79 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-6-18”

  1. Lou Hoots was on FoxNews. He has a birthday today.
    He said he went to bed a young man last night, woke up old.
    Holtz said, “There are 400,000 words in the English language. The most important one is choice.” I know what he means, but I think the most important one is love.

    Lou’s son, Skip Holtz went into coaching but I haven’t heard about him lately.
    I always liked Lou. He is the one who turned the SC football around.
    The first year he was at SC, they went 1-9. The last (fifth, I believer) they beat Ohio State in a bowl game. Then Steve Spurrier came. He was given all the credit. But Lou started it.

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  2. Chas, I think the most important one might be grace.

    Y’all were talking about electric bills last night. Well, we have an all-electric house (we have a well, so not even any water bill, and the well takes electricity) and baseboard heat, we’re on even billing, and it’s just a bit under $200/month. We don’t have central air, but a built-in unit in our library, which works adequately, especially since we started helping it out last summer with a dehumidifier in another room. I was a bit afraid of baseboard heat, as I had heard electric heat was inexpensive and not warm enough, but we have the advantage of being able to adjust the heat in each room individually (we don’t run the ones in the bathrooms, and when the girls aren’t with us, we close their doors and keep their heat low), and this Phoenix-bred girl finds it warm enough without being too expensive.

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  3. Funny you should mention words and meaning. I agree with Chas about the word Love. From love comes everything else. Because we love someone we are able to extend grace, hope, faith,charity. The Bible devotes an entire chapter to it in Jesus’ words.
    For years I have told you that I want Peace in my life. I think I have finally found peace. My word for this year is Balance. I want balance in my life. I want to work hard, play hard, and love even harder.

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  4. I have not caught up on yesterday’s post, but will say that we also have electric heat with baseboards. It was a bit scary to go this route when we did, since we did not know anyone who had it. We have been pleased with it, although our particular company is a rural co-op and has high rates compared to the other company near us.

    I like being able to keep different rooms at different temps. It is less dusty and for those with allergies that makes a difference.

    We have a level rate, but it changes twice a year. (It used to change once a year.) We are grandfathered into a dual fuel rate. We have a propane stove to supplement when they shut off the heat. We used to have a rate that would let the company shut us off for days. Only once did that happen for a few days at once. Now we have a rate where we can only be shut off for four hours in the evenings. The shut-offs come if the electric use peaks company wide.

    We also have off-peak hot water. That saves a lot of money. We had that when we still had children at home and we still usually had enough hot water.

    We are not wasteful with our usage at all and we pay well over 200.00 a month on average. Even without heat, we will be over $100.00 a month. We have no air conditioning, so that is not included.

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  6. We just had our propane tank refilled and that was almost $150.00. However, that may last us a couple of winters and the price for that changes. In fact, someone told me he was quoted at least a dime a gallon hirer than that last evening and we just got ours filled yesterday afternoon!

    We used to have a woodstove for the dual fuel, but switched when we would travel. We cut our own firewood for years. I do not miss doing that at all. We still have the woodstove in an unattached garage, but it is seldom used.

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  8. Chas & Kim’s comment made me think of this verse:

    Now abides faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:13)

    Bonne Anniversaire to Kim. You share the day of your birth with a dear aunt of mine.

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  9. No electric heat, no air conditioning, electric well. Our bill is usually about two hundred a month.

    When I have gone to get the wood, I have enjoyed it. We went with friends and had lots of people so the work was not so hard and it was time in the woods. We had a campfire and a nice meal, usually. But as we age, we are more willing to pay for it to be brought around.

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  10. My parents’ electricity bill has usually been around $140 a month, and they have such cost saving measures as no air conditioning in the summer, an oil furnace (gas is not an option in their rural setting) supplemented by a wood stove (my father cuts his own wood, usually from our patch of forest), and the hot water heater on a timer so it turns off during the day when rates are higher. Recently, the provincial premier seeks reelection, and thus electricity rates have suddenly dropped (due to the phenomenon of crown corporations – an infrastructure feature that has its uses in a sparsely inhabited country – politicians may have some say in utility rates and the last two premiers have had plenty to say on the matter) artificially low, lowering their bill by almost a hundred dollars. It only makes them nervous, since they have reason to think that post election, the rates will shoot up higher than ever.

