69 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-26-17”

  4. Chas – Some of us are still on break. I am until next Wednesday, but I still get up around 7AM. I usually get other things done before checking in here.

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  5. It wasn’t the best Christmas of my life, but it wasn’t the worst either. For the first time in her life BG was not
    under my roof on Christmas Eve and she did not wake up in my house for Christmas morning. She didn’t get to my house until about 5pm.
    I understand growing up and having other interests than your mother, but I just wasn’t prepared.
    Then again, I wasn’t prepared for this Christmas either. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming. It happens December 25th of every year. I was just not that into it this year, didn’t know what to get people, and generally didn’t have the energy to care.
    Our dinner was good.

    On another note, I started listening to Goliath Must Fall on Audible this morning. Have any of you read it? How did you like it? Thoughts? Comments? Critiques? It will be the book my Sunday School class studies in January.

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  6. Morning! We had a lovely time with second daughter, SIL and three of the grands. Simple and non fussy. Husband is caretaker of the cabin on the trail to Pikes Peak this week and having the time of his life….I get some time to myself this week which is a nice change up… 😊

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  7. Kim, I’m sorry it was hard. There are trade-offs as they grow up, aren’t there? The last 14 years of my mom’s life (after I left for college) I saw her on just three or four Christmases, only one of those (if I recall correctly) at her house. I have now been out of Phoenix for close to 30 years (since summer 1989); I have been together with siblings more than a third but fewer than half of those Christmasses. That was one of the blessings of living in Nashville, that I saw family for every Christmas and nearly every Thanksgiving for those eight years (I was with church family on the Thanksgivings I didn’t see biological family), but unfortunately adult life doesn’t always allow that to happen. I’d rather be married than single, but I do miss seeing my own family on the holidays.

    Yesterday was a sweet, good day, though. We got to see our girls in the morning (at older daughter’s house) and then have lunch at his mother’s house. In the afternoon a few people (including hubby and younger daughter) napped in the living room or in upstairs bedrooms while the rest of us played Taboo in a different room. Then we had birthday cake for Jesus in the dining room, because the parents of the three-year-old had requested it. And then my husband and I came home, watched “Home Alone,” and went to bed early and got a good night of sleep.

    It was probably also my husband’s first Christmas not to have either girl wake up here Christmas morning. But when we left my mother-in-law’s house Christmas Eve, Mom was fighting back tears as she hugged us goodbye–her first Christmas without a life mate after more than 60 years–and I gladly left our girl there.

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  8. The photo is a cardinal in that same blue spruce where I photographed the sharp-shinned hawk. In this one, I photographed through the window on the door and allowed that window to be part of the photo.

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  9. Good morning. For some reason I am having to enter my info to WordPress.

    It’s back to a semblance of routine. The loud clunking and gurgling of the garbage truck is occurring out on the street. Bye bye wrapping papers from yesterday.

    I have not read that book, Kim.

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  11. We had a busy day-&-a-half between Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.

    Christmas Eve was our main day to enjoy being together, albeit with a couple bumps in the road between the two sisters. But they seemed to get past those times, & still enjoy our time together.

    Nightingale, The Boy, & I went to church in the morning, which was nice for me, but they kind of just put up with it. (I’m glad they didn’t do it “for me”, but to fulfill a requirement for the Cub Scouts’ “Duty to God” thing.) After lunch, Chickadee & The Boy enjoyed decorating their gingerbread houses at the dining room table. Nightingale was busy in the kitchen (the two rooms are open to each other, so we were still all together), making gingerbread cookies & a cake.

    The cake she made was a birthday cake for a patient at the nursing home, who has a Christmas birthday. (He is only in his 50s but is there due to having cerebral palsy.) For the past several years, one of the nurses would make him the cake from his late mother’s recipe. She left this past year, so Nightingale, who loves to bake, volunteered to make it for him.

    For dinner, she made a delicious meal of chuck roast, potatoes, & carrots in her crock pot. It tasted even better on my pretty new Christmas dishes. 🙂

    Later, we did our relatively new (started three or four years ago) Christmas Eve tradition of having The Boy change into new Christmas jammies, then settling down to watch a classic Christmas movie, eating snacks & drinking hot cocoa. (But we forgot the hot cocoa this year!) This year’s “movie” was A Charlie Brown Christmas, the one where Linus tells them the true meaning of Christmas by quoting from Luke, which was followed by a different Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon.

