52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-7-17”

  1. Good night Jo.
    Good afternoon Tychicus.
    Good morning everyone else.
    You see here 24 year old Elvera Collins in the Spring of 1956.
    I’ll explain later.

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  3. As I said, our 60’th anniversary comes up in June.
    This is not the best picture I have of Elvera, but it is the first.

    Taken in the spring of 1956 at an IVCF (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) weekend retreat.
    I mentioned before: I took her to lunch on 5 November, to a football game on 12 November and we started going together.
    It wasn’t immediate. She was going with a soldier from Fort Jackson named Ernest. And she often went home on weekends.
    And weekends was all I had.
    So? It was hard getting together.
    But Christmas/New Year break came up and we got together every evening over the holidays. We became a couple.
    She would go along and help in the ministries that we had. We never went to a movie. We were always doing something. I think that’s what she liked. But we were together alone in the evenings.

    This is about five months later and about the time I decided to keep her. It wasn’t easy. I never proposed, as such. I had already decided to go into the ministry and changed my major from Civil Engineering to Psychology.
    The question was: Is she willing to give up her job and family and move to Fort Worth with this guy who doesn’t have a job? Nor anything else in the world. I couldn’t promise anything but a hard road ahead.
    Neither of our parents knew anything about this.

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  5. That is a very nice picture. Interesting story, Chas. No wonder you fell for her.

    My husband was heading for the ministry, too. He was getting a history degree, because he needed something before going on to school. He ended up not going in the ministry. He had just finished college when we married. He had no good job and to say my parents were not thrilled is an understatement.

    He lost the job he had after agreeing to testify for his sister in court. He was working for a friend of and with his BIL and he would be testifying against him. He ended up not testifying, because someone else was able to do it. Nevertheless, he lost the only job (full time) that he had.

    We went through some hard times. We learn from them and that was a real blessing. That doesn’t make me want to go through them again, but it does broaden one’s view of the blessing in disguise of hardship.

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  7. I knew immediately it had to be Elvera, then I read your comments and laughed.
    Such a beautiful love story and that fact that you are obviously still smitten 60 years later is just the icing on the cake. I hope your children and grandchildren appreciate the legacy they have.

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  8. I caught my breath at this photo and figured it must be Elvera. How beautiful she is, Chas. I can see why you moved so fast!

    I fell in love with an engineering student whose hair touched his shoulders in curls. By the time we married, he was a shorn newly commissioned ensign. I graduated from college a year early so I could go on the great Navy adventure with him.

    Fortunately I’m an extrovert and had no trouble making friends. No surprise to you all, churches full of wonderful people can be found all over the country and even in Hawai’i.

    Money was challenging, his jobs overwhelming and I was frequently frustrated by not being able to work and get established in some sort of writing-related career (Six moves the first three years).

    One newspaper in a small town offered me a job if I would bring any story out of the Navy’s secret facility where my husband worked. I shook my head. Who would I be betraying more, my new husband or my country?

    God is good. Our lives worked out beautifully by the grace of God and I am thankful.

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  10. We have never had any significant challenges. We have done a lot of interesting things. Though I really liked the Roy Clark song KI posted, and listened to it several times, I cannot relate to it. Though I have seen others doing it. Always, God and husband have provided for me. I would be a puddle on the floor without them.

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  11. Chas, that is a lovely first picture to treasure.

    I am having my weekend now. The older lady (former owner) works all week in her satellite office and brings everything in to our office on Saturday. It takes several days to process it all. That is why I am working on Sundays. I have never worked much on Sundays, but it is just for the season. At least by the time we left last night, around 10 p.m., I had everything caught up for the person who is there today. There is never a good chance to take a lunch break, and hardly time to use the bathroom.

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  13. I am wondering if any of you watched “The Wheel” on the Discovery Channel? One of the contestants is from our area. He was very resourceful and creative. One scene shows him praying and singing hymns after he had caught no fish for quite awhile. Suddenly the net was full of fish. I normally would not have tuned in, but saw an article in a local paper, so had to tune in to see how the local guy did. I enjoyed watching, but would never do it myself.