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  12. I have always had forced air heat. I used to close off rooms that were not used, but once a service man said that it didn’t help because the return needed so much air and it didn’t help to reduce the output.
    I told you this before, but when I went into my room at Purdue, I set the thermostat and never touched it again.
    Like in my car. I once left Florida with the air conditioner on and arrived in Annandale with the heat on. I never knew when it switched.

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  15. Thank you. I have been away taking down Christmas. I am waiting on the two men in my life to WAKE UP!!!!!! I figure the 29 year old male can prove his toughness by hauling all this stuff back into the attic for me. He left a birthday card on the kitchen counter—“from your favorite son”. He can earn that honor today and he will be my favorite. Until my other favorite shows up again.

    Cats AJ? You give me cats for my birthday? 😉

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  17. Happy birthday, Kim. I hope you have wonderful, blessed day.

    6, my gravatar is a wolf from a pack that lives in the north part of Prince Albert National Park. The picture was taken by my husband as he flew over on a helicopter patrol.

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  18. We don’t have an electric bill. Or gas bill. We are basement dwellers and the kiddos upstairs handle all of that. We do have a geothermal system that I believe keeps the costs down.

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  20. We have gas heat, which I’m not a fan of–I often wake in the morning when it goes on, totally dry and with a headache starting.

    The electricity costs are around $120? I’m not sure, but Mr. Energy is satisfied. No air conditioning, but everything improved when we insulated the floors and put on a new energy efficiency roof. The roof is a lighter color so it reflects the sun better and Mr. Energy estimates the temperatures in the summer are about 10 degree cooler inside than under the previous roof.

    We bought an energy efficient house in Washington state in 1989 that had triple pane windows, extra insulation and thicker studding (to make room for the extra insulation). Each room had a “squirrel cage,” electric heater. I liked that arrangement because we could control the heat in each room.

    Our rooms were filled during those years, so few adjustments needed! LOL

    Even with the water heater running constantly, the bills were about $60 a month–but that was back in the Dark Ages when our electricity was hydroelectric.

    BTW, the gas supply in the US is so high that my great-grandchildren should have all the energy they need according to the aforementioned energy guy.

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  23. You know, Kim, one of the things I appreciate about you is that you are so honest with us. You don’t hide and try to pretend. Thanks for letting us see your hurts and trials, it helps me to face the reality of my own disappointments and hurts.

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  25. We made it home right after dark yesterday. Glad to get back so son could get his flight today. He has to teach Monday so it was iffy for a bit since we got iced/snowed in. Art took him to the airport and said it was the least crowded he’d seen it, probably due to cancelled flights with the winter storm north of us. It was 20° here last night.

    Miss Bosley is enjoying a nap in my lap. The sunshine is warming her and making her white fur glisten like snow. I am thankful she has so quickly settled back in, and is not meowing so much as she has in the past when picked up from boarding. She looks content like the sleeping cats in the header. Sweet.

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  26. I am behind on reading comments, but wanna get my question in before it gets too late and I let it go again (as has happened several times):

    Now, you are gonna think this question was spurred by Hubby’s death, but, although that has some to do with it, this is something I have pondered for a while, long before that. I have my own thoughts on this, but am interested in what other believers might think.

    There seem to be three basic views of the timing of a person’s death.

    1.) It is completely up to God’s will.

    2.) God allows circumstances, such as the person’s health or habits (like smoking, drinking too much, or running red lights), to be the sole determinant in the time of a person’s death.

    3.) Circumstances are what lead to a person’s demise, but God may heal the person or protect them until He so deems it time for their death, or may even hasten their death (out of mercy or wrath, depending on the person). (This is kind of middle ground between #s 1 and 2.)

    I realize there is more nuance to those views, and maybe even more views I haven’t considered. What do y’all think?

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  27. Oh, I realize it’s too late to join the January flowers discussion, but I thought of carnations, which are the flower for January. Some people consider them plain and ordinary, but I really love them, especially in pink and red.

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  28. Happy Birthday, Kim. Many blessings today and all year!!! Thankful you have peace ❤

    We went to Chris Pizza last night and saw the Tiramisu on their menu. I wish that for your birthday treat if you like it! We did not have that, but instead had some Key Lime Pie I got at the grocery.