    The Boy was so excited, he could not get to sleep until after 11:00.

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  12. We got an electric spiralizer from my brother. Does anyone have anything they like to make with that small appliance? I think it could help with our dieting.

    This has been an unusual Christmas. I really enjoyed the Christmas Eve service at Art’s church and getting to hear the lovely singing of his choir director who attended the Getty concert with us. At the end we all hugged and greeted people we (son and I) don’t see often anymore. That made us late for the service at my church. Then in the parking lot at my church we encountered a lady who was a bit emotionally challenged and asking for money to pay rent. It was cold so I took off my coat and gave it to her. She was asking about where is God in her life. It was a very uncomfortable situation where we needed to shine the light of God in her life as she talked on. She basically said she had been getting money through prostitution to make rent but she did not want to do that. I was getting cold without my coat. Son was looking up the location of a shelter where she might get help. Then son pulled out money to give her. She said that it would be enough to pay her rent. He had given what he had made by cat sitting which he had planned to give to charity. It was 100.00. I would have advised against that. I try to give something that can’t be used for drug or other substance abuse. If I say anything to my son about what he did, what should I say? Art used words to try and offer the lady some hope. Now I am without my favorite lightweight coat and gloves, and we only got to see about half of my church’s Christmas Eve service. Which is about like seeing half of the Getty concert.

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  13. Oh, a few weeks ago I answered a question about what to get for a daughter-in-law and mentioned that I would love it if my mother-in-law would buy for me as though I were family.

    A few days ago Mom mentioned she had gone to the store to buy Christmas gifts. My husband grumbled a bit to me–he prefers that she buy him amazon gift cards that he can spend as he sees fit. I admit I kind of like the amazon cards, too . . . but he has an 81-year-old mother who lost her life mate this year, and she is taking the care to go to the store and buy personal gifts. Now, she did include gift receipts and he may return his gift (a water bottle); men can be hard to buy for. But for me she bought a sweatshirt that has three cardinals (all males) sitting on a holly branch. It’s a Christmas one, with the holly, but not conspicuously so, and thus a nice winter sweatshirt, with an image she knew I would consider pretty. 🙂

    She didn’t open the bag of cards in my presence, so I don’t know what she thought of them when she saw they weren’t photo cards. But in the package of cards I included a few family photos (rendered by that photo program I showed last week, all done in black and white); one of the photos was from two or three Christmasses ago, Mom sitting on Dad’s lap and them looking at each other with 60 years worth of love in their eyes. Last night she thanked me for that photo, said she loved the way he was looking at her in it.

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  14. Janice – Taking time for that lady was the right thing to do, more important than being in the service, which I’m sure is how you felt. Rather than “being in the service”, you were “doing service”. 🙂

    Praying that that lady will be drawn to Jesus by the kindness & love shown her in His name by you & your family.

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  15. Holiday “traditions” continually change through our lives, as people come and go, grow up, pass on, move — and circumstances are altered. Some things are lost, others are gained.

    Growing up, Christmas morning and day were the focus. In my own life, that focus has changed more to Christmas Eve. And I think I’ve always enjoyed the build up to Christmas — the decorating, the lights, the shopping, the anticipation — more than the actual holiday itself.

    It was a good one for me this year, not spectacular, but good and satisfying. Now I’m thinking about all the un-decorating I’ll have to do in the next week … And today it’s back to work for me after a long but productive and fun week off.

    Still, there’s another 3-day weekend ahead for New Year’s, which is sweet.

    This is always a tough week to find stories as everyone else seems to still be “off” and not much is really going on.

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  16. The morning & early afternoon of Christmas Day were kind of rushed. The Boy was being picked up at 2:00, & Nightingale & Chickadee were going to have to leave by around that time, too, to drop off Chickadee, & for Nightingale to go to work.

    We took our time with opening presents in the morning – not something we wanted to rush through – then had a breakfast of gingerbread pancakes. After breakfast, Nightingale started making the peppermint glaze & chocolate ganache drizzle for the birthday cake she made for that patient. There was also some shoveling of snow to do! Fortunately, there wasn’t too much, & it got done quicker than usual.

