Thursday, January 31, 2008

I am making progress!

Yea!! I have some really good news today. I have finished writing 2 pamphlets. One is about healing and the other is about worship. Judy is just finishing up the final 3-fold of healing. I should see a printed copy today. The other is out of my hands and has been delivered to her for getting it print-ready. She told me she can only do one a week. Yeah, right! Like I could produce one a week. These things take lots of research, then writing. THEN you edit, edit, edit. I have re-read and re-written sentences, opting for a better word, a better sentence, a better way to express. Whew! And then Judy edits, or I should say bleeds all over it. But when we are both satisfied, we are very happy about the results. It is amazing how we argue and tussle over a word, sometimes. Yesterday, on the way to church, we really tugged and tugged over the word "sedan". The sentence spoke of the "family sedan." She thinks of sedan as an old, outdated car. Of course, I don't. So the struggle commenced. Even though I felt secure about the word, I finally changed it to "car". I didn't want even one other person to stumble over that word and miss the greater point.

I have also been gathering info for the book, Victory Ground. Right now, I am going through 35 years of sermons, finding those ideas and concepts that I want to include in the book. This book is a lifetime of experience for me. So right now, I am categorizing all my sermons from 1971 to present. They are divided by church (Southwest, ALF, GVT), then by books of the Bible, then by chapters and verses. I am half-way through the New Testament for ALF. That is the largest section, since I was there for 23 years. Then 1 year's worth at GVT, and I am ready.

Here is an example. I found a sermon I had preached on Imagination. As I looked through it (and I don't look at each sermon, but some the Lord draws my attention to), I realized that imagination has a lot to do with Victory Ground. So I laid it in the VG pile, and am presently thinking it might be a whole chapter.

Please continue to pray for me as I tackle this great mountain. The Lord is good to me! I am blessed beyond measure, and I am happy to think that he trusts me to write this book.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Birds, birds, birds

The two pictures I am showing you are of the beautiful youpon holly in our front yard. In the second picture it is in the upper right hand of the picture. It stands about 6 ft. tall and is full of red berries.

Lately we have had a plethora of birds: robins, wrens, bluejays, blackbirds, flickers, etc. One morning Judy counted 40-50 robins in our backyard. Well, the berries are all gone. As beautiful as they were, we are glad that the birds had them for food, but you can't imagine how bare the bush looks now! I have noticed little purple splats all over our driveway, sidewalk and steps to the porch. I guess the birds are just giving back their tithe.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Fun Breakfast Times

No pictures today. And I need to clear up one thing. On Wednesday, I said that I expected to finish up the last paragraph of my writing on Worship and then leave it with Judy to put it into pamphlet format. Well, I did; but now I need to do some re-writing. However, I finished the shorter tract on Healing! So I have accomplished one of the three writing goals I have before me. Yea!!

Now, to the title of my blog. Last Saturday, we invited some dear friends for breakfast. Joe and Debbie came about 9:30am. After breakfast we leisurely visited until about 2-3pm. We laughed and shared the good things of God, we peered into the future, prayed together. What fun!

Today, Saturday, we invited another couple (Richard and Mary) over for breakfast. They came at 9am and left about 1:30pm. Another leisurely day of laughing, sharing testimony of God's healing, talking about our great church where we worship together, and just having an altogether good time.

I love to have people over for a meal where we can let our hair down and share the Lord together. Any meal is fun, but I especially enjoy breakfast. We had scrambled eggs, sausage, blueberry whole wheat pancakes, and blueberry coffee. Mmmm, good.

Here is the recipe for the whole wheat pancakes. They are great, and healthy. I enjoy making them, and they are easy, too. Everyone raves over them.

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk, plus a tad more if necessary
1/2 teaspoon salt (I use sea salt)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup blueberries (if frozen, no need to thaw)

Directions: Sift together flour and baking powder, set aside. Beat together the egg, milk, salt and brown sugar in a bowl. Stir in flour until just moistened. add blueberries, and stir to incorporate.

Preheat the griddle, or whatevery you use to make pancakes. Pour approximately 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan for each pancake. Cook until bubbly. Turn, and continue cooking until golden brown.

Note: you may need to use more milk than 1 1/4 cup. The batter should be thin enough so that it pours, but not so thin that it's runny. (I put just a slosh more in.)

