​I thought you might enjoy this “mom” story.  Last week, Tyler was telling a story about getting stopped in Tom’s truck for a DUI checkpoint, and lo and behold, the sticker was dead – had been dead since December.  Tom is usually really up on “being legal – LOL” but this one had skipped him.  So Tyler gets pulled over, has to try to find the registration and insurance and all that jazz, has to admit it isn’t his vehicle, and he doesn’t really know why/what/where.  It didn’t go too well.  He didn’t get a ticket but then had to take the truck and all the documents to the State Police within five days – another one of those life hassles.
 
Mom is listening to this story, and she says, “Well, I can top that one!”  Seems dad calls her from the plant one day and tells her he talked to this guy who had a car for sale, and he wanted her to go “up town” and test drive this car.  He tells her where it’s parked and that he wants her to take it out to Murraysville on the straight stretch and really blow it out.  Kim was three years old, and I was just a baby.   She drops me to grandma and takes Kim with her.  They go to the plaza parking lot, get in this strange car, and off to Murraysville they go.  She proceeds to take it as fast as it will go, and whoops – up come the blue lights.  They pull her over, ask her if she knows how fast she was going, all that jazz.  She admits she knew she was speeding.  They ask for her paperwork, and she admits she has none.  They ask who owns the car, and she says she doesn’t know.  She starts into her story about her husband asking her to test drive this car, crying and boo-hooing. 
 
She ends up getting a ticket anyway as her tears didn’t work.  She said that for months after that, Kim would ride on her tricycle and stop and start crying, putting her head in her hands, begging for mercy. 
 
When I think about all the things I love about my mother, her resilience and love of life probably is a close second to her Godliness and love for people.  There is nothing she isn’t willing to try, nothing she can’t do.  This is a girl who grew up in town, married a man and became a farmer’s wife.  Little did she know she would become a cattle doctor, a master carpenter, a roofer, a sawmill operator, a tractor driver, a mechanic.  She has a strength that arises for every occasion.  She knows just the right things to say to people when they are hurting.  She never uses her tongue to harm anyone, stranger or friend.  She gives and gives until her body literally falls over in exhaustion.  She never says she can’t do something but gives it her all, and does everything in excellence. 
 
They say a mother’s influence cannot ever be measured.  I mean, how many times do you see someone like on the Today Show or somewhere and they say, “Hi, Dad?”  It’s always, “Hi, Mom!”  Amazing preachers like John Wesley and many others tell of the influence their mothers had on their spiritual upbringing, on training them to be a man of character.  Our mothers have an impact on us when we are small, but that impact doesn’t cease when we turn 18 – it’s a lifetime of investment in us.  To this day, there are things I learn from my mother.  And as we get older, I realize just how precious those things are, and I treasure them in my heart, knowing there will come a day when my mom won’t be just a phone call away.

Another miracle – from Mom:
 
When the events that follow happened, I told Teresa that I didn't want her to write about it on Facebook. Later, after reflecting on how God had blessed us through all that had happened, I thought, "Why would I not tell the world how God had used so many people to bless us?"

The story began on October 23, 2015 when Roy had a stroke. God intervened and certainly blessed us in so many ways:  Roy was able to walk, talk, think, and perform many of the tasks that we all take for granted every day. We ended up going to Florida the first of the year, hoping that he would continue to improve and be able to be outside more because of the warm weather.  We had decided that we would try to sell our home in Florida and then if we chose to return, we could always rent.  In February we put a For Sale sign in the front yard.  Other than that sign and word of mouth, we did not advertise any.  We had some response from the sign - we live on a well-traveled road - but only from people who wanted us to finance the sale.  We really weren't interested in that option.  Our granddaughter and her family was coming on the 13th of March and staying for ten days.  We really needed to stay until after that visit since they had already purchased plane tickets.

Before they arrived, we had some interest, but no commitment.  But on the day they arrived, a couple from Tennessee came and made an offer to purchase the property and it was fine that we stay as long as we needed to.  We went the next day and signed contracts and they went back to Tennessee.  We closed on the property the day after our family went home.  We also had a car that we kept in Florida that we needed to sell but wanted to keep it until the family left so they would have a vehicle to run around in while they were there.  We had two buyers lined up for the car, and on the last day, both fell through.  One person could not get the money and the other came to test drive and brought his family along.  They had two long-legged teenagers who were still growing, and they simply did not have enough leg room in the back seat.  We were to leave in two days.  That day we contacted some friends who had shown an interest and reduced the price by $1,000 and they bought it the day before we were to leave.  Never once did I ever think that it was not going to happen.  I knew it would happen in God's timing.  If we did not sell before time to leave, we were simply going to take the sign down and try again next year.  God is so faithful!

Although we sold the house completely furnished, there was still a truck and trailer full of "stuff" that needed to be brought back with us.  The evening before our family was to go to the airport, I hooked the trailer to the truck to make sure the lights worked.  They didn't.  Roy and Rob started working on the lights and instead of getting better, they got worse.  It got dark and they were still a long ways from working correctly.  We were starting to get worried because Rob was a big help and he was leaving at 5:00 the next morning and we didn't have a clue of whom else to call.  Just then a young man pulls in the driveway wanting to buy something that Roy had for sale out at the road a few days before.  The item had been stolen and was no longer available, but when he saw what they were doing, he said, "Hey, I can wire up lights." He immediately starting tearing out everything that they had done and started from scratch.  Roy was really worried that he was going to leave them stranded if he didn't know what he was doing.  In fifteen minutes he had everything wired and working correctly.  All Roy had to do was tape everything together the next morning.  God had sent help.  We did not know him and he left before we even found out his name.

