February 25 – “An unexpected blessing”

I had an interesting experience before church yesterday.  Before I share it, you have to understand one little tidbit of background.  Galveston has been shrouded in fog for at least a week.  Cold, foggy, often rainy, for the most part just plain yucky winter weather.  But yesterday was different.  The fog cleared.  The clouds drifted away.  And for most of the day we had absolutely gorgeous weather.  A little cool, but we can live with mid-60’s coolness.  Just a beautiful day all around.

Now back to the story.  One of our great laymen, Mr. Bob, asked me to join him in the Fellowship Room before we got started.  He led me over to a part of the room that faces Southeast.  He eased me around with my back to the blinds that cover a floor to ceiling window.  He reached behind me and slowly opened the blinds, allowing the sun to shine fully through.  I was still admittedly perplexed by this time, but certainly intrigued.  I fully expected him to just grab my hands and pray for me, as he does most Sunday mornings that he is in town.  This time was a little different. 

As the long-missing sunshine fell on my back, Bob placed his hands on my shoulders and quietly said, “Do you feel that?  As you feel the warmth of the sun flowing on your body, may you also feel the warmth of the Holy Spirit flowing over you and inside of you as you share God’s word with us today.”  Then he took my hands and prayed for God to use the words he had given me to touch some hearts.  Wow.  Certainly one of the best blessings I have ever received. 

Psalms 91:1 says, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

Father, may you continue to bless Bob as well in his ministry with men’s Bible study in his home, with his wife, and with his fishing.  Amen.

February 24 - “Zookeeper”

Have you been watching that new show where they try to guess who is singing behind the weird masks?  Quite odd.  It is kind of captivating, though.  Not that I have done well at guessing who the singers are.  I have no idea who most of the people are, other than Terry Bradshaw, and that’s just because he’s an ex-football player.  I don’t even know who the supposed guest judges are.  Guess I’m living a sheltered life. 

Chris almost has the store room back to full again.  It certainly looks cleaner … crisper … now.  I have left that process to her discretion until she calls out for help.  Grunt work.  That I can do.  Meanwhile, I volunteered to do the difficult task of familiarizing myself with the controls and operation of the new television - cable TV – system.  I know.  That’s a tough job.  But somebody has to do it. 

We did make a WalMart run.  All this fog and nasty weather has really put a damper on our walking schedule.  So sometimes we just go over to the Big W and walk around the store.  Chris did get a storage tub for an old sewing machine she uncovered.  Unfortunately, the dimensions marked on the tub didn’t match the actual dimensions of the tub.  Unusable for our purposes.  We won’t take it back, though.  It will go into our stack of evacuation boxes.  On a positive note, we ran into a few Seasiders.  Joseph has a collection of snakes and other critters that they were picking up some food for.  He’s a  veritable zookeeper.  He shows the snakes at local pet stores.  It was a lot of fun to hear him talk about “my big girl” and how she and the others all have distinct personalities if you just take the time to get to know them.  Chris listened patiently, but I could see her hair beginning to stand on end.  Snakes are right up there with mice on her list of “Uh-uh” species. 

Colossians 2:6 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him”

Father, be with Joseph and Jenna and their zoo of critters.  Amen.

February 23 – “Installed”

Well, it wasn’t easy, but the creative AT&T technician finally figured out how to get us hooked up to their fiber optics system as well as to U-verse TV.  We played with the new remote last night.  The system is a lot more user-friendly than the Comcast system ever was.  At least for us.  And we can DVR up to four shows at once instead of just two.  It just seems like better technology all the way around.  The only difficulty we had was finding the channel that the Astros games will be on.  The tech and I were poring over the little handout he gave us of the stations available.  Chris calmly picked up her phone and googled it.  Had the answer in seconds.  100 mg/sec modem speed is a lot faster than 1.5 mg/sec.  That appears to have been a good move.

So what was the difficulty?  For him to get the wire run to where our TV is located, we had to completely empty out our climate-controlled storage unit.  Well, not completely.  The freezer and fridge and two storage cabinets stayed, but we had to move them away from the wall.  Chris said she had wanted to do Spring cleaning in there, but she hadn’t counted on doing it this weekend.  Once we stacked all the boxes and sewing materials and craft stuff all over the den, Chris immediately leapt into high gear, sweeping and mopping while the tech was working outside.  By the time he was ready to work inside, she had the place spotless and smelling clean as a whistle. 

Because of the different styles of technology, I suppose, we now have an extra box-looking thing on the wall near the TV, and the computer modem sits on the TV cabinet instead of on my desk.  The phones and fax machine still work as usual, but I have some extra room on my desk now.  Oh, and he told me the back-up battery that they installed for the old modem was no longer in use.  In fact he said they stopped using them a long time ago because they are kind of dangerous.  “But you paid for it, so it’s yours.  I’ll leave it and you can decide what to do with it.”  Well, alrighty, then.  Let’s get that baby unplugged right away. 

