesus, strong and kind

 by Sharon

Good Vibes? Kind Thoughts? Prayer!

I’ve been noticing lately that when someone is ill, they ask for good vibes, kind thoughts and prayers. My husband and I were talking. Exactly what is a good vibe? How do you send them? Is there some sort of account where they go? How are they used? How many do you need? I can certainly think kind thoughts but once again, how do they help someone? The only way I know to change things is through prayer. And I would imagine that part of the problem is that our prayers are not always answered the way we want. So perhaps this is why people equate them with good vibes and kind thoughts. But God is not a vending machine. You don’t plug in your prayer and get what you want.

He is the designer of the Universe. He made you and me and we are masterpieces. Time in creation always points me to God. This world did not happen by accident. 

Prayer is powerful and it can definitely change things. Perhaps in the case of illness, the prayer does make a sick person well. (See James 5:14 and Matthew 8 & 9 for other instances of healing). But it might not. The healing might come in eternity (for those who believe).  The healing might be instant or it might evolve very slowly.  Healing might not look like we want it to. But God always hears our prayer and responds.

God has revealed himself in his creation and his word, the Bible. And if you truly want healing, that’s the best place to start. Don’t look into good vibes or kind thoughts. They will not change things. 

God wants us to run to him for anything. You can always bring it to him. Whatever it is, you can pour it out to him. Imagine him sitting next you and just talk to him. But ultimately he loves us, he designed us and he wants us to come to him because of who he is and not for what we think we can get. He wants a relationship. 

If you want true healing, seek him. Not these other things.

The lyrics below are as true today as when this originally written by preacher Joseph M. Scriven as a poem in 1855 to comfort his mother, who was living in Ireland while he was in Canada.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He'll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear
May we ever, Lord, be bringing all to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright unclouded there will be no need for prayer
Rapture, praise and endless worship will be our sweet portion there.

by Sharon

remodel started

We started on a house we closed on last week.

There were 4 rooms with drop ceilings. We have torn those out and will patch any cracks in the ceiling.

the doors and the trim are removed from these doors because we are going to close them in. No need for 2 doors into the bathroom and a closet.

The walls will need work around the doorways and the bottom trim. This room had paneling on the walls.

Pretty sketchy around the sliding door.

The roof leaked at one time and this upper corner needed to have the old plaster removed and a new drywall patch put in.

The toilet is setting in one of the bedrooms as of this afternoon.

Needed to remove the toilet so we could get this sit in tub out of the house.

The house was livable when we bought it but it was not at our standards.

We are tearing stuff out before we can start putting it back the way we want it.

God does that at times in our lives as well. Sometimes he has to tear things out of our lives that we have gotten used to, but are not His standards. We might be comfortable living with the sins we are enmeshed in until God comes along and says, this may be painful, but your life will be better with Me once I tear these things out of your life and replace them with something better. Don't underestimate the remodeling work of God in our lives.

 

Upgrade

We finished a house last week. I had scraped the house and primed the bare wood. First I was using a "Rose" primer till I ran out

 

Then I used an oil primer that had an interesting yellow color. matthew said it looked like the house had measels and was nauseous. 

Finished painting it. Looks better. The doors are painted "fire weed"

Even the kitchen turned out ok.

painted all the walls and was able to save all the oak flooring.

It turned out to be a pretty nice house

There was some doubt as to how long it would take to finish the house because it was a wreck when we purchased it.

The house was filthy and the owner appears to have been unable to throw anything away. He had sealed the house up too tightly so there was a moisture problem.

We didn't even have to discuss if we were redoing the tub and shower

New Tile and shower valve. Only way to go!

The man who lived in this house had tried to save by sealing up the house. I don't know what his issues were but he ended up livng in a house with a moisture problem, no hot water, piles of useless stuff and filth.

He tried to solve problems his way and it didn't work. Often we all try to fix our own lives and we can't. It is only when we turn everything over to God that God fixes our lives. That is easy to say but hard to do. 

 

All junk

We are scheduled to close on a house this week. We were asked to make an offer on the house because it has some issues. The owner had health problems which were caused by a stroke if I remember correctly. Family just wants rid of the house and the state gets the proceeds to pay for medical costs.

The house is being sold as is where is and all the junk in it goes with the house. There is about 2 foot of stuff piled across the floor. Kinda curious what is in the unopened packages that came in the mail.

Matthew told me if there was still free pizza with the tear off proof of purchase on the boxes we could get a lot of free pizza.

Makes one wonder how anyone could live in the house. How do you walk on top of 2 foot of trash. When we met the family member to look at the house, she wanted us to make an offer without going inside. She was embarassed with the condition of the inside. Our answer was no unlocked door and we walk away. We don't do blind purchases.

There was not even a path through the junk. Had to climb up at the front door and walk over the top.

We encouraged the family to look for another buyer who might give them a higher price. I told the attourney who contacted us to look for another buyer. We know we do not have the highest bids in Oskaloosa right now for this kind of houses. I even gave them some ideas of where to look for another buyer. They took our offer.

 This is going to take us a while to haul empty when we get around to cleaning it out.

