Winter Showed Up—Late

It's Saturday morning. My twin cats have been sitting side by side on my computer table staring, enthralled, at the swirling snow outside the window that has been swirling for over twenty-four hours now.I won't be going anywhere today or possibly even tomorrow even though I have a four-wheel drive Honda. I've plenty of food for the cats and me, so far the electricity has not failed us, I have a half-finished history novel begging me to finish reading it and I see no reason to get my blood pressure up.

I feel a farm story coming on. Our farm, though many thousands of miles south of the North Pole had few obstacles to slow down the icy winds that blew in with every snow storm ...and we had some lulu's. We had central heat, which meant we had a big ol' wood and coal burning stove in the center of the dining room. The rest of the house was on its own. Freezing. The huge cast iron kitchen cook stove inhaled cords of wood that all of us dug out and carried in from the snow-covered woodpile, heating the food, water and us when we huddled around it. One morning I "huddled" too close and scorched the back side of a brand new kelly green skirt. That was not a happy morning. I've never seen my mother so mad. Well, that's not quite true. She was a full-blooded Irish woman with a temper to match.
Forget a Saturday night bath when there was a blizzard raging. Nobody wanted to be THAT clean when a tub from the wash house had to be dragged in, three or four teakettles of boiling water dumped in along with a bucket or two of icy water from the well outside the kitchen door. Only the lower quarter of our freezing bodies enjoyed a few moments of warmth in five or six inches of water.

...and now I have four and a half bathrooms, one with a jacuzzi. I don't know why. They came with the house. ...and those bathrooms have actual flush toilets! I was so embarrassed as a teenager about not having a modern bathroom that I wouldn't let any of my town friends come to the farm. One time, my mother planned a camping trip for my birthday (She understood my pride for she had been raised on the same farm and had the same struggle with HER pride.). Can you believe the rain began to come down in sheets and we had to throw everything in the car and head for our farm. ...and can you believe those girls had the time of their lives sleeping in the hayloft and using the outhouse and not having to take a bath? Somewhere in there is a lesson that makes me very uncomfortable to this day. Maybe this excuse will squeak me by: I had never even heard the Name of Jesus until I was nineteen. After that all of my sins of pride come straight out of my own flesh.

I am walking now with very little limp and no metal thingamajig or cane. Someone called me "frail" at church last Sunday, so this week when I was searching for a picture for a book my writer friend, Carole Lewis is publishing, Daughter Dee quipped: (She is so GOOD at "quipping")"O.K., Mom, here are your choices:splicing a picture of you and dad when you weighed fifty pounds more four years ago or a recent one, looking "frail"". I chose the "splice" but it nearly sent me to my crying room after looking at all those pictures of Ted and me, gazing into each other's eyes. Sometimes I miss him so much I think my heart will melt into a blob of nothingness. ...but obviously if the Lord can pull me through the deaths of my husband and son within a year, diverticulitis, shingles and a broken hip, he's toughening me up for something. Here's what I think: We have an enemy. I am no more important to him than you are, but apparently he hates me because God pours the Gospel through me into people every week. I will not quit until I am forced to. My salvation cost my Saviour far too much for me to hang it up now and coast the rest of the way to Heaven. I was excruciatingly aware of his attempts daily to push my head under the pit muck during the mangled hip episode. I never fought harder in my life to keep from going to bed and just giving up. Many of you prayed for me and I thank you, with tears flowing down my face.

Hymn of the Week
Lead, kindly Light, amid the 'encircling gloom. Lead
Thou me on
The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see...
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

...and it is still snowing!

Love, Jo