So today I get the honor of calling Comcast and canceling service with them.  I have to find out what they want me to do with their cable box as well.  It is a real dinosaur, so I know they won’t reuse it.  They probably don’t want it floating around for some pirates to make use of, though.  We’ll see. 

Psalms 139:17-18 says, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.”

Father, be with Edward the tech who did the install for us yesterday.  He worked really hard.  Amen.

February 22 – “In update mode”

I was chided a bit for mentioning yesterday that I had an appointment with my surgeon, but then never reporting on the visit itself.  Well, my question for her this time was twofold.  First, how long could I expect the soreness in my quads to last?   And second, was I maybe doing too much and that was causing the soreness?  I mentioned the two-mile walk/stair climbs/lunges three times a week regimen.  I also let her know we had been on one semi-challenging hike.  She laughed at me.  Not rudely or anything.  She just said, “Let me say it this way.  I have patients – a lot of patients – who come in for their three month post-surgery check and they can’t even bend their leg.  Whatever you are doing … keep doing it.  And as for the soreness, that varies from person to person.  Remember how after the surgery you couldn’t lift your leg off the bed?”  I interrupted her.  “Well, I did lift it.  But that’s because I heard horror stories about the quads, so I worked on strengthening them beforehand.”  She shook her head, turned to the medical student with her and said, “See?  I told you.”  (Wait.  She told him what?).  Anyway, she said it often takes a full year from the time of surgery for the soreness to go away completely … “but it WILL go away.”  I’ll take that as a promise.  I don’t go back again until my six month anniversary, and then if all is well, again at the one year anniversary.  So there’s my report.  Next up on the rehab list … chair jumping?

Since I’m in the update mode, here’s the update on our AT&T saga.  A tech came out Monday because we had zero internet all weekend.  He fixed it.  Well, until Monday night.  That’s when the service became spotty at best, kicking in and out at random times, and when it was son, it was way slower than we had before Monday.  I called back and set up another appointment.  Tech number two came yesterday.  She was quite helpful, actually.  As her diagnostic equipment ran, she explained that the other tech had purposely lowered our internet speed from about 6 mg/sec to 1.5 mg/sec. according to their protocol.  Apparently our antique copper wires can’t handle any more than that unless they are brand new.  She joined the other tech in recommending fiber optics, but she was willing to try to track down the difficulty.  Her machine showed multiple points of failure along the line, either between us and the main box or somewhere beyond the box.  Guess what?  We have another tech coming this afternoon to install fiber optics and Uverse TV.  So long Comcast.

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Father, thank you for the good report on my knee.  It’s frustrating to live with the soreness, but knowing it’s to be expected – and that it will go away in time - does help.  Amen.

February 21 – “We have arrived”

We have arrived.  Of course it was a rocky road getting there.  Well, it’s not so much that the road was rocky.  It was all the negative feedback I got.  What’s that?  Oh, from my grand and glorious singing to Cailyn on the way to school.  For some reason she insists that I give her a headache.  I keep assuring her that it is my singing that is gently hugging her head and making all her cares float away.  Yeah, she’s not buying it either.  But in spite of the musical turmoil, we have arrived.  See, when we dropped Cailyn off at school, Alexis, one of her good friends and neighbors and a fire fighter’s daughter, saw us.  She waved and called out, “Hi, DadDad.  Hi, Nani.”  Recognition among our granddaughter’s peers.  Yep.  We have arrived. 

We are still having internet troubles even after the tech left the house on Monday.  It was off more than on, and at the most inconvenient times.  Like when I was attempting to coordinate the sermon I typing on the laptop with the cloud file storage.  Apparently you need internet to do that.  It finally popped on for long enough to get the sermon sent over before crashing out again. 

So I called AT&T.  Again.  They ran all their tests.  Again.  They assigned a tech to come out and check it.  Again.  We were already just about convinced to switch over to their fiber optics version of internet and add their version of TV.  At least that would release us from dealing with Comcast.  Save us a lot of money, too.  We’ll see.

Oh, a quick knee follow-up.  I had my three month checkup with the surgeon.  I got there and was sent immediately to radiology for an x-ray.  When I returned and had a seat, one of front desk guys came out and announced that Dr. S. was running 45 minutes late.  He offered us coffee or juice, except that they were out of juice.  (Hmm?  Why offer it, then?).  I started to text Chris to let her know as the door closed behind him.  But before I could get three words typed the door suddenly opened again, and the nurse called out, “Kelley?”  Fastest 45 minute wait in my career.  Didn’t send the text. 

Isaiah 40:28 says, “Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”

Father, thank you that really “arriving” is not based on the whims of a human relationship.  “Arrived” means having a relationship with you.  That’s the one that matters.  Amen.