    As the clean-up woman, I was kept busy with messes in the kitchen, dining room, & living room. When it was all finished, & everyone had left, I was relieved to have time to relax & have some quiet, alone time. (And yes, I wept at times throughout the day, of course.)

    Cheryl – My heart goes out to your MIL. 😦

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  17. DJ – Nightingale & I have also said that we enjoy the time leading up to Christmas even more than the actual day.

    As for taking down decorations, I like to do it a little at a time, leaving the tree up for most (or all) of January. Although, there are times when I just want it all done & put away.

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  19. My city church was having a Christmas Day service, but I wasn’t there to attend it of course. My family church is too tiny to have more than one service a week. If Christmas is on a Sunday, then of course there will be a service.

    Most of us are back on our feet, though we are all a bit weak still. Third nephew seemed sickest, but he drank the electrolyte drink I mixed for him and has bounced back. Fourth nephew insisted on eating sour cream (don’t ask, I have no idea why) although we told him dry crackers were better for him, and has had something of a relapse. I’m able to be up and moving, but my system isn’t fully back to normal yet.

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  20. QOD No unless December 25 is a Sunday. But then, we are a small church so most of us would be with family. So obviously the answer to the second part is, “only if we meet that Sunday”.

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  21. Our church just did an early Christmas Eve candlelight service. It is my favorite. Many ‘regulars’ were missing and many ‘regulars’ had pews full of family.

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  22. I’ve heard of churches canceling Sunday service when Christmas falls on a Sunday — seems so strange to me.

    But, no, we do not have a Christmas Day service, only Christmas Eve. I have been to a few Lutheran Christmas Day services in the past.

    In our denomination, neither Christmas nor Easter are ‘holy days.’ Every Sunday is a holy day.

    Janice, never heard of that book. What do you know about the author?

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  24. LInda,

    Our churches do not have a Christmas Day service. Last year when Christmas was on a Sunday we didn’t even have the regular Sunday morning service, just the Christmas Eve service on Saturday evening. This year one of the two churches did not have the Sunday morning service on Christmas Eve, just the evening Christmas Eve service, as the membership is mostly older (at 55 I’m younger than most of the congregation) and some of them drive 15 minutes or more to get to church and did not want to go out twice on a Sunday. (And even though the snow was only an inch or two Sunday morning, I imagine a number of them were glad not to be going out until after the plowing was done.)

    I have attended churches in the past that did have a service on Christmas Day. (And we always attended them – even when my husband wasn’t the pastor.) One church invited people to come in their pajamas to the morning service, since many people like to stay in their pajamas Christmas morning. I think there was a decent turnout, but I don’t remember clearly – that was 23 years ago.

    But most churches I have attended have their “Christmas service” – the one recognizing the birth of Jesus – on Christmas Eve. I don’t recall ever attending one that had a service on Christmas Day unless it was a Sunday.

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  25. We had four services on Sunday, Christmas Eve, and one service Christmas morning at 10. My husband likes that Christmas Day service and I usually enjoy it, too, but yesterday I was too tired and said no.

    So we had a more leisurely morning and everyone was happy. He could have gone by himself, but why would he if his favorite people were all at home?

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  26. We, too, are a small church. Normal attendance is usually around 75. Christmas morning it was 39. We have a tradition of brass playing along with the hymns for that service, which is quite nice. As I think I mentioned last week, we sing only Advent hymns up until the Christmas Eve service.

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  28. Today is third son’s birthday. He got up, went to work, and discovered that today is a work holiday. He is now out on the golf course. Nice birthday present. Clearly, he is not here as we have several inches of snow and gold would be challenging.

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  29. We don’t have a Christmas Day service. Sometimes we have a Christmas Eve service; since my husband and I don’t attend evening services (we don’t live in the same town as our church), I don’t know if we had an evening service this week. My family growing up always celebrated Christmas Eve, and in Nashville I was nearly always at the house of one of my siblings over Christmas (one day I drove across to my sister’s house on Christmas Day so that I could attend the popular Christmas Eve service for once), so attending a Christmas Eve service has never been a habit. I have been to two or three Christmas Eve services in my life, and never a Christmas Day service, that I recall. Well, when Christmas falls on a Sunday, as it did last year, of course we went to the service. Cancelling a Lord’s Day worship service for a manmade psedoo celebration of Jesus’ birth would seem weird to me. This year we had enough snow that I think some churches cancelled plan services, and that one makes sense, if a large enough percentage of your congregation can’t get there safely.

