57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-18-21

  1. Chas- I don’t know what it’s like to be alone for the first time in so many years, but I know that the Lord is with us. With God we’re alone but never lonely. May the Lord bless you with His presence.

    Liked by 4 people

  2. Good morning, all.
    Chas, I suspect it will continue to be a surprise to you, off and on, as you adjust to sweet Elvera having been taken Home. Not a sorrow I understand, but one I dread. Though I know God is good beyond all we can understand.

    Liked by 4 people

  3. Morning all…and an amen to all that has been spoken here Chas…we love and need you. This adjustment of being the only one in the house will be unsettling for quite a while… we cover you in prayer ♥️
    We only see about 2 inches of new fallen snow on the forest floor this morning. The area just a mile to the west of us has 10 inches of snow…such weirdness in the weather patterns as of late!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Good morning, Chas. Good morning, other Wanderers.
    Good evening, Jo.

    It makes my day seem off to a good start when I have my cup of coffee, read my Bible lesson for the day, and see Chas’ post here. You rate right at the top, Chas.

    A bit of tax info that someone here may need to know. If older people did not have a reason to file an income tax return for 2018 or 2019, their info was not in the system to have stimulus

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Con’t.
    To have stimulus checks/money deposited to their bank account. They deserve the stimulus money, too. Art just discovered this had happened to someone we know. Please let family and friends know.

    Like

  6. We a few inches of new, powdery snow. Not hard to shovel. But the city plows our street and leaves a hard-packed mound at the end of our drive which also blocks the mail box. I just spent a half-hour (taking many breaks) moving the snow pack from in front of the mailbox.

    Meanwhile, Mrs L wants pictures of the glittering snow while the sun is out. I told her that’s her job, as I can’t operate a camera with thick gloves on. (And it’s so cold my fingers still freeze, even with gloves on.)

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Interesting, from World:

    Next week China will begin to require government-approved credentials before bloggers and influencers can publish on a wide range of topics.

    Do you think Christianity will be one of the topics?

    I wonder if I would make the cut?
    Or if I would want to. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Thanks for the prayers and well wishes everyone.
    Surprising how lonely it can be when she was only sitting in a chair for the entire day during the last year.
    But it makes a difference somehow.
    But I am getting along ok.
    Thanks again.

    Liked by 6 people

  9. Keep checking in with us, Chas. I just made gingerbread and would share it with you if I could. I made a batch last night, too.

    And the garbage cans continue to sit on the street untouched by the county. I wonder if they will give a refund for services unrendered.

    Like

  10. Yes, it will be quite an adjustment, Chas. Just to have your time free and decide what to do with it would be a big adjustment.

    My friend, who just lost her husband, has never even pumped gas by herself. She does drive, but seldom. They did almost everything together. They were married at least 60 years, I believe. He was the one who made the phone calls for the most part. He was a very good husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, not to mention brother, friend etc. He was a helper. The last time we spoke was when they accompanied a couple to Mexico for some medications they needed. The woman had cancer and was very weak. God blessed them all by helping this couple be able to move to the front of the line when they were returning. Our friends were always helping anyone who was around them and needed their help. She knows God will get her through, because he has before; not to mention his promises. Still, it will be difficult for her and for Chas. No shortcuts in grief it seems and, yet, we grieve not as pagans.

    Their daughter also died this month (the anniversary of that is almost here) so she has lost her husband, son and daughter all in February. I am sure there was a happy reunion in heaven for him, as he has many others that went on before.

    Liked by 4 people

  11. Thanks everyone.
    It is different somehow.
    In past months, she would just sit in the din in the big chair and I would come in and sit beside her. But that is out.
    I don’t know how to describe the difference because the physical difference is so small.

    Only that she was the sweetest woman in the world and now she is gone. I know there is no marriage in heaven, but I hope we know each other.

    Liked by 6 people

  12. Chas – I truly believe that we will know each other, especially since we are brothers and sisters as part of God’s family.

