SOUND OF TRADITIONS!

The tradition started in September 1975 as I stopped to get donuts at a shop on Union Avenue. Instead, I bought a glass pumpkin-shaped jar filled with donut holes for our son, Buddy at Methodist Hospital. He had been badly burned---2nd & 3rd degree burns over 18% of his body from a cracked pyrex coffee pot as he collided with a waitress at Buntyn's Restaurant on Southern Ave. It was her first day on the job. Our regular waitresses, Louise and Mary saw it happen and they probably cried more than we did. No ambulance was available so we drove him to the hospital with our gas gauge on E. We made it. That was our first miracle. We were so naive we asked the ER doc if he would have to spend the night. 

After the first week in the hospital we were all ready for a treat. The donuts were the first of many goodies that traveled to the hospital in that pumpkin jar. Once Buddy could leave his isolation to go for cleansing in a PT room, His "tub" was across from Larry Csonka's who winced when he saw Buddy. Csonka was playing for the Memphis Southmen in the WFL & was a big encouragement to our son, commending him for being so brave!

After a couple of weeks we were able to go home. Needless to say, our pumpkin jar rode in the seat beside him. Buddy continued out-patient treatment with LOTS of Silvadene creme (silver sulfadiazine) for healing of burn scars for several more weeks.

But.....our pumpkin jar stayed out until Thanksgiving and has been put out at the same time every year since the accident.....  Sept. '75 started with one child & one pumpkin. Eventually the one pumpkin served our 3 kids +  3 in-laws and 9 grandchildren.

It's been a fun way to keep up with folks who remember the inaugural pumpkin year, especially those with an affinity for candy corn. Even those whose paths we crossed later (Abe) have a way of appearing and leaving with a handful. We usually hear them before we see them. The clanking of the glass lid being removed is our first clue. From the Huff kids and David and Josh F. to Amy G.----who now would not let a single candy corn cross her lips..... to our youngest grandson.

It might not be healthy but its a "sound" of tradition that always makes me smile.

It reminds me of God's goodness at a time when every tender mercy was a treasure. (Psalm 145:9)

A PICTURE THAT SAYS IT ALL!

I needed to add this picture because iPhones are having trouble opening the web version in order to see this.

WORRYWART!

Worrywart is a moniker I wear all too well. Often is a better adverb choice than well, I think. 

As a youngster, in Hoptown I was aware that Mother was seen as a fuss-budget. It sounds like the worry malady is hereditary.

What worry really is---is sin! A besetting sin for some.

For a believer, this "distrust" can begin with our thoughts......which too often can be more emotion-based than truth-based. Distrust = not taking God at His word.

A mind game! Mine, can run from one extreme emotion to to the other. Hot to cold. Fluctuations that override and overule the truth from God's word. 

What's the antidote for worry? Take every thought captive. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Remember Jesus Christ. (2 Timothy 2:8)

Others need to see you as a testimony to His truth not as a slave to your emotions.

For me, it's not as easy as the picture might suggest. In my life, it's a real struggle that I have to submit daily to the Lord as I choose to disregard my own power and cling to His Presence, never discounting His omnipresence in my life.

Farewell worrywart......until the next time! In His time, no worries.

DOG-GUST

Dog-Gust It's that time of year. Just ask your local, or in my case, resident meteorologist. 

Dog days of summer are here. You don't have to ask anyone if you live in the sultry South. .....You just walk outside. Sweltering comes to mind.

Muggy Meter. Alliterative and worsening just since I took this pic.

Yet, who are we "privileged" folks to complain. We have air conditioning and access to swimming pools, if we don't have our own. We travel to the beach to enjoy ocean breezes. 

We should focus on what we do have in our relationship with Him......that goes way beyond the daily weather fluctuations even in life.

But God---He can still the storms, whether heat waves (Psalm 107:29) or calm floods of despair. (Luke 8:24) 

Think on these things on this sweltering Meditation Monday.

MULLING MORGAN

Some of Robert Morgan's quotes have a way of sticking with me. Many come from his All to Jesus book which was a gift to me from Marje Andrew (2016)----a gift I passed on to my Quad Squad. 12/25/2020

A few recent ones I am mulling.........

• ....an addiction-prone society 7/6
• ....seasoned with salt 7/16
• ....for spiritual health, know what is temporal and what is eternal. 7/20
• ....stress mess....(stress strangles me) 7/24
• ...cacophony of confusion (sounds like my mind) 7/29
• The New is in the Old contained; the Old is in the New explained. (OT & NT) 7/30

Am I mulling alone or do these catch your attention as well?

BIRD TALK

***If viewing this on a mobile device, you will not be able to see the video unless you go to the bottom of the entry and click--View Web version! I think it will be worth the effort.)

A worder, if that's a word, and a birder come together and the fun begins---at least at our house.

Sharing a recent Jeopardy answer (in the form of a question, of course) with hubby started the conversation. A group of crows. What is a murder? He disagreed....probably because a flock of birds is a flock of birds and he can usually identify them specifically by both sight and sound/"call"! 