On Friday morning we were able to leave at 9:00 a.m.  When we got to Orlando - about 30 miles - traffic was bumper to bumper.  I guess everyone had decided to travel on Easter weekend.  We were making very little progress.  After about an hour a car came along side of us and motioned for us to roll the window down.  He said he thought we had a wheel bearing going out on the trailer because the wheel was really wobbling.  We pulled off at the next exit which was right in the middle of downtown Orlando.  The exit was just as congested as the Interstate.  I found a little alley between a railroad track and a parking garage and pulled in.  It turned out not to be a wheel bearing, but the stud bolts on the wheel had come loose and lost some of the nuts.  The bolts that were left were stripped.  

We had no idea how we were going to get parts.  I saw a City Hall sign beside the parking garage and decided to walk there to try to get information about the nearest auto parts store.  Secretly, I was hoping that some city worker would say, "Sure, I'll just go get the parts you need." I  quickly found out I was not in Ripley or Ravenswood, West Virginia.  I have no doubt if any of our city workers came upon the situation, they would see that the travelers were helped.  I didn't get past a security guard, but he did give me a telephone number for an Advance Auto Parts.  I called to see if they would deliver, but they would not unless we had a commercial account with them and they had to know the make and model of the vehicle.  When I explained that it was a home-made trailer, they said, "Oh, you'll have to go to a trailer sales. We can't help you.”

When I got back to where Roy was waiting by the trailer, there was a homeless man on his bike and said he knew where the parts store was.  He volunteered to ride his bike to get the parts we needed.  I called the parts store but they would not take my credit card over the phone because we did not have a commercial account with them.  We sent the man on his way with $25.00 cash not knowing if he would return or not.  He left his backpack with us - his idea, not ours.  About an hour later he came back and said they needed a model number of the trailer before they could match up the parts.  I called them and told them again that it was a home-made trailer.  Finally, they said they would try to get us something that would work.  I gave the man a bag of cookies to tide him over and off he went again.  After another hour he returned with three stud bolts and two nuts.  We needed five and that's all they had.  
 
I had promised that I would feed him lunch and pay him for the work he had done.  He was tickled and we were thrilled that he had helped us.  We put on the new stud bolts and used the other old ones.  We pulled over every few miles to tighten them up.  We made it about 15 miles to Sanford where I was familiar with the streets because it is where we go to pick up the family from the airport.  After going to three more auto parts stores and them not having the parts, we finally got back on the road at 6:00 p.m.  It took us 12 hours from home to the Florida state line, which normally we do in 4.  We spent the night there.
 
The next day we made good time.  At about 7:00 p.m., we were only three hours from home.  I stopped to get fuel.  All the way to and from Florida, the diesel fuel price was in bright green numbers and gasoline was in red.  We were in Virginia where fuel is usually the cheapest.  We saw the sign in green that said $1.86 a gallon.  I commented that it was the cheapest we had seen since we left Florida.  I filled up and we started on our way. Immediately we knew something was wrong with the truck.  It was not running right.  After about five miles, it quit.  I thought to look at the receipt, and sure enough, I had filled it up with gasoline instead of diesel.  It was a very careless mistake on my part.  Long story short, we had to be towed.  God sent wonderful people to help us.  The wrecker driver said he could take it back to their garage, which was a full-service facility, but no one could fix it until Monday morning.
 
He called his boss and one of their workers came in and drained the fuel, put in new filters and it was fixed.  No damage to the truck.  It ended up being a $400 mistake. They had to charge us $100 to dispose of the $50 fuel that I had purchased.  We were so thankful for their generosity and compassion on us.  We were on our way again, but too tried to continue the trip home.  We stayed in a motel that night and made it home the next day about 12:15.  God had certainly watched over us in all things.

When I reflected on what had happened in just a few days, I saw how many people God had placed in our paths to accomplish the plans He had for us.  He sent people to buy our house who had the cash to pay for it; He sent our friends who were blessed to buy a car for their adult son that needed a vehicle; He sent a complete stranger who fixed the lights on our trailer and charged us nothing; He used a fellow traveler to inform us of a potential dangerous hazard to our trailer; He sent a homeless man who was willing to ride a bicycle eight blocks, twice, to get the parts we needed; He sent a safety patrolman to set up cones to protect us on the Interstate and suggest just the right wrecker service that we would need; He sent a wrecker man who had compassion on us and went the extra mile to inform others of our plight and the owner of the business and one of his employees who opened up their garage on a Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. on a holiday weekend and stayed and completed the work that was needed.
 
No, I could not keep this secret.  I want the world to know what a great God we serve who proves himself so faithful in everything that we do.  We are so blessed.  I pray that God will use us for someone else the way He  has used all these people to bless us.


 

Yesterday, heaven gained one and satan lost one!  Of course, satan had lost this one just about a year ago, but I believe he’s always thinking he can get people back…or else, why would he try so hard?  Our friend Curt, who was a rabble-rouser, a hell-raiser, an addict his entire life, until he came to the Lord last year, gained a heavenly home yesterday.  Curt was the boyfriend of my niece’s mother-in-law, and we adopted him as family this last year and had the privilege of spending a lot of time with him recently at the hospital and hospice.

