IN FAVOR WITH GOD AND MAN

     Blessings come out of nowhere and overtake us! I am in awe of God and the thing He does for His children because He loves us.
     Yesterday I got into my car, eager to go on an afternoon jaunt to run errands. The notification that came on the lighted display on my car said that I had low tire pressure. It had notified me of that caution a couple of days previously and my son had aired up the offending tire. There was the same message again in lights so that I couldn’t miss it.
     As is my habit when that caution occurs, I got out of the car and visually checked the tires. There it was, a tire completely flat on the right front of the car, which necessitated another call to my son to come and more adequately assess the situation when he left work.
     “Yeah, Mom, it’s completely flat,” was his complete assessment. He got the spare tire out of the back of the MKX and proceeded to change the flat tire to the spare tire. However, the spare seemed in need of a little bit of air also, so Son took the spare to the local Kum and Go convenience store to air up the spare tire since I would be driving on it to take the flat one to the tire repair shop.
     That was not completely accomplished because the air hose at the convenience store had a weird nozzle on it and Son felt like he had let more air out of the spare tire than he had put in it.
     We decided after conferring a minute to go ahead and have him put the spare on the car so that I could go the next morning to a local tire repair shop in town and have the flat tire repaired and put back on the car.
      After successfully putting the spare tire on the car, My son reminded me that I must drive carefully on it to the tire store the next day because of the tire not being completely inflated. He even told me the most direct route to drive in case the spare also became flat. I appreciated the advice.
     Rising a little earlier the next morning, I called the tire repair shop and told the owner my dilemma, that the big tire was completely flat and needed to be fixed, and that the spare might get me there on a wing and a prayer. The owner said to come right on and he would do what was necessary.
     It happened exactly like what I had said to the owner, I got there on lots of prayer and the wings of the angels. The car had a definite tilt to the right and the steering wheel felt like it was being tugged to the right side. But, I got there safely, driving the speed my son suggested and driving the route that he advised.
     The owner told me to take a seat in the office and he would assess the situation. I made my way to the office and admired the typical office of a mechanic/tire shop owner. While I waited, I learned some things about cars because the owner was occupied by receiving the money from other customers whose cars had been fixed. The owner gave them instructions on how to avoid problems in the future, which I was privy to the advice and will remember.
     I began to relax and enjoy the new surroundings, which were very masculine with manly smells. It smelled of oil, grease and coffee, a good combination.
     About an hour later, the owner came back into the office. I was ready for the news, maybe news of needing a new tire because a screw was visibly sticking out of the rubber. After all, the tire was completely flat. Instead of bad news, the owner said, “Okay, you’re fixed up.”
     I asked how much I owed him. He said, “Nothing. You’ve been good customers for a long time. You owe me nothing.’
     “You’ll never make money that way, Ryan,” I said. “I need to pay you for your services. You made my burden lighter today.”
    He replied, “I said your car is ready and you don’t owe me anything.” I almost kissed him but there were three workmen who could observe us, so I just thanked him profusely and thanked God all the way to the car.
     When I got into the car, these words came to my mind, “Now you know the truth behind the scripture, 'Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature and in favor with God and man.'” I always knew about the favor of God, but I never thought about the end of that scripture, in favor with man. I had a new insight into a scripture, that when we increase in love and wisdom, we increase in favor with men as well as with God.
     Tears began to come to my eyes, that God would have that sweet man honor me with his favor. I could tell that he delighted in doing the job for me with no requirement of reimbursement. He was joyful in his giving to me. I was in awe of God’s favor and a man’s favor.
     Leaving the tire repair shop, I was in such awe that I just thanked God over and over, just like I had thanked the owner over and over.
     Later, as I walked into my favorite retail store for an errand, I noticed two of the workers were doing a hard job of moving some equipment. I located what I was needing, took the article to the checkout stand and joked to the checker that she must be acting as boss for the day because the job she and the other checker were doing looked like something the boss would do.
     The checker commented that she works well with the other lady because they are always in agreement. We both quoted the scripture, “Where two or three agree, a thing is established,” at the same time.
     The checker was delighted to find a new friend with which to share her love for God. She asked how I was doing that day and I told her that I had just been blessed with the favor of God and the favor of man. She asked me to tell her the whole testimony. Fortunately the store had just opened and I was the only customer there. I told her what the owner of the tire shop had done for me and then I told her the revelation that came to me about favor with God AND with man. She was elated, said she is going to remember that forever.
     The checker said, “When you walked in the door I thought, look, she has on a jacket of many colors much like Joseph in the Bible with his coat of many colors .” She said, “I didn’t know that God was going to send you with a testimony this morning when I told Him that I wanted to do His will today. “ She said, “He sent you to me with an uplifting thing that is fresh and just happened.  It taught me a lesson also.”
    A new friend named Amy was my bonus for the day, too, one who shares my love for God and marvels at His goodness.
    The favor with God and man continues to bless us. I learned something new today about favor and passed it on to Amy who was delighted to incorporate it into her life.
Amy and I are in agreement, too, so our love for God is established.
     I wonder what blessing God has for Ryan, the owner of the tire store. He was the epitome of giving with a joyful heart. I could see it on his face. He kind of glowed like an angel. One wouldn’t expect to see that in a tire store that smelled like oil, grease and coffee.

