March 30 – “102”

Today I made a stab at being pre-Ike "normal."  After all, yesterday I taught about being filled with the Spirit for a new chapter.  I sure need to start a new chapter.  I'm really tired of this one.  I want to feel great again.  I want to live at home again.  I want to start a day out and have some idea what might happen.  I want to be able to say to people, "Here's what Galveston is like.  Here's what Seaside is like.  Here's what I'm like."      Chris was gone.  She took her mom to another doctor's appointment.  I sent out some birthday cards.  I paid some bills.  I reconciled the checkbook.  I filed the stuff that was just sitting on top of the file box.  The first time I looked up it was already 11:30, and Mom wanted to go to Luby's.  So we went to Luby's.  Actually, we had to go by Kel and Christina's first.  We had their generator in the back of the truck and I didn't want to leave it there in the parking lot.    We went by the house after lunch.  It now looks like it is wearing half a skirt.  They have replaced the bottom part of the exterior siding sheets on the addition.   Our contractor called.  He wanted to verify some things about the interior doors.  He also was having some problems ordering the front door we want over the phone.  He said he would have to go to Ideal in person and work it out.  The floor guy is coming tomorrow to fill in the rest of the kitchen and the bathroom so they will be the same height as the wood floors.  We're supposed to meet him to look at tile for the shower and bathtub.  The sheetrock guy is ready to start as soon as he gets the call.  The last piece of our Home Depot order (the medicine cabinet) is even supposed to be in tomorrow.   Before we left the house I cut down a few limbs from the palm tree in back.  Sunday is Palm Sunday and I need to make the palm crosses to hand out.  Usually one or two are enough.  But when I started cutting I noticed that a lot of the fronds were really brown.  I ended up cutting down four branches.  I started trimming them down so they would be the right size for crosses.  I cut and trimmed until my back hurt so bad I had to take a break.  It helped that Chris called to tell me she was on her way home.  I counted what I had at that point.  102.  That's enough.  At least it should be enough.  In years past I have done 120.  102 sounds about right for now, though.    Psalm 102:1-2 says, "Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry for help come to you.   Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress.  Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly."   Father, that's how I feel sometimes.  102 me.  Amen.

March 29 – “Steak and Sopapillas”

Sunday.  It's the one day that can't be the same old thing week after week.  Especially at Seaside.  For one thing, we never know how many people will be there.  Or which ones.  I'm never quite sure what's going to happen, either.  It hit me while I was preparing for today that next week is Palm Sunday.  That means two things.  One: I have to get some palm branches from somewhere to make the palm crosses that we give away.  I guess it gives me yet another excuse to stop by our Galveston house again.  That's where I've harvested them for fourteen years.  And two: week after next is Easter.  That means Sunrise service on the beach.  Or maybe in the parking lot if there is not enough beach to set up on.  It means breakfast for the community after the service.  It means we have to get busy and be ministers to the West End again.  It's about time.   We went with Rita and Kelly and Cory and Houston and Ashley to lunch today.  Are you ready for this?  We went to Happy Buddha.  That's Chinese food.  Didn't think I had it in me, did you?  Mom and Chris split some kind of dessert-tasting chicken.  I have no idea what it was called.  Want to know what I had?  Steak and sopapillas.  I figured they couldn't mess up steak too bad – as long as they let me cut it up for myself.  And they didn't call those fried things sopapillas either.  But they just needed some honey and maybe sugar and cinnamon.   Chris had to go to Bay City again this afternoon.  Her mom has another doctor's appointment tomorrow.   This one is with the neurologist.  The last six months have really been a load of stress on Chris.  The circumstances themselves have been bad enough with finding out about her mom's cancer and walking with her through chemo.  But as time has gone on Chris has been driving back and forth to Bay City, and then driving her mom and dad into Houston for the appointments.  This has become one of those things that I have a hard time not worrying about.  I have to go back to God's promises over and over again.   Luke 12:22-26 says, "Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.  Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.  Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?'"   Father, watch over Chris for me.  Amen.