I had first gotten to know Curt when I was building my building in Charleston – he approached me about doing the painting in the apartment I have next to the building and the actual building as well.  He was in the painter’s union, and it was winter, and work was slow.  We came to terms and he began to work.  He did a fine job, but the hours were way more than I expected.  The job seemed to drag on forever.  Then he started bringing his friends in….at this time, Curt wasn’t saved, was still living the same old life he’d been living, and it showed.  I thought it was time that we ended the painting relationship before I went broke, so I tried to do it as diplomatically as possible, him having lived with my niece’s mother-in-law for 17 years and pretty much her father-in-law.

I think he was mad that I cut the project off, but we both acted professionally about it and went on our separate ways.  His girlfriend, Nancy, got saved about two years ago, and she immediately began to live differently.  She sold her home that she and Curt had together, and she moved to Ripley, faithful in church and a sold-out Christian.  It is such a beautiful thing to see, when someone begins to walk in the light and sees what a changed life they can have!  Curt was left floundering, you might say, and upon the way, he got saved as well.  And I mean, HE GOT SAVED!  You know how I really KNOW he was saved?  He called me up.  He told me that he had gotten saved, and he needed to apologize to me.  He had taken advantage of me, and he hadn’t done me right, and he had felt bad about it all this time, and he needed me to forgive him.

How often does that happen?  How many apologies have you had from people who you know did you wrong, and they know they did you wrong, but everyone just puts that smile on their face and says, “Oh, no, I’m good, I’m good,” when all along, they have this grudge burning a hole in their heart, and no one is man enough to say what needs to be said.  Not Curt.  He not only apologized to me; he apologized to everyone he ever thought he wronged in any way, including his son he didn’t know, including people he’d gotten into work arguments with.  He spent hours making restitution for the wrongs of his life.

Right after he got saved, he went to the doctor to check on a shoulder that had been hurting.  Turns out that shoulder was eaten up with cancer and pretty much didn’t exist anymore.  Same with three ribs he used to have….gone.  The news from there went from bad to worse.  Around August, he got the word that he might have a couple months to live – the cancer was EVERYWHERE.  It was in his bones, his lungs, you name it.  But Curt really believed he was going to be healed.  He went to church and prayed for healing, and we prayed with him and for him.  I really wondered if that scripture that says “First came salvation and then healing” was going to manifest itself in Curt.  Regardless of the healing that hadn’t come in a miraculous, divine “POW-you’re healed” moment, Curt stayed faithful.

Everywhere he went, he talked to people about the Lord.  His pain was so immense, the rest of us would have buckled and probably never left the house.  Not Curt.  He decided to try to do treatment (even though the doctors felt it would do no good).  He went through chemotherapy and radiation, and on every visit, he had praise on his lips.  Near the end, when we were in the hospital with him a lot, he was in so much pain, he could hardly bear it, but he still was talking about how good God was to him.  Coming out of a surgery, he was totally out of it but talking under his breath, “Jesus, you’re so good to me, thank you for saving me, thank you for taking me in when I didn’t deserve it.”  His heart nearly overflowed with gratitude and thankfulness.  Everyone who met him met Jesus.  You could see it on him; you could feel it when you were in the room with him.

I tell you this story as a tribute to the new Curt, to the Curt who is now in glory looking down on us, with many stories to tell of what God brought him from, but I also tell you this story to illustrate that when we are saved, there is a change.  I had a friend whose husband had supposedly gotten saved, but there was no change.  He’d say he prayed and he was saved, but his lifestyle, his words, his countenance, his attitudes all stayed the same.  She’d say, “Where’s the change?”  Turns out his head had made a decision to be saved, but his heart wasn’t in it.  Later, when he got lung cancer and a death sentence, his heart got in it, and oh, what a beautiful change there was.  They had more fun in their marriage in his last two months of life than they had in 30 years. 

I know there are people who read my stories who believe in God, who believe they’re headed to heaven, but I would ask you – have you made a decision that was an actual moment in time, a definitive moment, where you gave your heart to Christ, and you felt a change in your soul, and your life was forever different?  If you haven’t, please do it today!  There is no greater New Year’s resolution you could make, to ensure that you are headed to heaven if your time comes when you least expect it.  Curt witnessed to more people in one year of his life than I bet most of us have witnessed in our entire lives.  Shame on us.  Shame on me.  It’s time to get serious, Christians. 
​
If you do not KNOW you are saved, take this moment to pray that simple prayer that asks Jesus into your heart.  You will FEEL it; you will KNOW it has happened.  That’s the thing about being a Christian – people make fun and say we’re quacks, but if you’ve had the Holy Spirit speak to your heart, there’s no denying it!   It is the best thing you will ever do

Our granddaughter Laney was born with an extra baby thumb.  At first, it was so tiny it almost looked like a large skin tag with a thumbnail on it.  I was like, “Let’s just snip it off.”  Well, of course, new parents wouldn’t dream of doing something so crazy.  The doctor said he wanted to wait a while to deal with it as it would need x-rayed to see if it had a bone.  It didn’t feel like it did, it was just a tiny little “Thumby” that hung off the side of her hand.  As she grew, it became almost dangerous.  It wasn’t functional, but it would sometimes get caught on things and we weren’t sure if there were nerves in there, if she would even feel it if it was stuck or getting torn.  She went through a phase of wanting to suck on it, and when we would tell her not to, she’d say “Thumby” like she was comforting this little baby she had.