    We had a lot of visitors Sunday, though, including several with families of children. I recognized most, maybe all, of them, though. At least some of them come to town to visit family members who love locally but do not come to our church. I think that is kind of cool that even though we aren’t their church, they come often enough that we probably feel familiar to them and their children.

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  30. We do not have a Christmas Day service. Last year the regular Sunday service was cancelled because it was Christmas, time to be home with family. I think that’s the first time we’ve done that. I didn’t miss it though since we always go to the Christmas Eve service the night before.

    This year we had the regular Sunday morning service and the evening Christmas Eve service, both of which were challenging to attend because of the snow. Even if we’d had a Christmas Day service I don’t think we would have attended.

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  31. QoD: Our church has a Christmas Day service at 9:00 a.m. We attend if we’re not traveling. (For a number of years, my husband’s extended family met on Christmas Day, but recent years they’ve moved the celebration to January, so we do go to Christmas Day worship in that case, like this year.)

    Yesterday’s service was interesting in that Pastor took requests for Christmas hymns. While the organist played in the background, Pastor gave us a few minutes at the beginning of the service to page through the Christmas section of the hymnal, and whoever wanted to could text him (his cell # was printed in the bulletin) or call out a request in those opening minutes. He joked that this would be the only time he’d let us text during church. 🙂

    We sang usually two verses of each hymn, interspersed among the scripture readings, prayers, sermon, and the rest of the liturgy. I very much enjoyed all the congregational singing we got to do yesterday (though he admitted he only got to about one-third of the requests). I guess I got my text in right under the wire — the one I requested, “Once in Royal David’s City,” was the final hymn of the service.

    I’m guessing Pastor probably would have had us sing more of the requests if there had been time, but there’s been a long-standing tradition that members of our church who want to will head over to a nearby nursing home to sing hymns for the residents on Christmas Day at 10:30.

    The pianist/organist did very well, not knowing ahead of time which hymns she would be playing. (She did know the format of the service, though, and practiced through all the Christmas hymns — #33-68 — a couple of times in the days before the service. She’s been an organist for many years, too, so most of the Christmas songs from our hymnal (in use about 30 years) are probably quite familiar to her. Still, that’s a lot of spontaneous changing gears during the service, and her good playing added to the enjoyment of the experience for me.)

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  33. Our church also has two Christmas Eve services most years — at 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm. This year, though, they only did the early service, as that would have been the third service of the day (there were our regular Sunday morning services at 8:00 and 10:30 that morning, as well), and the Christmas Day service coming the next day, too.

    We went to 8:00 a.m. church, and it was much more sparsely attended than usual. (8:00 church tends to have higher attendance than 10:30 on most Sundays, so I’m guessing a lot of people were traveling or maybe just deciding they wouldn’t go to both a morning service and the evening service that day. The 6:00 pm service on Christmas Eve tends to be very-well attended.

    We didn’t go in the evening, as we usually do on Christmas Eve, because this year we got together with my extended family at that time.

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  34. Speaking of our extended-family Christmas Eve gathering, my dad seemed to be doing better that evening. Not much repetition of the things he usually talks about. I think it was good for him to get out of the house and into a different environment. He hardly ever goes anywhere anymore — he’s even been missing church a lot — and a good friend of his died last week, and Dad did not go to the funeral.

    Sad. But I’m glad he did get out for our family gathering.

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  35. Our current church usually has a Christmas Eve service, but not one on Christmas Day, unless, of course, it falls on a Sunday. With Christmas Eve this year falling on a Sunday, our morning service was our Christmas Eve service.

    The church we attended before this, for more than 20 years, did have a Christmas Day service at 10:00. I must admit that I didn’t like having to go, because it broke up the morning (although I didn’t mind when it was on a Sunday), with having to rush through the morning’s festivities & get the girls ready to go out, & usually went longer than the hour & a half scheduled for it. We missed a few here & there through the years, & at some point, probably after we moved to Stafford, giving us a nearly half hour drive to church, we stopped going to it.

