"I'll Fly Away..."

Saturday, we were spending some long hours at a car dealership working a deal. They were busy and the girls got restless. Finally, one old gentleman went and got two huge balloons off the cars and brought them and tied them to the girls' wrists.

After a few minutes, one of the balloons worked its way loose off of Hannah's arm, and it drifted effortlessly up into the perfect blue sky. I guess we all looked pretty stupid standing there gazing up into the sky for a good 5 minutes or so, until it disappeared completely from view.

It made me think of when Jesus ascended into heaven. "Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." (Acts 1:9-11)

Then I thought of the song, "I'll Fly Away." Sarah sang it in her sweet little 5 year old voice when my grandmother was on her deathbed. What a great thought it was to think about flying away, as effortlessly as we do sometimes in our dreams.

Sunday afternoon, a dear, sweet lady we knew "flew away." After more than 30 years of pain and suffering, she threw off the chains of this body and flew away to be with the Lord. When I heard the news Sunday night, the balloon image came back to me.

There are so many things we don't understand. But one thing we hold onto and believe....that one day we will look into the sky, and the Lord will return in the same way that he went to heaven. And then, I'll fly away....

I'm Mad!

From this....



To this....














I'm angry and sad and frustrated. Maybe this is not the forum best suited to say so, but here goes anyway.

Today, we traded in my beloved S.U.V. with leather seats and seating for 8 and dual air and heated seats, and a host of other amenities I never before in my life had in a vehicle up until the day I laid eyes on this one. It was paid for. Yeah, it was a few years old, but I loved that "car."

Why did I trade in the best ride I have ever had? Well, I guess there were a lot of reasons, but in the end it all comes down to one reason---stupid people.

First, I should tell you about what I got from the deal. We traded for a foreign-made diesel car that gets 50 some-odd miles to the gallon. It has all the charm of riding in an MRI machine. It is noisy, it is cramped to the point of making me claustrophobic, and it is virtually impossible to turn and see what your toddlers are doing in the back seat. I don't even want to think about how painful it will be to install and repeatedly buckle child seats. The field of vision in it is about 30% of what I had in my S.U.V., and you'd better pray that the other party in the bucket seat 6 inches away bathed today, because you will be close!

But, it gets 50 miles to the gallon. That should make it o.k. But it does not make it o.k., and I am not thrilled that I can now go 600 miles on a tank of gas and have a car payment to boot!

I took my American-made vehicle, and I surrendered a part of my life to these terrorists in the oil market. I feel violated. I feel cheapened. They won--I didn't.

We have to wake up in this country. What is happening to us? This once-great land of freedom and opportunity is turning into a land of disenchantment. Slowly, bit by bit, we are letting every other country on this planet dominate us and tell us how not-so-good our standard of living will be from here on out.

Where is our President? Why aren't those who represent us fighting mad? It is because those they represent (that would be the rest of us) are not fighting-mad. We are just happy as larks to pull out the old wallet and plop down $50 or $60 for a fill-up of gasoline that will last us two or three days. We quit worrying about the old folks who can't pay their utility bills a long time ago. Now, they just freeze to death in winter and die from heat stroke in the summer. And no one really cares, because, after all, the old people of our society are really of no value to the present generation.

Illegal immigrants are running across the borders, and now, they use our laws to demonstrate in our streets and tell us how badly we are treating them. And we let them.

It is all so wrong. Most of us can see the problems clearly, but we are so busy getting fat and lethargic in the drive-thru's of America or so busy amassing our better homes and cars and clothes and 401k's that we don't see the enemy at the door ready to take it all. We are too busy hammering out the house plans for our 3rd house in 5 years and filling up all our available land with more new houses than the infrastructure can possibly support, and we just go work more hours to pay for it all, instead of just putting our feet down and saying, "Stop the madness! No more!"

