Accidents Happen

I will start today's blog with a word of caution. We have a coffee system in our home. Michael and I both like coffee but he prefers regular and I prefer Hazelnut but we only have one coffee maker. So I make myself a pot of Hazelnut and pour it directly into a thermos and then Michael will make a pot of regular for himself. All day I take from my thermos whenever I want another cup of coffee. The thermos keeps it hot for a while and then I simply nuke it hot after it's cooled down. This morning I poured myself a cup and nuked it. I carried it over to the counter to season it and I was still holding it in my left hand. I scooped out a spoon of sugar and dropped it into my cup and my cup of coffee verily exploded in my hand. Bathing it in scalding hot coffee. I turned on the cold water and immediately put my hand under the faucet but I sustained some pretty good burns. My hand hurts so badly I can hardly type. I have a cold water bath sitting on the counter and I get up every few minutes and soak my hand. So far no blisters but they will establish themselves within a short time, I'm sure. This is the same hand I suffered 3rd degree steam burns on about 20 years ago and ended up in the burn unit of Dameron Hospital in Stockton. And it is very sensitive to temperature. So my advice to everyone is just to be very careful with nuked liquid. When that sugar hit the hot coffee it simply frothed and foamed and bubbled up all over my hand and the kitchen counter. I just looked and I can see blisters now on the first and second fingers. Burns are so painful. I thank God I was only 12 inches from cold water. It would probably be worse if I hadn't gotten it under cold water as quickly as I did.

Talking about burns reminds me of the house fire the other night. It turns out that it was the home of a very dear friend of mine. She's 86 years old and an absolute love. I hug her every Sunday morning as she sits in my pew with me during church. I had no idea that that's where she lived. Everyone here in our small town uses post office boxes for their mail so we're not accustomed to knowing the physical addresses of each other. Her daughter says she had very good insurance so that's a blessing. The worst part for her is that she lost her hearing aids and her teeth. She had already gone to bed before the fire started. So she had had to flee with her life, leaving everything behind in her panic. That's one thing about living in a small town. Everyone knows everything about everyone else.

We did our monthly shopping yesterday and everything that could have gone wrong seemed to go wrong. I had my alarm set for 6:30 so we could get up and get to WalMart as early as possible to beat the other shoppers. We had called WalMart the evening before to ask about writing a check. (We usually go with cash but thought we'd just write a check yesterday.) They told us all we would need would be a driver's license. So we did our shopping and checked out and I wrote a check and our check was denied. No one could tell us why. There was a code there as a reason but no one at WalMart knew what the code meant. So we have no idea why WalMart wouldn't accept a check from us. (I think the problem is that it was the first check we've ever written WalMart and it was for almost $200.) So we had to put our baskets aside and drive back into town to the bank and write a check for cash there and then go back to WalMart to pay for our purchases. Then we got out to the car to put everything in the bus and we couldn't find the dog treats I had purchased. I looked on the receipt and it showed that I was charged for them but we couldn't find them to save our lives. So I went back inside and stood in line and waited for Customer service and about that time Michael came up to me and told me that the checker had put the treats in one of his bags instead of one of my bags. (We have a system where he pays for his things and I pay for mine so things are bagged separately ... usually!)

We went on to the grocery store and bought the food items we needed and when we got to the check out we realized that the jar of sauerkraut was leaking so the bagger had to run back and get another jar for us. And then the lid on the sour cream was broken and smashed in so once again she had to run back and get a new tub. (When we got home we discovered that the package of bologna slices we bought for sandwiches had been smooshed but we think we'll be able to eat most of it.) Next time we will look more closely at our items!!!

So nothing seemed to run smoothly for us. When we got home the fuel pump was making a lot of noise (which turned out not to be a problem after we called John about it) and the radiator had a leak in it and was dripping all over the driveway. Michael went to Napa this morning and got the stuff to pour in the radiator that is supposed to seal off little leaks. What complications!!! We were both absolutely spent after it was all over.