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  15. Mr P watches the Wheel and I have seen that man. They often show him praying or singing hymns and he talks about his faith. I am surprised they don’t edit a lot of it out, but they don’t.

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  16. Nice article, Michelle. I would never think Christians should be arguing about that. I believe in young earth creation based on what I have read in the Bible and seen on the planet. And, yes, I have been to the Grand Canyon and live near Hell’s Canyon. It is what I think but I don’t think it has any bearing on my salvation or yours. We are free to disagree. Not to argue. Discuss, sure. But to say everybody who does not believe like I do is wrong? I don’t think so. Now, when it comes to Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead, that is the hill to die on.

    As far as Del Tacket (we did enjoy the Truth Project), we should look at creation and glorify God. And we should see God making beauty and good out of our wrong steps, we should glorify God. And we should be made aware of our sin and falling short and our need of a Savior.

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  17. I was reading in Phillipians this morning and thought of the televangelists. Whether they are preaching Him for love of God or love of money, He is being preached and His Word is going out and will not return void.

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  18. I agree 100% with what Mumsee said about creation. Personally, I don’t see any reason to not simply believe what the Bible says. If God can create a rock, He can create a billion year-old rock. Had everything been created “brand new” nothing would have worked. And, after all, He created a grown man and woman – not two babies.

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  19. What Ben Carson said about immigrants is a good example of people having a not politically correct view and being heckled for it. He did not say slaves came willingly, he said they were immigrants. By definition, they left their home country and came to a new country. They loved their children and had hopes and dreams for them. And that makes him crazy??? He never said it was a good thing.

    And that Uncle Tom thing. That really rankles. Have they not read the book? The man was a hero. He laid down his life to save a defenseless person.

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  20. Snow day for me today 🙂 I drove into work, did a few things to get prepped for tomorrow’s phone interview slog and picked up my computer and went back home. I’m glad I did since the roads and visibility were far worse just 45 minutes after I arrived at work.

    I love blizzards – just not having to be out and about in them. Thinking of my daughter who may be called out in this weather – Lord, keep her safe.

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  22. Some interesting historical photos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-wUt1_pA3w

    I like Chas’s first photo of Elvera. My husband and I have something most couples don’t: photos of our first time seeing each other. He was driving to Nashville Thursday night, and initially we made plans that I would take off Friday evening from my part-time job but not Thursday. Thursday he would have a quiet supper with my friends who were hosting him, and we’d get together for breakfast Friday. But the more I thought of it, the more I realized neither of us would sleep well Thursday night, and Friday seemed like a very long day for a very first meeting–better to get the “meeting” over with Thursday night and go into Friday already having met in person. But I elected not to tell him I was taking off Thursday night, too. Some friends of mine thought I was “playing a game” by not telling him. I already understood him well enough to know that the drive to Nashville would be stressful and time-conscious for him if he believed he would be meeting me in person that evening, but less stressful if he didn’t. (He confirmed later–and our daughters did also–that I was right in that understanding.) I asked the hostess to please take some photos of us, and she used the excuse of getting out her camera and getting some pictures of him (before I arrived) that she had just gotten it fixed, or just gotten a new camera, or something like that, and she wanted to make sure it worked. And then she just left it on the counter. When I showed up just before supper and surprised him, she then got to click away as we hugged and gazed into each other’s eyes for the first time. I wouldn’t recommend online dating in general, but it is pretty sweet that in our own love story, we had love by “faith” before we had love by sight.

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  23. Kare, I had to go back and read what I wrote, I am not used to people agreeing with me, and certainly not 100% 🙂

    Mr. P and I just had a “discussion” about the storage shed. I told him WE needed to clean it out and organize it. He said we need more shelves. I said we needed to throw some things away. He told me to get out there and throw some of my stuff away. To which I replied, I had nothing left to throw away.
    Seriously, the man went fishing two years ago and there were used paper towels in his buggy. He has a “diver down” flag that is faded from red to pink and a rope and foam latter that goes on a boat. The foam is flaking off and we don’t own a boat. 🙂 One of us is a pack rat but I ain’t sayin’ which one. 😉

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  24. What a cute girl! That picture, too, made me catch my breath and I also knew instantly who it was. She’s beautiful, Chas. You got lucky. 🙂 (And so did she.)