Someone with vision and eloquence takes the time to sit down and compose an email that stirs our hearts, and it takes us about 60 seconds to forget it. We nod our heads in agreement and make a mental note to self to do something about that tomorrow.... and we forget, go on, and nothing changes.

Like my husband says about "altar calls," everyone does not get to the same place at the same time. I am here to say, we'd all better start moving in unison toward getting this nation back to where it needs to be or we'd all better start learning a foreign language.

I did not win today when I took away some oil sales from the greedy nations that have what we need because we are too lazy to kick the grey matter into gear and come up with some way to break our chains to them. They won, because they took away my freedom and my happiness in driving an automobile made in my own country and a vehicle that had a lot of sentimental attachment. It's not that we should get attached to stuff, but when you have an old broken-in truck that fits you well, it's sure a shame to give it up over inflated oil prices.

I would say, "Folks, it is time to wake up!" But nobody will and no one does, because the only thing that is going to stir the putrid, rotten, festering pot of apathy in our nation is when some more fellows in dresses and funny hats slice off another arm of our homeland and hand it back to us like they did on 9/11. When we are wounded and bloodied, and the focus shifts from the fantasy world of "Idol" and "24" and "Desperate Housewives" to the real-life drama of how the rest of the world is calculatedly sucking the life right out of our nation and the hope out of our future----when the sacrifice of over 2300 young men and women who took the fight to them so they would not come to us means something to those of us who have never worn the uniform of our country----maybe then, we will stop all the casual bantering about what we maybe could do in 10 years if we start planning now and actually decide to DO something about this mess we are in.

I am so fired up that I don't even care if I ended the last paragraph with a preposition.

New Movie

As an addendum to the last post, I thought I would add this link. I have happily discovered "Photo Story," editing software no parent should be without. Check out one of my new movies starring the girls:

Click here to watch 'What-a-Wonderful-World--My-World'
In it, you will see some of the pics that are in my previous Easter post as well. Let me know what you think! (Sorry, I have no control of the ad content at the site. That is the price you pay for free hosting---annoying ads.)

Going Straight from Winter to Summer

Our little Easter butterfly, on one of our front bushes.....


We used to have four seasons in Tennessee--four very distinctive seasons in nice little three-month increments. I dare say that many of the people who settled in Tennessee did so because of their fondness of having these four distinct changes of weather, with the freshness that each new season affords.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like we have gone pretty much to two seasons here in Middle Tennessee--Hot Season and Cold Season. There really is no longer any great delineation between Hot Season and Cold Season, either. One day, you wake up and it is freezing; three months later, give or take a day or two, you wake up and it is boiling hot. Oh, and Hot Season lasts 9 months now, while Cold Season is composed of January, February, and March. Folks can generally sunbathe right up through Christmas if they want!

There is another feature of the weather which really confuses me now as well. There is a brief period of time at each change of the seasons, where you temporarily, for a few hours each day, slip into periods of the opposite weather. You are running your air conditioner, because it is 90 degrees in April, and then, suddenly, a whoosh of Artic Air slips down from Canada, and you are scrambling to plug in the ceramic heaters again. Some nights, we have the window air unit running along with the ceramic heater---kind of like mixing hot and cold water in the bath to get it just right! If we run just the a.c., it is too cold. If we run nothing, it is stuffy hot. And if we ran just the heater, we would all wake up as a batch of cookies.


Girls with wet hair discover the Easter baskets!


Ah, well, Easter was glorious anyway. It has been many years since we were not on the road headed somewhere for Easter. We usually have gone to whatever family member's house was closest and having a big dinner! :) This year, Mom and Dad were just returning from Florida, and I did not think they needed us coming in on them the next day. We enjoyed a leisurely day, and I actually got in a short nap! The girls had a ball with eggs their Grandma and Grandpa N along with their Aunt Lisa sent to them. Daddy hid them around the house, and they just giggled and giggled as they looked for them. Little whoops of joy here and there let us know when they had successfully located another one!