Long story short, the doctors ended up deciding it did have a bone in it and to remove it would require her being put to sleep.  Molli was very nervous about that, so we waited some more for her to be older.  Last month, Thumby was set to be removed.  Laney didn’t cooperate very well at the pre-op appointment – afraid of the doctors, nurses, the whole bit.  And this from a child who has never met a stranger.  We would play doctor a lot to try to get her to see that the doctors were nice, and right before the surgery, I thought we had it down.  I said, “So Thumby is going bye-bye tomorrow?”   She grabs her hand with her other hand, leaning over to protect Thumby, and says, “Unh-unh!”  I gave Thumby a bye-bye kiss and encouraged Laney to do the same.  She wasn’t having it.  Thumby was hers, she was keeping it, and that was all there was to it.

For some reason, it reminded me of the things we have hanging on us that we know aren’t good for us, perhaps even dangerous – maybe we were born with them, maybe we picked them up along the way – but we want to keep them, because they’re ours and we’re comfortable with them, don’t know how to live without them.  I’m talking about habits or addictions or just outright sinful things that we’ve decided we want to keep, whether anyone says we need to get rid of them or not.  Preacher and God included!

Isn’t it amazing that some of the most destructive things we pick up, others can see them clear as a bell in us and on us, and we stay blinded?  Probably intentionally blinded.  Once I had Laney in Walmart and as we were checking out, she was just sitting in the buggy being such a good girl, and the cashier takes one look at her and says, “What’s that hanging off her hand?”  I say, “Oh, she was born with a tiny extra thumb.”  “Well, why haven’t you gotten that removed?”  Said with an accusatory tone, like this thumb was somehow hurting someone or something.  I said, “Her parents have been nervous about the anesthesia and just wanted to wait until she was older.”  As this conversation is continuing, her becoming more and more forceful and loud, I’m thinking I wish I hadn’t been taught to be so polite, and perhaps I would have just said, “It’s really not your concern, so let’s just check me out.”  That’s not in me.

She continues:  “Do these defects run in your family?”  Stupidly, I just continue answering her questions.  “Well, my sister and I both had sons with club feet, but I’m not sure this is the same deal.”  This woman is unbelievable, truly unbelievable.  She keeps on.  “I wonder if the mother did something or ate something.”  By then, thank God, I was done checking out and I was able to say, “I’m sure that’s not it.  Have a good day.”  As I left, I wasn’t mad; I was just incredulous that someone would point out a flaw like that and just keep on and on and on.  Thank goodness, Laney is sitting there oblivious, thinking this lady is paying her compliments because she’s giving her so much attention.
​
As I was pondering this, God showed me that that’s what we’re like, constantly pointing out people’s flaws, things maybe they don’t even realize is something they should be getting rid of.  Do you come from an alcoholic family?  Think you can’t escape that, it’s who you are?  Have a negative attitude just like your mother?  Do you use the excuse that that’s who you are, who you’ve always been, too late to change?  Perhaps it’s more benign – you just can’t help yourself judging other people, seeing their flaws that are so obvious.  Lord help us.  One thing I DO KNOW:  A relationship with Jesus Christ is a game changer, it’s a life changer; it’s a flaw remover, an addiction remover.  There is NOTHING too big for our God – there is no habit, no baggage that cannot be realigned and destroyed and recreated.  Today is the day to decide to remove your “Thumby” – get rid of those things that are just weighing you down, waiting to get caught on something, just waiting to catch you up!

Just returned last night from a family vacation at the beach, including Mom and Dad, Kim and Ken and their family, Rob and Cas and kids, Tom and I, our grandchildren from North Carolina, Tyler, Molli & Laney and Talia and Jimmy.  We had lots of great dinners cooked by Grandma and spent some time in the ocean trying to let dad “treat” his bad leg with the salt water, while we all flopped around trying to hold him up.  Good times.  The only obvious “disagreement” in all this group of people was the temperature.  Imagine that.  It wasn’t where we eat, what we do, who goes where, all that jazz that usually stirs up debate and disagreement.  It was the thermometer.

We were staying in our two places which are about a block away from each other.  Mom and Dad and Kim and her family in one, and our family in the other.  Mom and Dad have no air conditioning at home, and Dad freezes all the time from fibromyalgia, so everyone in Kim’s group tried to accommodate him with not turning the air conditioner on very high.  When we would go over for dinner, it was like a sauna.  But we all knew why, and that was good and understandable.  We’re talking about a man who sleeps in the summer in two layers of sweatpants and a toboggan.  We’ve teased him for years about going camping in the summer and wearing a toboggan.  That said, when you hurt because of the cold, no one is going to crank it up so they can be more comfortable. 

In our condo, we have Molli who is almost nine months pregnant and burning up and Tom who loves the air conditioner.  I grew up with no air conditioning, so I don’t like it so much, and Talia and Jimmy are too cheap to run theirs very often, so they keep their house fairly warm and open windows.  Tyler is used to it being very cold, so now he’s the one that’s the most vocal when they come to our house about how hot it is.  One night, Talia and Jimmy had four extra blankets on their bed, and Tyler and Molli woke up talking about how scorching it was in their room.  The two couples switched rooms, and all went well.  Seems the air vent wasn’t working in their bedroom or something.

