Our son Chip is arriving home tomorrow night for a week's visit!! We thank the Lord that he has a week off and will have some time for some R&R. Of course, we are all 8 of us thrilled that he will be headed this way tomorrow evening. Everything is "funner" when Chip is around. He is kind of our "family pastor" and we enjoy all of the spiritual interaction with him during these times.
We are planning a nice fall trip to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. To start with, Richard has been invited to sit on the panel of a retirement conference in Nashville in mid September. They will put us up at the Opryland Hotel, etc. This is the springboard of our trip. From there, we want to spend a couple of days in Gatlinburg where we spent our honeymoon in September 1973.
Because we are now veteran Princess cruisers and receive all of the notifications of Princess cruises, one came across our in-boxes that caught our attention. The dating and the pricing were too good to pass up, and we have booked the cruise. So from Gatlinburg, we will make our drive on up to New York ~~ stopping along the way to see the sights. Once we get to New York, we will catch the Princess Ship at the Brooklyn Pier for the following 7-day Cruise:
Sept 28: Board the Caribbean Princess Ship in New York, New York at the Brooklyn Pier
Set Sail at 5:00 p.m.
Sept. 29: Newport, Rhode Island Arrive at 7:00 a.m. and Depart at 4:00 p.m.
This day is our 35th wedding anniversary
Sept. 30: Boston, Mass Arrive at 10:00 a.m. and Depart at 7:00 p.m.
I want to see and meet my dear online friend Chickie during our day in Boston!
Oct. 1: Bar Harbor, Maine Arrive at 7:00 a.m. and Depart at 6:00 p.m.
Oct. 2: St. John, New Brunswick, Canada Arrive at 8:00 a.m. and Depart at 5:00 p.m.
Oct. 3: Halifax, Nova Scotia Arrive at 9:00 a.m. and Depart at 6:00 p.m.
Oct. 4: At Sea
Oct. 5: Arrive back in New York, New York for Disembarkation
The colors should be pretty and the temps cooler which will make for a nice drive up, a lovely cruise, and a nice trip back. We won't rush back home but will see some other sights along the way home ~~ depending upon how long we can bear to be away from our family and friends!
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
There are some folks who touch your life, and you never forget them. Years later, you can see them and pick right up where you left off. Such is the case with the dear people who came by to see us today. Dr. Ron E was our pastor way back in the 1980's when we were young and raising our little kids. It was Dr. English who lead our little 5-year-old Chip to the Lord. It was Dr. English who felt the leading of the Lord to invite my dad to come to CBC and serve as Assistant Pastor. It was dear Dr. English who was our physical rock during my dad's 3-week illness and subsequent death. (God was our spiritual rock, of course.) Brenda was our much-loved Pastor's wife. She did a beautiful job of keeping the home fires burning with 4 active kids and a busy, busy husband. She was always a picture of God's grace and beauty with her quiet and meek spirit. I always admired Brenda and looked up to her (though she is about a foot shorter than me!)
What a joy when we received a Monday night phone call that they were in the area and wanted to get together on this Tuesday morning. We haven't seen them too many times in the 20 years since they left our church to follow God's will for their lives and their ministry and had last seen them in June 2004 when we traveled to GA to attend Dr. E's mother's funeral.
Today was a wonderful and refreshing breeze of God's goodness in giving us precious relationships throughout life. They arrived with their dear friend from Lillian, AL which is about 25 miles from here. We enjoyed meeting "Miss Sue" and feel like we have a new friend in the area. We visited in our home for quite a while. We had planned to have our grandsons Jarrett (15) and Josh (9) here for the day so they got to meet our beloved Pastor and Mrs. English. The boys enjoyed the cute Yorkie dog, Maddie, who came with Dr. E and Brenda. After a sweet time of fellowship in our home, we all went to Cracker Barrel for a late breakfast.
After our time of food and fellowship at Cracker Barrel, we drove Dr. E and Brenda over to the academy and then to the college so that they could see Amy and meet our other two grandchildren: Jaden (3-1/2) and Isabella (13). It was a sweet reunion with them and Amy as they had last seen her as a 13 year old!! (We knew Brian would be very busy at his job in advertising so we didn't bother him.)
After running around seeing folks, we came back to the house and had another nice time of visiting. Kay, we made a special greeting for you. I am working on getting up uploaded so you can see/hear it.
What a fun day to have spent time with these dear, dear friends (and former beloved Pastor) from the '80s. God is good!!! Here are some pics:
Josh and Jarrett both loved their sweet dog, Maddie. Jarrett is 15 and doesn't like to be in pictures ~~ even with a cute dog, but Josh (9) was happy to oblige.