The kids are finally shaking off the confusion of "which church are we going to today, Mom?" For a couple of years, we have been attending one place on Sunday and another on Wed. nights. due to the inability to make it on time to the farther location on Wednesdays. We are now going all the time to one location, and the kids are settling in nicely. Sarah has a new "beau," but unfortunately, she has a rough time telling him apart from his twin brother! :) (see below! I *think* it is the one closest to her! Sarah is going to have to get some "telling-the-twins-apart-lessons" from her Aunt Brooke!)




"Running after church"---the quintessential activity for kids!


****Other Easter pics****

Those little camera hogs

The "Sammer"

"Mikey D"


From 6'2" to 2'6" ...my little stair-steps...just TRY to get them to smile in sync!

Ah, Childhood!


What better thing to do in your Easter dress but play in the dirt?


"Mommy is SO gonna get us for ruining these dresses!"


A quick outfit change for evening services, since we desecrated the other dresses in the dirt this morning....


*****In other news....


Dad is having some troubles with his heart as well, and we are waiting to see what they are going to do with him. He is having some congestive heart failure and atrial defibrillation, so he will be seeing the heart doc tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my skin cancer surgery is scheduled now for the first part of May. I am having some swelling in my right lymph nodes in my neck and back of my head. I will be seeing a doctor soon about that, too. So looks like we will all be seeing the inside of doctor offices for a while. That is sure not my favorite way to spend pretty weather.

We have not had any more storms since the terrible ones that hit Tennessee the first of the month. That has been very good news!

Storm clouds forming to the north of us on that fateful day in early April! Hope we don't see more of those this season, but that is purely wishful thinking!

So keep us in your prayers as we venture into more unchartered territory with the health issues! I will post updates as soon as I can!

Spring has Sprung, sort of.....

Clouds to the north of us during the tornado outbreak last week...











The weather has been just spectacular, in my own humble opinion, since the tornados ravaged our mid-state last weekend and the one before that. (There is a blog here with some great pictures of the tornado that did so much damage in Gallatin and Goodlettsville if you go down through the posts....)

Last night, we lingered long into the night enjoying one another's company after the gospel meeting at our little church. We were jammed in again, which I love, because it means that there are others with spiritual things on their minds, and that is a great encouragement to me. (We are getting a bigger building, but it is not finished yet!) It got a little warm before the end, and when we all spilled out into the night air, it was just like coming inside into air conditioning on a hot day, except this time, it was reversed! I must be getting menopausal, because the cold air just felt so good!

We had such a wonderful lesson last night. The speaker changed his mind at the last minute and changed topics, and he ended up speaking about hell. No one really likes to think about hell, but he very, very effectively showed how Jesus Himself had more to say about Hell than any New Testament character, and if Jesus spoke about a topic, then we had better pay attention. We had one precious soul respond and correct his life! After such an amazing sermon, it was a fitting thing to see one step off the path to hell and turn around!

Our speaker this week is from Montana. I don't think I know anyone else from Montana! He has a fresh take on the gospel and doesn't shy away from admitting that he is not traditional in his presentation. That does not mean he is not scriptural...it just means he is not traditional. Those of us who are Christians have to be sure that we don't get caught up in the traditions of men and bind them as doctrine. I am a stickler for doctrine, and if he strays from the truth, I'd politely be on him like "white on rice" as they say! But I am content to hear him preach in a way that I am not accustomed to and draw on his illustrations to remind me of some truths that he has quite a unique way of getting to....

I especially liked a point he made Sunday night. Have you ever had someone ask you how your "spiritual life" or your "prayer life" is doing? (As opposed to WHAT? Like there is a time that we are NOT spiritual?) I have, and I'll bet you have too. Maybe you were even the one who asked. What we forget is that we should not put on spirituality and take it off again like it was clothing. We should be spiritual ALL the time, and "whatever we do in word or deed should all be done in the name of the Lord." It is not like we have a spiritual life and something else. The preacher pointed out very poignantly the other night that it is rather hard to "chew out your mate" in the name of Jesus! It's hard to browbeat your child right down to the fiber of his/her being "in the name of the Lord."

