The Face of Love

We are all familiar with the very well-known and well-loved Bible verses which describe love.  But let’s put a face on love.

There are so many different faces of love that I’m barely going to be able to get started here, but here I go.

Even though the faces of love all look different they are still easy to recognize if you are really watching.

The face of love can be seen telling a child to brush his teeth, not to talk with his mouth full, or not to chew with the mouth open. That face of love will teach things like standing up straight and looking folks in the eye when talking to them.

There is the face of love that denies a child the candy on Halloween or Easter because the child is diabetic, or makes the tough decision to put the child through a horrible surgery and recovery period to correct hip dysplasia so eventually the child can be better. It looks a lot like hard-heartedness but is definitely love.  Or, how about the face of love that watches as doctors dump toxic waste into a beloved child who has cancer and prays that God will bless the chemo and cure the child? Yes, I call that love.

This may not seem like a whole lot until the day your heart aches because you see a tired mother trying to corral her preschoolers, packages, and purse and you look into her eyes and smile in understanding because you remember your mom doing the same. So you help the mother get it all across the street and to her car and go on with her thanks in your ears and a lift to your spirit while mentally thanking your own mom for raising you right.

If you turned out to be a loving, giving, useful human who is striving to make this world a better place, thank your mom.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁴ Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. ⁵ It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. ⁶ It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. ⁷ Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening].

⁸ Love never fails 

Don’t forget to hug your mom and tell her,

“Thanks!”

Am I a Nice Person?

Generally, I believe, people consider me a reasonable, caring, nice person. I will hold the door for you even if it means you will get in line in front of me. If I’m checking out at the grocery I’ll not vie for a spot ahead of you in line but will graciously let you ahead of me. If you need directions I’ll give them to you no matter how long it takes and even if I have to translate “north” or “east” into “straight ahead” and “right” for you. I’m generally patient, understanding, and pretty much a what you see is what you get type person and when folks look at me they generally see a placid, old, cow. I admit that I have about as much animosity in me as that grazing cow.

So, why then did I get in such a rage when the car pulling into the Kroger pharmacy pickup lane blocked both entrances?  It just set off my “this is outrageous” meter and made it clang at the highest level of disturbance.  There was a car length between him and the car in front of him. Why didn’t he just pull up and others could have gotten to the second lane? Even when the car in front of him pulled up he kept sitting there. I finally found a close parking space and parked, took my granny cane with the four feet on it and hobbled into Kroger. There my cane and I opted for an electric cart and drove into the pharmacy and picked up prescriptions that were waiting. Carted back to the door, got my cane and purse and prescriptions and hobbled back to the car.

Do you know why the man was so rude?  Well, as I passed his vehicle on my way into the store I could see the cell phone he was doing something on that made him oblivious to what was going on around him.  But the woman in the car with him was eating popcorn and looking around so why didn’t she tell him he had traffic blocked?

What I wanted to do was grab his cell phone, slap him on the side of his head and tell him, “Pay attention!”

What I decided to do was ignore him and come home and meditate. That’s the same thing as ignoring people except you do It while sitting cross-legged on the floor. Well, my knees won’t let me sit cross-legged and if I got down on the floor Bob would have to rent a crane to get me up. but I can do some pretty good meditating at the sewing machine. 

Why, if I truly am a nice person, do I get in such a rage at a nincompoop with no upbringing?  I just want to tell him, “Buddy, you suck!”

Pray for me, I think I may need counseling.

 

Fifty Blessings

My cousin Steve challenged me to write about fifty of my blessings.  He wouldn’t let me just cover them all with saying health,  home, family so now he has to endure the whole shebang.

1.       It is a blessing to be able to open my eyes and see in the morning.

2.       Yes, I’m blest to be able to get out of the bed without help from anyone.

3.       Again, dressing myself is such a blessing when I think of all the people who require help with just getting into their clothes.

4.       Oh those magic beans!  Just to smell coffee beans while grinding them perks me right up so I count being able to smell them as a blessing also.

5.       The taste of that magic brew made from the magic beans!  Some people lose their sense of taste and it is such a blessing to have it.

6.       I share a cup of my magic brew with the love of my life. Isn’t that a powerful blessing? To have enough to share!

7.       And yes, I’m blest to have someone to love.  The same someone who loves me and has for more than 51 years now.  Steve, I could cop out an list each of those years as a single blessing because they have been.

8.       There is plenty of food in my pantry and refrigerator and so I count it a blessing that none of us will go hungry today.  There are people in the world who do not know where the next meal will come from and so if you have enough to eat today, be thankful.

