A Job That Requires the Patience of Job

There is an old anecdote that goes something like this:

A guy, Joe, who was more than a little lackadaisical (more like lead in his britches and no "unction in his gumption") finally came to the realization that his life was at a boring stand still.

He decided to go for some counseling, of the no cost variety because he was unemployed, which he had been most of his life, and by his own choice.

His pastor listened to his tale of woe, concluded it was mostly of his own making, and gave him the following sage advice:  "Go home and read your Bible.  It will tell you what you need to do."

A few weeks later, the pastor saw Joe walking up the street, clothes pressed, a spring in his step and a new light in his eyes.  Curious as to what had occasioned such a noticeable change, the pastor met up with Joe and asked him, "What happened?"

Joe replied, "Well, I just did what you told me.  I went home and got out my Bible.  I didn't know where to start so I sort of let it fall open near the middle, and don't you know that at the top of page after page after page was the word,"job, job, job, job" - I mean it just hit me like a ton of bricks.  It said to go get a job.

I did, and boy has it set me going in a better direction."

Job: (rhymes with Bob)) a service, role, or activity performed for a set wage.

Job: (rhymes with robe) a person in the Bible who was known for his patience in the light of many losses and much suffering.

Joe:  a goomba who didn't a have a clue in life, confused the two above and turned out okay in spite of it.
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I don't know about you, but I have had a job or two that required the patience of Job.  Working with people who over-promised and under-delivered.  Dealing with customers who thought I should be able to sort out all their problems, even those which had nothing to do with the goods and services my employer offered.

All of the country seemed to cheer as one, when one country singer wrote a song entitled "Take This Job and Shove It" - crudely put, to be sure; but apparently it struck a psychic common nerve.

I was reminded of all of this today when my son, K., called to tell me of the day's happenings at the rural high school where he teaches.  After being off ill for a year, (not to mention being paraplegic and a double amputee using a wheelchair) he returned this week with high hopes, and great anticipation.

He works with the toughest students, in a difficult setting, in a poor rural school; but he is so thankful to have a job!  Even when it requires the patience of Job.
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Life itself is a job that often requires great fortitude and patience.  I just hope that I will remember more often to be thankful for the jobs life gives me, and keep in mind that in the end God blessed Job more than double all he had lost.

Hope your job, if you have one, isn't too trying today.  If you don't have one, and need one, praying a good door will open for you.  Meanwhile, you might take a look at the book of Job.  It is a marvel all by itself.

Until next time...Marsha

Ethel's Elbows

First, let me say that this is not Ethel.  I have no idea who she might be, but she has a pretty good looking set of elbows.

And I apologize to anyone who may be reading this and happens to be named Ethel. 

Next, let me tell you that I do not know who Ethel is, that is the Ethel in the title of this post. Never knew her.


Here is the thing.  My youngest sister always had a bit of a critical streak toward anyone she did not think looked quite up to par.  In her younger years, my guess is that it came from the fact that she was quite good looking.  Natural blonde hair, big blue eyes in a pretty face, and all in a petite five foot one inch package.  She was, in fact, now that I reflect upon it, quite vain.


And she had a "thing" about elbows.  


She knew someone named Ethel, who apparently had the misfortune to have sub par elbows, as in baggy and saggy.  My sister did not hesitate to comment upon them in less than kindly terms.  It left me with a horror of ever developing what she so disparagingly called "Ethel's elbows."


Once after a visit to our mother, who was by then in her sixties, M. (my sister) said to me on our way home, "Good grief.  Did you notice? Mom has now got 'Ethel's elbows'?"


Sometimes she would nudge me in a cafe or a department store, and  whisper, "See that?  She's got Ethel's elbows."  It was the ultimate put down.


Fast forward twenty five years, and here I am the approximate age my mother was when M. declared her to have developed the dread condition known as "Ethel's elbows."


Imagine, if you can, my chagrin therefore, when the other day my son, K., remarked as I bustled about his room tidying up, "Mom, those are some pudgy elbows you've got there."


He said it with a smile, and with no disrespect intended.  It was just gentle teasing.  We have had to have a lot of physical proximity this past year, while I took care of him during his illness.  He probably notices things that ordinarily he never would.  At least I am hoping that is why he noticed.


I left the room, plopped myself down on a chair and thought to myself, "Well, here I am.  I now have Ethel's elbows."


Okay, so it is what it is.  Welcome to getting older.  


But I can still work a full day, walk a full mile or two, laugh at a good joke and enjoy a garden.  All things considered, I guess there are worse things than having Ethel's elbows.  God bless her, wherever she is, I hope she is doing as well herself.


