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Our Daily Thread 4-9-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McClean’s home. Grant allowed Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permitted soldiers to keep their horses and mules. Though there were still Confederate armies in the field, the war was officially over.

In 1866 the Civil Rights Bill passed over U.S. President Andrew Johnson’s veto.

In 1867 the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty with Russia that purchased the territory of Alaska.

In 1912 the first exhibition baseball game was held at Fenway Park in Boston between the Red Sox and Harvard.

In 1942 at the Battle of Bataan, American and Filipino forces were overwhelmed by the Japanese Army.

And in 1959 NASA announced the selection of America’s first seven astronauts.

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Quotes of the Day

“Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.”

Ulysses S. Grant

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“The war… was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forbearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.”

Robert E.  Lee

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This one is fun. And somewhat accurate. 😯 Let’s see if you can get all the references. 🙂

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Does anyone have a Question of the Day for us?

49 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-9-13”

  2. I went to a prom when I was in the 10th grade with my friend’s brother. It was nice to be there, but the circumstances were quite ackward. My friend’s brother had a girlfriend in his upper level class. He was her in town boyfriend, and she had a boyfriend away at college. The college guy came to town to take her to the prom. We were doubling with them, so she basically had tw o dates at the prom. I was unaware until later that my date and this “? gal” went and had their picture made together while they left me at the table with the college guy I did not know. I did not know where they had gone for so long. I later found out where they were when my friend showed me her brother’s prom picture (it was not the same one I had!). Just another wonderful memory from high school. Then I never got invited to the prom when I was a Junior or Senior. Oh well, it might have only been worse had I gone.

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  4. Well Janice I will answer you to carry out a theme…I was in 9th or 10 grade and I knew a guy who was involved in a youth group with me was going to ask me to his prom. I did NOT like him and I did NOT want to go. I worked it out beforehand with my mother that I would answer the phone, hold it away from me and ask if I could go to the prom with Joe. She was to say, “No, I think you are too young to go to prom”. She flubbed her line and said “Yes, I think it is very nice Joe asked you.” I dropped the phone and had to explain to Joe that I was just “so excited”. He was so short and stout that his tails dragged the ground behind him. I was mortified. He also looked a lot like a family member who tried to molest me as a child. Years later I decided he was a genuinely nice man and deserved a better prom date than I was. I went to other proms and to Junior/ Senior Banquets. My own senior prom I went with a friend whose girlfriend had just broken up with him. We had a great time because there was no pressure.

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  5. No, I didn’t go to the prom, though the guy I dated the summer after graduation told me he wished he had known me sooner so he could have taken me.

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  6. Most of the people there last night were Louisville fans. So I chose to root for Michigan. It was close at halftime, and they had a raffle. I didn’t win anything, so I went home to watch the rest on my little TV.
    It was almost eleven when I got home and Elvera was still up.
    She didn’t know the game was on TV. That’s how sports minded she is.

    I was too backward to ask a girl to a prom.
    It bothers me now to think of some sixteen year old girl sitting at home becuse this stupid guy didn’t ask her to the prom.
    Lots of trivial things I regret.
    Fortunately, I didn’t make any big blunders.
    I have a feeling that the Lord was protecting me, even at that time.
    I really do.

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  7. My husband told me that because the government could not get its act together on getting things ready for the tax season that those who work in the income tax preparation business have only 75 days in which to do the work they did in 102 days last year. 😦

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  8. I meant to mention; though I was for Michigan last night. I hope the Louisville women take the tournament over Conn. Two championshps the same year!
    :Louisville will have reason to celebrate.

    I said I was for Michigan last night. After the game, I went right off to sleep.
    🙂

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  9. In Mark 10:16, “And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”
    You have to assume that when Jesus blesses a child, he is blessed.
    That must mean that when he matures, he will become a Christian, and during the rebellion in 70 AD, he will be in his mid forties-fifties, and do whatever is right.
    I have a weird mind, don’t I? Nobody else in the world ever ponders that sort of thing.

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  10. Chas, I think my husband might be headed in the direction of your thoughts – he thinks weird and wonderful things all the time 🙂

    No proms at any of the schools I attended. Probably wouldn’t have gone anyways, youth group was way more fun and more important to me than any school events.

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  11. Proms, um, no. I did not consider that something for regular people, I thought it was just for the certain group. I did not know anybody personally who went to the prom, nor did I know when the proms were. I did my own thing. Go tennis.

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  12. I went to the senior prom with a guy who was more of a friend, we’d volunteered on a congressional campaign together in the fall (I still remember the night he decided to rip down the opponents’ signs around town, which I thought was probably illegal or something; I can’t remember if I was driving, but I think I must have been — and he’d tell me to stop so he could jump out and take the signs down).

