Mon.-Both Phil and I were feeling somewhat better today. He worked outside cleaning up junk etc. I cleaned up the yard from the dogs frolics. Susan cooked. Made chicken, fish, potatoes, green beans, chocolate chip bars out of chick peas, etc. I made some vegetable soup out of chicken broth, garlic, onions, celery, carrots, quinoa, and rice. Also made a big turkey in case we lose power and so that those who aren't doing the Daniel Fast can have some food to eat. Cleaned up 1/3 of my desk. Feels so good. Caught up with Sara on the phone. Judy's mom is having some trouble with her lungs and bp. Had such a vivid dream about her that I was awake at least an hour before I realized it was a dream. Talked with Gina S.B. for an hour or so. She's in the hospital on bed rest with twins. Dear girl. Temp. was 47 today and will drop down into the single digits by morning. Susan had basketball practice. The wind was more bothersome than the roads which weren't icy as predicted. Schools are cancelled due to the cold. One school in Appomattox is cancelled for tomorrow and has a 2 hour delay for the next day. I don't blame the bus drivers for not wanting to drive in this plus the heat pumps in the school have to working extra hard to heat the school and they may as well wait and see if they can carry the load before having all the kids there and sending them home due to this record breaking cold wave.
Tues.-Phil overdid it yesterday. Doing some paperwork and he and Michael put up a ceiling fan right above our dining room table and then Phil and Susan put up one in her room. They had been bought to be temporaries over at Happy Valley. Made mashed potatoes and turkey gravy and peas and salad for lunch. Everything we refrigerate on the back porch gets frozen solid. It was 0 degrees this morning. Susan went out to practice and her game and I went out to Lowes to get another light for above the sink. No one is out shopping. My front left tire looked squishy when I came out and I tried to fill it with The Beast but the battery ran down so I drove to Sheetz and filled up the tire and went to Judy's to charge my phone and The Beast. Carleen stopped in and I had a quick visit with them before leaving to go man the money table at NL for the girl's game. What a game. Neck to neck the whole way. I was trying not to make any noises but when Susan held on to the ball and pulled it away and gave another girl the privilege of flying I had to yell. She didn't hurt her and no one told her that she had to try taking the ball from Susan. I became an obnoxious parent at one time and yelled out a number on the other team and told her to knock it off. She kept pawing at the girls. Kathy M. said that maybe her love language was physical touch and I bet she's right. The girls won and just barely. I get a bit of a rush. After the guy's game-they lost but it was close-the teams went out to Cook Out and it is there that they talk about the game. I think that's a good thing. I went to Walmart afterwards and from now on I must remember that the best time to go to Walmart is when it is dark and 19 degrees outside. Wow. Three check out clerks were checking me out and loading up my cart. They heard a baby crying and I thought, "Poor baby. Out on a night like this." But they said, "I never want one of those. Do you ever want one of those? No..." they said to each other. And then I cheerfully said, obnoxiously too, I suppose, "Guess what I found out today?" "What?" they perked up. "I found out that I am going to have a grand baby boy!" "Congratulations" they said with all the enthusiasm they could muster. Then I felt a little guilty for making them look bad so I said, "It is really good that you know that you are not ready to bring a baby into the world. Etc... " and one of the girls said, "Yes, I love my sleep too much to be ready to have a baby."
So, that is the real news of the day. Alli and Freeman went to the doctor and found out that he/she is definitely a little boy. They showed us a 3D picture and he has Freeman's nose and Alli's forehead and it looks like he is hitchhiking or giving a thumbs up. I cried and cried and when no one was around I sobbed some more for all the little babies who never get born because their mother thinks the only option she has or the only option she thinks she wants is to destroy the life of God in her. Never has if affected me like this. To realize if he was given to another he might never be. But here he is being born into a family with parents and uncles and aunts and grandparents and church families and neighbors and friends already love him and are rooting for him and are waiting to see what he will become and what he will do. It is glorious. And it is heart wrenching. But I will focus on the glorious life that will be and trust that God in heaven will treasure those who are trashed on earth. I see Him in my mind, holding millions and millions of little babies and they are growing up in Him in a perfectly beautiful heavenly environment and I am sure my mother, who always loved babies, is helping Him with them all. Amen.
Caught up with Rosalee on the way home from Walmart. Phil helped me put stuff away. I took night time cold medicine and talked his ear off for an hour and then couldn't wake up this morning so I better take it earlier tonight.
I can't wait to find some flannel blue material and make a little boy blue comforter.
Wed.-I overdid it yesterday and am paying for it today. Getting little done. Susan is studying Chemistry. She helped the guys with firewood and the guys have been working on it all day. I made turkey, rice, black bean, salsa tortilla mixture for supper and we sat at different places in the LR and DR because the DR table was full of Phil's office stuff, etc. Then the three got on the floor with Davi and rolled on each other and tried to get Davi to climb over each other and fought and played with each other and I was so happy and it felt like Christmas morning. After awhile, Michael went to study and Susan and Philip went to youth group and Phil and I watched Carrie Underwood in Sound of Music and it was good and I thought about how proud her parents must be and I prayed for her. I posted something on face book today that I read in a mentoring book. It makes my soul ache with longing and there were a few who understood it and I understood why they were the ones who understood it. It was a quote by Guillaume Apollinaire-
"Come to the edge," he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," he said.
They came.
He pushed them and
they flew.~
I read it and can barely breathe. It is a deep calling unto deep in me.
