SO, JUST ASK

There I was, mowing the lawn with a relatively new lawnmower which I love. I also love to mow the lawn. All of a sudden I heard a loud clunk, clunk, sputter, then silence. Heck, it was usually easy to start the relatively new mower, always only taking one pull of the cord and it immediately hummed like an expensive motor boat engine. No such luck this time. Ten pulls and it was silent, not a chug, not a hum, nothing. I was going out of town, so before leaving I called my loving and loyal son De who always is ready to help me with my chores, eager to help fix broken items, etc. As usual, he was amenable to stopping by my house during my absence and checking out the lawn mower. My expert assessment (I absolutely have no experience in motors) was that it needed a new spark plug which I had not replaced over the winter. While away on my out-of-town trip I got a phone call from De and he told me that he had fixed the mower. I asked if the problem was the spark plug. Laughingly, son De said, “No, it wasn’t the spark plug, but did you add more oil to the mower?” Yes, I had taken care of that chore myself before I had mowed the last time, doing what I thought was the proper thing to do. I had filled the oil tank up to the top. Still laughing, my son told me that I had added too much oil and when he started the mower that oil had sputtered out of the motor and smoke filled the garage. He emptied the oil tank and started all over again, only adding what the instruction book said to add. The problem was solved and after returning home I found that the mower started again with the first pull of the cord. It mowed the entire large yard like the dream mower that I had bought. Yes, I should have asked son De to put oil in the mower instead of doing it myself. In fact, while I was mowing the yard the words of my daughter-in-law Kay kept coming to my mind. One time when I did something similar, she said, “When you have something that needs to be done, all you need to do is ask.” I should have asked them about adding oil to the mower. I know that now. Also while mowing the lawn another thought came to my mind, the thought that Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive.” That was His way of saying the same thing Kay said to me, that all I have to do is ask and they will help me. As I was thinking about the similarities, I knew that De and Kay can’t invade my house and do anything they want to do, because it’s my house. Even though they are family, it’s my house and they can’t come in and fix anything unless I ask them because I might have some other plan in the works relating to an item. They have to ask me and I have to give them permission to help me. It’s the same way with God. He has the ability and the power to fix everything in the earth because he created it and he gave the wisdom for all mechanical or physical creations. BUT, it’s the same thing as with my son and me, we have to ask God to fix something in our lives. God can’t legally come into our earth without being asked because He originally gave the earth to people when He told them to have dominion over it. He made people the bosses of the earth, the managers, the caretakers. So He has to be asked to come into the earth, into the life of a person, before He can come in to perform His Mr. Fix-It chores. God has a multitude of workers called angels who come into our situations with Him to help Him bring perfect solutions to our problems when we ask Him. People say that they have asked God to come into their lives and fix something and He didn’t do it. They fail to realize that it took them a long time to break their marriage, their family, their profession or their friendships, and it will take some time to move people around, bring counselors into their lives and change the hearts of the people who are involved. It took time for you to mess it up and it takes time for God to get the mechanics in place to fix it to perfection. Yes, sometimes people lose patience and give up on God just before the perfect solution for the situation emerges. My sister had a dream one time in which there were huge, beautifully wrapped gifts in a room. In the dream she asked why they hadn’t been unwrapped and a voice of Wisdom in the room said, “The people gave up on their faith and lost patience. Inside the packages are all the answers to their prayers” It’s never God who is the problem. The problem is from the earth side. God said it’s His good pleasure to give His entire kingdom to his children. Very often, we ask God’s help and then go our merry ways and continue doing the things that caused the devil to rob us of our blessings. We ask God to perfect the situation, but we continue to curse other people, continue to use anger to injure others, we speak negatively of our governing authorities, we sow seeds of strife with others, we do the works of evil in our lives but expect God to answer our desperate prayer. We can’t play on God’s team, asking Him to solve our problems, and also continue to play on the team of the evil one who tempted us to get into the devastating problem originally. We can’t be double minded, asking for God’s help and all the time also playing on the team of the opponent who caused our problem. We need to be either for God or against God. We can’t be dependent upon Him to fix our problem while we are entertaining the spiritual entities who caused the problem. While my son was fixing my lawn mower, I couldn’t allow some neighborhood ruffians to beat on the mower and pour oil, gasoline, weed killer and insect killer on the mower while he worked on it to perfect it for me. The Apostle James said that we don’t have because we do not ask. He also said that sometimes we ask and don’t receive because we sometimes ask amiss. We cannot expect God to kill someone because we are mad at them for making us unhappy. That is against the nature of God. We can’t expect God to cause someone’s business to fail so that ours will succeed. He is no respecter of persons. That would be asking amiss. God can work miracles in your life if you ask and if you walk in love, forgiving others and refusing to judge others. Those are the works that He said when He said that faith without works is dead and when He said that faith works by love. All of that is covered in the book of James in the Instruction Book. Hey, all we need to do is ask and continue to play on God‘s team, being loving and forgiving. God said to walk in communion with His Spirit and you won’t fulfill the lusts of the flesh. He said to pray in the understanding and in the Spirit and magnify His power by praising Him and thanking Him even before the answer to prayers are manifested. Just ask. It’s so simple. Everything with God is simple. We make it difficult by believing the thoughts of doubt and fear which invade our minds. So, just ask.