I on the other hand, enjoy discovering an" unkindness of ravens" and a "murmuration of starlings"....all of which join crows as general blackbirds to me.....and then forgetting soon after until the question appears on a game show.

For our almost 2 year old granddaughter, a bird is a birdie.....

But, she knows the name of turkey and sees a rafter of them....followed by the "mommy."

One thing we, a worker and a birder, agree on completely......God created every bird that flies, each after its own kind. And it was good. (Genesis 1:21) Amen!

GOD'S PLAN----KEEP ON KEEPING ON

Keep On Keeping On. Four words I first heard spoken by Kay Arthur, in Chattanooga at a Precept Bible Study weekend many, many years ago. All of this came to mind as I was reading this morning's entry in seeing beautiful again. A reminder that God's ways are often not "my" ways. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

It's hard

 to continue marching

 when we don't see God move

 the way we thought He would. (p.42)

Keep trusting. Keep taking step after step after obedient step obedient step. (p.43) Keeping on in God's plan is obedience!

Or........as Kay Arthur said 46 years ago at Reach Out Ranch, as hubby and I sat on the back row with the Ennises, "Keep on Keeping On."

RECIPE FOR LIFE

I began my 5th Monday Meditation from Lysa TerKeurst, seeing beautiful again on August 2, the day after a friend's husband died. "Consider" it pure joy....(James 1:2-3) This past Monday, after visiting a rehab center and an assisted living center with round the clock care, I attended his funeral. 

The service gave glimpses of joy in the midst of the grief and hurt. (p.30) Sorrow and celebration were co-existing, not mutually exclusive, as  one might think. "Mixing them together is part of the recipe of life." (p. 35) 

Returning home, I read devotional #6 in TerKeurst book and the title was so "spot on", Why Would you let all this Happen, God?" Meditation quickly ensued as the two entries seemed to have so much in common. Younger friend (1) dying, older friends suffering cancer set backs (2), mixed generations (5 ) undergoing chemo or radiation, and (2) falls that led to blood clots, one had no hospital room, available, 3 needed hip surgeries, 2 younger gals needed female surgery, 3 adult children of dear ones have made poor choices that are breaking hearts....I could go on & on but after further reading it's easy to see the "God is Good Pattern." In essence, as believers, we can easily say we trust God but in reality do we trust in the plan we are praying God will follow? When it doesn't, we often want to turn and run and hide. (Elijah in 1 Kings 18 &19) (p.37)

God's plans don't always have to match our plan for them to still be good. (p. 39)

Perspective is key in trusting God in the experiences of life we all wish we could avoid.  

"God is good. God is good to me, God is good at being God." Say and Repeat. (p.36)

Recipes of a life of faith often come from those wilderness experiences God allows in order to deepen and even sometimes sweeten life on the other side of the bitterness/disappointments.

PENCHANT FOR WORDS!

Most wordsmiths are readers. Most writers are readers. The combos go very well together.

In the literary world, many readers and writers alike are always in pursuit of just the right word for the sake of clarity. .....hopefully not to be presumptuous! (the brazen, egotistical arrogant, not the suspiciously reluctant ones.)

Before I got past chapter 6 in The Personal Librarian, a work of historical fiction book which takes place at the turn of the 20th Century, I had encountered several unfamiliar words. Contextualy, I could define a few. Two words intrigued me because one of them was a librarian's term. Incunabulum. FYI--a book printed before 1501? Who knew? Not this librarian. K-12 school librarians typically don't have rare editions in their collections.

The other intriguing word, chary, I thought was a typo. Contextually, my definition was on target as wary or cautious, on one's guard,  but it was NOT a typo. Chary. I didn't pursue the word origin but it was in my Scrabble dictionary so it's a legit word in my eyes, regardless of the source.

BTW, I'm barely into the book, but the racial prejudices of the times seem "spot on." The protagonist, a young black girl passing for white, becomes the librarian for J.P. Morgan. (New fact for me, Morgan's middle name, which he prefers, is Pierpont.) An extraordinary, intuitive, woman of style and wit shares her struggles of preserving her carefully crafted white identity, for the sake of her family's financial well-being, in 1905's racist world in which she lives.

I have a penchant for words. I also have a penchant for tea. 

These two go very well together---especially when the words come from a book on my "to read" list for librarians!*

Disclaimer-----Before I uploaded this entry, the book took a few zags and the "changed moral tone" disappointed me.

FAITH AND GRACE

Faith and Grace go hand in hand. Sweet friend Amanda McElrath knew that. Her life showed it.

Her journal notes remind us all of how she lived her faith/grace combo life in fellowship with God's beloved. (Acts 2:46b-47)

Amanda is in heaven now so there's no permission needed to show this-somehow I don't think she'll mind.

Thanks from all of us in her H2H & other groups whose lives were better and much livelier from having walked the earth with her......in her season of faith and grace!

Back row--Amanda, her sister Charlotte, Wendy B., Debbie M., Anne J. 

Center--Dotsy 

Front Row--Debbie F.,  Claudia S. Jeanie D. Crickett K