The Vet-Part 2

I have a friend who works downtown on the square and can see the park outside her front door where I interviewed and visited with so many of the homeless.   She knew Jack, the vet I wrote about here.

She copied the post I wrote about him and gave it to him when she saw him next in the park.  She watched him read it and said he teared up and was so thrilled with it.  He asked her to make a lot of copies and he gave them away.  He was so happy!

I pondered on this.  It didn't matter to him that I didn't believe everything he said or that I said he looked like he had lived a hard life.  I think what made him so happy was that someone took the time to write about him and the visit he had with two who took an interest. He had it in writing to hold onto.

I believe he was so happy because the story validated him, it showed he was a real person, it showed that someone enjoyed talking with him, it gave him a sense of value.

Isn't that what we all want; to be validated, to know that we matter somehow, somewhere, to someone, that we have value.  My husband and I did nothing special or out of the ordinary.  We just talked with him like he was a normal human being, like he was our neighbor.  We shook his hand. When he teared up, I touched his arm in a caring manner.  I laughed when he was funny, and I showed concern when he shared something sad.  Simple, and yet meant so much to him.

Why did I use to hold back these simple things from the strangers in my path who needed it so much? I guess in my own quiet way, I shunned the ones who others shunned just because I was scared. . .I didn't know better. We came before the Lord dirty and smelly, stinking of sin, sin filthy as rags, and yet He was standing there by our sides the whole time waiting for us to come. And when we did, He came right in! And remember how you felt? I do. Loved, worthy, noticed, validated, valued.  Just like Jack. I know better now. I'm not scared anymore. I'm so thankful for lovely days in the park with new friends.  Thank you Jack!

  Love one another with brotherly affection. . .

Romans 12:10

 

 

 

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50 reasons For That Man O Mine

I love that man O mine!  Just four days shy now of loving this man for 31 years.  Is he perfect? No.  I won't mention the candy wrappers he leaves on the tables, or the sock he leaves on the floor, or leaves the door open and the lights on.  Does any of this bother me? No!  Ok, ok. . . I might grit my teeth every once in awhile.  BUT. . .this man o mine loves me.  I won't mention the times I've been cranky and he loves me through it.  I won't mention that I can lose my patience from time to time, or I let my perfectionist bug come to the surface from time to time, or that sometimes I just want my way.  No, I wouldn't want you all to know that!

I found the little box I had given this man O mine in the early days of wedlock. We were dirt poor because he had gone back to school.  For an anniversary gift one year I gave him this box filled with 50 slips of paper telling him why I loved him.  Thirty one years later, I read them again and find he hasn't changed. . .oh that's not true. . .he just gets better and better.  I'm going to share these fifty little pieces of paper.  You might not find this enjoyable but I think he might so here I go. . .( in no particular order and remember, I was young.

1.    I love you for frying me bacon and scrambling me eggs late at night when I was craving them.

2.    I love you for letting me have a cat when you had no desire for one at the time.

3.    I love you for being silly at times.

4.    I love you for overseeing my faults.

5.    I love you for allowing me to express my opinions and talking with me without laughing at such

        opinions.

6.    I love you for taking me out for drives when I just want to get out.

7.    I love you for enjoying the simple things.

8.    I love you for wanting me to be happy.

9.    I love you for staying with me when a situation gets uncomfortable.

10.  I love you for seeing enough in me to want me as your wife.

11.  I love you for letting me quit my job when I was unhappy.

12.  I love you for liking my family and willingness to help and give to them.

13.  I love you because you'll get out of the car on the highway, hop a barbed wire fence to pick

         mistletoe off the top of trees for me.

14.  I love you for being with me when I was ready to become friends with mom again and you became

       friends with her too.

 

 

15.  I love you because you don't bawl me out when I overdraw the checking account.

16.  I love you for smiling and accepting tuna sandwiches for dinner.

17.  I love you for wanting to raise our future children with morals and values and love.

18.  I love you for saving your last one or two dollars a week before payday so you could by me an

        anniversary card.

19.  I love you for letting me cross-stitch for hours.

20.  I love you for buying me popsycles and 7-UP when I'm sick.

21.  I love you for smiling when I'm not.

22.  I love you for taking me out to dinners when we can't really afford it.

23.  I love you for always letting me sit with you in a one person chair.

24.  I love you because you appreciate nature and the heavens.

25.  I love you because you wanted to give food to the church anonomously, leaving it outside by the door and didn't worry about

        the food being stolen because you said, "If someone steals food, they needed it and that's what

        the food was for anyway."