March 28 – “What’s next on the list?”

Today was workday at Seaside.  We were going to attempt to put insulation in the entire old building.  Then we hoped to put up ceiling tiles.  Mike and Cory were planning to put in the rest of the new lights.  Quite an ambitious undertaking in the best of times.  I was anxious to see who would show up to pitch in.    The eight folks from Midland were there.  And they jumped in with all sixteen feet.  A few of the guys had done insulation before, so they climbed into the attic and called for the rest of their team to "hand it up."  Lanny and I found a bunch of wires hanging around from the ceiling, so we followed their path, made sure they led to nothing, and grabbed some wire cutters, and cleaned them up.  Mike and Cory and Ned attacked the lights and ceiling fans.  Chris and Teri and Melissa and Joe made some headway with insulation and ceiling tiles.  Jennifer, Peyton, and Mitch saw to it that Will and Matt stuck close by.  McKenna kept track of the trash.  Cindy volunteered to be the receipt lady – when she wasn't fighting to breathe.  The team was tremendous.  We finished all of the insulating.  But that was only after we sent Teri and Eddie back to Home Depot for more.  They didn't deliver all we ordered.  They came back with what we needed, only better.  Instead of R19, Home Depot agreed to give them R30 for the same price.  I wouldn't want to argue with Teri either.  We would have finished the ceiling tiles, but we ran out of them, too.  And Home Depot simply didn't have any more.  We'll finish soon.    I was really proud of the Seasiders today.  I was also kind of in awe of the two brothers from Midland.  They could work all day.  More than once I heard, "OK, what's next on the list?"    1 Peter 5:2-3 says, "Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers — not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock."   Father, help me have a "what'd next on the list" kind of attitude for you.  Amen.

March 27 – “Yard work”

Today we met the Midland team at our house at 8:00.  I figured we could get started on cutting down the two trees left in our front yard before Nathan got there with the trailer.  Our big task for the day was to empty our stuff out of Mom's garage and take it out to Teri's in Jamaica Beach.  She is letting us use two bays of her three car garage for storage.  She was an answer to prayer right when we needed one.   The trees didn't take as long as I thought they might.  They hooked them up to a chain and ripped them right out of the ground.  No more crepe myrtle.  No more salt cedar.  They attacked the stump of the big tree Nathan and I chopped down earlier.  Found out that the tree had grown around several concrete blocks.  They recommended that we hire that one out to the pros.  I think I agree.   When Nathan got there it took us two trips to empty out the garage.  We simply haven't had time to sort through the stuff that was already there that was Mom's.  Not to mention what Nathan and April have added to what Chris and I have put there.  That's a lot of stuff.    Back at the house, these guys were a flurry of activity.  Chris said they reminded her of a bunch of bees.  They raked our yard.  They cleaned out the flower beds.  They pulled out dead bushes.  They broke the water pipe – oops!  They fixed it right away.  They drained the hot tub and moved it back to where the flood waters moved it from.  They watched as the infamous Claw came by and picked up the uprooted trees.   They visited our neighbor's "suspended in time" museum house.    Their final task of the day was to join us in Omega Bay for some spaghetti and maybe a little fishing.  We didn't catch anything, but they enjoyed looking through our Ike books, watching the Ike powerpoint, and playing fetch with Scooter.  Tomorrow they'll help out at Seaside, do some yardwork at Kel's, and maybe get in a little sightseeing.   Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.  He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."   Father, thank you for green, growing things.  We'd sure like to see some more.  Amen.

March 26 – “Day Off”

Today we decided to do something we haven't done in a long time.  We took a day off.  Scooter and I did a little fishing.  Chris brought me a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito.    I don't remember anything else we did until we went into town to meet the group from Midland that came to work on our yard.  They are staying in Pirate's Beach.  Our contacts there are a couple we know from Denver.  She was on the basketball team I coached.  He was in the youth group of the church where I worked.  I got to baptize her on her eighteenth birthday here in Galveston.  It was great to see them again.   Genesis 2:2 says, "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."   Father, thank you for giving us the example of resting.  Forgive me for not following your example.  Amen.