Why does God allow days like that? I have to confess I don't know. But somehow through all of those complications we grew spiritually. Having been called to a life of poverty is frustrating enough without everything going wrong at the same time. One thing for sure though. We never cease to see God's hands in our life everyday. Being so dependent on His care keeps our eyes ever on Him. It is a day by day existence and God works in and out of our lives all the time. Things happen to us that could only happen at God's directions. I know that a lot of the trials that I have to endure are trials that I endure by association. Michael and I are one. When the Lord is working on him, I can't help but be affected. Michael has a very short fuse and a very hot temper. So many times I can literally watch the Lord work in him. And until he learns to cool his temper and discard his fuse, the Lord will continue to work in him in every sort of happening to bring about more Christlike qualities. The single thing that bothers me the most with my beloved is his temper and foul language. I mean, he is a Christian, he's been saved and baptised but he hasn't learned to use the Holy Spirit's fruit of self-control. So over and over and over again I get dragged into M's "spiritually needy situations." Because the two of us are one, we suffer together. Have you ever thought about the fact that we are really one with our spouse? Satan challenged God over Job's devotion and God gave his permission for Satan to touch everything in Job's life except his soul. Did you ever notice that Satan touched everything Job had, even his children, but he never touched Job's wife? The reason is that Job and his wife were one soul. Satan couldn't attack Job's wife without attacking Job's soul and God hadn't given Satan permission to touch Job's soul. Interesting isn't it? It shows that this union of two people in marriage actually in some unseen realm does indeed become one. It's not just a figure of speech. And I think that's why the Lord hates divorce the way He does. What God has joined together let no man break apart. We become one soul with our spouses in a very real sense. That is why when our spouse hurts we hurt with them. We are of one soul with each other.

Lazydranch8 is still suffering so much from the loss of her husband two months ago. Grief is such a horrible thing to endure and I can't help but want to ask God why it has to go on for such a long, long time. And why does it have to hurt so badly? We get so caught up in our grief that we feel we can't even breathe sometimes. I know that's what she's going through. Eric's passing was just such a sudden shock to the family. Just out of the blue. Totally unexpected. So now it's no longer a ranch of eight but of seven. And little Brown Sugar is so needy right now, clinging to Heather and being difficult at all times. I seriously doubt I would be any good to anyone else if it had happened to me like that. I know when Richie passed away I was literally swallowed up in despair, so totally saturated in grief, that I wasn't able to be there for anyone else. I have never known such grief was possible until he committed suicide in his bedroom. I was utterly worthless to anyone. And it took me years and years to accept his passing. (If I have yet to fully accept it.) It seemed like such a needless thing to happen. But his heart was broken and he just couldn't foresee any sense in living on. He thought his life was over and in a very real sense I guess it was. I still miss him so much. Sometimes I wonder what my grandchildren from him would have looked like and been like. What he would have been like at 30 or 40 or even 50. What sort of man he would have become. And now I can only hope and pray that he died in the Lord. He didn't talk much about God and what he thought about religion so I don't even know if he knew the Lord. I just pray he did and leave it all in God's hands. There isn't really anything more that I can do. I pray that the Lord won't hold it against Richie that he was raised as a Jehovah's Witness because it wasn't his fault that he didn't get the truth during his life. I was a JW for over 13 years and of course I raised my boys as JWs too. I thought it was the right thing to do. Little did I know how wrong I was. The JWs don't have the truth. They have no hope of salvation. Their relationship with Jehovah is by association only. Because they associate with the "remnant" they claim to have a relationship with God. They can worship Jehovah because they keep all the rules and regulations but then the instant they make a mistake. Watch out. They lose their salvation. They are so steeped in error. It breaks my heart.

The leaves on our Redbud are really coming out beautifully. I love it when the sun shines directly through them and they take on that glowing quality, as if lighted from within. And we've had a whole new group of hummingbirds move into our area. They go through a feeder full of nectar in a matter of just hours it seems. I can't afford to buy anymore than one bottle of concentrate each month to mix with water for their feeder. I know I can dilute it down even more but that makes them have to work so hard to take in the amount of nectar they need to have. I just can't do that to them. They are so much fun to watch. Sometimes they chase each other off and sometimes there will be a hummer at each flower on the feeder with one or two circling around in a holding pattern. The new ones that have joined our regular group are quite a bit smaller than our original ones. And they are a slightly different color; more yellow to their breasts.

Well, dear friends, I will close off this blog with the admonition to stay in the Word. We were designed to be in the Word always. It is our sole source of strength and purpose. So join with me and stay in the Word so we can abide in Christ. You can't go wrong with that type of advice. Take care ...