TOBIT, TOBIAH AND JON

Sometimes the miracles of God take our breath away. Sometimes the mercy of God overwhelms us. Sometimes the results of the guidance of God results in happenings that are so supernatural that the human mind has trouble believing them. It has happened to me many times. The events from the following experience have been so magnificent that I had to choose to believe them because my human mind had trouble computing that God has the ability to astound His children with such awesome magnificence. Yes, this story about the astounding answer to My prayers still takes my breath away, leaving me so in awe of God that all I can do is thank Him, thank Him and continue to thank Him. Years ago when our son Jon announced to my husband and me that he was leaving college and joining the Navy, the events that followed as a result of my grieving appeals to God necessitate my writing highlights of the entire story, hoping that the testimony will build faith in those who read it. At the time, the shock of Jon’s announcement of the change of his plans from attending college to joining the Navy was alarming to me because Jon was the kind of kid who hardly ever left the block where we lived. He was the son who was not very social, came home early from parties and dates, one who seemed to enjoy the home fires and their security. So when he decided to leave college and travel the world with the Navy, it was completely out of character for him. It was definitely not in his plans or our plans for his future, which was for him to fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor. I did not receive the news of his joining the Navy with the same joy that my husband did. My husband rejoiced that he was getting a big raise because he didn’t have to pay for college for Jon. However, I had my doubts that Jon had the social skills and maturity to make the right decisions while in the military. I prayed and prayed and prayed about his decision. I cried and cried and cried before he left for boot camp. I cried when he left on the bus for his first experience in the Navy. I feared for his safety since he had always been a “home body.” The day after my husband and I put Jon on the military bus headed for boot camp, I sat on our back porch and cried and wailed and prayed for his safety. Visions of devastating war scenes tormented my mind and I was unable to pull on the gift of faith that God so often gives under trying situations. I prayed for hours about the safety of our son and prayed for his future. A recurring thought kept passing over my mind as I prayed. It was that I should read the book of Tobit in the Apocrypha part of a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible which had previously been given to me by a friend. The book of Tobit and a few other books are not found in most translations of the Bible, not because they are not recognized as being divinely inspired, but they are deemed to be similar in value to other books which are accepted by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. However, I knew that there are many lessons from the books of the Apocrypha that are read from the lectern in the Episcopal Church, of which we were members. I had read many times from the Book of Wisdom in the Catholic Bible which was given to me by my friend, but had never read anything in the book of Tobit. Actually I had never had a desire to read that unfamiliar book, maybe having some doubt that the contents were divinely inspired. As I cried and prayed for Jon‘s safety, the thoughts kept coming again and again to read the book of Tobit. I kept refusing the thought, arguing with myself that there would be no reason to read that strange book of which I had no knowledge. Finally I decided that reading that unfamiliar book might serve to maybe get my mind off of my grief and fear for the safety of our son who would be traveling all over the world in military ships. Reluctantly, I went to my library of books and picked up the Roman Catholic translation of the Bible which contained the book of Tobit. I returned to my chair on the back porch and like a spoiled child I turned almost defiantly to the book of Tobit. I didn’t turn to the first chapter, but flipped immediately to the fifth chapter and let my eyes randomly land on the 18th verse which said that Tobiah was the son of a man named Tobit, and before starting on a journey he kissed his mother and father goodbye, but his mother cried and chided Tobit for sending their young son on the long journey to a foreign country. The mother wept uncontrollably as their son set off on the journey. There I was, crying the same type of tears for the same reason. In the book, Tobit assured his wife that their son would return successfully from the journey in good health. Tobit told his wife that their son Tobiah would be safe and sound because a good angel was going with him, that he would return unharmed and that the journey would be successful. Needless to say, I couldn’t believe my eyes at the similarity of the story of Tobit and the situation in which we were living at the time with our son Jon. The events were almost identical. I turned back a few pages to see if there was a reference to a particular angel of which Tobit spoke who was to accompany Tobiah on his journey. Sure enough, in chapter 3 of the book of Tobit there was the reference of the angel Raphael and his appointment by God to accompany Tobiah on his journey. It says that God heard Tobit’s prayer for the safety of his son, so God sent the angel Raphael to accompany Tobiah on his journey with the admonition to bring Tobiah back to this family safe and sound. When I read the story of Tobit and Tobiah, I had right there in front of me in black and white, on printed pages, God’s promise that our son Jon would be returned to our home safe and sound because he would be accompanied by a special angel, one sent with Jon to keep him safe until he came safely back from the Navy. There was no doubt in my mind that the story was for me. In fact, I praised and thanked God over and over and over for the story of Tobit and how it assured me of God’s intervention in the life of our son. I even thanked God that He had included that book in the particular translation of the Bible which had been given to me by a dear friend. I told God that I even thought He had put that book in the Apocrypha for me, to give me faith for the return of our son. There was even a reference in another chapter to Tobit having cataracts in his eyes. My own mother was going to have cataract surgery while