A Time

WE have received permission to take Dom and Charlie along with us on vacation.  We are heading out to KS, to see the Gwosts in Wichita, and the Bensons in Wamego.  With all that has transpired since broken bones, and surgeries, and Co-Vid, it seems long overdue for all of us.  The boys are no less excited than we are to embrace a good long visit with family again.

Here at home, garden is bursting and and soon the firstfruits of our labor will be ready to pick.  As normally happens when we spend the Fourth of July in Ks., Lydia will reap the first of the peas, zucchini and whatever else she can find ready.  Their family will be taking care of the 50 odd flower pots I have established.  I told the kids that I would pay them, with a bonus for every pot that still looks good on our return.  They are eager to begin.  I am thankful.

Proverbs 3:2a, 5b A time to plant

and a time to pluck what is planted

A time to embrace 

and a time to refrain from embracing.

Update on Post- Surgery

Time for a quick review of my post surgical journey.  Mostly I am doing well.  My hair is about an inch long and I am sprouting the untrimmed look, just like most everyone else.

My shakiness is a little more tricky to deal with, but overall, I am pleased with the ability to eat with little spilling and write legibly again.  I have tweaked the battery again as I continue to reduce medication.  I seem to be tracking that with each reduction on the one med., I have a couple of sleepless nights, with restlessness and body irritability.  I am quite certain I slept no more  than 45 minutes last night.  Two more weeks and I will be off of it.  Whew!

The other one of the medications, I find myself needing to go back on, in a small dose.  When the battery is operating  the right way to keep me calm,  I have a tingle in the tip of my tongue and my speech slurs. So I am opting to take a small dose and it seems to be effective at this point.

Jim is healthy, but his surgical wound is still open and we pack and dress it twice a day.  Doctor continues to assure us it is very common and nothing further needs to be done with it.  Just the patient, character building it takes, to be done with it.

Lots of patience and character building going around these days, as we await the all clear and an end to the pandemic, with its social distancing, masks, hand sanitizing, and limited gatherings.

2 Peter:5-8  But for this reason, giving all diligence, 

add to your faith virtue, to virtue add knowledge, 

to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, 

to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, 

to brotherly kindness love.  For if these things are yours, 

you will be neither barren nor unfruitful 

in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Digging Roots Deep

  The garden plants are all digging their roots down deep during this respite from the travail of intense heat we had earlier this month.  I truly hope the Body of Christ is doing the same. We need to be ready when the next wave of intense heat comes, so we will be firmly rooted and grounded in the Word and in our relationship with the Lord.

  There is nothing more important for us during this time than to seek the Lord.  Build your trust and confidence in Him, so nothing can shake your foundation, as you stand firm upon the Rock.  Believe His Word and His promises to you.  Soon, in the days to come, we will see many of those promises fulfilled.

  Now is the time.  Now  hour.  I encourage you not to waste it.


Isaiah 55:6  Seek the Lord
While He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.

Complaining- Just Don't

  Of the many things I'm learning in the hidden places, one of them is not to be impatient.  Impatience leads to grumbling, and we know that God is not too fond of that.  In the wanderings of the wilderness , the Israelites mumbled against the provision of manna, saying it was not enough.  They were tired of the same old thing.  I discovered that the foreigners who went with the Israelites out of Egypt, were the first to complain, and the rest joined in.
 
  I am reminded to be a bit cautious of those I hang around.  If they are speaking negatively all the time, and I start believing they are correct, I need to run to my place of refuge and seek the strength of the Lord.  If I have no word of correction, or if the Word of correction given by God isn't listened to and heeded, I must guard against letting that color my thinking and the thinking of others. There are foreigners in the house of God.

  This time of isolation is well within the Fathers plan for us for now.  What we do with it is our concern.  Submission to His authority keeps me from the grumbling my old nature pulls me into.  It gives me time in His Word to equip me, to help others in my sphere of influence, to be submitted to His great plan for us.  His plan hasn't changed.  It is still to prosper us and give us a future.  Use this time to prepare for the future.  We need discernment.  It could get kinda crazy.