February 20 – “… emitting a horrifyingly evil glow …”

We took our little charge to school first thing in the morning.  It was chilly.  We knew it was cold when even Cailyn wore her light jacket under her heavy coat.  I think it finally maxed out at around 49 degrees amidst lots of fog.  Just a stay-inside kind of day. 

I used the opportunity to work on Sunday’s sermon.  Oh, and we made a WalMart run, so we did get some walking in.  Chris didn’t park in the farthest-away slot, though.  I guess she wasn’t too excited about the prospect of traipsing through a fog-encased parking lot in the cold.  As it turned out, we ran into Mr. Bob from Seaside.  He’s the one who played master of ceremonies for the Body Life service while we were watching Ezra get dedicated.  He was still on cloud nine.  He remembered more and more about the different things that were shared.  And he remarked at how blessed he was to be the one there to live the excitements with people who gave their hearts to Jesus and want to follow it up in baptism.  He commented, “That’s what you’re supposed to be here for, pastor.”  I retorted, “That’s how you get to feel as the Associate Pastor.”  Not exactly what he expected to hear, but true, nonetheless.  Well, true in the sense that you don’t have to be in “The ministry” to enjoy the blessings of seeing someone get right with God.

Last night we enjoyed several rousing hands of Kings in the Corner, Slapjack, and War (Card games, if you are among the uninitiated).  I was summarily smoked in all of them. 

At family worship we had a brief discussion on Islam.  Cailyn has run into some things at school that have been confusing to her.  Some questions have come during her studies.  They saw a movie about a young Muslim girl who was shot in the head and survived.  She also has some classmates who are experimenting with what are obviously their parents’ beliefs and philosophies.  We ended up reaffirming the importance of Jesus and a personal relationship with him.  Good talk.

Chris stayed in bed for a while as Cailyn went on to sleep.  I returned to the den to watch the Baylor vs. Iowa State basketball game (Baylor ended up winning a thriller, by the way).  I also mindlessly scrolled through FaceBook.  That’s when I saw “It.”  Someone recommended using the heads off of old dolls as … ready for this one? … a nightlight.  Just place the head over the bulb and the light shines through … the eyes.  The mouth.  Sometimes the nose.  All the while emitting a horrifyingly evil glow throughout the severed cranium.  Awful, just awful.  I hurriedly sent a copy of it to Kel, Josh, and Nathan.  Each one responded with an appropriate meme, indicating their varying levels of terror, from outright screaming and running to internalized disgust, to one other, slightly more graphic expression of fear.  I assured them that I would make sure they each had access to the doll Mom has set aside for them – dressed in the very baby clothes they wore as tykes.  Glad I could brighten up your evening, Boys.

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  Against such things there is no law.”

Father, thank you for Bob’s exuberance, for Cailyn’s hunger to learn and ask the hard questions, and for my three boys who still enjoy a good joke.  Amen.

February 19 – “Hallelujah”

Yesterday we were hosts again.  The festivities didn’t begin right away, though, so I spent the best part of the morning toiling over a hot … computer.  I wanted to get as much of my Monday stuff done as possible since my concentration level was destined to shrink when our guests arrived. 

And as for those guests … Cailyn was among them.  Yesterday was a school holiday, so instead of taking her there, her parents brought her here.  Also among the guests were not five … not four … not three … but two of the LaMarque Vaughans.  They were having some logistical problems with birthday parties and baseball games in Cypress, Texas.  We ended up with Ezra and Josiah, which worked well for us.  Cailyn had a little one to nurture and one about her size to actually play with. 

Speaking of Ezra … he entertained us all, as you can imagine a two-year-old doing.  Non-stop movement and often a lot of talking as well.  I couldn’t always understand what he was saying, though.  And when it became evident that I didn’t know where he was coming from, he would quite patiently repeat what he said … over and over and over.  Sometimes I got it and sometimes I didn’t.  And when I didn’t he kept going until I could formulate an appropriate (to him) “Uh-huh” or “OK” or even “Got it.” 

Two-year-olds do eventually run down though.  Chris and I were talking about how much more we have to have to pay for our trip to Alaska.  Not the most exciting conversation when you are two.  He crawled up in my lap, and before I knew it he was limp as a dishrag.  Fast asleep.  Made me proud.  And a little jealous. 

The best surprise of the day came, however, after he woke up.  He was obviously groggy, and when he finally eased down off my lap, he stumbled around the room, looking at … nothing in particular.  Finally his eyes locked with mine.  Just the hint of a grin came over his face.  And in his clearest voice of the day, he proclaimed, “Hallelujah!”  Well, I gotta tell you, that was unexpected.  Certainly welcome, but unexpected nonetheless.  So what could I do, but reply with a little “Hallelujah” of my own.  And that became our family mantra for the rest of the evening … spontaneous declarations of “Hallelujah.”  Great evening.

Revelation 19:1-2 says, “After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God’”

Father … Hallelujah.  Just Hallelujah.  Amen.