So whatever your particular nuisance associated with getting older may be, hope you are ignoring it and enjoying your day.
Until next time ... Marsha

Unintentional Ear Plugs

OUR 12 YEAR OLD LHASA APSO - HOLLY

Today I took Holly (our Lhaso) to the vet because lately she hasn't been hearing very well.  Either that or she was been ignoring us.  It has been known to happen.  

Like most canines, her physical senses are heightened beyond our own, and even though she is older than either me or the LOC* (at least in dog years) until just recently she was always alert to the soft snick of the door opening, or the subtle "tick" of a bit of food hitting the floor. (Lovable Old Coot*)


However, for the past few weeks we have noticed that instead of waiting eagerly at our bedroom door each morning, she would still be fast asleep in her bed when we came into the living room.  "Ah, she's getting old", we said to ourselves.


Then two days ago, the LOC called her in a normal tone (which I'll grant you, for him is just one decibel below a bellow) and she lay still asleep.  He called her again, even louder.  She snoozed on.  Finally he flat out shouted "HOLLY" - and she jumped up and looked wildly around as if to say "What?  Whaaat?"


So I took her to get her ears checked, and to see if there was anything that could be done.  Turns out there was and it was a fairly simple fix - she had wax plugs in both ears, creating artificial deafness.  I understood completely.


Been there, done that.  I was in my early thirties and for months I had noticed I was having a more and more difficult time following conversations taking place around me.


When I finally saw a doctor about what I assumed was my premature hearing loss, he simply irrigated both ear canals, and showed me wax plugs the size of pencil erasers.  Yuck!  Who knew?


As I walked out of the doctor's office that day, I recall being amazed at the crunch of the gravel under my shoes.  I had not heard that sound in a long time.  I was suddenly aware of birds singing.  I did not realize how much I had been missing all around me.
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As I drove Holly home, with the window on her side of the Buick down a little so that she could stick her nose up there and smell all the wonderful smells (I could swear she was smiling), I remembered that day I had my ears opened, all those years ago.


How often in my life have I missed the soft undertone of discouragement in someone's voice, because my spiritual ears were plugged?  How many times have I overlooked the echos of confusion, or the subtle ripples of loneliness because my hearing was dulled by my own pride or arrogance.


Holly did not mean to ignore us.  She simply had stuff building up in her ears.


I do not mean to ignore or misunderstand others either; but I do sometimes discover that I have had "stuff" building up in my ears. Fear, ego, discouragement dull my hearing to the needs of others. Thankfully, the Great Physician still makes house calls.
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He who has ears, let him hear.  (Matthew 11:15 NIV)
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Let's determine to practice our listening skills more often.  And get our "hearing" checked from time to time.  Until next time - Marsha

Serving One-Handed

This morning I had the privilege of going to Sunday service.  There have been more weeks than not this past year, when I did not have the option of going since I could not leave the house.  Thus, I was truly thankful for the privilege.


It was a beautiful Sunday morning here in Paradise - birds singing, sunshine, and pleasant thoughts running through my head as I drove the brief two miles from our house to the church building.


And yet once again I was confronted with the unpredictability of life's events, and reminded of how important it is to prepare ahead of time to trust through the trial.  As Riding Shotgun said in her post a day or two ago, she knows how to "trust and row" (the life boat) but she struggles with how to just trust, and let God take over. Don't we all?


The pastor was wearing a sling as he approached the pulpit and I wondered if he had sprained a wrist or something.  It was "or something" all right; a very big, very scary "or something."


Tomorrow his MRI results are due, and he will learn whether or not he has a life-threatening condition, and if so, will he still have two arms when he is finished with his treatments.  And just last week, he had no inkling that anything was wrong with him!


One thing I appreciate about this guy (we can call him Pastor L.) is he is pretty down-to-earth.  He talked about feeling like he had been "kicked in the gut" when he got the first diagnosis.  And he talked about having to remind himself, "Wait a minute.  Who do you belong to?"


This was no plaster saint telling us all about how he has it "handled."  But he could also joke about preaching with one arm, and learning to be left-handed, if need be.  He said it couldn't be too hard, as his wife has been left-handed forever and seems to do just fine.


Then he spoke with quiet conviction about what God orders, as contrasted to what God allows (for reasons we may never understand) and about the sovereignty of God.  I appreciated both his courage and his candor.
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I don't know about you, but I plan to get up tomorrow morning,  make some tea, read my Bible, say my prayers and get on with trusting.  There seems to be lots to trust about, and much that all the rowing we can muster will not solve.  Meanwhile, we serve a God who loves us even when we are full of doubt.  But I think He smiles on us when we choose to trust Him through the storm.