Question is did the community fail this man. Did he need help and no one was there to provide it. I know family members cleaned out the house once. When they requested guardianship they were denied. We do have people who are failing. How do we help them if they don't think they need help?

 

A time to think

Sharon and I went away for a few days

It was a time to slow down just a bit and think about things.

Sharon loves to walk trails.

We were walking along the top of a bluff.

I have a bad habit of wandering off the trails. I called back to Sharon "be careful the ground isn't stable here." Yea, it wasn't. I tried to catch hold of a tree as I fell. Sharon says she just remembers me spinning like a top. 

No broken bones just a couple of gashes.

I did learn to hang onto trees when the footing was iffy after that.

When looking at sharon's photos, I see I was on my phone dealing with issues too much of the time. Here I had just got back up the bluff and into the parking lot and have to answer someone. Still a bit shaky and honestly feeling some shock.

On the beach the next day dealing with another issue.

Oh, look, once again answering someone.

I spent some time this trying to figure out how to righteously deal with some situations. Cain asked God "Am I my brother's keeper?" That is a question I ask myself. Cain was asking because he had killed his brother and did not want to confess. 

I am asking myself that question because we have tenants who are not paying. There is always a reason why they have no money. The dog food was purchased. The dumpster is full of garbage every week but they have no money for rent. My response has been, "I am not your daddy. I can't support you." But I have been supporting them by supplying unpaid for housing.

Sharon took a picture of this waterfall. It is fake. The city pumps the water up to a high point and there you have it, a waterfall, but it is fake. I don't want to be a fake servant of Jesus and not live like he commanded. I don't want to be walking on ground that is not stable and end up falling off the cliff morally. 

This stone formation is called the devils door. I want to walk with God and not walk through the devil's door of selfishness, but I would be wrong to enable tenants to buy many "things" and not pay the rent because they think "he is too nice to make us pay".

So I needed some time to walk and think. I may have a responsibility to care for the poor, but first off they need to be poor. I have been told by tenants they can not work because they got hurt. They are talking to the wrong guy there. I have nerve and muscle damage in my arms from an accident when I was a teenager. My father was deaf, my maternal grandfather was blind. My paternal greatgrandfather had a wooden leg. All of us worked and paid our bills. 

So how do I treat those who owe us with love. Sometimes what is required is a hard lesson, there are priorities in life. If you have 3 bags of dog food in the house and haven't paid me, you are moving on out because the dog is more important than me. The dog may be important to them but someone else can support it, not me.

Yea I think that is justice. 

If they could pay the rent when they earned $15 per hour but now can't when they earn $18 per hour (inflation is 8% and the pay raise was 20%), They are going to be moving out. 

Yes, I think that is justice.

And what does God rquire of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

I need to walk that fine line with both mercy and justice. The hebrew word for mercy is hesed, but it means mercy with justice

 

Windows are in and painting begun

We are finally working on a house we purchased last Fall. We kept shoving it back on our list of things to get done but the time has come to get it remodeled. The electrician has gotten the fuse box replaced with a breaker panel and the HVAC guys have put in central air. Now it is up to us to get all the cosmetic stuff done.

 I think the house was a landmark in Oskaloosa. You knew where you were because the green house really stuck out as you were driving down A Ave.

The screened in front porch had degraded since we purchased the house. This photo was taken the day we made an offer on it. After we purchased it one of the screens blew out and the screen door was sagging badly.

This afternoon all the windows have been replaced and we have started painting. (by we, I mean me as Matthew seems to never have time to paint. He made the statement last night that no one except him seems to go into attics and crawl spaces. My reply was no one except me seems to be able to pick up a paint brush or roller.) We enclosed the screened porch and made it a 3 seasons room.

This photo was also taken on the day we made an offer on the house. The windows were so bad, 1 of them actually blew out last winter. That was when we shut the heat off and let the house freeze up. There were 1/2 inch gaps around the windows. 

This is the same side with new windows and one much smaller window in the bathroom. A window at toilet level just seemed such a bad idea.

We are now to the place the house is almost sealed up. We have added insulation where there was none and the windows are tight in the frames and double pane. We can keep heat and cool in and the elements out.

I know commentators who like to talk about the Old testament Israelites building a wall and equating it with building a wall to keep out immigrants from this country. That Old testament story of building a wall around Jerusalem has nothing to do with the movements of people. It is about what you are letting into your life.

We put in windows and insulation to keep the house temperature stable and keep the wildlife and birds out. We all need tight walls in our lives. We need to be discerning about what we let into our lives. What do we read on the internet, what do we watch on TV, what books do we read and what shows do we attend? Make sure the windows of your life are keeping the world out. make sure the insulation of your life is keeping out all that will lead you away from the will of God.

I don't believe in banning books, but I do believe that everyone needs to be discerning. I read things I disagree with so I can hone what I believe. I have read the Koran and the Book of Morman, but I refuse to read books laced with profanity or explicit sex. 

I am willing to read what others believe so I can formulate my response but I have no desire to visit the gutter. 

Build walls around your life to be sanctified, not to shut out everything by putting on blinders.