And all this leads to what?  The temperature is important.  It’s important in everything we do.  Are you raring hot to go to work?  Are you too cold to listen to someone else’s problems?  Are you so lukewarm that you don’t care about anything?  I fear our country is becoming so lukewarm that we don’t get excited about anything.  Baby parts being sold…yeah, that’s bad but we can’t do anything about it.  Marriages falling apart all over, children becoming addicted to pornography…yeah, not good, but who can really change that?  Iran getting a nuke and blowing up Israel…well, that’s them over there and doesn’t really affect us.  Same for all those refugees (fancy word for desperate people trying to escape murder and mayhem).

We took an afternoon and went to the movie War Room.  Phenomenal movie – one of the best I have seen in years.  It had everything:  Romance, faith, humor, a story you take home with you – cannot encourage you enough to go see it!  It will change your life if you let it.  One of the very first “attention grabbing” points was made about one woman giving another woman lukewarm coffee to drink when she invited her in as a guest.  The guest says, “Do you always drink your coffee lukewarm?”  “Why, no, I don’t – I like mine hot!” is the reply.  Which then leads into a spiritual discussion about what God does with us when we’re lukewarm, how ineffective and worthless to Him we are, and frankly, worthless to ourselves.  This movie paints a picture of how to live a life – a life that is NOT lukewarm, does not lay down and just say, “Well, okay, I can’t really do anything about this, so I’m not going to try, I’m just going to let whatever happens happen.”  NO!  NO!  NO!  It is YOUR life, so don’t you want it to be the best it can be?  Don’t you want your marriage to be a place of solace, a place of peace and contentment, each partner giving to the other and not punishing through words or deeds?  Don’t you want your relationships with others to be a gift to them, not a curse?  Don’t you want to enjoy your job and care about the responsibilities you have?  Don’t you want to be a blessing to this world and the people around you?
​
I urge you to take a couple hours this weekend or this upcoming week and go see this movie.  If it does not change the way you think and give you hope, I will personally give you your money back.  It is not a big sermon that’s nothing but Bible thumping and preaching – it’s a movie about a family that is headed for destruction until something miraculous happens in the midst of all that pain….give it a chance, and you could see your mess turn into a miracle!
 
 

Spent the week last week in New York City at the National Court Reporter Conference – had a great time, and my stamina lasted to keep me vertical most of the time – yoohoo!  Being there brought back many great memories, but one trip in particular stands out as I think back this morning.  I think Talia had just finished being Miss WV when we took this trip, and it was in October of 2010.  She had modeled for a gown designer the previous year in NYC, and we had spent a week up there while she did that and had a great time.  This trip, she had decided to sell purses and jewelry while she did some other part-time job that for the life of me I now can’t remember.  Anyway, we set off for a trip to do the buying of the merchandise.

When we have gone to New York, we have stayed in this motel in New Jersey that had the cheapest points to be exchanged on my Choice Privileges charge card account.  It is a dive.  Well, worse than a dive.  I think it’s a crack motel – no kidding.  The last time we checked in, there was a bullet hole in the glass of the lobby.  When we would pull up to this motel, it was so seedy and scary that we would look all around, make sure no one was out, and literally run for our lives to the door, unlock it as fast as we could and jet in, slamming it back locked.  Tom would carry on about how stupid that was, and we would justify it by the fact it left more money for shoes!  Well, the bullet hole trip was our last at that place – even I was scared.  And now after staying at the Hilton this week, my tastes may have changed….I digress.

The week we went to do the buying, Talia had just come back from a trip to New York where she helped a Parkersburg gown shop, Elizabeth Michaels, sell their gowns at the National Miss Teen America pageant in Orlando.  While there, she met this guy named Raj, who invented the Ped-Egg, while he was there on the board of the Miss Teen.  She came home talking about this man and how much fun he was and on and on.  While we’re in NYC, she’s texting him and we’re to meet up with him for dinner one night.  We shopped and shopped and spent days just looking at what she might want to buy, making lists and running the budget.  We end up picking a day to do our actual buying, and that was the day Raj was available to meet.

I was thinking it was going to be pretty weird to meet with this man who was so successful, and what was a 50-year-old man doing hanging out with my kid anyway?  Tal insisted I was going to love him, so I agree and we set up the plan.  We’re to do our buying and then contact him and meet somewhere.  Well, when we stay in Jersey, what we do is drive into the city and then park right off the Lincoln Tunnel in a parking garage where you can get a coupon and ONLY pay like $25.00 for a day of parking.  Then we take the subway or walk wherever we need to go. 

On the buying day, we were heading to Chinatown for tons of purses.  So we take off in the subway, and when we come up, it is pouring the rain.  Chinatown is outside shopping, booth to booth, so rain is a bit of a problem.  You can get in the booths, but walking between them is out in the open.  Long story short, we dicker and dicker and end up buying like 50-75 purses.  They are placed in garbage bags (yes, not thick ones either), so we were both trying to hold these massive bags, slicker than snot, and walk in the rain to the subway.  Fail.  We had so much stuff, we just couldn’t do it.  We stop at this shop and buy a huge tote thing that we could stuff some of the bags into.   It weighed so much that we had to carry it together, with our other arm still trying to hang on to another slick garbage bag. 

