Then I Thought of Home

Today is my mother-in-law, Junes birthday. She doesn't act or look her age. She keeps her house spotless, cooks three meals each day from scratch, works in the greenhouses and garden, keeps flowers, hangs up clothes on the line and takes them in again. Makes yeast biscuits and  various cakes and keeps them in the freezer so she is ready  when needed. She in Lowell will be married 65 years come next week. I think I have that right I might be off a year I need to check on that. Things haven't been easy, money was tight and June had to work away from home a lot of years. June has never not even once been an interfering mother-in-law. Sometimes when I was young if anything I thought she didn't show enough concern. I was wrong. She was just different from my mom. I see now I needed both of these women. I needed my mom to show me nurturing in mothering in one way and I needed to learn a different kind from June. I learned how to get up and keep working w...

We've got to wake up and stop running scared. We've got to remember we're the parents and it's okay to tell our kids no. It's okay to not make them happy all the time. We've got to live like we ought to and expect the same from them. We are in desparate need of fathers in our country. Men need to stop being passive and when they do stand up and lead we women have got to stop telling them they are doing it wrong and taking their srtength from them. I know I've shared the story of the elephants with you befor but in light of current events I'm going to share it again. In a game park young, you could call them teen age bull elephants started hurting the other elephants and each other and tearing up the park. They rangers couldn't understand why these young bulls were so out of control, they had never seen anything like it before. They tried to do things to stop them but nothing worked. One day they realized there were no old bulls ...

We've shared this simple little tip before but as we get new friends here it's always good to share again. When you are dealing with your little ones about something go to them and get down on their eye level. Look them in the eye and talk to them. They are smarter than you think, they can understand more than you think when you are calm and speak simple. If they are misbehaving and you need to do something, don't yell it from another room, if it really needs to be dealt with then it is important enough for you to stop what you are doing and go to the scene. In the beginning years if you put the time in to training that it takes your toddler years will be much smoother. An older woman once told me if my child was a normal healthy child I should have them under control by 18 months to 2 years old. Now days people think that is crazy but it isn't. Satan as always sold us a bill of goods. Our society tells us that our newborns or tiny babies are manipulating...

Have you ever been going through something and you just don't seem to be able to get through it? Have you ever been in a difficult relationship at work or church or even in the family? I have. Sometimes it's been an event, by event I mean something that happened that I didn't like or hurt or I didn't want to be. Sometimes it's been a person. What I've discovered is the same thing many of you have discovered. It's never the event and it's never the person it's always me. Now that isn't to say the event wasn't bad or the person wasn't wrong it's just to say I can't control that but I can control me. I remember one event in particular, when the house burned and I was so busy doing okay with it and seeing the protection of God in it which is a good thing but I failed to stop and ask what I could learn from it. What could God work out of me or into me through the losing of our home? So I asked hi...

Christian bookstores are full of books on how to grow a church. Bible colleges offer courses on growing churches. There might be some good things to learn from them but  a person can't help but wonder if we're looking in the wrong book. Don't we already have the answer? John 6:44 says,  "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them" We need to be praying that hearts will be softened and that God will be drawing people to himself. Programs are good but they won't get the heart, only God can do that. In the book of Acts the New Testament church as we know it today was born or had it's beginning. Chapter 2 verse 47 says, "the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." The Lord added them, men didn't. God speaks through His Word and hearts are convicted and lives are changed through His Word and yet somehow, the Bible the very power we need,  has taken a backseat in church. We're afraid peop...

Do you remember on a lot of the old movies or tv shows they would show life out west or on a farm and one of the points would be learning to deal with life? A pet, or livestock might get hurt, become diseased,need to be sold or butchered and the difficulty of that was portrayed in the movie and the point was made that the child or the adult had to rise above it and do what had to be done when it needed done and it was always considered a noble thing. We would watch stuff like that and hope our kids will have that kind of grit when they had to. Things on the farm haven't  changed. Farming gets you as close to the truth about life as almost any job can. If you raise hogs, sometimes there will be birth defects that means the piglet will have to be put down, The same is true for chickens, cows etc. Disease control and medication will sometimes be needed. A man can't always reason with a 1500 or 1800 pound cow, sometimes he has to help her see what needs to happen. Abuse, n...

I know we haven't had Thanksgiving yet but I also know the reality of it is many are already doing their Christmas shopping. After watching television for a little bit I had a thought, I thought about the things we shouldn't buy our kids for Christmas. Have you noticed the toy or educational commercials lately? Have you really listened to or looked at them? I  am always struck with the picture they give. Now first of all don't read what I'm not saying, I don't think there is a thing wrong with a child being able to entertain themselves, I think it is an important thing to learn but I also think as humans we are prone to go to far one way or the other. We all have to agree we live in a time that is different from any in history. We spend less time with our children than any parents before us. Truth is that means we have less time to speak into their lives than any parents before us. We have done this so long we have lost sight of what we are doing. ...