    I slept in a bit and am running the dishwasher, I have all kinds of things I can and should and need to do today before I have to head in to work for the long election night shift (5 p.m. to 2 a.m., or thereabouts, typically). Big week ahead starting Thursday with the plumber and then through the weekend with the ceiling demo crew. Fun times.

    I sent off a return yesterday — a recessed toilet paper holder I thought might work out for me in the bathroom, but didn’t — and came home to spot an odd part of something, still sealed in its plastic bag with screws, that has been floating around here. I had no idea what it was or what it went with — until it dawned on my last night that it looks like it could be a metal bracket that would go behind the recessed toilet paper holder I just sent back. So I’ve called the company this morning to see if I can send that in to them separately, I want the full refund.

    Meanwhile, I have some plumbing parts that also need to go back to Home Depot, they were things that didn’t work out that one of the amigos bought when both of us were there so we could use my debit card for the purchase. He left the bag of unused things (wrong sizes, etc.) with the receipt so I should take care of that, too.

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  25. I don’t think anything in creation requires great age–God created a complete, working, mature system. Clearly that could include starlight showing up immediately, for instance, and not having to wait a given number of light years, just as Adam and Eve didn’t have to mature from zygotes. I don’t think it is a matter for Christian division–people can believe otherwise and be Christians. I do think Scripture very clearly designates “days” for creation (days with evening and morning), and that we are given details of genealogies (e.g., how old the father was when the son was born) that put Adam and Eve only a few thousand years back. And we can’t have death before sin. So if the universe were billions of years old, that would be billions of years of basically just sitting there before God created earth and populated it, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me and seems quite unnecessary in the text. “Implausible” is different from “impossible,” though. I think the main thing is we take God’s Word seriously. It doesn’t tell us the age of the universe, so we don’t have to pretend to know. It does tell us that Adam and Eve were special creations of God (not evolved from animals) and we know about how far back they came into being. It’s silly to say dogmatically what day or year creation happened; we have nothing that precise. But we do know that it wasn’t a million years ago or even a hundred thousand years ago–the years in the text don’t allow that, and what we do have as history is trustworthy history.

    For the idea that if the Grand Canyon were formed by the Flood (which definitely would seem to be the best reading of the evidence), then it should be a reminder of sin and of judgment: yes, it is, but it is much more than that. Because the Flood is not only a story of judgment, but of salvation and hope! And in addition, for a believer who spends a lot of time in creation (that would include me), one of the glories is the recognition that in this fallen world, God has still given us much beauty. So it shouldn’t be shocking if the destruction of the Flood gave us the beauty of the Grand Canyon!

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  27. Donna!!!! Do you not have a toilet roll holder???? If not I found just the PERFECT solution last Friday but didn’t send it because I thought it was too late!!!!

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  29. Going with a freestanding pedestal — the side wall in there is just positioned too far behind the toilet to make for a comfortable placement on the wall, it would be a back-twister every time. I can’t see any other solution than something freestanding that can be moved around a bit.

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  30. Good morning….we had a flock of wild turkey here this morning…and the deer were quite attentive to their presence here in the forest….the dogs went nuts!
    Elvera is as lovely as I knew she would be…Chas what a smile she has, no wonder you were smitten ❤ I love a good love story

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  31. What a beautiful photograph – it shows someone who is lovely inside and out.

    Mumsee’s statement on not having challenges made me laugh – methinks you two face continual significant challenges.

    Reading all the older married couples reminiscences about the struggles of their early years made me smile. It also made me slightly envious – in a nice way. In the challenges I’ve been facing one of the recurring thoughts is, it would be easier to face this all with someone else beside me. You all faced great challenges, but the person by your side would have been an encouragement, would have helped to fill in those areas where you lacked, and it would have been a continual spur to keep going for their sake.