We work and work and make our way to the subway, almost get stuck in the turnstile with our bags, looking like the Pillsbury dough boy trying to walk.  We have been in and out of the rain all day, so we’ve gotten wet, dried, wet, dried – you get the picture.  Frazzled, bedraggled drowned rats.  We throw ourselves down on the subway seats, thrilled it was not too crowded and we had to try to stand with these contraptions we’re dealing with, and we’re dying laughing because it was one of those “laugh or cry” moments.  After we get off the subway, we then have to drag the mess to our parking lot to get it into the car.  In the rain.  Again.

Now mind you, we are so insane at this point, that it never even crosses our mind to get a cab from Chinatown to our parking lot.  Did not even rise on the radar.  About two days after this ordeal, I said to Tal, “What in the world is wrong with us?  Why didn’t we just get a cab??”  Sometimes the brain just does not work when you are shopping….that’s the only excuse I have.  I say all this so you get the picture of what we look like and smell like – clothes have been on all day long, things that did not match the tennis shoes that we wore just so our feet did not fall off.  Hair has been soaked, dried, resoaked and redried.  Makeup is pretty much gone as well.

So Tal keeps insisting we’re going to meet this Raj.  I’m like, “Look at us!  We look like something that crawled out of a hole in West Virginia and wollered itself all over this city.  Let’s forget it!”  Oh, no, no, Raj was really wanting to meet me, blah, blah, blah.  So I insist that we aren’t eating somewhere nice, but just meeting him at some salad place or something.  We end up reworking the plan and we are to go to his place and then we’ll leave from there.  We get the address and off we go to this high rise that has a doorman and the whole works.  I am mortified but being drug along by this strong-willed kid I’ve raised and too weak by then to overpower her.

We arrive at his apartment, having been escorted up the elevator after we were cleared.  We step inside this place and it is truly one of those deals like you see on TV.  He later told us he got it for a steal of a deal at 30 million.  Or maybe 10 million.  I can’t remember – I mean, all those millions, what’s a few off?  The weirdest thing – this huge apartment, and there is a galley kitchen with about as much countertop as my first house trailer.  People just don’t cook – they eat out.  He invites us in, very gracious and warm, and I can instantly see why Tal liked him so much.  He didn’t seem to care we looked a wreck but he did get that it was bothering me, so we decided to order in and just stay at his place and visit.  We curl up in these comfortable leather chairs, take our shoes off and make ourselves at home.  Talia has told me that he’s gay, but he was married before, from India, and he invented the Ped-Egg when he was an assistant on modeling gigs and saw a model scraping her feet with a cheese grater.  Now he is the owner of several other made-for-TV products.

We begin to visit, I tell him about me, what I do, etc. and then I say, “Well, tell me your story.”  He looks at Talia and says, “Do I tell her?”  Tal says, “Oh, yeah, I already told her.  She knows everything.”  He laughs and says, “Well, I grew up in India, was married for 20 some years, have two children, and now I’m kind of gay and live here with a guy named Brian who is an opera singer.”  Mind you, I’ve just met this guy, but I go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa – what do you mean, you’re ‘kind of’ gay?”  He says, “Well, I came to America, dated several women, and then I met Brian, and he is the nicest person I have ever met in my life, and now we’re together.” 

I am floored.  I said, “So you don’t think you’re gay, but you’re just with him because he’s nice?”  He laughs, says, “Yeah, pretty much.”  We end up talking and talking and talking about this thing – he tells me about the culture in India and about what it’s like to have maids and servants, how divorce is an absolute no-no in India, and being gay is even worse - how when he goes to visit Brian’s family in North Carolina, they all stand around and hold hands when they pray over a meal (and of course I break in with, WE DO THAT!).  He says he knows the whole time they’re praying out loud for the food, they’re silently praying, “And Lord, please, please make Brian not be gay.”   I cannot remember laughing so hard and enjoying meeting a person so much!  He was so open, easy to talk to – no pretense, no putting on of airs.  Just terrific.  Like someone you had known forever.

I could go on and on and tell more, but this story is becoming a novel, so I won’t.  As I think back on Raj and his home (which he invited us to come and stay in any time we wanted as it’s usually empty because he has a real house in Jersey and a place in London and on and on…can you imagine?) but when I think of him, I wonder, what is it that is missing in this world that would make a straight man engage in gay practices out of literally nowhere?  I think it’s love.  I think we are so badly searching to be loved that a lot of this homosexual experimentation and orientation is a search for love, and being willing to find it in places that are not normal.  I believe the explosion in the number of homosexuals in this country is truly an indicator of how many people want to just be loved and accepted.

And isn’t that what Christ came to bring?  Love for each other and a confidence in who we can be in Christ, with the Holy Spirit able to guide us?  I know there are battles every day for the culture of this land, and I am in those battles – I give and I write and I vote and I call – and I believe those battles are important, that the entire structure of the family not be redefined and the face of America not be changed from being a God-fearing nation.  But as we walk the life we’re in, we need to be reminded that as a Christian, we are not going to win anyone with judgment; we will win them by love. 
​
The Bible clearly tells us that is our mission – “They will know you by your love.”  I have many homosexual friends, and I truly love them.  They are phenomenal people, and they have much to offer this world.  I know Christ loves them too.  His message to them is no different than his message to us:  “Repent and be saved – and go and sin no more.”  It is our duty to tell the truth about what Christ calls ALL of us to, a life without sin, but it is also our duty to love them enough to wrap our arms around them and love them through this battle they’re in.  Let’s do it – we are big enough for this….