    I must respectfully disagree with Peter that with God we can be alone but not lonely. I often find myself saying (to myself or God usually) that I am not fully alone, in that Nightingale and Boy spend a fair amount of time downstairs with me, but I am alone and lonely in a way that others cannot fill. Although I agree that with God, that loneliness may not be as bad as it could be for those who don’t know Him. I hope and pray you will have a deeper sense of God’s presence with you, as I have.

    (I hesitated to write the above, because I don’t want it to “be about me”, but am hoping that by sharing that it will help somehow.)

    Liked by 3 people

  13. Looks like one to me: a wading bird of marshes and wet meadows, with brown camouflaged plumage, a long straight bill, and typically a drumming display flight.

    But we’ll need Cheryl to be the final word.

    Jam-packed port meeting this morning on zoom, 4 stories to write, but some of them will have to wait until tomorrow.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I understand what Peter meant because I can remember as a nonbeliever a sense of emptiness that I now realize as being a type of loneliness for God’s indwelling presence. I have never had that feeling since I became a believer. I can feel lonesome in missing the company of a specific person, but I do not feel lonely in the sense of total abandonment, if that makes sense.

    Like

  15. Copied from the internet:
    What is the difference between lonesome and lonely?

    In the context of American country music, a lonely person is alone and has no sweetheart. A lonesome person is alone, but has someone, somewhere, whose memory of helps that person persevere through the times of being alone. A lonesome person has hope, a lonely person, not so much.

    Like

  16. Mumsee, I pray a lot. I think about things past.
    I am invited to dinner tonight, and will go.
    That sort of thing.
    I will be OK.
    Thanx.

    On another subject:
    A few months ago, I had an auxiliary electrical system installed. It was because of her.
    Now, she is gone.
    Power has been out in this neighborhood since 9:00 this morning. But I have heat. And internet.

    Liked by 5 people

  17. Chas, I don’t want you to be alone, either. I expect that someone close to you will find a way so you do not have to spend so many hours alone. My guess is that people are trying to set up arrangements so you can still have some enjoyable years going forward, but it takes time for it all to get figured out. And with all the Covid restrictions at this peculiar time it probably makes everything more complicated. I will continue praying for you and all who are near you. Do you enjoy a phone call? I feel certain that some of us here would enjoy talking to you. AJ could get us connected with phone numbers.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. I was reading Mallard Fillmore today, in the newspaper. It mentioned genders so I decided now was a good time to look up what these different genders mean. After reading through, I now know what it is. Gobbledygook. It describes a bunch of people with way too much time on their hands. But they are still just people. Image bearers. Many of them confused and broken without knowing their Maker.

    Liked by 4 people

  19. chas, being here all alone, there have been many times when your greeting helped me make it through the day.

    Janice, thanks for posting ‘Amazing Grace’. I added my favorite verse to the posts.

    May that verse encourage you, Chas, as it has me.

    off to observe in third grade where I will begin on Monday. So glad that I will not be teaching first today. i overdid myself yesterday. teaching a science lesson where the materials were not all there. I went to kinder and hefted a 23 pound box of sand and carried it over. I will be taking advil for a while.

    Liked by 3 people

  20. The photo is probably either yellowlegs (greater or lesser), the spotted sandpiper, or some other kind of sandpiper. So it’s a kind of sandpiper, but even experts have trouble telling some of those apart. Its size, when and where it was photographed, what it was doing, its call–those are the kinds of ways that people can tell very similar birds apart. And with those particular species, I generally don’t try very hard to narrow down which it is.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Oh, I guess to my cousin’s in Long Beach for Thanksgiving? We ordered takeout — pizza and meatball sandwiches. The traditional Thanksgiving fare (for a pandemic, anyhow)

    Liked by 3 people

  22. We pick up take-out food about once a week, but haven’t sat down inside a restaurant since March 8. Up till then we’d been eating out after church almost every Sunday for many years with two or three other couples (and all our children back in the day). I sure miss those times.