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  31. Kizzie, I feel God has complete control as to the appointed time for a person’s death. It is easy to attribute the timing to those factors we can see, but I feel the unseen overrules the seen.

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  32. Happy Birthday Kim! We celebrate you!! 🙂

    I slept in, I guess I needed it, although I was up a couple times to let Cowboy out — but I went right back to sleep. Off to pick up dog meds from the vet before they close in about 90 minutes.

    A handyman is coming late today (unless I cancel which I may, he wants to come at 4 or 5 p.m. which really is kind of late). I originally was looking for a painting bid from him, but have pretty much decided to go with the dog park guy who’s almost always the most reasonable in the end (if a big slowish in getting things finished) and is a known quantity.

    Another guy, friend or relative of the gardener, is coming early Monday to take a look at the stucco repair that needs to be done over the foundation area.

    My forced air heat is expensive to run, but it’s only really needed from about late November through February/March and typically just in the early mornings and sometimes in the evenings. I try to turn it off as soon as the house is warm enough (which happens very quickly, I usually set it for 70 degrees which is a tad higher than they recommend — I think it’s 68 they say should be the cutoff). But the heater works well and and it works fast. I always turn it off overnight.

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  33. Agree with Janice on timings of death — so much also comes through genetics. It boils down to a few diseases that seem to take all of us in due time. But God is over all of that as well.

    Cute cats in the photo.

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  35. Aunt Leesee is making my favorite cake. It is a coconut cake with Lane cake filling. I so much enjoyed my meal at Chris’ Pizza (It is more Greek than just a pizza parlor).
    I can’t like carnations. I associate them with funerals. For the same reason I don’t like gladiolas.

    Jo, I subscribe to the saying, “If you can’t serve as an example, you’ll just have to serve as a warning!”.
    Middle Son got introduced to Passive Aggressive Motherhood. I dropped the broiler pan on the tile floor in the kitchen when I was trying to put it up. I didn’t intentionally do it, but once I did, I finished it off when not gently closing the pantry doors. 😉

    All of our days are numbered. I think God knows when we will die, but I don’t think he punishes us with death. I don’t think he is Passive Aggessive. I think that is human parents. I don’t view the death of loved ones as punishment. I think we live until we fulfill our purpose on earth, and our reward is being with God in heaven. Do I like it? No. Even now, I wish for my father. Today is 10 years since he last called to tell me happy birthday. TEN YEARS. Would I want him back to suffer cancer like he did? No. I still take comfort from the Lutheran Pastor having a prayer around his bed the morning he died and then squeezing my hand and telling me, “Don’t worry. Your father is in heaven”. Considering Daddy took a Bible study class with him and always argued from all sided, I figure if anyone knew whether or not he would be in heaven it would be Pastor.

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  36. Happy Birthday, Kim, and many joyous returns!

    Kare, that’s a cool shot. I always like your outdoorsy gravatars. 🙂

    We have two gas furnaces, one for upstairs, one for downstairs; gas water heater and dryer; but an electric stove. Outdoor wood boiler. We buy propane in the summer to top off our tanks when the prices are at their lowest. With our budget, I set aside $10 a paycheck, which is $260 a year, and we’ve always had enough to cover the propane bill.

    Electric bill runs on average around $130 a month — higher in summer and winter, lower in spring and fall.

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  37. Karen, it’s impossible to answer your question without contradicting myself.
    It’s that complicated.
    I believe that everyone’s death is on God’s calendar. It will happen as he wills.
    However, I believe that we can’t tempt God by assuming that we can do stupid things and get away with it because the date hasn’t arrived. It may be tempting God to assume that we can abuse ourselves and do stupid things because we assume that our date hasn’t arrived.
    Some things I don’t understand.

    But I’m certain that God is not taken by surprise.

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  38. Happy Birthday, Kim! So glad you found the Peace you have yearned for. Keep it close to you, and it will help you find the Balance you’ve set your sites on this year. :–)

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  39. Yay, found a stucco repair guy. Or rather Real Estate Guy did, he was working on a house a few blocks away that belongs to Real Estate Guy’s landlord so he just brought him over and he gave me a price of $350, can do it next Saturday. That’s such a relief as we didn’t know how much this would really cost.