Can you believe this deal of this tunnel for this drug lord in Mexico?  Took a year to build, several million dollars, hundreds of workers – air conditioned?  Like this guy couldn’t be inconvenienced by getting hot on his motorcycle ride to freedom?  Sometimes the things in real life are so unreal they’ve got to be true.  So mom and dad and Tom and I are discussing this last week and my dad says, “Yeah, my uncle Jack escaped from Moundsville prison, and I helped feed him!”  I looked at him and I’m like “What are you talking about?”  He says, “Well, my Uncle Jack shot Ray Ritchie and got sent to Moundsville prison, and he escaped.”  I’m floored.

I’ve heard about his Uncle Gay Vannest who was the police officer in Spencer who everyone said carried around bags of cats.  I guess I missed this Uncle Jack story.  He goes on and says, “And I fed him.”  I’m like, “Fed him how?”  “Well, I’d be at Aunt Ora’s and she’d say, “Roy, take this bucket of corn up to the chicken house and hang it on a nail and bring back the empty bucket.”  He says, “I’d ask her how the chickens were gonna get their food if it was up hanging on a nail.”  She said she’d go up later and spread the corn – just hang it on the nail and bring home the empty bucket.”

He is convinced that Uncle Jack’s meal was under the corn he was toting.  He says Jack got caught later because he was working for someone cleaning manure out of a barn over in Ohio, and the man he was working for sent his son to the “movie show” and they had the pictures of the “Wanted” men on the way in.  They turned him in and back to Moundsville he went.

My sister worked for Ray Ritchie (the son of the victim), and he was always so nice to her, and all of us really.  Julie Ritchie is a good friend from high school, and her mom has always been the sweetest woman in the world.  I have never seen one Ritchie be anything but total first class.  I said to my mom, “Well, do the Ritchies know this?”  She says, “Oh, yeah, everbody knew, but they have always been so good to us regardless of Uncle Jack.”  Of course, he is long and gone, but the stories live on.  I’m sure Aunt Ora’s chicken house was not air conditioned, and I’m shocked she harbored him at all, but I guess it was a different time – no social media watching everyone and everything!
​
I have no idea how Jack escaped, but I doubt he had a hundred workers assisting him….and I guess the moral of the story is:  If you’re toting the corn, you better know what’s hidden beneath!  I hope the statute of limitations for aiding an escapee has passed….

Politics has all these “gate” scandals – you know, Watergate, Bridgegate, Irangate, etc.  Our family this week has been hit with paintgate.  My son, Tyler, has ended his career as a legal videographer and become a house flipper.  He has two successful sales under his belt and is working extremely hard trying to renovate a couple more homes.  One of those houses is at the end of our street on Greenbrier Drive, and without a working toilet at this moment, Tyler will just run up to our house to use the restroom.

I’m on a job this week and get a text message from him:  “This has been the worst day of my life.  I was on my way up to your house, pulling the box trailer.”  Now, at this sentence, I am thinking something really horrible has had to happen – a wreck, the trailer came unhooked from the truck, or the liftgate of the trailer fell open and all the new doors and windows he had purchased flew out and busted into a million pieces.  You know how your brain jumps ahead….

So the text continues:  “As I was driving, a five-gallon brand new bucket of paint fell over in the trailer and busted wide open, spilling all the paint into the trailer and then dripping it all over the street and all over your driveway.  I have been power washing your driveway for the last two hours to get the paint off, but I’ve run out of hose, so when you get home, there is paint on two-thirds of the driveway that I couldn’t get to.  I will take care of it but I need more hose lengths.  It has been a horrible day.  Oh, yeah, and while I was power washing, the Chief of Police came by to tell me everyone was complaining about the paint on the street.” 

I have to admit, I laughed when I read this – more the laugh of “Oh, so glad it didn’t happen to me,” and “Glad it wasn’t worse than this,” and kind of a “Oh, you thought legal videography was bad – was it ever this bad?”  When I got home, yes, there was paint all up the street on Greenbrier – and oh, yay, trailing RIGHT INTO MY DRIVEWAY!  So if you wondered who did this thing, it becomes very clear where the trail runs….

When I got to talk to Tyler the next day, he said it was truly the worst day ever.  Of course, I give the mom talk of “Oh, there are worse things, it could have been a bad health diagnosis, an accident,” etc.  I said, “You know, I’m going to have to write my story Saturday about this so we explain this paintgate situation, and I’m going to need to give it a spiritual lesson.  What do you think the spiritual message is?”  He says, “I’m thinking Jonah and the whale.”  I’m like, “How in the world would this compare to Jonah?”  He says, “Well, all the bad things that can happen.”  I say, “But Jonah was running from God and needed a heads-up.  Are you running from God?”  “Well, no.  I’m just too worn out to think of a good analogy.”

As I’ve driven up my street and down my driveway with its trail of paint, I keep thinking about that story I told a year or so ago about the toilet paper trailing behind someone and them not knowing it, so I thought I would refresh that story and its lesson learned.  And If you have been negatively affected by this paint, please forgive us.  We’re working on it….

TP story retold:  A year or so ago, I ran into a friend in Target, and she says, “Did Tal tell you she saw me?”  I said, “No, she didn’t.”  My friend says, “Well, I cannot believe she didn’t tell you!”  She says this in a way that was a little more than the normal.  She repeats it again, “I cannot believe she didn’t tell you!”  I said, “Well, I’ll have to ask her why.”  She goes on to tell me why Talia should have “remembered” to tell me, as it was a very memorable event when the two of them ran into each other.