May you find rest and peace this quiet Sunday evening.  Until next time ... Marsha

The God Particle

A few days ago the news papers and the evening news broadcasts were all abuzz about the great discovery scientists are calling the "God particle."


Using the large Hadron Collider, they sent protons whizzing around a circular 17-mile underground tunnel along the French-Swiss border at almost the speed of light.  Out of some 500 trillion collisions, a few dozen produced "events" during which they observed (but observed was put in parentheses in their own report, and in fact they did not actually see it, but saw something they then interpreted to be evidence of this particle) which they then proclaimed was the "missing cornerstone of science."


Two different research teams connected to CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) announced that after decades of searching, they believe they have located the missing subatomic link in the creation of the universe.  Sort of.

It is called the Higgs-boson, and while they are not sure this is actually "it", they know they saw something and they think this may be it.


The alleged Higgs-boson particle cannot be seen or felt, or weighed or measured, unless what they glimpsed for a few micro-seconds the other day was actually "it"; but they are all excited and think they have just about figured out how the whole universe got going.


An yet, some of these same scientists, if one were to tell them about a God who created the universe, would rebutt with "but you have no proof, we cannot see it, we cannot weigh it or measure it."  Uh-huh.


Nevertheless, they would, with their well-meaning but incomprehensible arrogance, try to set the whole world a twitter with something they cannot "prove", and which neither they nor we can see or feel, and they are not even sure what it is.  Astounding, isn't it?


Here is something to consider.  God's word referred to subatomic particles thousands of years before the first microscope was invented, and it described how God used them in the creation process.


By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Hebrews 11:3 NIV)  An older version says that what is visible was made from what is invisible.


We see matter and mass.  But matter is comprised of atomic and subatomic particles which we cannot see.  What is seen is made out of what is not seen, just as His Word tells us.


The scientific community is likening this "discovery" to Newton's explanation of gravity. Before his theory, they knew things stuck together, but they could not figure out how.  Gravity explained that.


Yes, it does, physically speaking.  But again, God's word had explained it long before Newton was in nappies.


He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17 NIV)  Again, the old KJV used the term "adhere".  God created the "glue" (gravity) that holds our world together.


Truly, the point is not  to disparage scientific research, as it has given us many wonderful discoveries which make our everyday lives immensely better.  My point is that we humans can be a little bit childish when we think we have suddenly explained the universe to each other. We are like a toddler finding an ant, presenting it to his parents, and then thinking he has just explained all of nature, if he only knew how to talk.


While we can certainly "agree to disagree" respectfully about various view points on the details of the creation process, I'm thinking we might want to listen more often to the Creator.
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Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  Me, I'm planning to practice my listening skills.  Until next time ~ Marsha

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

they will sing before the Lord,

for he comes, ...

  Psalm 96:12-13
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Singing for joy.  


Apparently the Father loves a good concert.  A heavenly sing-a-long.


We are told the angels sing.


King David was a singer - before he ever was a king.


The morning stars sang together at the time of creation.


"Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee - how great Thou art."
sang George Beverly Shea for well over fifty years of his life, and folks never tired of hearing that magnificent bass voice of his.


Not all of us are great singers.  But we all can sing our gratitude and joy to a Great God.


It is an opportunity not to be missed.  Singing for joy.                           

                 ..................

Have a joyful week ... Marsha

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

                                                  
Thought I would share some more of my summer reading with you.  This one is non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen.  Her latest book is Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and is essentially a commentary on life in general and her own in particular, from the vantage point of her sixtieth year.


She is witty, insightful and downright funny.  She also hits too close to home for my own comfort from time to time.


One of the early chapters is called "Stuff."  She writes, "I have a lot of stuff.  I bet you do, too."  She goes on to list her stuff.  Lots and lots of it.  Furniture, clothing, books, etc.


I once lost all my stuff overnight.  Thereafter, I found that having things didn't hold much appeal for me.  However, even with that stark experience as a reminder of how quickly all our belongings can disappear, it has been a continual struggle to avoid accumulation.  I thought maybe it was just me, but Quindlen points out that at least part of this accumulation bent is cultural.


"At some point in America, desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport."


Now truthfully, I do not enjoy shopping.  I really do not, and never have.  I find it tiresome and uninteresting for the most part.  But still I sometimes find myself teetering on the edge of what Quindlen calls the "black hole of consumption."  Yep, I have stared into the abyss and found myself scared out of my wits.