March 25 – “Hooked”

Chris was with her Mom today.  She had a bone scan and she had fluid drained from her right lung.  That had to be a stressful day.  Especially since they left Bay City around 4 A.M.   I took my Mom in to Moody Gardens this morning for a meeting.  She is going to spend the day and night and most of tomorrow with her friend Betty.  I went from there by the house.  The windows look great, and they have begun to put the trim around them on the outside.  By the end of next week our inside walls should have all the sheetrock issues done and ready for trim.  Our contractor even wants us to go ahead and order the interior and exterior doors.  I guess those are our proverbial two steps forward.  Our one step back came through today as well.  Apparently there was some pretty severe weather in Indiana last week.  Our Amish cabinet makers lost a full week of work time because they couldn't get around their farm.  That means the cabinets won't get here until the middle of April.  The contractor was not unhappy to hear that.  Gives him more time to fine tune everything else.   My afternoon was spent getting a haircut, buying some shoes (I think I had the same cashier there that I had at McCoy's the other day), and delivering dog food to Fritz and Heidi.  When I got home Scooter and I went fishing.    Now, when I fish here at Omega Bay, I cast two lines out.  One I let sink to the bottom.  The other I like to reel in slowly with a shrimp on the free line.  Every so often I'll put both poles in the holders and sit on a bucket.  Fishing with Scooter changes things a bit.  It's just that he gets so excited.  Every time I walked over to check on a pole, he whined and wiggled and actually almost barked.  And Scooter doesn't bark.  He shook like he was freezing until I reeled the line and he could see the bait.   One time I let the tip of the pole dip a little too far.  Scooter was there.  He grabbed the kicking shrimp in a valiant effort to subdue it.  And he tasted the cold steel of the hook.  He squealed.  I gasped and screamed, "Scooter, no!"  But it didn't hook him.  Sometimes things look really juicy, but underneath are hidden consequences that stab and sting and leave scars.  Scooter was lucky.   John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."   Father, thanks for keeping me from grabbing the hook every time it gets close.  Amen.

March 24 – “Needville Day”

Today was Needville Day.  Chris, Nathan, and I (oh, and Scooter) took our trucks and a borrowed trailer to Needville to pick up some furniture and clothes that Chris' cousins collected for us.  Nathan and April will be moving into an apartment on the first, so we wanted to see what kinds of things they still need.  Getting there wasn't too hard.  Nathan missed a turn, but we all eventually got to the storage facility.  But we discovered that Chris' aunt had the wrong key.  She made a few phone calls, but to no avail.  She wanted to talk to the owner (a distant cousin), but he was at lunch.  So we adjourned to a local eatery.  Great hamburgers – the big homemade kind.   I guess the owner still wasn't there when we got back, because we finally had to ask the facility manager to cut off the lock.  Interesting cost.  $25 to cut it off.  $5 for "labor."  So what was cutting it off if not labor?  And besides, he got to use a really cool power tool.  Anyway, we brought back a few chairs, a dinette set, two dressers, a box spring and mattress, some books, and a lot of clothes.  Stored them in a church friend's garage.  We are also going to use that garage to store the stuff we have in Mom's garage.    We stopped off at our house on the way back to Omega Bay.  The windows guys were there.  Wow.  They have already installed all but three windows.  They look great.  And the back door is awesome, too.  An interesting thing happened while we were there.  The head windows guy called out to us, "Hey, Kelley and Chris?"  Now all he wanted was to tell us he was leaving.  But the thing was, he called us by our first names.  We just met him yesterday.  I got to thinking about that.  The only reason he had for being familiar with us was the introduction from our contractor.  He had a relationship with John.  We had a relationship with John.  That was the basis of our new relationship with each other.  And because we both trust John and like John, we assumed we could trust and like each other.  Wow.  What a picture of the church.  We can trust and like each other because we trust and like Jesus.   Acts 2:42-47 says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."   Father, thank you for the church.  I need someone to trust.  And like.  Amen.