9.       There are dirty clothes to wash and it is a blessing to know that we have enough clothes we can change out of dirty ones when we need to change.

10.   Oh that lovely shower!  Is there any feeling better than clean?  What a blessing to be able to step into the shower and wash and step out.  When  Bob and I first married our bathtub was a number two wash tub.  He brought it In at night and I filled it with water and bathed the kids and Bob emptied it so I could fill it again for me, he emptied it, then he bathed last. A lot of water heating, carrying, and emptying.  Yes, running water is such a blessing.

11.   Those dirty clothes are sorted and ready to wash in the machine which I consider a blessing. You see, there was a time I washed diapers on a rub board in the bathtub. 

12.   And the clothes are tossed casually into a machine to dry them.  A blessing? If you, like I did, had to hang wash on a line while it froze as you hung it the plain old dryer would look to you like a huge blessing.

13.   Breakfast over and the dishes gathered into a machine that washes them for me. Another blessing.

14.   Off to my sewing room where I have a lovely machine that is one of my favorite blessings. I know how to sew by hand but the machine is much faster than I am.

15.   So much material to choose from! It is stacked all around me in piles of blessings.

16.   The blessing of having friends who share their scraps with me because they know I’ll use them.

17.   The complicated pattern I put together to make a lovely quilt block is a blessing because it all fit together just as it should when I followed directions.  It is such a blessing when this happens.

18.   The cutting wheel on my rotary cutter is so dull it has become work to try to cut with it and the edges of the cut pieces are jagged. Time to replace the blade and isn’t it a blessing to have extra blades at hand when one needs to be replaced?

19.   Another quilt is finished and ready to be bound. Binding is difficult for me due to Dupuytren’s contracture but I can still do it if I take it in stages. That is a blessing.

20.   My broken foot that doesn’t want to heal properly makes me sit often so I usually quit what I’m doing and sit and visit with Bob. It is a blessing to have someone who is interested in what I’m doing.

21.   A stroll to the mailbox (more like a waddle) to get the mail and isn’t it a blessing to be able to do that?

22.   I get a glass of fresh water for Bob and count it a blessing to still be able to go up and down the three steps to get it for him.  You see, he can’t do these things for himself so I recognize that being able to do for oneself is such a huge blessing.

23.   A son is coming over to hang some tile in the bathroom we are redoing to make it more user friendly for Bob. This son is such a blessing.

24.   Another son will pick me up and take me to have lunch with relatives today and I count it a blessing to have a son who will do this for his mom.

25.   It is a blessing to have relatives to visit with and who will actually be glad to see us.

26.   It is a miracle and blessing that either of the boys are still with us because both have health issues that have threatened to take them from us at various times. 

27.   While all of us have issues to deal with in our everyday lives, Bob and I are still able to live at home together and not have to be in a nursing home. If you think that isn’t a blessing you need to spend three months in a nursing home and then you’ll know.

28.   Last year at this time we were making plans to cart our Thanksgiving dinner to the nursing home so we could be with Bob and this year we will all gather at Kevin and Tracey’s house with family and friends and give thanks for the blessing of being able to do so.

29.   Family is coming from Indiana for Thanksgiving and we feel blest to live in a time when transportation makes it possible for this to happen.

30.   It is a blessing that a young couple cares enough about family to drive that far to spend time with us.

31.   This list is being written on a laptiop machine that allows instant communication and lets me be with Bob while I am compiling my list and that is a huge blessing.

32.   Just a month ago our child was in the hospital dealing with Afib and now he seems to be doing well and that is a miracle and a huge blessing.

33.   Every morning my husband speaks to each of his siblings and we feel blest to have iPhones and the ability to use them.

34.   Do you still learn new things?  I do and feel so blest that my brain still works.  The things that are stored there seem to stay there.  We’ll not talk about how my retrieval system doesn’t work like it used to!

35.   This week we saw the moon at a closer range than we’ve seen it in many a moon. (Sorry, that just HAD to be said!) It is a blessing to be able to see and appreciate the small things in life.

36.   Someone calls to check on me and I’m aware that there are people who care for me and isn’t that a blessing?

37.   The floor needs to be mopped and I feel blest to have a floor. My great-grandparents were in the Oklahoma land rush and lived in a soddy they built for the first year or two.

38.   My great-grandmother Hinshaw was a full blood Cherokee and just this week I found her on the Cherokee rolls after searching for years. Isn’t technology wonderful? What a blessing to sit in my comfortable chair and peruse documents created long ago by just scrolling through webpages.

39.   In a time when so many people have no idea who their progenitors were, I can trace my ancestors back with certainty for centuries and feel blest to be able to do so.