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  32. The more I grow in the understanding of how the Bible narrative is laid out, the more I become convinced that the world was indeed created in six days, relatively recently. This is in no way contradicted by my line of scientific study, that of the human body. The more I learn about disease, the more I see how it is a perversion of the healthy – in a similar way that sin is a perversion of good. To expand on the analogy, it has often been pointed out that sex inside of marriage is beautiful and pure, outside of that context, sex is a powerful tool for evil. So, in a similar way, the body’s inflammatory response is a mechanism of protection within certain limits; outside of those limits, as in anaphylactic shock, that inflammatory response can kill the body. It makes much more sense to view the human body as originally being created perfectly, and then, due to sin and death entering, it began to break down; rather than assigning, as evolutionary biology does, viruses and bacteria to being the beginning life forms which gradually became more complex.

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  33. One thing I have read is that the genealogies in the Bible don’t necessarily go from father to son, but could be skipping a generation or two, & that supposedly that was a custom in writing genealogies, so it is not accurate to use them to determine timing.

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  34. Chas – There’s not much to add to what everyone else has said, but I’ll just say that she is indeed lovely, & your story has been a blessing to me.

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  35. Kizzie, I’ve read that too, but even if that was the case – which I doubt – there would have to be enormous gaps of a thousand years or more between names to account for the amount of prehistory that evolutionary biology assigns to man.
    The reason I find it doubtful is that a) even those who propose the gaps don’t assume that there are gaps for any of the genealogies after Abraham (granted, Matthew doesn’t name all of the people between Abraham and Christ, but we know that because other genealogies tell us those names) and there is no difference in how the genealogies between Adam and Abraham are written; b) with that fact in mind, the line between Adam and Abraham is repeated multiple times in Scripture, not only in Genesis, but also in I Chronicles and Luke, almost as if we are supposed to pay attention to it; c) we know the reason we are supposed to pay attention to it, because it is the line of Christ – God is proving to us Christ’s human descent, that he was of the seed of the woman, and there is no good reason for there to be gaps in it.

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  37. Kizzie, if you look at the ones in the Old Testament, many of them will say “He was this old, and had this son, and lived this many more years.” Generation after generation like that–I don’t think there’s any room for gaps in those.

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  38. To add to the above, while the Bible might be used to try to date the earth, that was never the intent of the genealogies. God included them as part of His revelation about himself, not as an academic or scientific proof. Sometimes, the fact that God’s purpose is revelation has sometimes been used as a reason for trying to fit the Biblical narrative into the scientific narrative. Leaving aside the question of whether fitting the Bible to science that makes the Bible the lesser narrative, and focusing on the purpose of God, that increases the significance, rather than decreases, the significance of the genealogies. What are all those names telling us about the character of God? We can trace narratives of his grace in the inclusion of Tamar and Rahab, of his power to redeem in restoring a descendant of Lot, of his love for all nations in tracing the Gibeonites to the Nethinim or Jethro to the Rechabites. The fact that these genealogies are about God’s character makes it less likely that there are inexplicable gaps (Matthew left gaps for a specific purpose, which he explains, but there are no such explanations in other genealogies).

    The genealogies, incidentally, are one aspect of what I meant when I said that the more I understand of the Biblical narrative, the more I’m convinced of a recent six day creation of the world. The character of God is revealed in creation, and he is an all powerful God. There might be something wasteful and cruel, as well as weak and ineffectual, in a God which used the continual death and failure that evolutionary biologists see in their evolutionary genealogies. A God who can create everything perfect and whole to begin with is clearly a God who accomplishes his purposes.

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  39. Thanks for the nice comments everyone. Yes, I was smitten the moment I saw her that Sunday night. But it was something else that I can’t describe… She was bundled up for a February nigh/ She wasn’t “made up” for glamour. It was just something. She never used makeup other than lipstick. Still doesn’t.
    We have been blessed beyond measure and we know that. Many “problems” worked out for good. e.g. You can all guess that Chuck was a mistake. Worked out very well with three grandkids and we’re baptizing one of the great granddaughters Sunday.

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  40. The status now is that she is as sweet as she always was, but I have to remind her what day it is. I order her meal for her when we eat out because I know what she likes. I remind her and help her shower. That sort of thing. But she is still TSWITW. Sweet as ever. He has a good disposition. And infinite patience.