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  40. Kizzie, I believe our lives are fully within God’s control, including our deaths. The point at which someone dies was always the point at which he would die. Yet, as with other things, we also bear responsibility to take care of the body God gave us, and its abuse will cause it to begin to die quicker. In that sense, it may not be the death which is hastened by foolish behaviour, but the decay that precedes the death; although, as I daily experience with my asthma, a condition I’ve had since childhood, a long slow decay is not always the fault of the person either. It is very apparent from Scripture that just because death happens, that does not mean it is always due to a fault and it is often hard to distinguish whether it was due to sin or not – Samson’s death is a perfect example of the ambiguity that exists in Scripture on that point. It is important to understand as a Christian that sin exists in this world, but karma does not. The wicked may prosper in life while the righteous may suffer, but neither is it only the good who die young. The Preacher wrote that time and chance happen to all, and indeed, from our perspective, that is an accurate description. Some purposes will never be completely understood by us before the Resurrection.

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  42. Kizzie, I can’t put into words how to answer your question at 1:00pm, so I figured it best not to attempt. Others have spoken well.

    Roscuro, thank you for the lovely music today (and during Advent).

    To add to those beautiful selections, if anyone would like to hear more Christmas music before this day, Epiphany, is out, Minnesota Public Radio’s Holiday Stream continues through the rest of the day, I think. (Their website says “through January 6,” and I’m listening to it right now, so I’m guessing it goes until midnight Central Time.)

    Go here and click on the arrow for Holiday Stream, if you’re interested:

    https://www.classicalmpr.org/

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  43. Tomorrow is the last Christmas gathering of the season for extended family. We will be traveling out of state to my husband’s sister’s house after early church tomorrow.

    Then Monday the new/old routine begins again. Homeschooling back in full swing; piano lessons; another choir practice before singing on the 14th. Things will get busy again, but it’s nice to get back to routine.

    I did enjoy the more relaxed pace of the last two weeks, though, too, especially since I got to do a lot more reading — I love the feel of having a physical book in my hands, especially when it provides excellent food for thought and inspiration.

    Have a blessed week coming up, all, and stay warm. 🙂

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  45. Incidentally, genetics are not everything either when it comes to physical decay and death. None of my first degree relatives have asthma and although I have two cousins with the condition, that is completely irrelevant when it comes to genetic – grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings are all relevant, but half of one’s cousins genetic material comes from completely different sources than yours. I developed this condition spontaneously, probably as a result of a respiratory illness in infancy (I had to be given oxygen) which rendered my lungs vulnerable to repeated bouts of pneumonia and an eventual diagnosis of asthma. Genetics play a role in disease and death, but they are far from being the whole story. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and many other conditions with a genetic component can also happen spontaneously and randomly, which is why eugenics is always a futile pursuit.

    Speaking of genetics, over a week ago, Kevin commented on the statistic I gave about the risk of schizophrenia being ten times higher in first degree relatives. He wanted to know the overall population risk. Schizophrenia occurs worldwide in a consistent percentage of around one percent of the population – in other words, whether in China, Chad, Chile, the Czech Republic, or Canada, the general population have about a one in one hundred risk of developing the condition.

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  47. Well, I really liked the young handyman I met with today and he was impressive regarding how efficiently and knowledgable he would be in painting the exterior of my house. He’s young, married (stay-at-home wife), father of 2 young children (and a German Shepard). He is mainly a carpenter, works in Hollywood building sets, but likes to do side work in between jobs and lives just a few blocks away from me, so very handy (and he said to hang on to his number. whenever I needed something to keep him in mind).

    He also provided me with a good starting point on the price of what it will cost to do the exterior painting. I will still likely go with my dog park friend as he’s kind of counting on the job and also is very knowledgable (though would be slower), and has been kind of counting on the job I think.

    Still, good to have another name & number to add to my phone data base of people to call on.

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  48. Nice lunch with my family today. They invited my sister and spouse and my stepmom. Archie kept us all entertained.
    I got all my things moved over to my friends home for the next two years. Then came home and put a few more things in the basement. Getting there!