THE PATIENCE OF JOAN

THE PATIENCE OF JOAN
T. Wieland Allen

It's a complete marvel to me how God does what He does. I guess I'll never completely understand while I'm in this earth how He does things. My amazement is how He supplies the needs of everyone at the same times that He's providing what I need.
He's just too marvelous for the human mind to understand. I guess we should be glad for that because if we understood everything He does for us, then we would cease to be in awe of Him.
One of the fun parts of my week is mowing my big lawn. In addition to loving to mow and meditate while I'm mowing, I get the pleasure of talking to neighbors who pass by in cars who stop to comment on my yard or I get to talk to neighborhood walkers who are regulars in their healthful activities.
A neighbor told me one time that I must be German because only Germans sweep their streets, even the dirt ones. Sure enough, I told her that my father was German, to which I attribute my math expertise. Now every time I sweep the street in front of my house I think about that neighbor, pray for her, and think about my dad who passed many positive attributes on to me.
One day this week I was sweeping up the leaves from the pavement in front of my house when a lady came strolling up the hill to talk to me. Joan is a wonderful soul who helps lots of neighbors work wonders in their yards. On this occasion she complimented me on my yard and we talked about how great the tree is doing that she planted for us last year in early spring. I had bought the tree for my husband, who had always wanted a Wisteria tree, and Joan had planted it for us since my husband was in the middle of chemotherapy and was too weak to do the job. She had lovingly done the work for us. This spring the tree was aglow with beauty, covered with long purple blossoms. I was able to wheel my husband in a wheelchair to the window where he gazed upon its beauty. I'm so glad he got to see it in all its glory because he died a month later.
While I was sweeping up the leaves and grass clippings this week Joan asked me if I needed anything done since she and her husband were working in the neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I said, I was going to call her to set up some time that they could help me with chores that I'm not physically able to accomplish.
While we were talking, standing in the street close to my house, the stray cat that I feed came to join the confabulation, rubbing against my legs in her normal fashion. Joan asked me if Callie, who is a beautiful calico, is my cat. I told her the story about how I've fed the cat for six years but no one can pet her. We had surmised that she had been abused, because any time a hand comes toward her she ducks and moves quickly away.
Joan told me that she has a cat that was the same way. Then she told me how she won the trust of that cat. It seems that her stray had the same fear of humans. Joan fed the cat outside for a few weeks, then started in her repetitive gestures of showing the cat love until the cat could learn to trust her.
She continued putting food outside for the cat for a few weeks. Then she sat in a chair about ten feet from the food dish, just observing the cat, slowly and quietly adding some kind words as the next few weeks went by. Then she moved her chair closer to the cat's food dish, continuing to occasionally speak quiet, kind words.
The next step in Joan's saga with the cat was to move her chair closer and closer until the cat was comfortable with Joan's presence. That took a few more weeks. When Joan was close enough to touch the cat, she restrained herself, not wanting to cancel out the patient work she had already accomplished. Her next step was to change the presentation of the food. She didn't put the food in the dish but she placed a portion of the cat food in her hand and held it out to the cat. Sure enough, the cat cautiously strolled up to her, took the food and shied away, but the cat continued to come back and eat food from her hand. That happened for two or three days.
After Joan was convinced that the cat trusted her, she began to pet the cat on the head as the cat ate the food, only one or two pats at a time.
After two or three months of this slow engagement, Joan opened her door and put the food dish barely inside of the door. The cat gingerly walked in the door, cautiously gazing at the new surroundings, and ate from the dish. He seemed to keep one eye on Joan in this new adventure.
The next day the feeding dish was moved further into the room, and on and on until a solid trust was established between the cat and the human being.
Soon Joan was able to pet the cat for longer intervals without any trepidation from the animal. Joan became the trusted saviour of the animal. No one else could make contact with the cat because no one else had taken the time to establish the trust that the animal so desperately needed.
What a divine picture this is of God's love and His patience in wooing us, slowly and patiently holding His hand out to us in peace, willingly feeding us with His gentle words and heavenly food until we trust Him completely to be our protector, our peace, our provider, our shepherd, our constant help in time of need, our deliverer from danger, our healer and our loving Father.
What patience Joan had in winning the trust and love of the cat. No one else took the time to prove what love can do for the animal. What Joan did worked.
God sent Joan to me to tell me her cat story so that I can pass it on to you as an allegory of God's love for you and to encourage you to do the same thing for your friends, your relatives and strangers who have been abused by other humans. People are in search of someone they can trust just a little bit at a time. God's children must be willing to patiently and lovingly establish trust and love with others.
When we can all do that, then the family of God is truly demonstrated to be what it was meant to be, a family of love.
You've heard of the patience of Job. I like the patience of Joan just as well. It produced amazing results just like God's instructions to Job did when He told Job to forgive his friends. Everything was restored to Job.
Joan was patient, just like God impressed her to be, and her love and patience produced what it always does, good results. It won the heart of a stray, lost cat who desperately needed love and food.
God is love and love never fails.