    Otherwise he was a good guy, funny, but I guess that’s why his sign escapade somewhat surprised me.

    But, yeah, “prom” seemed like it was more for that popular “in” crowd, all the student government types, so I can’t say we exactly felt like we fit in. Then again, looking back, I’ll bet no one in high school truly felt awkward & like they fit in, it’s generally a very insecure time of life, kids trying to get the hang of being grownups, as best they can.

    JaniceG, my tax guy was also complaining about that — they had to wait later before they could file anything this year but the government didn’t give them the additional time on the other end of the calendar.

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  13. Our yard is a mass of clover. I decided I would look until I found a four leaf clover, and I did! I did! I had to look for one before the lawn is mowed. It is a beautiful spring day here. Then I came in and saw the 50 degree drop in temp in Colorado and what is coming with that. Oh, my! Winter has come back.

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  14. Old man winter has returned…everything is closed here..well, except for the community college where Hannah has classes…she emailed her professors telling them our roads are impassable….she won’t be there today…The wind is miserable and the bands of snow are coming in waves…just when you think it’s over…it’s not!
    I went to my 9th grade prom with my friend’s brother…he was so sweet to take me
    My senior prom date was a guy I worked with at the pharmacy…he was a friend…we had fun…no big deal though…that was back in the day when the girls wore big pouffy gowns…the guys gave corsages to their dates and he wore a boutonniere in the button hole of his tux….the event was held in the school gym…no one arrived in a limo….the class decorating committee handmade the decorations out of crepe paper and streamers…no booze…just punch, cookies and cakes…the parents and teachers were there to chaperone…

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  15. Husband has signed up seven fourteen to sixteen year olds for driver’s training. That means he gets to spend three hundred fifty hours with them driving after they get trained.

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  16. That is truly scary to consider, Mumsee! I think when I was teaching my son to drive it was the hardest thing I ever had to do with him. He is not real coordinated, and he only had one inexpensive bike which broke not long after her received it as a gift from my brother so he had no experience driving anything. Except driving mom crazy! 🙂

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  17. But Mumsee, it’s a great atvantage when you can send one of them out to do something. Chuck jumped at any chance to go out in the car.
    I don’t think girls are that way.

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  18. mumsee: sounds like your husband has his work cut-out for him.

    Prom: I didn’t go, although my senior year I was asked by three different guys. I somewhat regret that I didn’t go, but at the time, it seemed the right decision. I had a couple of different reasons for making that decisions.

    OTOH, I went trout fishing with my dad. Just the two of us. I am sure my mom pushed him to take me. We had to pass through a downtown area and I did see some prom couples still out in the wee hours of the morning. (No one I knew and it was probably couples from a different school.) The fishing trip is a good memory for me.

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  19. On the prom night, we double-dated, if you could call it that, and after the dance we went to downtown Atlanta for a really fancy meal and had someone playing romantic music on an accordian during our meal. There was no alcohol involved in the evening activities. We were suppose to go home after that and change clothes to go climb Stone Mountain to end the evening. I decided I was too tired after the prom and fancy meal to go climb a mountain, LOL, so I chose not to be there for the grand finale. I don’t know how that worked out for the other three. I knew something was not quite right about the evening so when I got home, still wearing my prom dress, blue satin with corsage, and with a special up high hair style, I ripped all the hairpins out of my hair as fast as I could to quickly be done with the whole thing. I felt angry about the evening but could not even really pinpoint what was wrong. I guess I felt like I was a kid all dressed up while the other three played the sophisticates.

    I always thought the prom was for any and all, but only if you had a date (boy/girl only, of course). I did not feel it was just for a certain crowd, but it was an opportunity for all to get fancy and look and act their best. It was much more innocent for the majority way back in the “good old days.”

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  21. As those of you who read the prayer thread know, I am operating on little sleep and am an emotional wreck today. The following sent me over the edge of tears and I had to share. The grandmother posting was in Rainbow with me:

    [Daughter]did indeed have a beautiful baby last week. I am so proud of her and [Boyfriend], who selflessly and bravely chose not only to have this amazing little person, but to bless another family by choosing adoption over abortion. Our lives have been a cacophony of emotions over the past week. I have come to a new realization about adoption having never experienced it before; the bravery associated with choosing to actually give birth to a child is nothing compared with the bravery it takes to turn over that squirming little bundle to someone else. If you know someone who has chosen adoption over abortion, please don’t judge them…encourage them, love them and congratulate them on their incredible decision. I have to say again that I am so proud of [Daughter] and [Boyfriend] I love both of them with all of my heart and am saddened by the fact that I will not have the opportunity to be in the life of this baby, but happy that my baby was brave and smart and determined. I know she and [Boyfriend] will make this little person proud if and when he/she ever chooses to search for them. I love you both…

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  22. Since I took high school by correspondence and came from a family that didn’t dance, I had no chances to go to prom, nor missed it.