Jon was in boot camp. The similarities of the stories were astounding. There were no more crying episodes for me, no more periods of wailing, no more bouts of depression from lack of faith. I had God’s promise in black and white that Jon would return from his Navy duties safe and sound. In fact, those two portions of the book of Tobit were all that I read at the time because the words were all that I needed to be infused with unshakable faith that God had appointed a special angel named Raphael to accompany Jon on his journey and to keep him safe and sound until he came home. Years later, after his safe journey ended, I continued to praise God for His assurance and for His being true to His words to me. The thought came to my mind that I should read some more of the book of Tobit. I read a few more chapters and found some more similarities. Tobiah found his wife while on his journey to the foreign country with Rapheal, had married her and later had seven sons. Again I was shocked at the similarities. Our son Jon found his wife while in the Navy. She is also foreign born, a beautiful Filipino woman, and they have four sons. The angel Raphael had done the same work in Jon’s life that he had done in the life of Tobiah in the book. Being awe struck at that revelation, I praised and thanked God again and again for his magnificent plan in answering our prayers. It’s been twenty-five years since Jon and his wife Jaycee were married. I decided that I needed to send this story to the friend named Claudette who gave me the particular Bible, the one containing the book of Tobit which infused me with unshakable faith for the return of our son from his military journey. So I determined to write the story today. As a reminder of the similarities in the stories, I decided that I needed to read the entire book of Tobit, which I had never done. There are even more unbelievable similarities in the stories, the one in the Bible which is thought to maybe be fiction and the story lived in reality by our family. In reading the entire story of Tobit, I was overwhelmed again with the majesty and power of God. Since I had never read the entire book, I had missed another shocking similarity. In the book of Tobit there is a lengthy story of Tobiah and his bride Sarah. Edna was the name of Sarah’s mother who was a loving, positive influence in her life. Edna was the name of my own mother, who had the same positive attitudes and who was also praying mightily for Jon’s return from his military journeys. I’ve never seen the name of Edna in any other book of the Bible. It’s not currently a popular name. I love the name Edna now because it has special significance, confirming another special element of the circumstance in which God infused me with faith for the safe return of our son Jon to our family exactly the same way He returned Tobiah to his family in the book of Tobit in that Bible. Tobit told his son Tobiah that he should tell the story of God’s mercy in sending the angel to accompany him on his journey so that others would know about God’s desire to meet the needs of all of His children. I have accepted that admonition as my own, to tell the miraculous story of how God used a random book in the Bible to confirm His answer to my prayers and that He was sending an angel along with our son to bring him home safe and sound. I wrote a song to God years ago in which the chorus says, “Oh, You are more, more, more than enough. You’re my healer, my provider and my peace. Yes, You are more, more, more than enough, my deliverer, my shepherd and my life.” Yes, surely He is more than enough and all that we need! He proves His love to us constantly. Thanks to God for His answers to our prayers and thanks to my friend Claudette who years before the event gave me the Bible which God used to take away my grief. It became the effective tool through which God let me know that he was answering My prayers. Hopefully you will believe this testimony as you read it and it will build your faith that God will do the same type of miracles in your life. When you believe that He will, He certainly will. God is more than enough.

WHOOPEE PRAISES

I have never heard that “Whoopee” would be acceptable praises to God, not until I found myself doing that very thing, shouting praises to God by shouting “Whoopee.” You need to know the background and the setting behind that unusual exclamation of praise, so here goes: Ten days ago I had had my yearly mammogram performed in the hospital of a close town in which my primary care doctor has his office. His office scheduled the appointment and I was pleased to undergo the exam since I am a 24 year survivor of breast cancer and for the last ten years I have finally been able to relax when undergoing the mammogram exam. I felt that I have overcome that disease for this long and there surely won’t be a reoccurrence now. A few days later I got the call from my doctor’s office telling me that the mammogram showed some “suspicious” tissue and that I needed to have another series of exams. I took the news with trepidation, having expected to receive the call stating that everything was clear on the mammogram results. I started praying diligently and asked my good friends whom we affectionately call the Prayer Posse to also pray for me. Included in that Prayer Posse are several members of my family. The appointment for the second mammogram was scheduled for ten days later. It is done in a busy hospital with excellent technicians who are gentle, kind and loving. I spent lots and lots of hours praying in the Holy Spirit for myself, something I rarely do for myself, but included were other people in the hours and hours of prayers. On the day of the second scheduled mammogram I prayed in the Holy Spirit all the way to the hospital as I drove to the town where the hospital is located, and as I got closer to the hospital I had a sense that God had erased the “suspicious” tissue from my breast. That was only a fleeting thought, not a strong impression. I thanked God for His ability to do that and told Him that I believed He had truly done a miracle for me. I arrived on time for the appointment and was called into the exam room just a few minutes after the schedule said. When I entered the exam room, I noticed a scripture painted on the wall which said, “With God all things are possible to those who believe. Mark 9:23.” That was comforting and I reflected on the fact that I had not seen that statement on that wall at the past appointments. Also there was a hanging cloth plaque with the silk screen messages