Maybe some of us flounder at times because we are taking our spirituality off at the door as we leave the church building. Maybe we don't even realize we are doing it. Once we put on Christ, we should not be taking Him off and putting Him on over and over again. So when I am cleaning house, that IS my spiritual life, and when I am raising children, that is spiritual service, too. If I do each and every activity every day with the attitude that I am doing it for the Lord, it changes my attitude about how much I put into that activity!

That kind of goes with the reason we homeschool our kids. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." That does not leave a lot of extra time in there for someone else to see to your children. It is my responsibility.

This is how I have tried to raise my kids. We talk aboutspirituall things all day and all night--not every waking minute, obviously, but often. Everything gets turned into a lesson. We don't write on our hands and wear things between our eyes, but we do have our Bibles close by and good wholesome reading material and Bible coloring books and puzzle books for the little ones. We use software and visit websites that promote reading and discussing the scriptures. Television is pretty much a thing of the past in our home (except when we raise the bunny ears to hear the weather reports.) We haven't written on the doorposts and the gates literally, but we do fill our walls and our refrigerator and our desk tops and our mirrors, etc. with Bible verses to meditate on when we are doing the most mundane tasks. While we don't outwardly notice every verse every time we pass by it, you can bet the subliminal effect is there, and there is something powerful about affirming "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" every time you walk through the den.

Posting Bible verses all over the house will not guarantee that everyone will automatically be saved. Each of us has to live it, every second of every day. Do we? Sadly, no. We fail. We miss the mark---the mark that has been set by Jesus. Missing the mark is also called sin, and sadly, we do that from time to time. But I think that is what the apostle John was saying in I John 3:6 when he said that "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him." As we get more into the spiritual and less into the carnal, worldly nature, we don't sin as much as we used to. We should get better at being spiritual as we get older, that is if we are growing in the faith. (II Peter 1:5-8: But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.)

I've been a Christian for about 33 years now, and I have heard a lot of gospel sermons in my life. But the older I get, I grow ever more cognizant of the need I have to be reminded over and over of spiritual truths. The apostle Peter said numerous times in his second epistle that he needed to "remind" them of things over and over so that they would be stirred up to do the things they needed to do. As I grow ever more feeble-minded every day, it seems, I need these reminders, too.

This is going to be a very profitable week, if the Lord sees fit to give us the time.

Back from the dead....

A beautiful planter from my mother-in-law's deck











Well, my two readers have been writing and complaining that I have not posted in some time! I DO have a life, guys, despite reports to the contrary! This last weekend, we went up to see our "little" eaglet in Lexington for the first time since we shoved him out of the nest. (Well, really, it was more like he had his flight suit on for a year before he left!)

It was a great reunion! We got to not only see the boy again, but we met yet another set of parents belonging to one of his roommates. We met the Ushers, and we found out that they had numerous friends in common with us through church ties. We knew so many of the same people that we felt just like we were family (and we truly are!) Our boys have struck up quite a friendship and are very happy to be roomies. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Cracker Barrel with them Sunday between church services. As everyone knows, Cracker Barrel does not get in a big hurry for parties of 12, so we had about a two hour stay with them, resulting in a much-shortened Sunday afternoon nap.

Our plans had been to spend Saturday and Sunday with Dan, and get back to Nashville on Monday so that I could have a lovely basal cell carcinoma removed from my jawline. This patchy place came up last year and looks nothing like I am accustomed to thinking that skin cancer looks like. However, my husband did not like the way it was looking and insisted that I get in to take care of it ASAP, and in two days, I was having my first biopsy. It was indeed basal cell skin cancer, so, I have to have it cut off a layer at the time until they get to a clean layer. Then, they will take stitches, and later, I may have to have some plastic surgery. We will take it a step at the time.