    Liked by 3 people

  23. Eating out? I would guess at least seven years ago. I did go with daughter and her family to a restaurant while waiting for her baby to be born but did not eat anything. I do not miss it at all. Unless you are talking eating out as in camping. I have done that. Or cooking food over an open fire in the front yard. We ate out then. So, I guess only a couple of weeks.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Last time I ate out was just about a year ago. My husband and I celebrated Valentine’s Day a week late. (Well, we went out for Valentine’s Day itself but had our meal together a week late.) We haven’t gone through drive-thrus either. The closest we’ve gotten to “eating out” is that we had friends get us Starbucks drinks twice, and we’ve had the friend doing shopping at Sam’s Club get us a rotisserie chicken. Neither of us has had a meal with another person (other than each other) in that same year. I might or might not have been to the February 2019 church dinner. I think I probably skipped it, since my husband was probably home sick–but I’m not sure. Whatever was my last church dinner would have been the last time I’ve eaten with anyone other than my husband or anywhere other than my own home.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. I finally had time to come back and check on all of you. I looked back and saw all the wonderful pictures of Chas and Elvera.

    Still praying for you, Chas, as you get used to this new way of being.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. We went out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with Paul’s sister and her husband. It was nice to have meal served to me again 😊 Oh and just last week met daughter at Mimi”s for lunch…it is rather nice going to a restaurant when it isn’t crowded, but I realize the restaurant would like it better to have it crowded…

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Ongoing struggles with management have been making work very uncomfortable. To make matters worse, I had a minor accident with a parked car while making a visit. No serious damage, only cosmetic, but the car owner wanted it reported (damage under a certain amount does not have to be reported) so I have had to go through all of that process on top of everything else.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. I am hungry to know what Chas had for dinner. I have had my usual freshly made popcorn (made on the stovetop) for an appetizer. Now I have to figure out what else to make since Art will be home around 9 p.m. I have some cauliflower for starters. Maybe cauliflower in a creamy sauce with some johnny cakes and beans. I always have to wonder if Art would eat what I fix. I better skedaddle to the kitchen!!

    Like

  29. Whenever I get together (or used to) with my friend in the Valley we’d pick a nice place to go eat — sometimes Mimi’s, or Olive Garden or something else. Not fancy, just good basic food and the atmosphere of being “out” and getting a hot meal served.

    It’s strange thinking those days (still) are gone for us, we only have outdoor dining and that is pretty limited. No indoor restaurants yet, countywide.

    Sorry for the ongoing struggles, roscuro, and even an itty-bitty car bump can make things all that much worse.

    Like

  30. We ate outside at a restaurant last night–for the second time in the last year. We, too, order pickup once a week or so to help the local restaurants–particularly the ones we like.

    Like

  31. I posted this on FB a little while ago:

    Just when you thought your life would be simpler.

    Ha.

    While headed west in the right lane on Fountaingrove this afternoon, right before the Chanate onramp joins to go up the hill (just east of where the four-lane high way splits and the eastern direction goes down, divided by trees), I saw a black truck hurtling down on OUR side of the divided highway.

    I blinked twice, gasped, and then pulled over as far as I could to the right and stopped.
    The car in the left lane pulled over as fast as possible and stopped quite close to me.

    In my rearview mirror I saw a large truck coming fast and thought, “This is it. He’s going hit me.”
    I was on the phone–hands-free–talking with Patricia Milton on the east coast. She kept innocently talking until I shouted. “Accident!”

    “What?”

    The truck behind stopped within feet of my bumper while the black truck headed our direction suddenly realized where it was and slowed down.

    He eked past the car nestled next to me and then continued a short distance down the road where he executed a U-turn and joined the truck stopped behind me.

    My heart was pounding like mad.

    My neighbor looked over at me with wide eyes to ask, “Are you okay?”

    I nodded and indicated they should go ahead of me–since they were blocking anyway–and we started up the highway, me going fairly slowly until my neighbor got ahead a distance!

    Patricia: “Are you there? Are you okay? What happened?”

    “Praise God. I’m fine.”

    And we praised the Lord together until I got to the top of Fountaingrove.

    Thanks be to God. Be careful out there.

    Liked by 2 people

  32. When I arrived at the recording studio, our friend told me a wild story about the same place, other direction. In his case, however, the car was totaled by a deer.

    Crazy day. I’m done.

    Like

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.