Hope and Believe printed many times on the cloth. That boosted my faith, too. The technician is always so kind and gentle and makes the mammogram as pleasant as possible. She immediately told me that the radiologist had requested more tests with extra compression so that she could compare the new slides with the ones taken ten days previously. Being use to the procedures, I relaxed and put my arms where she told me, and twisted my body into unusual contortions so that she could get the proper views on the mammogram. After mammograms were taken in three different positions, she said that she was taking them to the radiologist so she could compare them to the previous ones from ten days previously. Then she said that if there was nothing of concern on the mammograms that I would be free to leave and go home. BUT, she said, if there was still something of concern that she would return and take me to the ultrasound room for extra testing. I was a little nervous to hear what the radiologist was viewing, of course. In about five minutes, the tech returned and said that the radiologist wanted a complete ultrasound of the suspicious area. Not good news! However, I went willingly to the ultrasound exam room and met the young tech in charge who would do the ultrasound, a beautiful and gentle lady. She used the ultrasound wand gently but took a long, long time, all the while with the machine making beeping sounds. After about 15 minutes of recording the ultrasound, the tech told me she was going to take the results to the radiologist and they would discuss the findings. I laid on the table with my faith beginning to slip a little. I knew that God would see that I got healed, but I didn’t relish going through medical methods of healing, those being radiation and chemotherapy. After an agonizing few minutes the tech returned with the radiologist and announced that the radiologist wanted to be present while she did a completely new series of ultrasound tests. Again, not good news! The radiologist was a pretty young lady who was just as kind as the other ladies in the radiology department. She thought she recognized me and I assured her that I didn’t know her. She told the ultrasound tech to begin the testing while she watched the screen. By then my blood pressure was beginning to rise a little bit, imagining that there were diseased areas that they were trying to identify more completely. After the extensive ultrasound exam was completed, the radiologist announced to me that the areas of concern that were found ten days ago were not now visible on the current mammograms. She said she had ordered the ultrasound testing to make sure the new mammograms weren’t missing what they had seen on the previous ones. Then she told me that the areas of concern were now neither visible on the current mammograms nor on the ultrasound exams. The thought came to me that, for sure, God had miraculously erased the areas of concern from my breast, healing me, just like the thought came to me in the car. I almost skipped out of the radiology department after redressing, feeling light as a feather as I glided across the huge parking lot to my car, thanking God all the way for what He had done for me. It was worth all of the hour and a half of tests and anxious thoughts to hear the great news from the radiologist. When I got to my car for the 45 minute to an hour drive back home, I wanted to praise God again but when I started to open my mouth with normal words of praise I started shouting a strange thing. I started shouting the word, “Whoopee,” very loudly amidst the flood of tears of gratitude. I kept shouting, “Whoopee,” loudly every few seconds as if I had won a huge sporting event or received a valuable gift, which I actually had done. I felt like an idiot, thinking maybe that I should be praising God in the usual way with words of thanksgiving, but I found that there was such great joy in shouting, “Whoopee,” with the emphasis on the “whoop.” That continued all the way home. I had the thought that even though that wasn’t an exclamation that I had ever shouted, that it was an exclamation that my husband would have used. He had died two years previously of cancer. Early in our marriage I had occasionally heard him use that word in joyful situations. Then the thought came to me that my loving husband was, in fact, participating with me in my joy, adding his multiple shouts of, “Whoopee,” to my praises to God. Why not? I know that he is in the cloud of witnesses in the heavenly dimension around us. I also know that he would be shouting words of exclamation with me if he were still in the flesh by rejoicing right along with me. Even greater joy came to me with that revelation. Shouts from my mouth of, “Whoopee,’ filled my car all the way home and into the evening. The next morning I woke with thoughts of doubt that God had actually erased from my breast the areas that were suspicious and of great concern to the radiologist. I rejected that thought, knowing that the enemy of God’s children always comes to rob God of praise. Later that day as I was typing a love message from God for my blog, one that I had handwritten seven days before the current event, I was amazed when I saw that the first sentence said, “All things are possible with God to those who believe, Mark 9:23.” It was the identical scripture that was painted on the wall of the mammogram exam room. “Whoopee,” was again my exclamation, that God had confirmed His work by having the identical scripture at the beginning of my writing that day as was on the wall of the exam room the day before. That is no coincidence. It’s what we call a God incident. A loving friend called and told me to read in the dictionary the meaning of the word. I did and it becomes even more exciting. The word “whoopee” means to express a shout of great exuberance. To “whoop it up” means to celebrate riotously and as an expression of enjoyment and enthusiam. I whooped it up all the way home that day after hearing the good news. It had to be with the same degree of gratitude that the Psalmist David intended when he wrote that we must shout for joy, praising God for His goodness. “Whoopee,” just seems to express my gratitude now. Try it, with the emphasis on the “whoop” as you shout. It will express joy but will also bring more joy to you. I know that God loves it because of what it does for us, bringing joy and exhilaration to us. So I’m expecting to celebrate and shout, “Whoopee,” more often Try it. You’ll be surprised what it does for you. Whoopee, another battle has been won.