And finally, I get frozen blueberries at Wal-Mart. The Great Value brand blueberries are huge -- much, much bigger than Dole brand.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

My daughters

I love it when my daughters make me proud. (I am sure they love it when their dad makes them proud, too.) They are such good mothers, with good children (I used to say girls or daughters, but Brent kind of messed that up. Doesn't seem right to say boy and girls, so...children wins out.) Right now they are both going through the torture of potty training their older child. One is 4 and the other is 3. Not having done it before, they have also gone through their own personal humiliations, second-guessing, disappointments, and sense of failure. But it is all about perseverance, isn't it? It makes me proud to see and hear how they depend so heavily on Jesus (cf. Stephanie's comments). You wonder if you trained them right, then you hear and see in their lives that they did catch it. Oh, good!

Each one of them married different men than I would have chosen for them - at first. But even that choice has shown how God has directed their lives, and given them the right men to make them whole. Jim and Jeff (How close is that? And do you think I accidentally get them married to the wrong person?) are such good husbands and fathers, so different from each other, but so right for my girls. What fun and joy to sit back and watch all their lives develop. And I get to pray for them, and sometimes about them. I am blessed.

Today, I plan to write the closing paragraph of my tract on Worship. I will proof it and do some re-writes. Then Judy will put it into format for printing. I have told her what I want on the front, and she agreed it would be good. Then...it is on to the book about Victory Ground. Pray for me.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Finally, I am motivated!

Judy has been after me for years to turn some of my teachings into pamphlets or even books (small books). I have resisted the notion with great success. However, lately I have been getting an urge inside to do just that. And today, I actually put finger to keyboard to make my teaching on "Worship" into something -- a pamphlet, small book. Now the discipline of sitting and writing (I think I may suffer from ADHD or ADD) is not the most excruciating part of the process. I have discovered that Judy's editing is another form of blood-letting done with the torture tools of the Spanish Inquisition. It really makes me mad, but then I soon cool and get to the re-write. And I discover that she was right -- ooh, that hurts, too! Her years of working at ORU in publications has given her much experience in sadistic editing.

Oh, yes! I did write a piece on healing last week (or rather, refreshed an old piece), but I may include it in my larger tome on Victory Ground -- which I have begun.

Pray for me, please.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Tiny shoes

During Christmas, my office was also used as Jim and Kari's bedroom. It is actually a bedroom with my office on one wall. Very much room, big closet, etc. In fact, Judy's sewing cabinet is in the room as well, and there is still a lot of room. Anyway, I walked in one day to check my email, and found two pairs of small, sweet shoes tucked out of the way under the sewing cabinet. Now this is a picture to treasure!!


Another picture to treasure. This is me with my mother and my daughter Kari and two granddaughters, Olivia and Ava. What a nice picture. My mother will be 85 this year, I will be 60, Olivia is 4, Ava will be 3 in February. And let's just say that Kari is now old enough to run for president of the US, if she wants to.


It was great having my mother here at Christmas, we cherish the moments.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

A great breakfast club

How would you like to come to breakfast and find 3 beauties like these at your table. Wow! I am blessed, blessed, blessed. Each of them are so definite in what they want and how they eat it, so your time at the table is full of interest and surprises. I would watch one for awhile, then another, then another. Each are beautiful in their own way. Caitlyn is so careful to arrange her table area just so, then she eats.


Ava jumps up with great vigor (as she does all things) and chows down. She loves to watch others, for what reason I don't know. Maybe she wants to see how they are doing it, and copy them. Or make sure she is different from everyone else.

Olivia's food has to be just so. When eating pancakes, if they don't respond to her fork, she says, "They're not working!!" And immediately someone needs to figure out what the problem is and help out, or she might have a melt down. But even if she does melt down, as soon as the problem is fixed, she is all OK again. I think Cheerios might be easier for her than pancakes.

What sweet girls I have! But I can't help wondering how Brent is going to fit into the equation. Oh, my!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Shameless...


