Flourishes

Last night as I rounded the last curve before arriving at my house I was startled by a sleeping male elk right beside my driveway. He had a velvet rack on his head that seemed to reach to Heaven.  I had to tell somebody so called a couple I love, my Dee and son Jeff and sent them all pictures from my cell....after Dee told me how to do it.  This morning the dogs down the mountain awoke me, yapping out this message: "Wake up and look up!"  I did.  God was taking His giant paint brush and swirling the clouds around and around, kind of like we swirl icing with a flourish on our cakes.  I don't want to miss God's flourishes. I get such a kick out of seeing his under-the-sea creatures on Nat Geo.  Can you believe the color;  the design;  the feathery fin He added? ...and the faces and bodies he gave to his animals! Hilarious! Interesting! Colorful! ...but humans need some help. ...especially women.   I think make-up is exactly what it implies:  It "makes up" for what we don't have.  I remember being confused by the plainness of the girl students at Northwestern Schools when Billy Graham sent me there.  What a relief it was to me when Ruth Graham, Billy's wife came to our school to visit. She was dressed in the fashion of the day and her lipstick matched her outfit!

Indeed I would have had multiple personalities had I tried to dress to  please all the women in our many ministries.  I read a quip by Malcom Muggeridge written soon after his conversion about the way Christians looked: "There is something worldly about their unworldliness."  That resonated.
Having been a poor farm girl I learned early on to sew, copying the fashions of the day   It is against my principles to buy any garment that isn't marked down 'til it squeaks.  On most days  I dress and put on my lipstick.  If I don't I have a sloppy attitude all day.

My long life has been rich.  My Father has given me many exciting ministries. At the core of me, however, I am a homemaker.  I learned quickly that men thrive on words of affirmation. Who doesn't?  I don't know what you know in Heaven, Ted, but here comes some more affirmation:  We had been married about six months. At an intersection in Minneapolis where we were in school an elderly man slammed into our '40 Ford. I was driving home alone from work, was thrown into the back seat, and there stood a policeman beside the car insisting that I go to a doctor to see if internally anything was rearranged.  The doctor, assuming that we knew we were pregnant said these words: "You are fine and your baby is fine too!"  I nearly passed out from shock, but you,  Ted said, "Honey, that's wonderful! You are fine! ...and we're going to have a baby!" 

You never flinched when the washing machine spewed water all over the kitchen floor. When the car wouldn't start for me, you put the key in the ignition, the engine came to life and purred like a kitten and never once did you roll your eyes at me.  Thank you. No matter what shocked the family and the many people you pastored, your calming words settled everybody down.  ..and by the way, that "internal rearrangement" was our Doug who rearranged our lives for the next sixty years. ...and now you are both with Jesus. ...The rest of the family is coming. ...in His time.

You would be proud of me for this: You know how I break out in a sweat at the sight of a manual. A few days ago I purchased a to-be-assembled utilitarian shelf unit that stands behind a bathroom commode. The picture on the package looked as if it would be a "piece o' cake" to put together.  Hours later I was calling it a "piece o' _______!"  There are only a couple of  little metal thingies left over.  I wonder:  When a surgeon gets us all sewn up and there are a couple of body parts left over, does he still consider the operation a success?

I think often of the pioneer women who started their trek to the West Coast with a husband and family and somewhere along the way Hiram was shot by a Sioux or died from something a doctor could have fixed, but there wasn't a physician within a thousand miles.  Neither were there coroners or grave diggers,  so a shattered wife buried her man,  grabbed her kids by the hands and headed west.  ...and I seriously considered throwing an unassembled gizmo for my bathroom into the back of our truck and taking it to the dump?  Come on, Jo.

Ted left me with a legacy, but it wasn't money. I am still riding in on the ministry Ted and I had together. Everyone misses him, but they know that the wisdom I share with them has been gathered over a lifetime of a ministry balanced by my husband's man-like thinking.

Next week, perhaps I will write about a few more more things I learned about God in the Middle East. Perhaps.

                         OLD HYMN OF THE WEEK, SLIGHTLY TWEEKED

I need thee every minute, most gracious Lord
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need thee every minute, in joy or pain.
Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

I NEED THEE, O I NEED THEE
EVERY MINUTE I NEED THEE
O BLESS ME NOW, MY SAVIOUR
I COME TO THEE.

Love, Jo

As of an hour ago, we all have a brand new thirty-two year old sister -in-Jesus. One of the beautiful Thursday girls, a Korean,  brought to my house a woman she has been loving to Christ.  All that was needed were the salvation scriptures.  Rejoice!!! Dance!! Heaven is!!!      J.