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  41. Chas, even if her disposition did change at some point, remember that it is the disease which is changing her ability to respond, and that she is still the same. We know sometimes that people can act out of character due to a high fever or after ingesting a substance which alters their brain chemistry – dementia is just another thing which alters the brain. However, it doesn’t alter the person.

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  42. Ok, I’ll admit, that’s a toilet paper holder idea/design I hadn’t seen. 🙂 And I’ve looked.

    It still leaves you with having to reach way back behind you to grab the paper, which seems really awkward to me. I do still have an on-the-wall holder, it came as part of the bathroom accessory set I bought early on so isn’t really returnable since I used parts of the set, just not all of the items (including that one). It matches my other hardware and I suppose I could still put it on the beadboard next to the toilet — not as far a reach back as the tank would be, but still pretty awkwardly placed (by necessity) and requiring one to twist to get to it.

    This toilet is a couple inches longer than my last one (it goes to the far-side end of the thick door molding). Then the beadboard added some thickness to that side wall next to it anyway — so there’s no where to put something permanent that would have a natural or comfortable reach. I think the best option would be to use the one I have on the wall. It’s one of those things I decided I’d just have to figure out later — in the meantime, the pedestal model works fine but I’m not crazy about having to make that choice. One of the frustrations/disappointments at the end of it all, I guess, but the bathroom is still cute.

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  43. At the last minute, I thought maybe the recessed holder would be a solution (the former holder was recessed into the peach tile) — but I realized too late that to put one of those in you have to “frame it” in the wall beforehand which we didn’t do, obviously. Plus I’m not sure it would have made a big difference, but by not sticking out fro the wall as far, it was something of a space saver in a spot where there’s very little room.

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  44. Beautiful lady in the header, and sweet stories to accompany the picture. Thanks for sharing Elvera with us, Chas.

    Kathaleena, you posted Roy Clark singing “Yesterday” the other day. It had been so long since I’d heard that song, and I, too, had never paid close attention to the lyrics before now. Powerful, not only the words, but the emotion with which he sang it. Thanks for sharing.

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  45. The power was out for a couple hours this afternoon. It is very windy today — unusual for our little valley — and a few moments after a big gust of wind, our power went out. I wonder if a tree went down. We had no phone service, either.

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  46. In the continuing trying-to-hook-up-the-new-dvd-recorder saga, our cable has been out for several days. It went out on the day we had the severe winds, & there was a cable outage in our area. But it didn’t come back within a couple days, as it should have, so Hubby called the cable company today. They tried to fix it remotely, but it didn’t work, so they’re sending out a technician tomorrow afternoon.

    In the meantime, Hubby finally got around to taking photos of the connections & sending them to Chickadee, so she can show them to Mr. McK & ask him if he knows anything about it. (He works at a store that sells cables & other connectors, & knows a lot about electronics.)

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  47. Dr is admitting her to the hospital. We are /ping in through the ER. Thomas which is minutes from my house is full so we had to come to Mobile. Also her new gastrointestinterologist Dr doesn’t make rounds at Thomas

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  48. DJ, in Nashville, the only thing that really worked for me was a roll of toilet paper on the edge of the sink (which was close enough to the toilet that I could reach it). It wasn’t at all ideal, but one of my friends, knowing I needed to install a new toilet, had suggested a “comfort height” (taller) one, which I knew would be helpful for her, for my mom in our plans to move her to Nashville, and possibly for other people. Problem was, the taller height made the TP not really accessible. So I left some on the roll in case a guest chose to use it, but the roll sitting on the sink worked for me. Not ideal, but oh well. Our ancestors would have thought me downright spoiled.

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  51. Prayers, Kim — keep us posted

    Election night shift has started, I have 10:45 and 11 p.m. deadlines for my combined story on 2 LA City Council races. Another reporter and I carpooled in, she lives in an apartment a few blocks from me and if she gets home at 2 a.m. as expected she’ll have to park a few blocks away.

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  52. Yes, I suppose the most comfortable placement of TP sounds rather frivolous in many parts of the world. (My pedestal sink doesn’t really even offer a good spot for it — the old over-sized vanity literally laid right up against your leg when you sat down on the toilet, it was jammed in so close.)

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