    But in college we had Junior-Senior Banquet. I didn’t get “invited” as a senior, but didn’t see any reason one could only go to a banquet as part of a couple, so I chose to go anyway. The night of the banquet, however, I was too ill to go, but was in tears as I watched the other girls walk down the hall in their lovely dresses. My senior year I went, but with a guy who made clear we were going “just as friends.” And he didn’t particularly dress up (he wore a turteneck and a sport jacket) and didn’t get me a corsage. But every person there was there as part of a couple, and it made me very happy I hadn’t managed to go alone the year before: I think I would have felt extraordinarily “out of place” and undesired. Looking back now, I realize that since I was four years older than the other students when I went to college, my chance of finding a husband my age or older was lessened considerably. But I did eventually get a very good one, so no regrets.

    (A few weeks ago, my husband told me I’m a “good wife,” which he tells me frequently. I told him, in return, that he is a “great husband,” and I emphasized “great.” He told me, “I’m not going to get into a bidding war with you.” 🙂 )

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  23. Prom: I never got asked by anyone at my school, but my senior year my best friend had a boyfriend who was out of school and living in a different community, and they set me up with someone my friend’s boyfriend knew, and our first (and only) date was going to his senior prom.

    My parents were thrilled to death that I had a date (I was the oldest, and none of my siblings had ever gone out with anyone, either, at that point) and they enjoyed meeting him before we left for the evening. The next day, they were full of questions about how it went, etc. He was nice enough, but we didn’t really hit it off that well, and he told me that his older brother was living with a woman — my date didn’t seem at all bothered by that — and that was something of a red flag to me. My parents tried to downplay that, acting like it wasn’t a big deal, and seeming very disappointed that I didn’t particularly care to get to know this guy any better. Oh well. I found the guy God had for me when I was 20 years old. It will be 30 years next month since that blessed day. All’s well that ends well. 🙂

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  24. Good Afternoon, Y’all!
    Junior Prom…reasonably fun. Had a steady girlfriend. Danced a lot…late /early breakfast then home.

    Senior year…same date…but we had broken up. I felt obligated to take her as she had already gotten a dress before the relationship ended. Not any fun as a date…danced with a few other friends, she talked with her friends…

    Best two prom stories: A dear childhood friend got stood up for her prom. She called, I put on a suit, bought a corsage and drove to Brewton, AL. We had a terrific time.

    Similar story with my sister. Date backed out after a break up (probably why I felt obligated not to when it happened to me above) and a friends cousin came home from Bama and took her at the last minute. He was much cooler and better looking than the guy who ditched and she had a wonderful (and slightly vengeful) time.

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  25. Is this the baby we talked about, Kim? Or another one?

    Prom is a sore subject. My boyfriend (a year older from a different high school) refused to take me.

    I may forgive my (now) husband some day . . .

    1099s this year didn’t have to arrive until Feb 15, rather than January 30. I thought that an interesting change–but I never saw it announced anywhere.

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  26. This is a different baby. I was in a youth group with the “grandmother” and that is what she posted on FB a little while ago. A classy way to stop gossips and a very loving thing for her daughter to have done.

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  27. At the end of our senior year in high school, we had what was called Senior Banquet. It wasn’t a “go with a date” event, but a dinner for any seniors who wished to go, put on in our honor.

    I don’t remember a lot of the details, but one thing I do remember that was profoundly moving was watching a video of ordinary and extraordinary moments we’d shared as a class throughout our high school years. The banquet was held in May, only a couple weeks before graduation, I think, and the Seals & Crofts song We May Never Pass This Way Again played as we watched the video clip. It brought tears then, and still does now a little.

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  29. Many of the prom comments strike me as sour grapes. In my case, I couldn’t dance worth a hoot and didn’t go to the prom. If you didn’t go to the prom, Jesus will put one on for you when you get to Heaven and will personally dance with you.

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  30. Tychicus, It could have been worse. Like Random I couldn’t dance, but I went both junior and senior years, stomping on the feet of my dates as well as others.

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  31. Kim, beautiful story at 13:04. I’ve only known one person who gave up a child for adoption. I did not know her at the time she had the baby. She must have been quite young, as we met each other when we were in high school, and the adoption was already a past event. She carried a picture of the baby with her. I don’t think the immensity of her gift to the couple who adopted her daughter impressed me as it should have. If i ever see her again, i would want to thank her for her selflessness and love.
    6 arrows

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  32. I read Mumsee’s comment “Husband has signed up seven fourteen to sixteen year olds for driver’s training.” and my first thought was, How much does that all cost? Then I started to read in the next line “That means he gets to spend three hundred fifty…” and I thought, Only three hundred fifty dollars??? Driver’s training here costs close to that amount for just one! I can’t imagine how much that would cost you.