I am shameless, I know. But this is another picture of my family we took during Christmas. We all drove through the Garden of Lights in Honor Heights Park (a great Christmas light show), then we drove through the Castle grounds. It has over 1,000 inflatables. I just couldn't imagine that there were that many possibilities for Christmas inflatables, but trust me there are. Some turn, some sing, some pop up like Jack-in-the-box. After driving through the grounds, we went inside the Castle and saw even more inflatables. While inside, Judy grouped us all up and took our picture (too bad she wasn't in it, too). The kids were more than ready to get out of the cars for awhile, and they really enjoyed the fun and freedom of the Castle.

I need help from some of you English grammarians out there. When attaching "able" to the end of a word, when do you use "ible" and when "able"? Thanks for the help.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Yee-haw!

Today, I am highlighting Olivia and Ava for a funny reason. Here is the story: Ava has decided she wants to be a "bowboy" (translation: cowboy). So for Christmas, she and her sister got cowboy hats and boots, dolls and strollers. After gifts were opened, they went outside to push their strollers up and down the sidewalk. They would begin at one end and push their strollers as fast as they could go, shouting "Yee-haw!" They would turn around and come back just as excited. This went on for probably 20 trips. I wish I had gotten a picture of their behinds. Ava was pretty normal, but Olivia's behind looked like she had been sitting a horse all day - wide and flat. (I guess they were bowboy baby dolls.)


While searching for the two pictures above on Judy's Mac, I found that she had taken a picture of Kari and Stephanie playing our new piano. I was surprised, and I treasure these pictures very, very much. I have talented daughters in many ways: great wives and moms, great school teachers, and great singers and pianists. All four of us play the piano, but each has a very different style of playing. Anywhere in the house, I can listen and tell you who is playing.
Oh! and be sure to see Papa making pancakes for his little ones (click on the underlined words).


Friday, January 11, 2008

Show me now thy way!

In Exodus 33:13, Moses prayed, "Show me now thy way that I may know thee." Many years ago, I made that my life scripture, and my most common, daily prayer. I am not satisfied to see the works of the Lord, although that is a great thing, and I do want to see those. But even more so, I want to know His ways. The Psalmist said that he showed his works to the children of Israel, and made known his ways to Moses. I figure that, if I know his ways, I can understand better what is happening in my life.

I do know that he is constantly reducing me to the level of the Holy Spirit in my life. All of us get to going in our own steam and knowledge and plans, etc. So he must reduce us, otherwise we are a dam and not a waterfall. People are so desperate for the water (read: life) of the Holy Spirit, and we are reservoirs that constantly need to be giving, not holding back.

Just yesterday, I was able to witness the ways of God in a friend's life! It is so awesome, and so rewarding, to see not only his works, but to know his ways.

I do love the Lord, and I do love being a water spigot for the Holy Spirit in other people's lives. Thank you, Lord!

Monday, January 07, 2008

The eagles...

Saturday, after a nice breakfast, Judy and I drove out to Ft. Gibson Lake dam to look for eagles. It was a warm and windy day. Sometimes when the day is too warm or the wind too strong or the time of day is not right, the birds will be nesting. This day, however, the eagles seemed to be enjoying soaring on the strong wind currents high above us. It was a good day. In this first picture, I am pointing to a couple of young eagles who are sitting on the little metal roof just above one of the dam gates. You can't see them, but the picture kinda shows what the day was like.

I don't think Judy ever say the birds that landed on the dam, but I enjoyed looking at them. I guess they were waiting for a fish to come into view. But in the picture below is the nice results of our trip. We saw about 10-12 eagles, maybe more. Most of them were young and didn't have the white heads yet. I think an eagle has to be 3 years old before they have the white head. But we saw a couple of them. One landed in a tree across from where I am standing in the above picture. The other flew overhead with the young eagles. (In my computer setup, I can click on the picture and it will fill the screen. If yours is set up that way, you can see the eagle very close up. If you can enlarge the first picture, you will see two eagles just above my head across the river, and one just above the hill in front of my pointed finger.)

Eagles are very big, with a huge wingspan (maybe about 6'), but when they are way up in the sky, they don't look so big. The thing that really amazed us is how they flew. While the other birds (egrets, etc.) were constantly flapping their wings, the eagles never flapped their wings. Whether they were climbing up or coming down, they just soared on the wind currents with their wings locked out and used the end feathers of their wings to adjust for up and down and speed. It is incredible. You should take the opportunity to watch them if ever you can.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Changes and a new year

Someone said that the only thing you can be sure of is change. So we come to 2008. The Christmas lights are no longer along the front of our house, the inside decorations are coming down, as well. A couple of days ago, I blogged about the Azalea Cafe and inserted a picture. Well, it is no longer. Judy and I stopped by there yesterday for breakfast (I had a free coupon), and it is out of business. My friend Birnie (the owner) is out looking for a job. I am really going to miss the food, atmosphere, and the friendship of all the workers there.

