Pen Passion

Dean was at the height of his "caregiven" glory today when his bath aide, nurse, and chore provider all happened to have him on their schedules for the same time. Four pretty women in the room all at once, he said. Smart of him to include his wife in the count.

Most of the home health people know by now that Dean has a passion for ink pens. Every time they get him to sign something, which is at the end of each visit, he makes an effort to beg, borrow, or steal their pen. He has a thousand persuasion strategies, and he uses them regularly and systematically.

First, he tries to inadvertently lay their pen on top of his own ample stack after the signing, hoping they won't notice. Then he appeals to their pride by admiring their pen's qualities, but quickly shifts over to a pity plea by mentioning how much he needs it in his collection. Next, he lays a guilt trip on them by referring to the other nurses and doctors who have been generous in parting with their pens. Keep in mind there has been laughter, a strategy in itself, between each of his ploys, so by now many a nurse just throws in the towel and either sacrifices her own pen or promises to bring him one the next time she visits.

Isn't this how persistent I should be in wanting the Holy Spirit in my life? How many strategies should I be using in order to win the victories and peace that only the Spirit can offer? I believe my prayer tonight will not be over until I have gotten either the prize or the promise from God, the Comforter, my Holy Caregiver. Where's the passion?

One of his many boxes of pens..look carefully--one might be yours!

Warm and Toasty

My daughter felt really bad about leaving her husband with a broken clothes dryer before we left for women's retreat this past weekend. The day we left she discovered that it wasn't drying things right. But he found out the problem and fixed it while we were gone, good handyman that he is.

On her return, after he left for work the next morning, she was feeling bad about having to inform him that the toaster wasn't working either. It was a recently-bought, four-piece toaster, but the bread would just not go down like it should.

Then she noticed that it was unplugged. Here was something even she could fix. She just plugged it in and voila! The bread not only went down, but it started to heat up and toast. Prior to that, she was thinking that even if it wasn't plugged in, at least the bread would go down when you pushed on the lever. But evidently, toasters are mere counter decorations if you don't plug them in. They won't do a thing but look pretty.

And we are just here for decoration too, if we aren't plugged in to the Power of the Universe. Without God, we literally can't do anything. At least not anything of a useful nature. I hope I can remember to stay plugged in, so God can use me. And if He allows me to be pushed down, He will also let me heat up and warm someone else. We'll be warm and toasty together.

Remembering to Ask

It amazes me what Dean has the power to remember and what he forgets, as he struggles with his dementia memory loss. No matter how conscientious we are about asking a blessing before we eat, for instance, there are times when we all forget to say a blessing before a meal, and this is not considered out of the ordinary. Once in awhile, Dean even forgets.

But there is another time when Dean virtually never forgets to ask a blessing. It is whenever he is about to open the Word of God or study anything of a spiritual nature. He always opens and closes our worship times with prayer to ask the Holy Spirit to guide our minds to a right understanding of the Scriptures. In all our years of marriage, I have seldom seen him forget this very important practice.

As we began our worship just this morning, I took note that it is usually Dean who remembers to ask for the blessing of our spiritual food, the Bread of heaven. His presence is always welcome, but I know even God likes an invitation. Jesus counseled us to form this habit when He said, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Luke 11:13

There you have it. We have only to ask.

P.S. During our closing prayer this morning, Dean almost forgot MY NAME! I told you it was amazing.

Instruction Manual

With nothing on the calendar for today, and Dean at his adult day program, I had the day to myself, which was very nice. There was a lot to occupy me in the housecleaning line. But after taking care of all the routine chores, I decided to try to put the washed cover back on a car seat that Kayla had purchased secondhand as an "extra" for my car.

After trying to follow the one simple diagram it gave on the back of the seat, I gave up my effort. With no instruction book, it was impossible to even know if I had all the straps and accessories I would need. Let alone if I was threading everything correctly. I came to the conclusion after struggling with it much longer than I wanted to, that there indeed must be something missing. The biggest thing being, of course, the instruction manual!