 

 

26.  I love you because you always come home to me.

27.  I love you for making me french toast at breakfast time and making it special with powdered

        sugar.

28.  I love you for not embarrassing me in front of people

29.  I love you for going back to school to better our lives.

30.  I love you for kissing and saying "Good-bye" in the mornings.

31.  I love you for wanting to and enjoying feeding the birds in the winter.

32.  I love you for helping me with the laundry when I don't want to go to the laundromat alone.

33.  I love you for reading books with me.

34.  I love you for letting me be a housewife when others said I should work.

35.  I love you because you think for yourself and not let someone else do it for you.

36.  I love you for hugging me without asking for one.

37.  I love you for letting me hang my cross-stitch all over our walls.

38.  I love you because you gave me the two most important things. . .love and a baby.

 

 

39.  I love you for helping me pick dried flowers in a field.

40.  I love you for laughing with me and not at me.

41.  I love you because you believe in the Lord.

42.  I love you for never losing your temper.

43.  I love you for being faithful to me.

44.  I love you for going on picnics with me.

45.  I love you for not saying I look bad at those times when I do.

46.  I love you for going shopping with me out of town.

47.  I love you for taking time to explain things to me.

48.  I love you for always gassing the car up for me.

49.  I love you for loving me the way that you do.

50.  I love you for being you.

 

OH MY!  I think he has been a much better spouse than me.  But he hangs around, so it must not be too bad;)

I love you honey!  Thanks for being such a wonderful husband. Happy Anniversary #31. Hey, can we go pick some wildflowers now, I know this great field around the corner.

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There are SO many more I could add after 31 years but I know you, dear reader, need to go now. But indulge me in one more please. . .

31 years later he still pleases me by holding his breath so this feather will stay on his top lip to match the boa :)

 

What a guy!

 

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Ladies. . .do you tell your husband you love him?  Maybe you think he doesn't care about all the reasons, but I just betcha it will make him smile. . .isn't that worth it?  Go on and give it a try. . .50 reasons.

Wrecked and Messiness and Love

 

The man came out of the woods reeking of alcohol and slurred his words.  He talked loudly. He had told me earlier in the weeks behind us that he had been sober for 10 months.  It was a lie.  I called him on it and he began to cry.  He was ashamed.  He said he was unworthy.  I told him to never say that. 

I told him we had a God that was much bigger than alcoholism and any other circumstance we find ourselves in.  He cried some more.  I asked him to give God another chance. He didn't want to show up and lose his dignity.  But God wants us to come just as we are. He says "Come to me and I will make you new".  My husband and I took this mans hands and my husband prayed a beautiful prayer for this one in front of us.

It won't be easy but God promises to hold us.  "Do not fear, do not be dismayed for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my Righteous Right Hand.  Isaiah 42:10

Life can be so messy when we take our eyes off Jesus.  But Jesus doesn't leave, we do.  He is always there, waiting with open arms.  So shouldn't we do the same.  Standing and confronting a drunk man in love is not in my comfort zone.  But then Jesus hanging on the cross for my sins was not in his comfort zone either.  But he did it.  He didn't walk away.  We don't like to hear the dirty, messy tales of lives, but they are all over the place.

A woman in my ABF class came upon a young pregnant girl sitting on the curb of a street crying.

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My friend stopped and talked with her and heard her story.  With several phone calls going back and forth, numbers were given to this young girl where help could be found.  My ABF friend could have kept on driving and said a "quick" prayer for her, but she decided to stop and enter into the messiness of this girl's life.  I know it was heartbreaking but I bet if asked of my friend, she would tell you she was blessed to have the opportunity to issue grace.  And in her stopping to talk with the young lady on the curb, my friend's little girl was finding pieces of paper in the car writing "Jesus loves you" and giving them to the girl.  Little girls issuing grace also.  What a sight!

Yes, life is messy if your eyes are open and you choose to look.  It's dirty and heartbreaking and in the mess, blessings and grace abound!

From Jeff Goins, the author of Wrecked, When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable Life 

 

Go for broke.  Choose the hard option.  Do what comfort screams "no"to - what will ultimately shape you and help others.  It my be counterintuitive or against what you've been taught, but do it anyway.  Step into inconvenience.  Welcome the anxiety that comes with doing the right choice.  And be wrecked.

 

 

This is the only kind of wreck I know of where we should actually go out looking for. And in the frustration and mess and tears. . .there is love. . .incredible, unconditional love!