Thurs.-Have more energy but feel worse. Like I have a fever. Head stuffed. Head ache. Detoxing in a big way with Dr. F.'s box of detox meds. This should teach me to eat better between Thanksgiving and New Year's next year. It's not worth it. Phil's much better. Talking on phone, etc. I had wondered if he would ever get his voice back. It was hard not to whisper back to him. He did a lot of paperwork today. The guys were working on fixing equipment, getting feed, etc.They were cleaning up the mancave and making popcorn and Jordan came over to hang out this eve. Susan had a productive school day and she and I played PIG basketball for a good half hour in the sun today. I won about 1/3 of the time. She had basketball practice tonight. I ran all the crystal on the shelf in the kitchen through the dishwasher-several loads. Also worked on my desk for another hour, throwing out papers, notes, etc. I want to get this bedroom super cleaned in January but at this rate, it may take longer. Worked on Grams and More as well. I read this today in Henri Nouwen's book-Bread for the Journey, and posted it on fb. It was written for Jan. 9 and was quite fitting for situations I'm hovering over in prayer. "Sometimes we have to 'step over' our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in the. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on."
Fri.-Worked some more on my desk. Went to Susan's basketball game in the eve. with Phil and Susan. They won. Susan played a great game and laughed in the face of her adversary. And that's all I'll say about that although I registered an official complaint so the right people would know some things about the other team, etc. The nerve of some people. Susan didn't think it was that big of a deal but I said, "No, this shouldn't have happened and some one needs to know about it," so I told and they wished Susan had spoken up earlier. We made some plan changes for Feb and will be going to Conn. sooner instead of later and will learn about aquaponics after we know a bit more about greenhouses which also frees me up to be involved with something at church that I really wanted to do. A young man wrote me on fb yesterday and asked if I would teach an online Bible study for young mom's. I love the idea.
Sat.~Raining cats and dogs, thundering too. 30 degree change in weather upward today. Guys are making scrapple outside under the roof of the little shed out by the basketball court. Susan made lots of homemade nutritional baked goods for treats. I mixed up all the dried cornmeal and seasonings, etc. and am waiting for the word to mix the water with it. If it would freeze right now, we could skate on some places of our yard. Still working on my desk.///Finished it. Made about 30 gallons of the 'best ever' scrapple. And we ate some of it and ate a lot of the sausage too. Philip figured out an ingenious way to mix up the cornmeal into the boiling mixture. Saved some human energy. Watched Monk with Susan after she and I cleaned up the dishes and floors. Phil went to visit the Glovers and take them some scrapple and Philip went to Lapp's to play hockey. They fixed up the work warehouse at their home and turned it into a gym. Now they can play basketball, hockey, etc. indoors. Michael and Jordan fried up a lot of sausage for us tonight and I feel like a stuffed pig. I've been working on an area of fasting and not focusing on food. Obviously. The rest of the church is getting thinner while I'm just not.
Sun.-Great service at church. Freeman and Charity led worship. It was nice to sing songs we knew because then we can focus on worshipping rather than learning new words. It's nice to learn new songs too. It was one of those services where I couldn't stop crying. Three things overwhelmed me. During one of the songs about not being afraid...whom shall I fear...I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, etc. I looked up at the worshippers who were leading worship and I saw God at work. I saw how not only did He bring people through, He overcame the evil that came into their lives to destroy them. Besides my precious son, I saw a beautiful woman who had been adopted as a baby-her mother had become pregnant with her through another's willful violation. I saw another woman abandoned by her father as a child, now reaching out to her Father in heaven through her beautiful voice and song and another young woman who lost her mother in an accident when she was a young teen. Not only had they overcome but they were leading others to the God who overcomes.
Pastor Bill cast a vision for church growth and the practical ways we are going to prepare a setting for growth. The bottom line motivation he shared for growing in the Word and the ways of God was so that we could become more like Christ. I became overwhelmed, #2, of the bottom line unity of The Body of Christ. It is this. The Lord my Righteousness. He is my righteousness. He is your righteousness. There are no levels. There are no elitist groups. To the sisters who don't talk to each other, He is The Lord their Righteousness. No one is right. We don't have to choose sides. To the people who are offended with decisions that have been made and are unable to move on, I do not judge them. I do not worry about them judging me. Because we're all on the ground. He is your righteousness. He is mine. And that righteousness destroys the dividing wall between us. All our of self-justifying walls. Destroyed. And I can love you and you can love me even though we disagree. Even though we've hurt one another. If our unity was based on doctrine-our interpretation of the Word of God, then we will never be united. And, if it were possible to be so unified we could do anything and then we would build a tower of Babel in our midst and have a church that everyone knows about; that's made a name for itself. Called by something other than "The Lord our Righteousness." And I just reread what I wrote and I still cannot explain what I experienced so I guess I will just hold it and soak in it and revel in the glory of The Lord my righteousness.
And the third thing was the altar call and at least 8 people went forward and there was a certain young man that went up and it moved me because I saw the love of God the Father all over him and I saw his brokenness and I had a glimpse into his future. At least I think I did. And it all made me cry. And I will watch and pray over that young man.
We came home and ate a royal breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits, sausage, scrapple, and eggs. Jordan and Sarah were here and after awhile the McIntoshes came and some of the kids had some more lunch. Then PBill and Jenny and Lexi and Livi and Phil and I, piled in our car and went over to Freeman and Alli's place and they gave us a tour and we shared in a prayer of blessing over their home. And then we all came back here (Phil had Lexi help him drive) and I made popcorn and the kids had been watching The Three Stooges and sleeping, and they played some Apples to Apples and some of them batted a volleyball around outside while we sat around the kitchen table and shared. It was nice. My house had not had its Saturday cleaning due to all the scrapple making and the coming in and out and I barely stressed about it because they already feel like family.
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