Why just this morning I found myself wandering the aisles at Home Depot looking for ... well, just looking, mostly.  Yes, I needed a couple of small items, and they were cheaper here than at the local grocery market.  But still, I could have been in and out of there in five minutes; but somehow nearly an hour whizzed by before I came to myself and got the heck out of there before I took out a huge loan and ordered a whole-house-makeover.


And remember, I don't even like to shop.  What must life be like for those who actually enjoy this kind of endeavor?  Gads!  One quails at the thought.
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On a slightly different note, she writes about wardrobe after a "certain age" and I found myself laughing out loud at her description of owning upmteen pairs of black pants.  At some point, she asserts that all you really wear are black slacks and some kind of "colored jacket".  Oh my gosh, I thought it was just me.  Of course, I am more colorful than that, as I also own (and actually wear) grey pants and navy blue pants with other colored jackets, scarves, pendants and paraphernalia.  But still .... 
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If you are looking for an enjoyable journey through the age of consumerism and the general confusion called life, as seen through the eyes of an aging baby-boomer, and you don't mind laughing at yourself, you can expect to find plenty of cake among these candles.  The woman knows how to write.


What are you reading this summer?  Until next time ... happy reading. ... Marsha

Three Prunes and a Peanut Butter Cookie

This morning I began my digestive day with three prunes, Sunsweet to be specific.  They are actually very tasty but it makes me feel old to be eating prunes on purpose.  I always thought prunes were one of those dietary items destined to be disguised in some kind of combo dish.  That way you obtained the benefits of all their anti-oxidants and vitamins without being aware of what you were actually eating.


But no.  These days I know I need to eat my prunes and therefore, I just down a few (hard core /commando) with a cup of tea.


Ah, but then I decided to just go crazy and followed up the prunes with a gourmet peanut butter cookie from The Cookie Shoppe.  Wowzer!  What a rush.


I am pretty sure I will be able to run on the sugar high until sometime next week.  Of course the sheer size of that one cookie (somewhere between a pancake and a dinner platter) explains the hit to the old bloodstream.


But there is a wonderful benefit to this super-sized lip-smacker, I can bat my eyes and innocently proclaim, "But I only ate just one."


Ahhhh, I think I will go run around the block first, then scrub down the sidewalks, vacuum the garage, sweep the street, weed the south forty by hand, and then whip a dozen souffle's for the neighbors.


That ought'a do it.  Just in case you are wondering, I typed this little missive at approximately 120 words per minute.  Shoot, I could have written War and Peace in two hours if I had eaten two of those peanut butter cookies.  Yowzer!


I'm tellin' ya, John Denver and his measly Rocky Mountain High had nothing on me.  I am on a Peanut Butter Pinnacle here - so there!


Hope your day runs along nicely, too.  But if you are feeling a little sluggish, you might want to try munching down a peanut butter cookie the size of Texas.  It will fix you right up!
Until next time ... Marsha

Love Those Blackberries - Hate those Chiggers

                                  
My maternal grandmother, Hazel, was an imperious and somewhat intimidating old lady.  When visiting her home one was always reminded that one did not run in the house, one did not shout, one did not bang the screen door, and one always minded one's manners.  Just so.

She was a strict, fundamentalist, church-lady who always wore dark silk dresses to church with a hat and a little veil on the front of it.  At least that is how I remember her.  At home she wore sensible old brogans, with opaque stockings which, on particularly hot days, she sometimes rolled down below her knees, and held in place with those little rubber-band type garters of yesteryear.


The only toys she kept for the multitude of grandchildren (there were well over twenty five of us) who visited were "stored" on top of the refrigerator in an orange mesh bag with a draw string at the top.  I think it probably was originally a bag of either potatoes or oranges.  If you had known my grandmother, it would have made perfect sense to store the toys atop a tall appliance, as this was meant to assure that no one could play with them unless she first gave permission, and then she would personally reach up there and bring them down to child-level.


As a young child I was a bit afraid of her.  You can see why.


However, my fondest memory of her was so completely different from any other that I still smile when I recall it.  That hot summer morning, there was no silk dress, no hat, no church-lady demeanor.  That day we had some fun.


Never before or after did I ever see my Grandma Hazel in a pair of well-worn men's denim coverall's and an old work shirt.  A wide-brimmed, beat-up-looking, old felt hat was plopped over her hairdo. The stockings were gone, too, replaced by some big old white socks, with the legs of the coveralls tucked into them and topped off with actual rubber bands.


As my mother and my sister and I put on our own jeans and long-sleeved shirts, socks and tennis shoes, we were handed our own set of large rubber bands.  My mom had picked enough blackberries (for that is what we were preparing to do) to know what this was all about.  My sister was too little to ask or care; so I was the only one who asked Grandma Hazel "why" that day.  