 

Go on. . .get wrecked!
I did and I wouldn't go back and change it.

 

 

If you have any inkling of stepping into inconvience and getting wrecked and being blessed, then I highly recommend you reading this book

If you do, please share with me, I would love to hear!



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A Vet and Buelah Land

My husband and I went downtown this past beautiful Saturday afternoon and met Jack.  He's a 64 year old, Vietnam Veteran. My husband and I shook his hand.  We always try to shake the hands of veterans and military people when we meet them. He was quite the talker and I enjoyed listening to him. I wondered if many ever stopped long enough to listen.

I asked him where he was from and he replied with, 'Oh, you won't have heard where I'm from, I'm from Checotah, Oklahoma.  I laughed saying I was an Oklahoma girl, of course I had heard of Checotah, Oklahoma! 

He told us he was sober for 40 years. I wasn't so sure about that, he didn't appear to have been sober all those years because of the rough exterior showing a hard life that had been lived, but it wasn't important in this moment. Without asking, he began to talk about his salvation experience years ago, talked about his church, which we knew of, and people that we knew from different places in town.  He shared about the bible and kept talking about the Lord and prayer and how nothing else was as important as He.  I shared something personal with him about my family and he teared up and said he would pray.  I believed him. 

Some people ask if I believe everything people down there tell me.  I am not naive. But I have decided to believe what I'm told until it is proved otherwise.  And if I am told something that is not true, I have come to the realization that the Lord has put me out there to share His love however He directs me, and if that is to just listen to someone talk, then that is what I need and want to do.  There is much love shown in keeping the mouth shut and the ears open.  Many down there need that.  I did manage to get some words of my own out though here and there.  We talked about the Lord together, shared prayer requests, and a handshake.  It was a lovely day! If Jack was touched in just one small way by our visit, if he felt the love of Christ through touch, listening, being smiled at, then I decided at the end of the day, it is worth it, even if everything he said may not be true.

Jack is not homeless but he lives in poverty. He told me this day he believes He is rich though. He said our riches are not here on earth but with Him in Heaven and he was ready when it was his time. Oh the things we miss when we pass by ones who sit lonely on those park benches. He sang for us the song Beulah Land. It touched my heart to be standing in front of this man, knowing he didn't have much but yet he said he has everything because he has the Lord. Again, he could've been pulling my leg, but I choose to go on and listen. I'm getting stronger as I meet people downtown. I did shed some quiet tears this day with him and for him. I would have bawled like a baby several years ago. 

Imagine this older gentleman in his frail voice singing. . .(he knew every word!)

Buelah Land

I'm kind of homesick for a country
To which I've never been before.
No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
for time won't matter anymore.

Chorus:
Beulah Land, I'm longing for you
and some day on thee I'll stand.
There my home shall be eternal.
Beulah Land -- Sweet Beulah Land

Verse 2
I'm looking now across the river
where my faith will end in sight.
There's just a few more days to labor.
Then I will take my heavenly flight.

Oh the lands that we walk on this earth, may we share our love of our Lord and may God's grace, the costly grace, spill over onto us and others, may the doors of closed hearts open up to the One and only Savior, may closed eyes open up and see and may cloudy minds become clear. . . and may we walk the floors of Beulah Land together one day.


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I Am Redeemed

I had never questioned my salvation.  I believed once I asked Jesus into my heart, that was it! And that's the way it should be. Back in the 90's, an evangelist came to my church and preached a wonderful message on the wheat and the tares.  It seemed to make a lot of people in the congregation begin to doubt.  I was not doubting until the alter call when I looked up and saw many strong christian friends and members of the church begin to walk the isle and pray and asking for baptism. . .again. 

I silently said to the Lord, "Oh Lord, if they are not sure, should I be asking again.  Am I not really yours?"  And as clear as a bell, I heard him reply, "You are my child, do not fear."  I immediately felt at peace and have never asked again.

The neat thing was, not only did I hear from Him clearly in that church building, but after I went home, I randomely opened up my bible to read and it fell to Isaiah 43 and my eyes immediately fell to the end of verse 1.  It says this. . .

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine."

 

He sealed it with His Word!

(it was not random)

 

Do you ever wonder if God really speaks and does He really know whats going on inside of us?  You bet He does.

 

How has He spoken to your heart?  What scriptures did He lead you to to reaffirm or answer a question you had or led you to make a decision, or to comfort you?  I could go on and on but I'll save those for another post.  Please share yours.  It just may encourage someone who really needs it right now.

 

God bless you~


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