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  51. this packing is driving me crazy. Will I sleep tonight???
    I did get all of my thank yous written except for my children and my best friend.
    Whoops, just remembered one more as someone stopped by tonight asking when I was leaving and bringing me some cash. I did try downloading some Amazing Race videos tonight. We will see if it worked. I was given an amazon gift certificate for an early birthday gift from my children. I even had candles to blow out and a three layer cake topped with strawberries.

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  52. Nightingale, who is a talented baker, will be making me a Coconut Cake with Coconut-Cream Cheese frosting for my birthday on Saturday. I told her I want to feel like a princess, so she is going to tint the frosting pink and sprinkle it with some gold and silver sugar sprinkles she has. Now I just need a tiara to wear. 🙂

    The first time she made Coconut-Cream Cheese frosting, for someone else’s cake, I didn’t think those two flavors would go well together, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the combination was delicious.

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  55. There were two cakes last night. The one Aunt Leesee made and a humorous one from Publix. Ex mother in law, ex sister in law and Niece came. It is funny to see Niece and BG together. They look so much alike, that I have been asked if I were her mother. Last night they were sitting at the kitchen bar, I was standing in the kitchen looking at them. They were facing each other, talking; they have the same profile and mannerisms.
    This makes my heart swell. Niece was about 6 when BG was born and she was none too happy about the new baby of the family. Niece will be getting married May 5th. She is the first baby I ever fell in love with.
    The party turned out to be fun, despite me having a meltdown about 3. If it was my birthday party why was I doing all the work? I took myself for a drive and a good cry, came home and put on my party face. Act happy BE happy.
    Off to Sunday School now. If your SS teacher is at your party, you have no excuse not to show up the next day. 😉

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  58. I liked Chas’ reply to my question: “Karen, it’s impossible to answer your question without contradicting myself.
    It’s that complicated.”

    Like others who have replied, I tend to believe that the timing of our deaths is in God’s hands. But that brings up questions that are hard, that perhaps have no answer that our mortal minds can comprehend. Questions such as:

    If our deaths are completely in God’s hands. . .

    . . .does God will for the drunk driver to smash into, and kill, the mother of small children?

    . . .does God will for a person to smoke like a smokestack, leading to lung cancer?

    . . .does God will for a person to be tortured to death?

    . . .does God will for the person to ignore the doctor’s orders, which leads to their death?

    . . .does God will for murderers to kill their victims?

    . . .does God will for certain babies to die by abortion?

    . . .did God will the deaths of the Holocaust?

    Again, these are hard, hard questions, with probably no satisfactory (to our natural minds) answer. I choose to trust God, and believe our times are in His hands, but I do ponder these things now and then. (Hubby would often say, when I shared thoughts like this, or other hard questions I was pondering, “You think too much.” 🙂 )

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  59. When I first brought up this subject yesterday, I said that it was not only because of my personal situation that I was asking your views, but because it was something I have pondered for quite a while. And that was true. Now I will bring it down to the personal, to something I have been trying not to think about regarding Hubby’s death, but feel I need to express at least once.

    Wondering if it is possible that if Hubby had chosen to have his prostate removed anyway, back when it was suspected the cancer had already metastasized (so the thought was that removing the prostate wouldn’t matter), he might still be alive, as the bleeding that kept him in the hospital was caused by the new tumor on his prostate rubbing against his bladder.

    Or if they had kept him on the Coumadin (blood thinner) instead of taking him off it in the effort to stop that bleeding, the blood clots, and in particular the pulmonary embolism that killed him, would not have formed. (They had inserted a filter that was supposed to stop a clot from getting to his lungs, but that obviously did not work.)

    Or if they had started him on the new med he was supposed to be on earlier, rather than two or three weeks later, if that would have made any difference.

    Wondering these things is very painful, as you may imagine, which is why I try not to think about them. I know that thinking about them too much would lead to the torment of “if only. . .” thoughts.

    So instead, I choose to trust that it was Hubby’s “time”, that it was in God’s hands. This gives me some comfort, and helps keep the “if onlys” at bay.

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  60. Kim – I remember finding it rather humorous, although also mildly annoying, last year as I was the one cleaning up after my birthday dinner as everyone else went their own ways.