    But three hundred fifty hours is a lot too. Whew.

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  33. I’ve known several people who gave up babies for adoption; only one did I know “at the time.” I was in a college youth group; she was in high school. I didn’t hear a lot of details since the high school and college groups didn’t do much together, but I think I knew she planned on adoption. Then at some event, they mentioned that she was in the hospital with the baby (giving birth or having just done so, I forget which). A few months later I went to an out-of-town event that included a stop for lunch. She pulled out a photo of the baby and showed a few of us. It struck me as both sweet and sad that she had a photo; I couldn’t imagine the heartbreak of handing over a baby to someone else, even in circumstances where it was necessary.

    And I personally have known three families in which a couple gave away their firstborn and then married. In one case, I knew the two parties but they were dating other people. Later I heard that they had married each other, and that they had in fact conceived a child together before I knew them. I also knew a young woman who had been adopted and from the same situation; she had several biological full siblings she met when she was an adult. Both sets of parents participated in her wedding. I’d think the second-guessing might be intense for all involved in such situations.

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  34. My son’s birth mother is my hero. We send photos. videos and reports to the adoption agency and they forward them to her. When he was teething we bought a little photo album for the report. While we were checking out he got a hold of it and chewed on it. We included in the report that “yes, those are his teethmarks.”

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  36. No Six Arrows, it is not that expensive around here. We taught the first four how but they would have to wait until seventeen and we are tired. Each child must foot his own bill for whatever. Three of them are off picking rocks on neighboring farms.

    And Chas, remember our road? I am not sure I am ready for any of them to just jump in the car and race to the store…..

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  40. Fortunately Chuck had”
    1. Driver training in school, and
    2. A learner’s permit in which he had to have a licensed driver with him. I took him up to a closed shopping center to teach him to drive in the snow.

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  42. Nope, never went to a prom. Neither did my hubby. That’s why I put on a private prom for the two of us sometime early in our marriage. I wore the bridesmaid gown I’d worn for my brother’s wedding.

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  44. Modestypress, Lord of the Dance is a song which when I first sang it in church I thought I would like it for one of my funeral songs:

    Just thought I would mention it based on your comment. 🙂

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  46. Kim, hope you sleep well tonight. (Hopefully you are sleeping as I post this and don’t see it until daylight.)

    The coughing at our house is something awful. Sixth Arrow coughed so long and hard at one point today, I thought she would throw up. Second Arrow, who does not live with us, has bronchitis and won’t be returning to work or school until Thursday. My husband and First Arrow were the first ones to get sick and are getting over it now. Everyone else here is getting worse.

    Except me. I am almost always the last one to get the bugs that circulate through the whole household. Very often, I get hit just when everyone is starting to get better. I always hope that I will be the exception and not get it, and on precious few occasions that has happened. I am hoping that this time I will be spared. I really don’t want to get sick.

    Prayers appreciated.

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  47. Well…it’s 5 degrees outside…roads are icy, but, we didn’t get the foot of snow they predicted…only a couple inches…but the 50mph winds blew most of it to Kansas…so who knows…maybe we really did get a foot!!
    Kim I’ve had you on my heart all day…I pray the Lord will calm your spirit and heal your disappointments and hurts…tomorrow is a new day…and I will continue to pray. Thanks for sharing the grandmother’s story…I have known many birthmothers who have chosen life and adoption for their baby and am blessed to have been chosen by our Lord to be the Mom of two such babies..our birthmothers are much prayed for and greatly cherished by us. They chose life for our girls and they chose to give them a family. As a cradle care Mom, I have received many newborns out of the arms of birthmothers in the hospital…I have seen them cry…I have seen the pain…I have cried with them. Their sacrifice for their child is selfless…the pain is real…and we pray the Lord will one day allow our birthmothers to meet and know the precious ones to whom they gave life…I am friends with one of our birthmothers on FB and hope one day to meet her… 🙂

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  48. Kim, thinking of you today too — hope you’re sound asleep right about now and will wake up refreshed!

    Well, after nancyjill’s post about it being 5 degrees out, I feel kind of silly saying it was very cold and windy at dog training tonight. 😉 But it was. And soccer season has started so there were dozens of kids kicking around soccer balls on the field right next to where we set up, so keeping Tess’ attention amid all of that going on (wind makes dogs kind of nutty) was a challenge.

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  49. Did my 3rd paragraph above at 23:37 sound selfish, and like I’m only requesting prayers for myself? Ach. Please pray for my family, too, especially for them, as they deal with the reality of this bug and not the mere possibility of it.

    Good night all.

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