GOOD FATHERS NEVER STOP BEING DADDIES

All human being learns things from their fathers, either how to be a good dad, just like their dad was, or how not to be a bad dad, just like their dad was. As a girl, I learned so many things from my daddy, Leonard Wieland. First of all, my Daddy was comical, a real character, although my sisters and I didn’t see that part of his personality unless we were around his siblings and his mother. They all had a gift of comedy and we joined into the laughter on those occasions. Later in life, when we had our own children, Daddy showed that part of his personality to his grandkids and great grandkids. Several years after his death, we all still repeatedly relay to each other the entertaining things he did, laughing at them like it is the first time we have heard them or told them. Daddy had a marvelous work ethic which will always be part of my personality. He loved to work. He started many businesses, made successes of them, sold them, then went on to start other businesses. During my infancy, he owned a service station where we lived in the Panhandle of Texas while it was enjoying an oil boom. He made a success of the service station, bought another service station, then sold it. From there he started a real estate company and a used car business with a friend. That was a prime time for my oldest sister and me, high school age by then, because we had our pick of the cars to drive off the lot when needed. Those businesses were very successful. While still owning those businesses Daddy built a combination appliance and tire store in another town. He hired a man to run that store and it became successful. However, Daddy never seemed to receive any money from that business because he found out later that the manager was robbing the profits from him. The solution to that problem was to move our family to the other town and have Daddy run the appliance and tire store himself. So we moved while I was getting ready to begin my junior near in high school. My oldest sister was going to college, the two youngest sisters were in grade school, so it was a good time to move. The appliance and tire store flourished under Daddy’s management, so he established a furniture store in the same town. A year or so later he added a small service station to his collection of businesses, which he sold at a profit a short time later. Daddy was a successful businessman, even though he only had a fifth grade education. He was a voracious reader so he got an education on his own. He never forgot a person or the person’s name and that’s what made him a good businessman. His memories of events were unshakable and his details relating to events were perfect. His grammar was horrible, having been raised in the farming fields of Arkansas and Oklahoma, but his personality made up for his bad grammar. During the 30s, 40s and 50s very few women worked outside the home and men were the breadwinners so Mother stayed home with us. She also kept books for Daddy part-time. Because of Daddy’s frugality, he did his own janitor work so he left early in the morning, before we left for school, and he came home just in time for dinner. We had that small slice of time at night with him and we had weekends with him when we would usually pile in the station wagon and either drive to visit relatives or just take a Sunday drive, which he loved to do since he was a real “car” man. He loved cars and we always had the newest ones. The ideal would have been for Daddy to be a hands-on father, taking an intimate part in the lives of his daughters but that wasn’t the norm in those days. The men were too busy providing for their families. They left all of the nurturing up to the moms, which seemed to work out okay. However, there was always a little place inside of me which needed to be filled by a one on one relationship with Daddy. I thank Daddy so much for the work ethic that I have. He mowed his lawn religiously until he was in his late 80s, loved doing it. As a child I used to beg him to let me do it, but he refused because it was relaxing for him. I understand now because I am the same way. I call my lawn mowing time my Disneyland time, even though my lawn is huge. It’s my time to meditate and think about writing another story. When I finish the lawn, then shower or jump into the pool, I think about Daddy and his love for yard work, matching it with mine. After I hop out of the shower and dress, sit in my recliner while reading the daily paper, a magazine or a book, I think about Daddy and the depth of pleasure that he felt in the same situation, doing a job right, looking back at it and seeing its manicured beauty, finishing the job, showering off the sweat, then sitting quietly in his chair, and I know just how he felt. Rewarding and satisfying are my description of the feeling. As a child, missing out on having a close and personal one-on-one relationship with Daddy because of his work schedule was a reality; but I’ve decided that when, of necessity, men do that, they later become wonderful grandfathers, giving to their grandchildren the time and devotion for which they did not have the time with their own children. It’s like spending time with the grandchildren not only made up for the time that was lost with his daughters, but giving extra doses of love to our children was his way to make up for his lack of attention to us when we were children. I saw a side of Daddy with his grandchildren that warms my heart. He was his true self, comical, talkative, generous, entertaining and loving. He was still the rock that we always knew he was, but he was also the true person, the loving and entertaining one. It’s clear to me now that men who miss out on a close relationship with their own children always become wonderful grandfathers because they pour extra doses of love on the children of their own children, making up for the losses that were created by having to make a living and provide for a family. My Daddy was a fabulous grandfather. By the time he had grandchildren he had sold all of the businesses and had built a bowling alley in another Texas town. That necessitated another move for the family but worked out great for my younger sisters. The bowling alley was the center of entertainment for young people as well as families and the senior crowd. On our visits to Texas, My own children spent hours and hours with Grandpop at the bowling alley, not only bowling but playing the pinball machines, for which Grandpop was an endless supply of money. Their fondest memories are of the years with Grandpop and Grandmom at the bowling alley during the summers. That was over forty-five years ago, but our children still laugh at the events that happened at the bowling alley. Daddy was a hands-on father later in life. He relished visiting with the families of my sisters and me. Three days