FEAR VANISHED

It's hard to lose in death someone that you love, especially hard for a five year old grand daughter.
During the months leading up to PopPop's death we had had many discussions about God, always instituted by Edan. One discussion left me speechless, which is unusual for me in discussing God. Our darling grand daughter had started the conversation about God. I'm sure her parents had prepared her for PopPop's death by telling her that he would be in heaven with God when he died. That really set her mind to reeling about heaven.
First thing she asked during the ensuing discussion was, "Well, MeMe, since we're all God's children, who's the mother? God's the Father and there has to be a mother. So who's God's wife?" I was speechless. As I verbally stumbled around for a few minutes, smart grandson Jesse diverted her attention away from the puzzling question, rescuing me from attempting a long theological answer or merely saying, "I don't know," which would have really puzzled her. Jesse blurted out, completely in defense of me, "Edan, God has a son and His name is Jesus."
"Oh, yeah," the inquisitive little girl said. She went on to ask more questions to which I knew the answer. Later I thanked Jesse for rescuing me just in time before I made a bad mistake in giving a long answer, that the mother is the body of Christ, which would have confused her even more than she was already confused.
A few days after the inevitable death, the always inquisitive little girl asked her dad if we all prayed real hard would PopPop come back alive just like Jesus did. That left her dad speechless at first, too. I'm sure he told her of the possibility but not the probability.
The most wonderful thing that happened in relation to my husband's death is when Edan made a statement rather than asking a question. She proudly and emphatically said, "Meme, I used to be afraid to die. Now I'm not afraid to die because I get to hug PopPop again."
The strong faith of a little child, how emphatic it was. Her statement brought tears to my eyes and it brings tears to the eyes of every adult who has heard her wonderful statement quoted.
The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear. Edan and PopPop's relationship is a wonderful example of that. The love that PopPop showed to Edan while he was alive did truly cast out any fear of death.
God is so smart. He knew Edan would be spared the fear of death by a loving grandfather. That's why God had a writer put that scripture in His Instruction Book, to confirm Edan's statement of faith.
God is smart and He's so, so very good. Just ask Edan, she will tell you.