Numbers 11:1a, 4   Now when the people complained, it displeased thee Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused.  (vs4)  Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: "Who will give us meat to eat?"

Enjoying the Brook

  Warm weather is cracking on the scene this week.  Our transplanting time is nearly over, and a good thing too.  All the beds need weeding and some thinning... the fun is over.  Time to get to the grunt of the matter.

  This week I am disciplined in self-control via my therapists orders to garden for a brief time (5 minutes) and then rest for a time.  Although I know that it is the smart thing to do, I find myself easily frustrated by the brief interval of work, and how little I can get accomplished in it.  Yet I am hardly able to do more that that without a grinding backache.  I remain weak and to build strength I necessarily must do it slowly in a fashion that is also kind to my body.

  So, when I came across this little phrase in the Psalm, I took comfort.  The brook, not the waterfall, or the river, nor even the babbling, rocky creek bed, but the still quiet brook.  How lovely that the Savior would invite me to "take my shoes off" and drink for a still moment by the brook?

   Psalm 110:7 He shall drink of the brook by the wayside... 

  When I look back over my days, and see how much I did get accomplished, it blesses me to know  I was able to drink from the brook by the wayside.  I think stopping to rest,  refresh, and reenergize, has become a new way of viewing my current normal.  I plan to enjoy it while it is today.

 

The Furnace Can Be Good

  Well, have the niggling petty thoughts of dissatisfaction and criticism been well warded off during this extended time in the furnace?  Over time, the fast pace of life and the routine of it all, had left me with some less than comely thoughts, but some of them not so petty.  For example the God given
discontent with my prayer life. Previously I was not satisfied with it.  I thought it shallow and sporadic.  It was not saturating my heart  and mind like I wanted it to.  God was not the front and center of life at all and I dearly wanted Him to be.

  Consequently the thoughts of my heart were not always in keeping with what Father might be wanting for me.  That always led to indescrimanite thoughts and rusty patterns my mind needed to shake off.

  The longer the self quarantine  drags on the more concisely Father is dealing with me to lay it all down and just come to Him.  There I find this furnace of affliction is burning the chaff and stubble and leaving my heart and mind more centered on the One I love the best.  It seems a fresh breeze of the Holy Spirit is blowing all the ashes away and leaving me with a clearer vision.

  So I have come to be thankful for this time of being separated to sit at the feet of Jesus.  He brings prayers to my soul for loved ones, sick ones, needy one, and lost ones.  He brings a fresh worship; a new adoration; a renewed trust in Him.  It is good and I am thankful.

 

 

Perspective

  In the past three days I have been weaned totally of one of my tremor drugs.  Guess what is back in full force.  Yup, the party is over, and I am guessing it will not get any better as I decrease the other one I'm using.  I am very thankful that this did not result in constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth the way my major drug error did.  This is just uncontrolled shaking, so much easier too handle when my emotions don't get in the way.

  That being said, Jim really thought a call to the Dr. was in order to see if we couldn't't have an earlier appointment for a little tinkering with the battery.  My next scheduled is 8th of June.  Not that far off, but it really was nice to be steadier there for a time.  So, I am waiting for a call back from the clinic.  It makes me thankful for just how much the drugs were/are helping.

  Life continues in self isolation, albeit, a somewhat modified one.  Trips to Menards remain regular enough to get us out, and of course the grocery store.  Masks are becoming common and we are getting used to social distancing.  All of this does not seem a hardship to me, especially if we can keep each other from becoming ill.  It is not a pretty thing, this virus.  We know people from or church family who have been hit, but as of yet, no family or neighbors.

  This thing with Co-Vid 19 put so many things back into perspective.  I will certainly not die from Essential Tremor no matter how little I get it treated.  But when so many of our dear older population get struck down, many dying, I am humbled and thankful to be this well.



Continue to cast your cares on the Lord.  He cares tenderly a constantly for you.