was the limit. He came, we laughed and ate for three days, but three days later he and our mother left to go home. We all laugh because his habit was to get up early on the day of departure, usually before we were up for the day, and sneak out to their car and get on the way home. His bed at home seemed to beckon him after three days. Did I miss the hands-on, personal involvement of my dad in my young years? Sure I did, but it was a necessity at the time for Daddy to be involved in his work. He had a large family of four girls who needed the best of everything. We never lacked for pretty clothes. The family always had the nicest cars in town, and our family had a good reputation in the business community because of Daddy. Daddy’s comedic streak in his personality are what we talk about the most when we are remembering his attributes. He seemed to make a comedy out of every situation with the grandchildren. We relish the stories about that part of his personality. When Daddy was in a nursing home the last year of his life, he was only there because of some fainting spells, some episodes which caused him to collapse in a heap on the floor of the apartment, in the elevator or wherever else it was prone to happen. He never lost his big smile while in the nursing home. When we would walk in the front door to the lobby, he was always there to meet us with a big smile on his face. Daddy was convinced when he was about 85 years old that he had won the Publishers Clearing House five million dollars. He called me and told me, “We’re rich.” He didn’t say he was rich, he said, “We’re rich.” That shows his generous nature. I told him that we’ve always been rich with laughter and happiness, but he persisted that we were now financially rich. He said my youngest sister had checked the letter and sure enough, it said he had won five million dollars. Doubting that he was the winner, I told him that my husband and I would drive the eight hours to their town in a few days and check out the veracity of the letter. He was glad to have us participate in the joy. After arriving there, we went over the letter word for word and discovered there was an “if” involved. The letter cleverly concealed the “if”, meaning if he had the right numbers then he had won. He didn’t. Daddy was devastated because he had told all of his highly educated friends at the Senior Citizen’s Center and at their senior swimming classes that he was now a millionaire. He felt like a fool. He stopped attending those venues because of his embarrassment. It took at least five years before we could joke about the fact that he had been deceived into believing that he won the Clearing House millions. Being the good sport that he was, he finally began laughing about his gullibility. Daddy lived until he was 95. Like the title of this story says, good fathers never stop being daddies. Daddy never stopped being the comic, the entertaining one. The night that my sister called to tell me that he had died, my husband and I laughed and cried together for hours because Daddy was more of a father to my husband than his own father had been. They were great buddies and we traveled a lot with my parents on yearly trips to see the aspens change, plus summer trips to California to see my children and grandchildren. His death was a sad occurrence, but we were at peace that Daddy was with Mother who had died two years earlier. We were glad that we had driven the five hours to be with him the previous Saturday and had bought him some Crispy Crème donuts of which he ate five with gusto. Good fathers never stop being daddies, for sure. Daddy proved it to me in a very unusual way. The night we received the news that he had died, I only slept a couple of hours. About 4:00 in the morning I decided to get up from the bed and go to my computer to do some computer work since I couldn’t sleep at all. I was perusing a court case that I was editing when a strange thing happened. I say “strange” because I had previously engaged pop-up blockers on the computer so I wouldn’t be interrupted with unwanted pop-ups while working on the court cases. I had not had pop-ups appear on my computer since I engaged the blockers about five years previous to Daddy’s death. Suddenly, in the middle of the court transcript there appeared a pop-up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to blink several times to believe I was really seeing what I was seeing on my computer screen. In the same and usual format of many letters we all get in the mail, the pop-up on Publisher Clearing House stationary said “Congratulations. You are the winner of five million dollars.” It was exactly the same letter that had fooled Daddy into thinking he had won the money many years prior. I had never gotten that pop-up on my computer before this event and I have never gotten it again on my computer. I immediately started laughing and I said, “Daddy, okay, I know you are behind this little trick. Your attempt to let me know that you are still with me have done what you desired. It gave me a huge laugh.” Then I said, “You can go on to be with Mother now. You left us with a laugh, which has always been your desire.” I knew that no one would believe me unless I had a witness to Daddy’s parting message to me, so I yelled for my husband to immediately wake and rush into the home office where I was working because I knew he was not going to believe what was happening. I didn’t know much about pop-ups but I was worried that the Publisher Clearing House notice would disappear as quickly as it had appeared. As I suspected, my husband was astonished, just like I was. He stood with his big eyes blinking as if to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing. He kept saying, “I’m not believing what I’m seeing. I am NOT believing what I’m seeing.” We laughed and laughed. My husband said, “I didn’t know he had that kind of spiritual influence to do that.” It happened just like I have described. Leonard Wieland, my father, left a memory we will never forget, one that results in a laugh every time we tell it. Daddy’s memory has been kept alive with that experience because of the supernatural way that it happened. My father became a good friend later in life. He is still a good friend because I tell his jokes and antics over and over again. The experience we had with his parting gesture was so outstanding that we will never forget it. He’s still alive in the spiritual dimension caring for us the way he did when he walked the earth. Daddy is a partner with God in making sure we stay safe and prosperous in this life. My wonderful father, Leonard Wieland, will never, ever stop being a daddy to me. He proved it in so many times, even after the death of his body. I’m spiritually rich. I’m sure I’m the only person who ever got a Publisher Clearing House letter with such meaning from heaven.

