My Friend Jean

This is the river Jordan..........

This is someone being baptized in the river Jordan... My friend Jean will soon cross over the river Jordan and be baptized into life.......

Some of you were reading my blog back when I told you about my friend Jean. She has fought a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. I have not been over to see her in many weeks now due to my illness and Mom and Dad being in the hospital. I spoke with her today and she will soon see the Christ face to face.

Four and a half years ago they gave her two years to live. She has fought and prayed and laughed and cried during this past years. Her sweet husband died suddenly a year ago and it was such a shock to everyone. Thus she has been alone to fight this fight for over a year now. They can do no more treatments and Hospice has come in and morphine is being administer daily. She can only drink two ensures a day and her precious earthly body if failing.
I will go see her tomorrow and read to her from the bible. Jean and I have been friends for over 30 years now and I was blessed to be a pastor of a church many years ago when she and her husband Nelson were baptized.

I will cry tomorrow to see her fading away but I will remember what the Holy Spirit spoke to my spirit man just days ago........... though the outward man perish, the inner spirit is renewed daily.

I just do not know what to say to her......... I will miss her so.......... She is the most gracious person I have ever met. She talks with her hands and we have laughed and laughed about that over the years. She never, never has one bad thing to say about any other living thing. She has loved and has loved out of a pure heart all the years that I have known her.

Say a prayer for Jean. I feel in my spirit that she will be flying away from this painful body very soon.


Love you girls!

Hahahahah!!!

As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice: When you put the two words 'The' and 'IRS' together, it spells

'THEIRS'

Just a little something to brighten your day!

Gooooooooooooooooood Morning!

Hey sisters! ............. I am here......... Things are looking up here at the Walden Funny Farm............... Mom is great! Dad is dad! ha! I am better....... Have had migraine for 3 days but I think it is on its way out........... I have not had migraine in 3 or 4 years now...... They are stress induced!

WONDER WHERE THIS ONE CAME FROM!

BUT!!!!!!!!!!!! I am well enough to laugh! Just wanted to let you know I am here and I am going to get out and read today! We have dark skies and thunder boomers and rain, just the kind of day to pile up in my comfy chair and read your blog and say hello!



I found this in my email this morning and HAD to share!

Think of the Father as a spring of life begetting the Son like a river and the Holy Ghost like a sea, for the spring and the river and the sea are all one nature. Think of the Father as a root, of the Son as a branch, and of the Spirit as a fruit, for the substance in these three is one. The Father is a sun with the Son as rays and the Holy Ghost as heat. The Holy Trinity transcends by far every similitude and figure. So, when you hear of an offspring of the Father, do not think of a corporeal offspring. And when you hear that there is a Word, do not suppose him to be a corporeal word. And when you hear of the Spirit of God, do not think of wind and breath. Rather, hold your persuasion with a simple faith alone. For the concept of the Creator is arrived at by analogy from his creatures.

John of Damascus

Another Day for R & R

Our R & R fell through............ we were back in the emergency room this morning with Mother........ Her temp started up 101 and called home health and they said ER.... thought maybe the pneumonia was back and worse............. We left at 4:30 and got home at 9:30......... Her pneumonia is better but still there and now she has a nasty UTI.......... that was causing the fever............. sooooooooo more medicine............... She is very dehydrated so I need to take her something every hour...... even if it is only 6 ounces............ anyway............. I need to go take a nap now..................

A Quick Glimpse

I sat across the little room from her, we were waiting on the Dr to return with her discharge papers. She had come home from the hospital just hours before and now at 3:00 a.m. we were again sitting in the emergency room of the local hospital. Hallucinations , they started Sunday evening around 9:30 p.m. sister Kathy called me concerned. I in turn called home health and their recommendation was emergency room. Could be bad reaction to the new antibiotic or it could be mini strokes. She was worn out, I was worn out, my sweet husband that was sitting outside in the waiting room was worn out. We had been there since 10:30 p.m. and after many more tests and blood test and x-rays and CT scans she was pronounced "just fine", and diagnosed with
Sundowners syndrome.
Have you ever heard of that? I have not, but now I know. You can click on the link above LATTER if you would like to know.
However, although very interesting, it is not the subject of this post.

As I sat across from her in the wee hours of Monday morning, I studied her face. I watched her very carefully and traced with my eyes the lines that the years have etched in her face. My mind drifted back many years ago when a much younger Denise studied the face of another precious little lady by the name of Ida. She was my grandmother, my mothers mother. I remember her face that day as though it was yesterday. I remember the lines that life had also etched upon her skin. I miss her......... but I digress.

Earlier in the evening after bringing Mom home from the hospital and getting them settled in and asking Kathy to stay one more night, me and Dennis settled in for what we thought would be the first quiet evening in a while. We watched the last 30 minutes of some movie and it was the very last 5 minutes of that movie that would moved my soul while sitting in that little exam room at the hospital.
I used to find it amazing when God would do something so strange, but over the years I have come to the understanding that God is God and HE can touch us in such an unusual way that there is no doubt that it is God.

I studied her face. She sat quietly. Mom is a very passive person and even at 3:00 in the morning and after so many tests and long hours of waiting she sat and laughed and talked about times in her youth. My heart broke while watching her laugh and speaking of times that I could not share. She was somewhere else, she was young and running around the old farm house with her brothers Edward and James. Yet the woman that I saw was old and tired and nearing the end of life. It was at the moment that I flashed back to the last five minutes of a movie earlier in the evening. There were about 6 or 7 young boys around the age of 12 and 13 running down a long hall way headed out double doors. They were dressed in jeans and tennis shoes and leather jackets and letter jackets. They raced each other to the doors jumping to see who could touch the ceiling. Laughing and shouting and wrestling each other as they race to the doors. They were young and full of life and laughter. There are no lines of life yet etched on their face. They hit those double doors at the end of that long hall and out into the sunshine they ran. I remember watching them and my mind drifted back to my youth and how simple life was.

It was then that the Holy Spirit exploded in my spirit man these words.

2 Corinthians 4:16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward [man] is renewed day by day.

As I sat there hearing these words in my inner man I was overwhelmed with the love of the Father. I am thankful that in times of sadness and fear of the future, HE moves quickly to bring comfort.

How can we possible understand the joys that await us, for ear has not heard and it has not even entered into our minds the joys that HE has prepared. Yet, sitting there that early morning HE gave me a quick glimpse into what awaits us. I smiled as I continued to watch her run and laugh and remember her youth, and even in the heaviness of the moment HE brought to me such great light.
HE loves us and HE is ALWAYS closer than then breath that we breath. HE brought great comfort to my heart in an instant.



Our flesh bodies are perishing, we know that, but our inner man, the spirit man, the real us is growing in strength and wisdom and being renewed each day........Renewed how? By the breath of God by the life of Christ...........It is the life of Christ that gave us new life and it is that life that each day renews us......... We look on the outward man.......... HE sees the inner man and HE sees renewal...... HE sees life.
It cause me to cry, HE does not see my mom as I see her, HE sees her young and full of life and vitality and HE sees her renewed and strong in spirit.........

I rejoice in the knowledge that my mom's name is written in the Lambs Book of Life and each day as her outer man withers, her inner man grows strong and when time comes to be loosed from the bonds of this perishing body she will burst forth into the sunshine......

HE gave me just a quick glimpse, HE is a good God.