How often we go struggling through life, wondering if we have all we need to be totally functioning people, but totally ignoring the instruction manual that God gives us? His Holy Word. It makes our lives so much more manageable and complete. And to be fully equipped for the task of living, there's an on-call interpreter available. He's called the Holy Spirit. His services are free.

Phone Peeves

They say Monday is a bad day to make business calls because phone lines are particularly busy that day. Unfortunately with all weekend to think about them, by Monday I usually have a list as long as my arm of calls that need to be made. I've tried spreading them out during the week. But no, since I detest it so much, I force myself to get it all done and over with on Monday (probably the cause of all the busy lines).

My phone peeves include trying to decipher foreign accents (don't they know only Midwestern Americans really know English?), menus so long and complicated you need an advanced college degree to understand them, and then there's the "hold" status which make me feel like I'm a plane hovering over an airport waiting to land. Not too bad, if you can stop thinking of running out of fuel, which in this case, is more like patience. People get ugly when they run out of patience, and no one wants to sacrifice their good looks on a petty business call.

I'm so glad for another phone line we have access to every day of the week. It's called prayer. There's no worry about understanding each other. The Holy Spirit is our heavenly translator. And menus aren't even necessary because we have instant access to the party needed. Besides that, we are never on "hold". And here's the real icing on the cake. Instead of an ugliness risk, we actually become more beautiful the longer we're on the line to divinity. Make your call today--God's company is open 24/7.

Watching the Gauge

This afternoon when I decided to take a nap, I discovered that my oxygen concentrator had a problem. It didn't seem to be a big problem--the gauge that tells you how much oxygen you're getting wasn't working. After a phone call to a repairman and some simple troubleshooting, I found out that there was a small crimp in the oxygen tubing that caused the gauge to malfunction. How alarming that a tiny crimp in the tubing would be so important to my getting enough oxygen.

When I think of my spiritual life, I wonder if there are any "crimps" in my lifestyle that would cause the full delivery of the Holy Spirit to miss reaching me. I don't want anything to stop the flow of God's Spirit, sometimes referred to as the Breath of Life.

The only way to discover a malfunction is to keep monitoring the gauge. So, in this case we must keep our eyes on the Bible, our measuring tool for discovering any problems in our life. It won't fix the problem. For that, you'll have to get on the phone with the Master Repairman Jesus. He knows just where the "crimps" are and what to do about them.

A Pink Tutu

I was at the store the other day with my daughter and two granddaughters and it was brought to my attention that Jenna, the three-year-old, has been begging to wear a dress every day, even though the temperatures are colder now and demand something covering her legs. She says she wants to feel "bootiful" and loves to twirl around and around like a "ballerwina".

As a result of her request (or demand, as the arguments had been escalating), we bought her a frilly pink tutu skirt that day which she could wear over all her long pants or jeans and would satisfy both mother AND daughter. Hopefully this would make their mornings at home a little less dramatic and traumatic.

My thoughts were drawn to the robe of Christ's righteousness that is talked about in the Bible. No matter what sinful ugliness is underneath, when we are covered with His robe (which I'm sure is even more "bootiful" than a pink tutu), we can be assured that the world sees only the loveliness and beauty of Jesus' noble character. Ask your mommy (in this case, the Holy Spirit) for your tutu today!
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Who Has a Flashlight?

A few days ago I desperately needed a flashlight to go down in my parents' totally dark basement to turn on their furnace. The house has been empty for months now, and we are hoping to sell it soon. But I was worried about the water in the pipes freezing and needed to get that furnace on again.

My dad would never have been caught without a flashlight and we found numerous ones of various sizes and styles in their house and in his car as we emptied them out, including boxes of batteries. I was driving his car now and believe it or not, there was not one flashlight left in the car and I was fifty miles from my own house! Where did all his flashlights go? I knocked on two doors in their neighborhood and both of them said they had no flashlights either. I was forced to go to a nearby convenience store and purchase one.

Driving home, I thought about disaster preparedness and how totally unprepared many of our homes are without even a flashlight--the most basic of all security items. Are we this unprepared in our spiritual lives too? The Lord is coming soon. If your neighbor knocked on your door for some Holy Spirit, would you have to send him to the store to get some?