    That former church also had a New Year’s Eve service & fellowship time each year. We went a time or two, then started having other plans on that night. My parents would have their “Three Beautiful Granddaughters” come over for the evening & spend the night, so Hubby & I would have a little staying-in date.

    My impression had been that the church’s New Years Eve gathering was for those who wanted to do something but didn’t have other plans. So I was quite surprised, at the first Sunday service of one new year, as our pastor expressed his great disappointment that so many people would skip the New Years Eve service. He even sounded a bit angry as he insisted that when the church has a service, the congregation should be there. But as I said, I hadn’t thought of it as that kind of service.

    (This almost makes Pastor W sound harsh or something, but he really was a genuinely humble, caring man, & a very good pastor.)

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  36. A strange thing happened at the venue where we had that Christmas Eve gathering. (Usually we meet in one of our homes, but not this year, for various reasons.)

    We met at an assisted living place in my hometown that has a community room that can be rented out to the public. When we were preparing to clean up and head out to go back home after our gathering, my sister told me the building had been on lockdown before our gathering time of 6:00 pm. Apparently, someone in the building was wearing a ski mask and walking the halls with a pool cue stick, and another person who saw that individual thought the masked person was instead carrying a gun.

    Things got figured out, and there was no gunman, but that all was a little surprising to hear later that evening!

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  37. After church yesterday, we came home, made a pork and beef roast in the same pan — yum! — and had a bunch of other goodies with all our children and daughter’s fiance. Then we opened presents and enjoyed lounging around and chatting for the rest of the afternoon. First Arrow, and Second and Fiance, left around 6:30 last night. It was nice having them all here for the day. (We had seen them the night before, too, at my extended family’s Christmas gathering, and will see them again on January 7th for my husband’s side’s Christmas.)

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  38. I forgot to say that I give all the credit for our lovely Christmas celebrations to my lovely Nightingale. She loves to do the things that make the holiday special, & she planned out what we would do. I am so grateful for her.

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  39. Here’s my Christmas fax pas. We were invited upstairs to watch the girls open gifts, then headed to church for the 10:00 service, then from there (since church is on the way), a 50-minute ride down to where my SIL and FIL live for brunch (they live together, as SIL is not married and MIL is deceased). Dinner is back at our house around 6:00.

    Our oven has the delayed start feature but since I only use it (that feature, not the oven) once a year, I was worried that I’d set it incorrectly and the turkey wouldn’t get cooked. So I asked hubby, the wizard with all things electronic, to set it.

    We were quite rushed to get to church early since hubby was the usher in charge of opening the building and I scrambled to get dressed and ready to go. Got to church on time. Got to brunch.

    When we got back home around 2:00 that afternoon, I rushed down to make sure the oven had started up as I’d expected, which it had. Unfortunately, in our haste, neither of us actually thought to put the turkey IN the oven, and it was dutifully sitting on top the stove right where I’d left it.

    It turned out OK, though. I took a chance and cooked it at 375 and announced that dinner would be at 7:00. The only downside was that I had to carve it right out of the oven instead of letting it rest for an hour like I’d originally intended.

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  40. Linda, that’s what you get for trusting a man in the kitchen.
    😆

    Karen mentioned a Mew Year service.
    There was a time when Baptist Churches had “watch night” services. I took Elvera to the when we were courting. They ended by the early sixties. .

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  42. 6, well, they are Baptists, after all. 🙂

    Chas, It wasn’t really his job to put it in. I take full credit but am going with the excuse that I was distracted by having him set the oven and by trying to rush out the door.

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  43. On men vs. women (from a man’s point of view, obviously, but pretty funny — via a male friend):

    “Never make a woman mad. They can remember stuff that hasn’t even happened yet.”

    “Arguing with a woman is like reading the software license agreement. In the end, you have to ignore everything and click ‘I Agree.'”

    “Behind every angry woman stands a man who has absolutely no idea what he did wrong.”

    “Every time you talk to your wife, your mind should remember that … ‘This conversation may be recorded for training and quality purposes.'”

    “Some things are just better left unsaid. And I usually realize it right after I say them.”

    “If a woman says ‘First of all’ during an argument, run away, because she has prepared research, data, charts and will destroy you.”

    “A wise man once said nothing.”