SURPRISES FROM HEAVEN

My husband and I always called special surprises God's kisses because they would give us the feeling that our Heavenly Father had reached from His home in heaven to create a "God-incident" for us.
Since my husband's death I have had daily surprises to let me know that he is doing great in heaven and to let me know that God wants me to know that He is sending special kisses to catapult me through the grieving period.
The endless paperwork has been a burden with the constant reading and rereading the documents to fully understand the legal language in all of it. I had received a letter soon after my husband's death that said that I owed Social Security ten thousand dollars because I had been overpaid for the past year. That took several hours of reading the long six single spaced pages, pouring over every word until I discovered that it said that since he had died last year they had paid me too much money. The truth is that he died a month ago. It took a long telephone call to the office in our town before I could convince the nice lady on the phone that it was a mistake on their part. She was so kind and she finally found the error and told me to disregard the letter.
I received another letter a few weeks later relating to the one time two hundred plus dollar payment paid to every family whose deceased relative was receiving Social Security. That letter had two consecutive paragraphs which completely contradicted each other. I had to take the death certificate to the SS office anyway, so I went with not only the death certificate but the confusing letter in hand.
When I went into the new SS building I took a ticket from the computer which said that my number was 25 and I would be called and instructed to go to a specific window where an employee would help me. The loud speaker announced that the person holding number 10 should go to window 15 for assistance. I took my seat in the back of the ocean of people waiting for their turn to be helped. I was confident that since there were 15 windows with helpers behind each window that I wouldn't be there all day, maybe just a large portion of the day.
I enjoyed watching the people waiting to be assisted and the ones who went to their appointed windows, which were anywhere from 1 to 15. Windows 7 through 14 were around the corner and down a long hallway.
Finally the announcement came that number 25 should go to window 4. I meandered over to the window, stretching out my legs because I had been sitting in an uncomfortable chair for a while. I sat down in the chair in front of the window and a lady's voice said, "Have you had a face lift? You look younger than you did 25 years ago."
I looked closer at the person behind the window and recognized it as Marla, a lady who had come to us for marriage counseling 25 years ago. She had become a good friend even though I hadn't seen her in 25 years. She had moved to another state but had learned about my writings on my blogs and had started reading them. I also started sending to her daily encouraging messages from God which I publish on the Dear One blog. She occasionally writes an email to me but we hadn't seen each other in 25 years. I thought she still lived in another state.
I was in awe again of God's surprise for me that day. Think of the trouble He went to getting me to the office on the right day, putting Marla behind a certain window, and then getting me in line to draw that particular window to find help relating to the letter. Out of 15 windows I got an old friend, Marla, who immediately rose from her desk, rushed out the door in the partitioned wall, ran up to me and gave me a heart warming bear hug. We hugged for several minutes.
Marla said, "I knew when I saw in the paper that Steve had died that when you came in to bring the death certificate that I would get you at my window."
That put me deeper into complete awe of God, that He had given Marla that prophesy, that she would get to help me, and here she was across the desk from me. We shared some God incidents and then knew we had to get to my problem. After all, she was working and on government time.
I showed her my letter, which she immediately read and remarked that I was right, that the two paragraphs completely contradicted each other. She had to take it to her supervisor to decipher it. She was gone a few minutes, came back and said the supervisor couldn't figure out why the second paragraph was in there, that she had never seen that admonition before.
Well, my imagination went wild for a few minutes thinking about did God cause that strange paragraph to be put in so that I would take it to the SS office and be helped by God's maiden, an old friend who was believing that she was going to see when when I came in the office? Could be.
The miracle of the whole thing is that out of 15 windows being used that day, I got the exact number of Marla's window. Now, that also fills me with awe of the abilities of God.
The problem was solved and I got to be personally hugged and personally loved by someone I hadn't seen in 25 years whom God had told she would get to help me.
God is truly amazing. I'm in awe every day of His goodness. His Instruction Book says that the awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I'm waiting for more of His wisdom relating to the incident. It will thrill me, too.

SOLID FOUNDATIONS

Dear One,

Treasure the good things that people do for you and say to you. They all go toward your foundation of stability, your solidarity, the shoring up of your good ego which is necessary for a happy life. You relish the compliments and welcome them with joy.
Since those actions of kind words and deeds are so important to you, you must see that you give the same kind words which solidify the foundations of others. They are their building blocks to a good and beneficial ego which is necessary for their happy lives.
You should give compliments and other words of love to others willingly and joyfully, knowing that those words are My words, spreading love around the earth. When you willingly spread love, you also spread peace because a solid foundation in the mind of a person also gives peace to the person.
Spreading My love and peace in a tumultuous world is doing exactly what Jesus did. After all, He is the Prince of Peace. You are His ambassador of love and peace now. Spread them willingly and joyfully. Then watch your world change as a result.
Ambassadors are not only representatives of one nation to another, but they exemplify the character of their own nation. Since My character is love and peace, you are called to be ambassadors of My family, showing My love and My peace to everyone. It all starts with kind words and kind actions. Those are your proper witnesses for Me.
The song I gave to one of My children says, "Spread a little love." I say it again to you, determine to spread a little love every day and then you will find that you can spread a lot of love every day.

Love, God
I Corinthians 15:33-34; Ephesians 4:29-32; James 3:1-18. Romans 12:10; II Corinthians 5:20-21.