There's Maddie's cute little face
Dr. E and Brenda looked wonderful and it was so good to see them and have them in our home. We last saw them in GA at his mother's funeral in June 2004.
This is their dear friend, Sue, who lives just just 20 miles from us. We now have a new friend!! I'm sorry her pretty blue eyes were closed. I couldn't tell that by looking at the display.
Got a picture of Dr. E and Brenda with Josh (holding Maddie) and Jarrett. I didn't have the camera with me when we went to three different locations so Amy could see them and they could meet Jaden and Isabella.
Back at our house after running around and having another sweet time of fellowship.
I so much enjoyed visiting with Brenda and catching up on all of their family news.
What a fun day with our precious former pastor and pastor's wife.
Oh my goodness.... we just got a phone call.... you will never guess who was on the other end.... they are coming over tomorrow morning to see us... what an unexpected thrill... they are going to come at 9:00 and then we are going to go to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Oh, did I fail to mention to whom we were talking? Bro. Ron English! He and Brenda are in Lillian, AL visiting a dear friend. We will get to meet her tomorrow as well. What a treat!
Gotta run.... have a little picking up to do.... special company's a-coming!!
Everything turned out just fine at my tests this morning. All is well. I praise God for this good report!!!!
Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
I have to make a run to the hospital tomorrow morning for some tests regarding a breast issue that occurred this past week. I will spare you the gory details but will tell you that my doctor is 98% sure it isn't anything serious. However, he said it is is job to prove it isn't anything serious so I am having the tests done.
I am not one bit worried about it but would appreciate your prayers for a good report from the procedures. I will report back when I know the outcome.
Thank you!!
Susan
Friday, July 18 ~~ Jarrett's 15th birthday. I wonder if his birth mother or birth father will remember. Jarrett was adopted by our son-in-law and daughter in mid June 2003~~ just a few days before Jarrett's 10th birthday. He had lived in an orphanage for 4 years by the time they adopted him and brought him to America. Five years have passed. That little boy they brought home is now half-man. Like a lot of teenagers, Jarrett thinks he is all grown up, knows it all, and can do it all. He needs to "let go and let God" have HIS way in his life but seems to be oblivious to that fact. God loves him dearly. We love him dearly. Happy Birthday, Dear Jarrett.
Love,
Grandma
Tony Snow died last Saturday. We enjoyed Tony on the Fox News channel and then as the White House Press Secretary. He gave a testimony of a saving faith in Jesus Christ so, though we were saddened at the news of his passing, we rejoice that he is safely arrived at home in Heaven. In 2007, Tony gave these thoughts on his situation with cancer. It is powerful to read and can only hope and pray that I would be so brave if found in this same situation some day.
CANCER'S UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
'You Have Been Called'Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears.
Learning How to LiveMost of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.
It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up—to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.
Today was Amy's "back to work" after 6 weeks of summer vacation. Being a principal, she had to return early to get things ready for summer training sessions and for the start of school.
It is still four weeks before school starts for the 
kids but they are doing some fun stuff between now and then. Belle is "working" at the Sports Center (she earns her lunch every day), Josh is a participant at day camp at the Sports Center and will have lots of fun, and Jaden started to day care today and will have a lot of stories regarding playing with his friends.
Jarrett is spending these 4 weeks of week days with Grandpa and me,and they are going to work on lots of projects around the place. They didn't let any grass grow under their feet as Richard was out at 6:00 to work on a leaking valve down at our water main and Jarrett was out there right after 6:30 to help him. Richard found the leak and stopped on that project for a bit as he needed to run to Home Depot to get the replacement part he needed.
I had determined that we needed to relocate some rose bushes that were given to us a couple of weeks ago so the guys got busy and dug them up from one spot and relocated them for me. And I had two little pots of rose bushes that I used on the tables at the family reunion that needed to be planted. In this picture, those are the little roses that Grandpa and Jarrett are planting. That was about 10 rosebushes and a lot of work, but they got the job done by 8:30 and we all came in from breakfast!!
After breakfast, Richard and Jarrett went to Home Depot to get the part needed to fix the leak in the yard. When they got back, Richard worked on that while Jarrett start digging up the grass in the back yard. Richard is going to put in paving stones to make a patio on both ends of the sunroom as we have doors that come out on both sides. Jarrett did 90% of the digging up of the grass and Richard helped him finish up after their noon lunch break. From there, they jumped in the pool to cool off. The guys worked hard and got a lot done!!
All the pictures of our day:
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