40.   The weather in Arkansas at this time is more like September than November but I know that some cold weather is on the way and feel blest to know I’ll still be warm because my house is snug and heated. So many in this world do not have that.

41.   I have a warm coat to wear when the temperatures drop. Others are not so blest so if there is a coat drive in your town and you have two coats, share!

42.   There is a food drive today to help fill the community food pantry and I shall donate a dozen cans of something and feel oh so blest to have extra to share with others.

43.   Probably some of you will agree with my next blessing and some of you won’t. I count it a blessing to be able to vote for those who govern our country.

44.   One of the biggest blessings is to live in a Republic and not a Democracy. I’m so blest and thankful we have a Republic.

45.   My neighbors are friendly and peaceful and isn’t that a great blessing?

46.   I can go to the church of my choice to worship as I please and recognize this as a blessing that so many Christians in the world do not have.

47.   I did a wee thing for someone once who told me it was such a blessing for them though it was as nothing to me.  But isn’t it just one of the grandest blessings of all to get to be a blessing to someone else?

48.   The sun is shining as I write this and I feel it is shedding a blessing on me.

49.   When it rains I count that as a blessing and I love rainy days.

50.   Did I save the best for last? I am so blest to know my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

A Grandmother’s Love

How many of us think the little things we do affect those around us?

A kind word we say and then forget but the person it was said to remembers it for years. A few coins given to a stranger who was in the grocery line ahead of us and we helped out because they needed less than a dollar to have enough to pay for their milk and bread. We don’t remember it much past when it actually happens but the recipient remembers it always because it meant her child got to have a glass of milk with his peanut butter sandwich for supper.   And oh the things we do and say to our own children and grandchildren that they remember forever. Be careful with those small ones because what you do and say can have a lasting effect, for good or for bad.

My own grandmother was a loving, caring, kind person who loved children. It is just as well she felt this way about them because she had sixteen. Yes, you read that correctly, my grandmother had sixteen children. My mom had nine kids and to this day there are things my grandmother and mom said to me that stand out in my memory.

The lesson Grandmother tried to drum into my head that I wish had stuck was the one she repeated over and over, “Be kind to others, always,” she would admonish, “It will come back to you, maybe not from the person you are kind to but from someone else. We really do reap what we sow.” I can still hear her saying that and I’m still wishing I was a kinder, gentler person.

I knew a lovely woman in her 80’s who believed she was homely. She had believed this all of her life because an uncouth person had said to her mother when she was a little girl that he couldn’t believe what an ugly little thing she was so he hoped she was a good girl.

Yes, our words can affect people for many, many years as can our actions.

“But I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with Grandmother!”

How many times has a mother heard that refrain? A friend of mine has a grandson who came to visit with his mom and then didn’t want to go home, he wanted a sleepover with his grandmother.

Trying to be logical, his mom told him, “But you don’t have your jammies with you.” And the son, being just as logical, at least to his way of thinking, replied, “I’ll borrow some from Meme.”

Of course Meme offered to find something the child could sleep in and as she sorted through what she had she came upon her Mickey Mouse t-shirt from Disney World. “That one, Meme, that one!” came the shout from an excited small boy. So the Mickey Mouse shirt became a boy’s nightshirt. He never wanted to sleep in anything else when he was at Meme’s house.

Now that grandson is in his twenties, married and, his Meme is hopeful, will someday have kids of his own. Unfortunately, the t-shirt suffered some damage through the years but it was saved because of the memories of good times it represented.

“It has a hole in it,” my friend said when she was telling me the story. “Do you suppose it could be made into a baby quilt?” And of course I told her to bring it and I would certainly see what I could do with it.

As you can see from this picture, the hole was repaired with a piece from the back of the shirt and hardly showed before the quilting and after it was quilted one has to really search for it to see it. Success!

Because the shirt had raglan sleeves, I decided to “raglan” the bottom of the shirt front too so it has a modified diamond pattern. After that it was simply a matter of adding rows of quilt-type pieces around the shirt front so it became big enough to be a quilt for a baby, toddler, or an old person in a wheelchair.

The back of the quilt is a piece of flannel with Mickey all over it.

That grandmother created memories for a little boy that likely dwell with him today and bring comfort when he thinks of them. Now she has created another memory to bring it all back for him so when he has a child of his own, boy or girl, for who doesn’t love Mickey, he can wrap his child in the shirt that held and comforted him when he was a child. This grandmother has it right, this is a grandmother’s love in action.

What kind of memory have you created for someone today?

Oh, and you say you can’t see the hole?  It is just to the left of the word “Walt” on the shirt.