THE DEATH OF A HERO

It's hard enough to have a stranger who's a hero die, but my granddaughter Lindsey's grandpa, who was her hero, died.
Lindsey came to see her grandpa often when he was sick, mostly after school.
When the time came that he could no longer talk because of a malignant tumor on his vocal cords which joined the other tumors in his body to destroy his life, she would just come and sit with Grandpa, just sit in the infirmary room on the love seat. Hospice had turned the den adjoining our bedroom into an infirmary room with a hospital bed, a trapeze bar for use when He was strong enough to help pull himself higher in the bed, an oxygen machine and all the other wonderful things that Hospice provides to ease the last days of the terminally ill.
A day or two before Grandpa died, after just sitting in the room with him, when she decided to leave she told him she loved him, which was her usual parting words. He waved a slight wave of his hand in goodbye to her.
It was a horrible day when Lindsey's dad had to tell her that Grandpa had died that day. She grieved and grieved, even more than she, her brother Jesse and I had grieved together a week before, after both of them had sat with Grandpa in silence for thirty minutes. He was their athletic hero as well as their adoring Grandpa. When they came out of the room shaking with sobs, I also lost my usual composure and sobbed right along with them. It was a sad, sad time for all of us.
Lindsey didn't come to the house for a couple of days after Grandpa died. It was impossible for her to come to the house where she knew he had drawn his last breath.
A few day after his death I got a phone call. It was Lindsey. She had a lilt in her usually sunshiny voice which I had not heard in a while. She said, "MeMe, can I come over? I have something to tell you."
"Of course," I told her, "you can come over." I needed to have her "always walking on the sunny side of the street," demeanor around me. I was intrigued because I knew how grieved she was at the death of her hero.
I watched for her silver pickup to drive into the driveway. Then I watched to see what her gait was like when she exited her truck. It was light and jolly-like, almost skipping.
She rushed in the door and said, "MeMe, I had a dream about Grandpa last night. In the dream I came to your house and you weren't here but Grandpa was here. He looked just like he did when he was healthy. He said to me, 'I'm fine, Lindsey. I'm so happy.'"
She continued her joyful rendition of her dream by telling me that the dream took all of the grief away from her. She said that she sees him in her mind now as the tall, handsome, athletic gramps that he always was.
I cried tears of joy and she cried tears of joy. Then we rejoiced together that God is so loving to give her that wonderful dream, one that chased away grief and gave her the hope of Grandpa being healthy and happy in heaven. God knew that she needed that vision of her hero being healthy and whole again.
God said he would comfort the broken hearted. He did it for Lindsey like He has done for me.
Thank you, My Heavenly Hero, for giving my granddaughter Lindsey a happy dream about her hero, her Grandpa Steve. It changed her grief into gladness.
That's the promise God gave, that he would turn our mourning into gladness. Lindsey's dream is proof that He keeps His promises and that He cares about a granddaughter who has lost her hero.
My Heavenly Hero is taking care of Lindsey and Jesse's hero who lives with Him now. That's a good Father.

JOY COMES IN THE MOURNING

JOY COMES IN THE MOURNING
T. Wieland Allen
As I lay here in bed minus my partner of 55 years I have a strange feeling that the past two years of cancer consciousness has been just a bad dream and that he will come in the bedroom door at any minute and get ready for bed.
I know that it hasn't been a bad dream but it was real, two years of grueling tests and bad reports and blood transfusions and chemotherapy and radiation and those always present doctors' appointments.
The thought comes that he is finally off of that horrible, never-ending hamster wheel that went no where, only back to the same dreaded scenario again and again.
He was constantly nauseous, weak and sick. I was always emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausted.
Care giving is endless when a person's mate is forever seeking for a cure or just maybe some relief from the hopelessness that comes from a rare form of the dreaded disease.
The empty bed and the empty house speak loudly of loneliness, but even the fleeting thoughts of wishing that he was present with me are rejected because he would surely be back in the hospital bed trying to make himself eat something to please me or drink some small sips of liquid which would cause him to again cough up clods of mucous that constantly plagued him. That horrible memory makes me glad that he has left the prison of his diseased body which was at one time so physically fit, the picture of a healthy, handsome, virile athlete who loved life.
I dry my tears and thank God that the nightmare is over for both of us and he is enjoying the love, rest and comfort of the cocoon that God so graciously showed him in a dream. He is free from the disease and free from misery and free from the feeling of failure because he wasn't healed. He is free and I am also free from watching his misery and then having my own inherited misery that came from the unity that 55 years of togetherness affords.
Like a savior, joy comes and lifts me out of the loneliness and the sense of abandonment that so quickly invaded my mind tonight.
Joy is healing, like the Savior from which it comes, soothing my mind and drying my tears just like God promises. God said he would make treasures out of my tears. Tonight I momentarily contributed some more salty ingredients necessary for Him to fashion those treasures.
Yes, the joy that comes from God is strength and stability. And it always comes just in time, turning mourning into gladness.
Looking forward to God's promised treasures will be exciting, leaving the past behind and reaching forward to the high calling. He said to reach forward and that means to extend our open hands in eager anticipation of the treasures that He has fashioned for us out of the tears of misery because we trusted in Him. Reaching, reaching, reaching -- we can't reach forward if we are looking backward. We might miss a wonderful treasure.
Joy does come in the morning to those who were mourning but mourn no more.
Thanks be to God.