My friend works at a downtown office that’s near the United Bank building, the big mirrored building right by the Kanawha County Courthouse.  She wanted to go to the courthouse building for lunch – there’s a guy there that sells hot dogs and sandwiches and things on the second floor there and they’re very reasonable and good.  My friend –- let’s call her Marge.  Marge goes to the restroom before she leaves her building, then walks the block that contains the United Bank, the MIRRORED building, then walks into the courthouse.  The Kanawha County Courthouse has an elaborate security system there almost like an airport where they take your purse, you walk through the machine that will ding if you have your keys or anything, and then sometimes they use their wand up and down you to do further checks.  She makes it past the security detail, gets on the elevator, goes up to the second floor, stands in line, gets her food, back down the elevator, back out by the security people, back by the MIRRORED building, and she’s on the street getting ready to go back into her workplace, and Tal is driving down the street.
 
Tal hollers our her window at her, “Hey, Marge!”  She says, “Oh, hey, Tal, how are you?”  Tal says, “I’m good – come and get in my car.”  Marge says, “I can’t, I’ve got my lunch and I’ve got to get back to work.”  Tal says, louder (hollering across the street), “Marge, GET IN MY CAR!”  Marge says, “Talia, I cannot get in your car – I’m going back to work!”  So that then prompts Tal to scream (still hollering across the street), “You’ve got toilet paper hanging out of your pants!”  Marge did not have a small scrap at the top of her pants, or even at the bottom of her pants – she had a TRAIL of toilet paper, leaving the waistband of her pants, going all the way to the ground, and trailing behind her!
 
Now, here’s the most interesting part of this story:  Marge had traveled down two city blocks, twice going past a fully mirrored building, in through the security, up the elevator, stood in line at the snack place (who the owner is blind so we can’t blame him….), but how many people did she run into in that condition?  Probably 20 at least!  NO ONE was willing to tell her that she had a train of TP as long as a bridal gown.  This is a funny story (not to Marge, if she’s reading this, I’m sure!) but it is an illustration of how we are not willing to say the hard things sometimes, you know, those things that you should say to a friend, “I love you, but you are so negative, you really bring me down sometimes.  Can we work together on helping you find more positive things to talk about?”  Or “I feel like sometimes you involve me in gossip that I don’t want to be involved in – can we pray together about that?  I don’t want to lose our friendship.”  Or the “I notice you seem to talk an awful lot about that co-worker, more so than you talk about your husband.  Are you being tempted to do things that you shouldn’t be doing?” 
 
Oh, I know, no one wants to butt their nose into anyone else’s business – and trust me, the last thing I need is my nose in someone’s business – but sometimes if you are a TRUE friend, you will speak the truth, in love, and that is what makes friendships grow and become a GODLY friendship, with no secrets, no lying, no evading of who we really are.

There is a scripture that is one of my favorite stories.  It takes place in Numbers 22 – the whole chapter is riveting, but it’s the scripture where the donkey talks.  If you don’t know the story, please go read it – it’s fascinating!  But for me, the truth of that scripture this morning is, the donkey had eyes to see that the angels of the Lord were warning this man NOT to proceed through what he was doing, and the donkey ends up getting beat for trying to save his master from this peril he was headed into.  When the donkey begins to talk, he says to his master (paraphrased) – “What is it you are beating on me?  Have I ever done this to you before?  Have I not carried your sorry rear end all over this country and never once run you into a wall or laid down on you before?”  I laugh as I’m typing this, as I can just hear it….this donkey was saving his master from trouble, but the master wasn’t seeing what he was seeing and wasn’t accepting the warning gracefully.
 
Are you a friend who needs saved from what you’re involving yourself in?  Or are you the friend who is too cowardly to speak the truth to your sister or your friend or your co-worker when you see them headed down a path of destruction?  Let’s try to be REAL friends to each other – not backstabbers, not gossips, but Godly encouragement in the time of trouble.  We’re in this thing together!  And I PROMISE you, if I see you with a trail of TP behind you, I will get you in my car – LOL!
 

​My mother is truly the Proverbs 31 woman, and I am BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE to have been born to this woman.  She is a mechanic, a farmer, a seamstress, a teacher, a secretary, a treasurer, a house builder, a prayer warrior.
The things my mother NEVER did:

• Put her needs above someone else’s
• Said something negative about others
• Told an untruth
• Missed church unless she was almost dead
• Said “I don’t want to” or “I can’t”
• Engaged in drama of any form

The things my mother ALWAYS did:

• Encouraged everyone around her
• Prayed unceasingly for her family and those in her life
• Read her Bible every morning
• Worked 10 hours a day, minimum
• Gave generously of her time and finances

Thank you, mom, for being the woman you are and living your life as a testament to who Jesus Christ is and can be!  Love you so much!
 
The things being a mother have taught me:

• It is possible to love someone more than yourself
• Simple joy comes in a child’s smile and their laughter
• When your child is heartbroken, you are heartbroken as well
• True discipline does not hurt you as much as it hurts them
• You can be proud and disappointed at the same time
• God is faithful and true and His plans are greater than our plans
• It is necessary to be a lie detector, a private investigator and sometimes a warden to be a good parent
• My life was empty and selfish before God gave me children to love

Thank you, Talia Markham and Tyler Markham, for being the best children a mom could hope for – you have grown into incredible adults, and I am extremely proud of you!