Judy and I have surrendered our papers with the PH denomination, choosing to return to independent status. And of course, we are still looking for what the Lord has for us. We do appreciate your prayers and support while we are looking. It sometimes gets hard, but God has always been faithful.

I want to show you one picture today, which I think is really cool. This is Caitlyn and baby Brent. The photographer had them lie on the floor in order to get this snap. How cute it is, too.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Family Pictures...as promised

The Saturday after Christmas, all of our family was here with us. We made an appointment to have family pictures made, and this is the results. Behind us on the right are Jim and Kari and Olivia, with Ava on Judy's lap. Behind us on the left are Jeff and Stephanie, with Caitlyn on my lap and Brent on Judy's lap.

Next is the cause of all of this -- Gary and Judy. I keep getting older and she keeps getting younger. I don't really understand that dynamic at all.

This is my favorite picture -- Judy and me with the grandchildren. Stephanie's Caitlyn (3 yrs.) and Brent (3 months) on Judy's lap. Kari's Olivia (4 yrs.) and Ava (3 yrs.) on my lap. Notice that Olivia is pointing up at me, saying that I am the best! (Too bad, Mimi.)

These two lovely girls are Kari's darlings. Their personalities are so distinct. And they play together so very well, each looking out for the other. When commercials come on TV, Olivia often says, "I need that." While she is at pre-school, Ava is home watching TV, and sometimes she will tell her mother, "Sissy needs that," with certain commercials.

I love this pose of Stephanie's children! Caitlyn tries to be a really good sister to Brent. A little rough sometimes, but her heart is good -- and she is only 3. What can we expect? She is a lover and a hugger.

Now the families in their individual poses. This one with the girls on Jim's back is so true, and will only get more so as the years go on. These girls really know how to work their daddy. And he is such a good daddy, too. This picture might be more prophetic than he knows.

Last , but not least, the Jeff and Stephanie bunch. Jeff is such a strong husband and father. He has a real appreciation of the good values of life, and he works hard with Stephanie to produce those values in Caitlyn, and now Brent. I am so pleased with Stephanie's choice of a mate, it truly was God-ordered. I can say that about Jim and Kari, as well. Judy and I are blessed with our families. Now we are just enjoying praying for them and watching our babies grow up.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Events of Christmas

This was such a fun Christmas time! We had all the family here, which now numbers 10. Wow! And we have a house big enough that everyone can have their own space -- and pretty big space at that. (Thank you, Lord, for you gift to us of a great house.) Let me drop in a few photos to chronicle our Christmas.

Jim and Kari love to go to Azalia Cafe for breakfast, so I called the day ahead and reserved a table for 6 before their fireplace. The owner and workers there are some of my dearest friends, and they really showed it by setting the two tables up in front of the fireplace, with our own urn of Mountain Blueberry coffee. It was very luxurious! We felt like royalty. Thanks, Bernie, Jennifer, Jessica and Lacy!!

Our family is made up of three happily married couples. Gary & Judy (parents), Jim and Kari (daughter #1), and Jeff and Stephanie (daughter #2). We have 5 grandchildren, two boys and three girls. Dylan is in heaven and you will see the rest below.

Olivia, Ava and Caitlyn are all dressed up for church and standing in front of the TV watching Dora till the last minute. And of course, Brent is in my arms waiting to be taken somewhere at the whim of someone else. That is soon to change as he learns to crawl and walk. (That's his pretty mommy pushing into the picture with us guys.)

We all went to church together the Sunday after Christmas at Christian Chapel (the greatest church in Muskogee). For the first time ever, our family "filled a pew". But no prizes were given out. Rats! We rushed home for a quick noon meal, then both girls and their families were off to their homes in St. Louis and Dallas. Here are cousins Olivia and Caitlyn saying goodbye. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Oh, yes. We had family photos made. Tune in tomorrow for some glimpses of the family.