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  44. Previouslly at the Methodist church, they had two Christmas Eve services, one for families with children, since the preschool families attended, and then another for the older people at a later time. I think I sometimes attended both since I was a teacher back then. Later they changed to only one Christmas Eve service. Now each of our churches have services timed with Art’s at five and mine at six so we try to attend each of them, both candlelight, and mine with communion. Both our churches have services if Christmas falls on Sunday, but otherwise not. I did see cars in my church lot on Christmas around ten a.m. and then after dark when we came back from my brother’s home. I figured the Indian church plant in our building might be having a gathering.

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  47. The holly was outside our hotel room a couple of weeks ago; we went to get away and took snow with us! But my husband was sick the whole time anyway, so oh well. But when I saw this holly through the window of our breakfast room, I knew I had to take my camera out and get a Christmas photo of it with the snow on it, though it wasn’t on many of the berries, mostly just the leaves, by that point.

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  49. Looks like the Lutherans among us (Linda, Michelle, and I, and maybe others? — I don’t know all the denominations represented here) have services Christmas Day. We also have Wednesday services during Advent and Lent (except between Palm Sunday and Easter, when there is no Wednesday service, but Maundy Thursday and Good Friday worship).

    We have a New Year’s Eve service, too, but not one on New Year’s Day. New Year’s Eve is not nearly as well-attended as the Christmas Eve services. We have an Ascension Day service (in the evening), also. Otherwise, I think that’s it for services outside of Sunday morning services and the Thursday evening alternative for those who can’t attend the upcoming Sunday service. (The Thursday services are suspended during Lent and Advent.)

    I really love going to the New Year’s Eve service. There is something about ending the calendar year, if not the exact last hour of the year, worshiping in God’s house, thinking of the blessings of the last year which God bestowed on us; quietly remembering those from our congregation who have fallen asleep in the Lord that year (their names and the dates they went home to Jesus are printed in the bulletin); contemplating a new year of grace and mercy from our faithful Lord.

    I find much comfort and joy in worship, and that particular service — on New Year’s Eve — even though it’s not a date with any theological significance, is a lovely way to close out the year, I find (for me, anyway). I’m glad for that service.

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  50. I forgot to mention that the small rural church I attended in my youth had, and still has, a tradition of no service on the Sunday between Christmas and New Years. I’m guessing because many of the congregation’s members might be gone, anyway, and it would be one of the few opportunities for the pastor to travel to see relatives who might be rather far-flung.

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  51. Our pastor always reminded us of others churches of the same denomination that were in our general area where those who wanted to worship on the Sunday between Christmas and New Years could go for that week. Our family did often go to a city church, then, on those occasions, and that became a nice tradition in itself.

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  52. Chas, watch night services didn’t totally end by the early sixties, since I was born in the second half of the sixties and I remember attending a few. Sometimes they had a film (I almost said movie) and sometimes singing and prayer.

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  53. My Chicago church had a New Year’s Eve service each year, but its focus and length would vary year by year. Sometimes it went till midnight and sometimes it didn’t. Living in the hood, in a city where people would literally fire guns into the air as part of celebrations, I always made it a point either to be home by about 10:30 or to stay gone till 1:00 or so, no going home at 12:05 stuff. (New Year’s Eve 2000 I spent the night elsewhere.)

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  54. Oh, we have one Thanksgiving Day and one Thanksgiving Eve service, too. I knew I was forgetting something in that list of special services I mentioned above!

    One of the gifts I received yesterday — from 2nd Arrow — was a cotton throw with music notes and symbols on it. A tag hanging from it proudly declared the item as American-made. When I looked at the label with laundering instructions, I noticed where the throw was manufactured:

    Hendersonville, NC.

    You all know of whom I was reminded then. 😉

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  55. If I can remember that far back, the objective of the Watch Night Service was to be praying as the new year arrived. The meeting ended soon after that. Maybe, with singing “Bless be the tie ” but my memory may be faulty here.

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  56. Mr X gave The Boy the best, most expensive Nerf gun available for his age range. He told The Boy that he had worked hard & saved up the money for it (making sure he knew it was expensive).

    But. . .Mr X is on Disability. So either he lied about working hard for it, or he is working at a job & getting paid under the table. 😦

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  57. On Facebook, Michelle shared her blog post about grief, & I commented on it. I want to share my comment with you, as it is something I was thinking about writing here anyway. . .

