My Time at the Inn

While shopping today in Texas, I happened to see three different sets of grandparents out shopping.  I really wasn't eavesdropping but standing very near to where the grandparents stood.  The first set I met stood by a barrel of stuffed Angry Birds.  Grandma picked up one and said, "Oh, look, Bobby would love this. He loves that game."  Grandpa replied with, "It's just not worth $5.99, and Bobby will play with for about 5 minutes and that's it."  I chuckled, to myself of course.  Grandma reluctantly put the Angry Bird down, but gave an angry glance at her own "bird" Later, at the school supply center, I encountered the second set of grandparents.  Grandma looked at a lighted globe. As she looked at it, she said to Grandpa, "Oh, Doro would love this, and you know how it would help her at school."  "How much is it?" "$45.00" "What?  I ain't payin $45 for a globe that light up, when her dad can get it...

Tomorrow morning we are helping our youngest son move to Denton, Texas where he will be attending UNT.  So many people have come to me and saying, "Oh, I feel sorry for you, what will you now that you are an empty nester?" I have received many empty nest comments, and I have pondered what is Empty Nest Syndrome. The more I think about it, the more I don't like the terminology. It's a false statement on many accounts. Birds build nests to lay the eggs and hatch out the young, and when the young are fledglings, they use their wings to leave the nest and home.  They don't return.  Some birds will then make another nest elsewhere, and hatch more eggs, and the cycle repeats.  Children are not birds, and this is how the analogy fails for me.  In Europe it children commonly stay at their parents' home usually until they marry.  We have friends from Germany and England, and they say things are odd in America.  Parents raise their children and give t...

My daughter took this picture last evening.  Do you see the heart? What joy she had taking it.  There in the Tucson sky stood a lovely heart surrounded by clouds.  I thought that God must delight in showing us His creativity! I suppose some might say that happenstance caused it, but I don't; I think God delights in it. I think He teaches us things in nature, if we look.  The first thing I thought of when Jayne showed me this photo was  God's love.  When we write notes, don't we use hearts as a symbol of our love?  Cool, I think. We have a one-legged quail that comes to feast on our grain. I find him amazing.  He comes each morning and evening, and each time I see him, I think, you survived another day.  One might think it easy prey for the hawks we have, but he comes and eats and drinks and goes away with the rest of the quail in his group. The Lord uses this bird to remind me that God cares for sparrows, and yes, quail, so how much ...

This Jack, my Turkish Van.  We got him at a no kill shelter. He has many unique traits.  He hops rather than runs, though he can run, he prefers hopping.  He wants to be chased.  He give a certain meow that means, "Okay, guys, just don't sit there, let's' play.  I run, you chase me."  It took us a while to figure this out.  He growls and "barks" like a dog.  He does this late at night. He hops through the house and growl and give what I call his bark.  This can last a good twenty minutes.  He has unusual fur. Turkish Vans do not have an undercoat, so their fun is very luxurious and repels water and dirt.  They love water. Jack will run to the water when the faucet runs with water. We can give him a bath and he sit in the water and we can clean him.  He loves everyone in the house. He does not belong to any one of us, but all of us get his attention.  In the evening when we watch a movie, he come to each of us in our c...

The world can appear to be a very scary place right now.  Here in the United States the stock market is taking a plunge, and people say the United States heads towards the way of Greece and Ireland.  This is scary for us since we just invested a portion of our income.  Our country's debt is 100% of what it takes in, and the Congress voted basically to increase our debt.  From what I read in the Economist magazine, things are not much better in Europe. What happens when the world's economies suffer? Does it mean a world-wide depression?   Scary, isn't it?  If our focus stays only on what we see with the stock market, wars, and terrorism, then indeed, it is most scary.  But I choose to focus on the Lord, and look at the world with faith in Christ.  The world may be shaky, but Christ is firm.  The world may falter, but Christ continues. The world changes, but Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. A few days ago, I ...

Saturday morning someone knocked on my door.  A lady and young boy stood there wanting to give me the Watchtower Magazine.  At first I thought, "Oh,dear, Jehovah Witnesses, I don't have time for this."  I started to say that I have my own faith and, therefore, not at all interested in hearing them speak.  But then I thought, "Marsha, don't you have good news to share?  Don't they deserve to hear it?  Jesus wants all to come to Him.  So, I opened up the scriptures to them.   The boy wanted to challenge what I said, and he would turn pages in his bible to make the scriptures say what he wanted.  I tried to get them to look at them in context.  Sadly, I found out they don't believe in heaven or hell. They think paradise will be on this earth, and they get it all from the meek shall inherit the earth. They just couldn't believe that Jesus is God. How does one explain the Trinity?  The scriptures teach it, but the human mind canno...