"Why are we tucking our legs into our socks and putting rubber bands around our ankles? It is going to be really hot today.  Why are we wearing long-sleeved shirts?"  That was me.  Always, "why, why, why."  Drove pretty much everybody nuts.


Grandma Hazel responded with just one word.  "Chiggers" she said, as though that explained everything.


I was only a little girl and I had never been blackberry picking before.  I didn't even know what a chigger was.  Some other small fruit or something ?  "Chiggers?  I thought we were going after blackberries."


"Oh, we are going after blackberries.  But the chiggers will be going after us!"  She chuckled knowingly.


For those who have never lived in the Midwest and have never picked blackberries, chiggers are a tiny bug, so small they are hard to see with the naked eye, which bite anything that comes near.  The bites itch like crazy and make you feel like your skin is going to crawl right off your body.


Of course, that morning I was blissfully unaware as we picked up our pails, got into the car and drove a couple of miles into the country where the berry bushes were loaded with ripe, luscious, blackberries.


We waded into the thickets and we picked.  Boy, did we pick.  Buckets and buckets full.  Occasionally, but not often, I would feel a little prick near my foot.  But I was having so much fun (you could eat as many as you wanted while you picked and they were sooooo sweet on the tongue) that I hardly noticed.


What I did notice, though, was the sound of the buzzing of bees and various insects lazily flying about the berry patch.  Huge blue bottle flies caught the sun's rays as they flew past our heads. The sun was warm, and we were the only people in the patch, bending, plucking, plopping the berries into the pail.  Bend, pluck, plop.  There was a wonderful, purposeful, rhythm to our efforts.


The birds were out and singing away.  Mom and her mother talked quietly about this and that and nothing in particular.  Theirs was a strained relationship for the most part, but that day they seemed in real harmony.  My little sister and I picked, ate, picked, ate.  We squealed and ran around, playing as much as we picked.


By the time we loaded our haul into the trunk of the car and started home, though, I noticed something else.  I was squirming and scratching my ankles raw.  As soon as we got home, mom put my sister and me into the tub, scrubbed us and after our bath, she put calamine lotion on our bites. Fortunately there were not too many of them.               # # # # #


Over the next few days, mom and Grandma Hazel canned what seemed like dozens of jars of blackberries, made blackberry cobbler, and baked blackberry pies.  We were happily awash in blackberries.  Our teeth were purple and our lips were too.  We gave each other purple grins for days, my sister and I.  No amount of tooth brushing quite erased all the evidence of our summer blackberry-fest.


Our chigger bites healed up.  Our memories settled in.  I decided chiggers were the frog-kissing equivalent to getting to kiss the prince.  You have to wade through a lot of chiggers to get to the best berries. One of my earliest "life-lessons."              


To this very day I love blackberries.  And I still hate chiggers!


Hope your day is full of sunshine, good things, and nary a chigger in it.  Until next time ... Marsha

Begone the blues! Begonias are here!

Around here the first thing you think about, when you think about planting anything, is whether it is on the deer's preferred menu.  If they like it, better skip it.  If they are hungry enough, they will eat it even if they don't like it.           


I am researching, non-obstructive-view fence contractors, and hope to have a small flower garden area fenced off from these doggoned deer soon.  I had no idea when we moved here last fall that they are more like goats when it comes to what they will eat.  Pretty much anything that doesn't eat them first.


But I just could not wait until the fence gets built.  So today I bought some begonias.  Just the fun of getting out my gardening gloves, and washing off my tool carry-all, and wiping off my tools, and dragging hoses around, snipping, digging, watering ... well, color me happy.


Sure it is just three small containers planted.  Nothing fancy, just something that was left here from the prior owners.  But it is a start.


Nothing banishes the blues like a little gardening.  And while, frankly, begonias aren't my favorites they will likely grow (provided they don't get eaten first) in the shady planters near our back patio.


I have taken sensible precautions:  sprayed 'em with that smelly deer repellent.  Awful stuff, but you do what you have to around here in "deer country."


Still, even spreading slug bait felt like fun.  I know, I know, I must be hard up for a little fun.  True, but cut me some slack here, I did have fun - just a few begonias, no gardening awards in the offing here.  But lots of smiles.  


Works for me!  till next time ...Marsha
(Note:  I got to go "up the hill" to my house for one day last week, and I wrote this post that day.  And BTW - the deer did eat one of the three pots of begonias, but a week later the other two are still doing just fine.)