    ~~~”Speaking of moving on, as you did towards the end of this, I have conflicting feelings about that.

    On one hand, I am open to moving on into what the Lord has for me now. That’s the practical & faith-filled side of me saying that.

    On the other hand, the idea of moving on puts Leon further into being “a part of my past” rather than still being “a (huge) part of my life”. That is very hard to think about, & always brings me to tears (like right now, as I type this).

    Although the practical & faith-filled part of me is willing to move on, knowing that not doing so would be very unhealthy for me, & wanting God’s will to be done in my life, my heart wants to linger here, as a new widow, a while longer. And I feel that that is okay, that it is part of the grieving process, as long as I don’t build a permanent home here.

    Turning the calendar from 2017 to 2018 is going to be hard, as, symbolically, I am leaving him even further in my past.”~~~

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  59. Those quotes about women remind me of something I saw on Facebook, but I don’t remember who shared it. (Could’ve been one of you even.)

    It was something like:

    My wife said, “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

    What a strange way to begin a conversation.

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  60. Haha, you guys are funny tonight. Mew services, raw turkey on top of the oven …

    I attended a Night Watch service in the 1990s, it was a Latino charismatic church, speaking in tongues, etc. (well, maybe it was just Spanish, but I would have picked up at least some of that). I remember outside the church they had fires in a couple of trash cans, I believe people were writing down sins they were praying to gain victory over and tossing the pieces of paper into the fires.

    My former Presbyterian church had a Thanksgiving morning service, very informal, some singing along with people sharing what they were thankful for that year (it was a small congregation).

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  61. The fundamentalist churches I attended in the 70’s always had watch night services. I don’t remember much about them except that they were long, since they ended at midnight. One year I got a job babysitting instead, so the parents could go to the watch night service. Four kids, and they were so difficult I was afraid I wouldn’t get them all to bed before midnight. I had thought that getting paid for playing with kids was a better deal than going to a long church service, but after that I decided that the church service was much easier.

    The last watch night service I went to was at the end of 1979, while I was in Bible school. The pastor told us he was convinced Christ would return before the service ended, the assumption apparently being that it had been one “generation” – 32 years – since the founding of the state of Israel. I was rather doubtful of that reasoning, and felt rather guilty that I did not particularly hope that Christ came before midnight. I was seventeen, and didn’t feel that I had had much chance to serve Christ yet (and that I had often missed/wasted chances I had had), and I wanted to have some more time left to live on this earth and have lived a good Christian life before appearing before God.

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  63. Kizzie, note that Michelle lost her mother (not her spouse) more than a quarter century ago, and still notes that with sorrow every Christmas season. No one is expecting you to “move on” but months after the unexpected death of your life mate.

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  64. dj, I’m sure that the pastor hadn’t started out with expecting Christ to come that particular night. I’m guessing he had for some time been expecting that Christ would come by the end of 1979, and we were getting down to the wire. I have no idea whether he had talked previously about this expectation, though at the time I assumed he had. It’s been a long time, but I seem to remember that it was a common expectation at that time among at least some number of dispensationalists.

    That was the year I started doubting dispensationalism, though I don’t know how much it had to do with that watch night service. It was more that I had long assumed that the things I heard in sermons were clearly spelled out in the Bible, and now that we were studying the Bible in depth I was finding out how much interpretation was involved of passages that seemed to me to not be nearly so clear in their interpretation.

    I had been going to churches that gave a strong impression that you could not trust what was taught at churches that differed significantly from them in doctrine. Having grown up in a liberal church where I never heard the gospel, and which had ecumenical ties with churches in other denominations that seemed very much like it, it fit my experience to assume that most churches were Christian in name only. So I felt I had to stick to the fundamentalist churches even if I questioned some stuff like dispensationalism.

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  67. Linda- You leave the turkey out for an hour before carving it? Doesn’t that mean it’s cold when served? At Thanksgiving my SIL serves turkey and it’s usually cold because of how long it takes to cool and carve, then get 30+ people together to pray and eat. Plus, her husband, a pastor, gives a 2-3 minute talk on being thankful before praying, allowing others to say something. I like my turkey hot, so I usually jump into the serving line at the front so I don’t get it cold. Or else I ask to use the microwave and zap it for 30 seconds or so.

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