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  61. I was thinking of your question this morning as I was reading Psalm 39. He knows the number of our days. How the process getting there looks may be in our hands in how we eat and what other behaviors we have. Genetics of course as well.
    My mom was big on doctors and went regularly. She developed ovarian cancer and died at fifty two, even with the docs doing what they could and following all the advice.
    My sister was terrified of my mom’s death and doubled up on docs, going every six months rather than once a year. She died in surgery for endemetriosis at forty nine.
    My grandmother died of breast cancer at forty nine. I figured I would live to fifty and gave up on doctors for the most part. I am sixty.
    We don’t really know any answers, we simply do what we do. God tells us to take care of the temple and tells us to do so by not being a glutton, keep the marriage bed pure, etc.

    As mentioned yesterday by several, God is in control. Ours is but to do until He calls us home. We need to remember that we are not the center of His universe but we are loved. Our time here is but a vapor and then we will be with Him for eternity.

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  62. God gives us free will even though He knows what we will do with it. Doctors are merely human. They make mistakes. I remember being so angry with the doctors when my father was in the hospital. One of the doctors passed us in the hall, recognized me stepmother, and asked what was going on. She told him Daddy was in surgery having a pic line inserted and a feeding tube. He walked away, through to a restricted area. I can only assume he went to check the chart. He came back and apologized. He said he just didn’t realized it was as serious as it was. He apologized. He is human. I was no longer angry.

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  63. Karen, I think I told this before. I was away in Arabia when this happened.
    My brother was 12. He went to Ten Tillman elementary school. Seventh grade. They had moved out of the school area, but they let him finish his year there. He took a city bus to school, but if it was bad weather, my mother drove over to get him. Standard procedure.

    It was raining that day. My mother went to get him. He wasn’t there. He had taken the city bus home. Mother returned. She was home when it happened.
    My brother ran out from behind the bus, in the rain, an approaching guy hit and killed him.

    It was an event that cannot be explained. None of that should have happened. Mother got over it, but dad stopped going to church for years.
    I don’t know how that unlikely sequence of events happened.
    Dad blamed God. Mother’s faith never faltered.

    As for me? I got out of the AF three months early and enrolled in USC for the spring semester I missed my brother, but moved on in my life. My sister married a guy she was dating at the time.
    And life went on.
    My brother was a Christian. Bad things happen to good people. I often wonder, but never try to explain it.

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  66. Kizzie, as a healthcare worker, I have had similar thoughts about those I’ve seen dying. There was more than one death in West Africa that I could not help thinking, “What if…” What if we had the equipment to resuscitate the baby who was born with no signs of life? What if we had packed blood cells to give to the child whose own blood cells had been destroyed by malaria? What if we had oxygen to give to the asthmatic gasping for breath? Life sometimes slips away so rapidly that there is nothing anyone can do. I will never forget the face of the man who walked into the clinic, laid down on the examination table, and died.

    There are medical reason behind all that happened to your husband, but ultimately, medicine has its limitations. Pastor A’s wife died of a massive stroke. She was on Coumadin for a common heart condition, atrial fibrillation, which can cause clots to form, but the routine blood test she had just before her death (the test results came back just after she died) showed that the Coumadin had dropped the clotting factors too low. So, the medication given to prevent a stroke by blood clots caused a stroke by hemorrhage. Pastor A found some comfort in much the same outlook as yours, that God had appointed her time – she had said to him just that morning that she just wanted to go home (she wasn’t seriously ill, just tired). Yet, I know a woman still living, who some years ago twice developed spontaneous pulmonary emboli and miraculously survived each time – the physicians who saw the scans of her lungs told her she should be unconscious and on a ventilator with results like that – and who now takes Coumadin regularly to prevent any more clots from forming. One is forced ultimately to the conclusion that not even those skilled in medicine and the knowledge of how the body works can control the outcome, and that the power of life and death is only in the hands of the One who created all things.

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  67. Chas, for some reason your brother always makes me think of my paternal grandfather’s brother. At the age of fourteen, the lad developed appendicitis. The doctors tried to save his life by operating on him on the kitchen table, but he died during the operation. His gravestone stands beside his sister’s gravestone, who died at 14 days old. Their brother, my grandfather, lived to 59 and died of stomach cancer. His wife, my paternal grandmother, is still living in full possession of her faculties – if a little deaf – and lacks only two years of a century.