AMANDA'S BOUNTIFUL BOUQUETS

She emails beautiful virtual bouquets regularly to me so I call her my Flower Angel. She began that loving feat after the death of my husband a year and a half ago. That shows the generous state of her heart. My Flower Angel had lovingly and generously mailed comforting pictures to my husband, her Uncle Steve, while he was going through chemotherapy. He loved every picture she sent, knowing that they carried love in a pure form. I have them saved because they were so important to him. Her actual name is Amanda and she is my grand niece. I like calling her my great niece because she is such a great young lady, but she is grand, also, so both descriptions apply. At our last family gathering Amanda surprised me, not with a virtual bouquet, but with a bouquet of beautiful silk flowers. She had selected the flowers herself, knowing that I like bright colors, which she always puts in the virtual bouquets when she creates them. She graciously handed the silk flowers to me with a look of deep love in her eyes. I was thrilled beyond words. Amanda might not realize the significance of the specific flowers in the bouquet. It contained a bright red geranium, a lilac verbena, three bright pink hydrangea blossoms and a single white rose. The hydrangea blossoms and the white rose have deep, spiritual meaning to me, which I’m sure that Amanda does not even know. Two months after my husband died last year, I observed our 55th anniversary by buying myself a five feet tall hydrangea tree which I planted in a big outdoor pot. I placed the gorgeous, ever-blooming tree outside a large picture window where I can see it many times a day. It’s a constant reminder of the love we shared during our 55 years of marriage from which was produced the most loving family a woman could ever hope to have. The hydrangea blooms in Amanda’s bouquet signify to me the continuing love that I experience from 55 years of marriage. The other flower, the white rose, has even greater significance and importance. It was a surprise to me, but later I realized that God had guided Amanda in selecting the white rose. Years ago my husband had a yellow rose tattooed on his leg as an honor to me because he considered me his yellow rose of Texas. Since his death, yellow roses have showed up in my life in the most miraculous ways, all of them as a reminder of the love he had for me. One showed up in a large bouquet sent to me in which a single yellow rose graced a large bouquet. The florist told me that a yellow rose was not meant to be in that bouquet. I knew that my husband had been responsible for that yellow rose, from his vantage place in the heavens encouraging the florist to add the yellow rose. Other times a yellow rose has been handed to me by different people who had no knowledge of the significance to me of the yellow rose. As I was meditating with God about the white rose that Amanda placed in the middle of her loving gift to me, I asked Him why the white rose was sent rather than a yellow one. I was bowled over by what came to my mind, which surely was from God. He put in my mind the thought that the white rose was placed in the bouquet to remind me that my husband is now white as snow, completely pure, unencumbered by earthly shortcomings, because he is in the presence of God who is complete purity. The earlier yellow roses were previously significant of his flesh because he had put a single yellow rose on his leg in my honor; but the white rose is a visual representation of the sinless and pure state in which he exists now with God, white as snow, transformed by the nature of God. The amazing thing is that I have said many times that Steve is perfect now with the nature of God, whom he loves. Amanda gave me a white rose as a visual reminder of that truth, and she didn’t even know she was doing it. She just selected what she felt were the right flowers. That’s what makes it so much more heart warming, the fact that the idea originated from the Heart of God, sent to comfort and bring joy to me, and He sent it through my Flower Angel, Amanda. Amanda is certainly a wonderful blessing to me. God worked mightily through her when He impressed her to include the hydrangea blooms and the single white rose, both which carry great significance to me. It was another wonderful gift from God, sent to me directly through my Flower Angel, Amanda. Thank you, Amanda, for reminding Me that Steve is pure as the driven snow, joyful and rejoicing in heaven with God. Your bouquet brings me joy unspeakable.

JIRAH, THE PROVIDER

So who is Jirah? If you’ve never heard of Him, He’s more commonly called Jehovah Jirah, meaning God, the Provider. That is the first way God revealed Himself to people, actually first to Abraham who was the father of many nations. If you were Abraham who was 99 years old and God had told you that your 100 year old wife was going to have a son, you would certainly need to know God as the Provider or you would never have believed Him, even though He’s God. I learned years ago that God will always provide what a person needs. Experience is the best teacher, for sure, and there are many, many notches on my experience belt to remind me that He always provides. Now, the provision might not come in the wrapping that a person expects, but it is always perfect for the occasion. One meaningful experience comes to mind where God provided for a family need in a dramatic way. It happened after my husband of 55 years died. My loving and attentive three adult children were efficient in helping with all of the funeral plans in addition to helping with insurance calls, banking calls, business calls, retirement arrangement calls and all the other calls that occur after the death of a loved one. Everything was falling into place, thanks to each individual’s expertise in whichever areas they were experienced. Relating to the funeral arrangements, the one thing that had not been arranged was my asking someone to stay at the house during the funeral, which is a wise thing to do in order to answer calls, receive food and provide the human equivalent to a burglar alarm since there are times when vacant homes are robbed when the family is attending the funeral of a loved one. As it got closer to the day of the funeral, all three adult children and other relatives became concerned about not having someone to “sit” with the house. I kept telling them that God would send the right one, that we did not need to be concerned. That was hard to do for all of my efficient children. Occasionally one of them would inquire about who I was going to ask to sit with the house. Bless their hearts, they were really concerned. Rightfully so. They probably thought I was foolish to trust God with that task when it could so easily be handled by me. I had that knowing deep in my spirit that God was going to send someone. Didn’t know who and didn’t know when, but I just had that gift of faith that He would send the person, that I didn’t need to be concerned about that task. The day before the funeral I decided I needed to get out of the house. The house was full of