Anyway, I came down with some kind of flu on Sunday and just felt awful. I felt like every lymph node I had was sticking out badly, even up in my skull. So, we canceled the surgery. I did not want to be sick and be cut on at the same time. It has taken me all week to shake this off, and I am not even 100% now. Tim came down with something after teaching the Wed. night class at church, and he spent yesterday in the bed. Yet, our symptoms were somewhat different, and by this morning, he felt human enough to return to work.

So, it was a great reunion with our kiddo, and I surely hated leaving again. I felt so proud of him, because he has matured a lot in the short time that I have been separated from him. His room was immaculate, he had every receipt he had gotten up there in a book of important papers I had given him, and he is just about up to 40 hours a week now at work---something that has been long enough in coming. They keep promising him hours that he does not get, and it has been frustrating for him. Hopefully, he will have that behind him. He has a great network of Christians that he hangs with, and he never lacks for things to do. There was a college-age Bible study on Thurs. night, a singing on Friday night, a Saturday afternoon Bible study on relationships with other Christians, and the Spring gospel meeting at their church kicks off Sunday! He does not get to make it to every single thing because of work, but he makes a lot of them, and he is very happy! Now, if his old car will just hang in there for him.....

He gave me an early Mother's Day present---a stainless steel 12-cup coffeemaker of the Starbucks variety and some coffee to go in it! Woo-Hoo! I love the totally stainless steel carafe, and it puts out some of the hottest coffee you will ever see! I haven't tried the good stuff in it yet---I can hardly bring myself to drink it up, but I plan to maybe make myself a cup tomorrow morning, when I can drink it in leisure. I have been trying to figure out how to get the proportions of water and coffee just right so I don't waste any!

Tim and I made a change at the end of March. We have been burning up the roads going to one church on Sundays that was about 55 miles west of us, and going to a different one on Wed. night because we could not make it to the Sunday church after Tim got off from work on Wednesdays. We felt like we were dividing our membership, in effect, and not really giving either church our full service. We have prayed for guidance in making a decision about what we should do for some time. Our congregation in the "Boro" decided to purchase a bigger building to meet in, and we decided this would be a good time to just make the break and begin worshipping there full-time. We have met with these brethren for over 2 years now, and they have been very gracious and patient in sharing us with the other brethren. The trip to the 'Boro is not nearly as far, and we will be able to get some rest on Sunday afternoons between services, something we have not been able to do in a while. Now that I am getting old, that is a factor!

So, there are changes on the horizon, as always. We had hoped to be in our new building by this Sunday, but some structural problems arose in the remodeling efforts, so it will be a few more weeks. We start our gospel meeting this Sunday, too, and it will be a little bit like that time that Jesus was crammed in the house with all the people teaching them, and they let a sick man down through the ceiling. If you get there late, you may just have to cut a hole in the roof, too, to get in! It makes for good singing, though!

One more little request before I leave you....My good friend Jennifer is having some difficulties with her hearing. She only had a little (about 5%) hearing in one ear from birth, and now, that hearing has left her, too. She is hoping to have a cochlear implant soon. Please pray fervently with me that she will get LOTS of hearing from this procedure, that she can enjoy the sounds of her children and worship, and all the other wonderful noises that we all take for granted daily. You have Jennifer to thank for this blog, as she is the one who taught me about blogging. She is just the greatest gal, and I hope you will put some real effort into petitioning the Father on her behalf.

Everyone stay safe tonight, especially if you live here in the South. They have been predicting this awful weather for a couple of days now, and likening it to the weather that hit upper West Tennessee last weekend. I dislike strong storms. We really have nowhere to go except the bathtub or under the steps in a small closet. I doubt either would help much in a straight-on hit from a tornado. Keep those weather radios handy tonight.

Well, that is about all for this update. If you need me, I will be cleaning, and cleaning and cleaning.....How does everything get so dirty in the winter????