There are some mighty fine folk in Heaven, and I am getting more excited about meeting them as the years rack up. Meanwhile, I am taking better care of Jesus' temple than I did during the winter when I spent too much time indoors. I chuckle about the time Ted went somewhere for a pastor's something or other and while he was gone I took my savings from teaching kids piano lessons and bought a little Aljo camper that surprised my husband when he arrived at home and the Aljo occupied his parking spot. As soon as I could wrestle my family loose from the church and their sports our little trailer was hitched to our car and we headed for the mountains to the north of Bakersfield. Momma was secretly praying for a place to permanently park that trailer so our family could make a quick getaway between weddings, funerals, meetings and sports events. The Lord answered my prayer at about 5,000 feet where I spotted a farmhouse with a cement slab beside the garage and a little pond that I suspected held catfish, waiting to be caught for our supper. I went up to the door of the house and knocked, an older couple came to see who was knockin' at their door, and I asked: "Would you consider letting us pay rent to park our camper on the slab next to your garage so my family can get out of the city for an overnight now and then?" The wife turned to the husband and I beckoned to mine, who as usual was embarrassed by his wife's boldness. The couple asked if we could pay $5 a month and that's all we could afford so we struck a deal.
Oh, God was and is so good to us. To this day our kids are mountain kids. It wouldn't be Heaven for our Doug if he doesn't have a mountain to climb. His mansion must be a showplace because that's what he built here on earth: mansions. His brother and sister also inherited my mountain-loving genes. Dear Ted could have lived in an igloo at the North Pole and been perfectly content. God not only prepared an unoccupied cement slab in the mountains but He provided ranches in Redding and Mariposa, California where we could take my family and my parents who had moved from Kansas to be with us. He provided three ranch getaways near Bakersfield. One had a fishing pond that my aging dad and I could enjoy together. We set lines at night, much as we had on the Cottonwood River in Kansas when I was a kid, and we hauled in some big 'uns. I remember well one time when I was scheduled to speak for a women's luncheon at Bakersfield's Stockdale Country Club. The rest of the family left the Poso Creek ranch in the early morning to go back to the city. My dad and I stayed on to harvest the night's catch, one of which was a huge catfish that broke the line when I tried to hoist him onto the bank. I went in after him, sinking in mud up to my knees, but I got him. I was due at the Country Club in exactly two hours. I drove pell mell back to our house in town, showered the mud off, threw on something suitable and made it to the club on time. I did not tell those ladies about my muddy morning. I have no idea what I talked about. Those were the days when I was speaking for a great many women's meetings and conferences here and there. Years later, as I was flying back into Houston from a week of speaking, exhausted from the counselling that inevitably surfaces the still small voice of the Holy Spirit visited me: "You have the best husband in the world to partner with. Spend the rest of your life alongside Him in ministry and you will see how I will strengthen couples to make an impact on this world!" ...and that's what we did from that time until the Lord took my Ted Home.
I entertained from my keyboard on the patio outside the Mulligan Room on the second Saturday night. A bunch of people I know in Bear Valley and other places showed up who love the singable songs of yesteryear. ...then on Sunday Gideon, the dear Messianic Jewish man I invited home with me from the Apple Shed a year or so ago and his lovely Christian wife, Alta, a Navajo Indian from that tribe's largest-of-all reservations in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico came for an overnight and a morning together. How I love that couple! I wonder who's coming for dinner next. My dining table is set for six.
The Thursday girls are studying Hebrews now. In all my years I have never had a newly reborn mother and her newly reborn grown daughter together in a Bible study.There are no words to tell you how thrilling that is.
Hebrews 13:2: Do not forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some people have entertained angels unawares!" Amen and Amen!
Love, Jo