relatives who were busying themselves doing household chores and other duties in preparation for the funeral and the pizza wake which we had decided to have at our home after the funeral. Pizza was my husband’s favorite food so it was appropriate to have a pizza wake for incoming relatives and friends. Suddenly I had an intense desire to go into the front yard and water some plants, which seemed a weird desire since it was still cold in the early spring and there was no need to water the plants. It was good to get away from the busyness in the house where loving chatter was forever present. As I was holding the water hose on one of the azalea plants, a car pulled into the driveway. It was Melody, a friend who lives in the next block. Melody and I have had a friendship which did not involve regular visits. In fact, we had infrequent conversations but each rare one resulted in loving communication. Melody gave me a big hug and inquired how I was doing, to which I answered that I was doing fine, just needed to get out of the house a minute. We stood and chatted for just a very few minutes when Melody said, “I would like to stay at your house during Steve’s funeral. Do you have anyone appointed to that task?” Well, glory be, there was the provision of My Heavenly Father. He certainly is Jehovah Jirah, as Abraham knew him. Melody also told me that she considered it as a ministry for herself to provide that duty for a grieving family. Immediately I told Melody that I had been waiting for her. I told her about the concerns of my adult children and that I had assured them over and over again that God would provide the house sitter. She was pleased to be the answer to our prayers. I grabbed her hand and led her into the house, eager to physically show the “doubting Thomases” in the house that God had so expertly provided the person we needed. Feeling like I was dragging Melody behind me, we entered the front door and I called to everyone in the house to come immediately because I had something to show them. The room became filled with my children, a few of my grown grandchildren, sisters, brothers and other relatives. It was a delight to introduce Melody as the one God provided for the task. I reminded everyone who was listening that we didn’t have to ask anyone, that God had supernaturally appointed the proper one, Melody, who considered it a gift to the family. If there was anyone in my house that day who doubted that God will provide what a person needs, he or she was convinced on that occasion that Our Heavenly Father is truly God, the Provider. Our provision had walked right up to our door and volunteered, as directed by Him. Thank you, God, for proving that you provide; and thank you, Melody, that you were obedient to the calling of God. Melody’s gift to us that day was a living example of a Loving Father being whom He says He is, God the Provider. It was a dramatic representation to the entire family that, in that occasion, asking God to provide was more sure than asking a person to provide. We all learned a valuable and faith building lesson.

THE ONE AND ONLY MIT WRIGHT

Mit Wright came into our lives in a very miraculous way fifty-three years ago. My husband had graduated from a court reporting school in Texas and was hired by a federal judge in Muskogee, Oklahoma to be his court reporter. At that time Oklahoma was thought of as being way far back in the sticks of the U.S. When we informed people in Texas of our plans to move to Oklahoma, we were ridiculed and told that nobody moves to Oklahoma, people move out of Oklahoma. That did not put a damper upon our excitement to move there because we had seen the city and fell in love with its huge big trees and beautiful green lawns. It looked like heaven to us because the plains of Texas certainly didn’t offer scenery to compare to Eastern Oklahoma. My husband’s parents had very good friends named Thorwald and Katherine Anderson who were also excited that we were moving to Muskogee because they had a niece who lived there and they wanted us to meet her. There was one problem. They knew her married name was Joyce Wright, but they didn’t know her husband’s name or their address. They only knew her P.O. Box number. I kept thinking that they must expect us to go to the Post Office and hang out by her box until someone came to get the mail and then introduce ourselves. Little did we know that plans were already in operation along the lines of making sure we got acquainted with her. Our moving van driver unloaded our furniture at the rental house in Muskogee and we were endeavoring to get settled into the nice rental house. There was a knock at the door and I opened it to see a very pretty blond lady standing on the porch. She commented that she wanted to welcome us to the neighborhood. “What a kind thing to do,” I remarked, and invited her into the house. She asked where we were originally from and I told her Lubbock, Texas. The neighborhood visitor excitingly asked if we might have known her aunt and uncle in Lubbock, Thorwald and Katherine Anderson. Could it really be? Could the first person we meet in our new town actually be the only person whose name we had heard about as living in Muskogee? “You must be Joyce Wright,” I said, still not believing that fate had done this marvelous thing for us. “Yes,” she said, “How did you know?” I explained to her how her aunt and uncle had told us about her living in Muskogee and said we should get in contact with her. We certainly didn’t have to stand by her PO Box and wait for her to pick up her mail. God just presented her to us at the front door of the rent house. We had actually moved into a rent house four doors from Joyce and her family. It truly was a miracle, not a happenstance because the odds were too high for it to have just been luck. Now it’s important that you know why we called her Mit Wright. Our son De loved to play with Billy Wright, Joyce’s son who was two years older than him. De was only two years old and wanted to make friends, so he would carry his little chair down the block to the Wright’s house, with me watching him. He would stand on the chair so he could reach the doorbell. Then when Joyce answered the door he would say, “Mit Wright, can Bilye come out to play?” Thereafter, Joyce was always addressed by members of our family as Mit Wright and Bilye was always called that nickname by me instead of Billy. Our families became good friends with lots of bridge games on Saturday nights, cookouts, Sunday trips after church to the river where we had our own private cove where we could visit with other friends and the kids could float the river. It was good times, like the popular saying describes memorable events. It’s always impressed me that we were supposed to meet the Wright family or God would not have gone to all of that trouble arranging the meeting. Joyce was the first person to welcome us to a new town. She died recently, and I like to think that my husband Steve, who died last year, was the first one to welcome Joyce to heaven. “Turn about is fair play.” I think God observes that principle, too.