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  68. Then there are my grandparents who had all 12 children survive to adulthood. The only one they lost in their lifetimes lived to be 50. Cancer took her. Both of my grandparents were dead before my dad died. He died 6 months after my grandmother.
    Life isn’t fair. When we realize and accept this we are happier.

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  69. This morning we commissioned a young lady into full time missions work in a closed country. So exciting to see this young woman following God into His work in another country. She said that her several short term mission trips led her to this point. (They were not, however, trips like where the whole youth group goes).

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  70. The oldest member of my church died. She was 106. Can you imagine? Her funeral is next Saturday, the same day that we meet to sign up for work teams and also to vote on the new church name. Our pastor now has to juggle our mandatory church meeting with doing a funeral. I did not know the woman who died.

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  71. Our heating and air conditioning costs are reasonable at home because I try to keep usage down. But we also have the cost of heating and cooling the office. We have a heat pump which is suppose to be energy efficient. To me it makes the house feel drafty except for when the temp is below freezing, and we get what I call ‘the real heat.’ Then it really gets toasty upstairs while downstairs, where the thermostat is located, stays cooler. I do find myself putting on and taking off my fleece vests or hoodies frequently in our house.

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  72. What adds to my feeling perplexed about Hubby’s death is that he survived the stroke he had the day after being released from the first hospital. Not only did he survive it, but he fully recovered from it! What kept him in the hospital for another three weeks was that bleeding from his bladder, but he was taking walks around the hallways at least once a day, and feeling stronger each day. We thought it was just a matter of getting the bleeding stopped, and then he would be able to come home.

    The end came so suddenly. I was not prepared for, nor expecting, his death.

    Well, I will admit that one day, as Nightingale and I were leaving the hospital after a visit, I had the feeling – from the Holy Spirit maybe? – that Hubby would not be leaving the hospital alive. It saddened me, but I thought that maybe it was just my over-active imagination.

    When my phone rang at 4:23 (I think it was) on that Monday morning, rousing me out of my sleep, I knew before answering the phone, that it was very bad news, and even “knew” that he was dying. But there was still a feeling of shock about it when it happened.

    The plan was that I was going to be taking care of him at home, and we were going to take walks together, and enjoy having some time together while he recovered. That didn’t happen. He had taken care of me in so many ways through the years, and I wanted to be able to take care of him in this way. It saddens me that I didn’t get that chance.

    (But I also know that I didn’t need to do that to “prove” that I was indeed a good wife. Throughout our marriage, I “took care of him” in many little ways that I know he appreciated. I realize that he leaned on me in ways that were not apparent to those outside the marriage. He would tell me that I was a good wife, and that he needed me. I hold on to those words in my heart.)

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  73. Oh, and add to that the fact that the day before he went into the hospital, with the bleeding bladder, his oncologist had told us that “It’s not time to worry yet.” We were so relieved, and happy. We knew the cancer would get him within the next few-to-several years, but had no idea it would be only a little over a month later.

    Our last “date” was having soft serve ice cream at our favorite ice cream place. I’m pretty sure I told you all that he texted Nightingale, “Don’t plan my funeral yet!”

    What an object lesson this has been in man not knowing his time.

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  74. Kizzie- thanks for sharing. I remember when my mother died it was a surprise to me. I had thought she was getting better. I suppose the adults were trying to keep the truth from us children. I wish they had let us in on it.

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  77. Peter, the adults might not have known, either, or might have been in denial. Much of what Kizzie wrote rang true of what I know to have been Mom’s experience, including believing him to be getting better. When Dad was sick, Mom was happy with each sign that he seemed to be getting better, and yet I saw that the ups and downs were about evenly matched and he just might not get better.

    In fact, my older brothers were called to the hospital once (three out of four of them came; the one in college–he was single and about 25–did not), and it wasn’t till years later that it occurred to me that they had probably been “sent for” with the expectation that Dad would die and be buried while they were home. So the reality was, all of us had times we thought he might make it and times we thought he wouldn’t, and I would imagine few parents want to communicate that sort of uncertainty to a pre-teen child. Also, I have heard that people frequently seem to “rally” just before they die–again, the adults might have thought, too, that she was getting better.

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