I first wrote this story shortly after the experience of finding my biological family. That has taught me a valuable lesson. When a person has an experience as powerful and life altering as this one, they need to wait before they bloviate about it. Time gives us a valuable gift...perspective. I still don't know if I can do it justice but because of another powerful experience that is about to happen in our family, I'll try.
On Monday morning my daughter, and her husband will appear in court to finalize the adoption of their four little "foster" children. These children have lived in their home for over two years now. They brought one home from the hospital after her birth. They have prayed every day that God would grant them the right to become their parents. Before that, they prayed, along with their older daughter, that God would give them a larger family. He is about to answer those prayers.This is what is prompting me to write about my adoption and adoption in general. The perspective of my story has changed a lot, so this will be totally different from the original story. I kept the original title because...I'm in love with it. Maybe you'll understand that when you read it.
My adoption was finalized when I was one hour old, but at that time (1938) the doctor's in all their wisdom believed that a baby should be nursed by it's mother for a period of time before they were separated. Maybe this was true but I've always believed that it was a special kind of cruelty for that mother. She nursed me for five days before they took me away.
They were a young couple, living in Texas during the depression. They were both from families whose fathers had abandoned their homes and responsibilities so perhaps they clung to each other in desperation or because of raging hormones...who knows, but out of that union, I was conceived.
My biological father did the "right thing". He dropped out of high school and married his beautiful little half-Indian, pregnant girlfriend. As naive as they were, they tried to make a go of it. He got a job as a nightwatchman for a bank in the nearby town. It came with an apartment above the bank and the unheard of salary of $75.00 a week. They did fine until six weeks before my birth when he lost his job. Once again desperation kicked in, so they did they only thing they could do. They returned to their separate homes.
My father's household was being supported by an older sister who was a school teacher and my mother had siblings who were sick from malnutrition. Most of her brothers and sisters had dropped out of school and were taking odd jobs to put food on the table. I can't imagine a more bleak situation.
Soon the two families got together to discuss what to do with the expected baby. Its future with their families didn't look good. They all decided in this meeting that it would be best for them and for me if I were put up for adoption. I can only imagine the heartbreak of these people and since I learned that story, I've been grateful for their sacrificial love.
Of course, growing up, I didn't know this story. I was raised in New Mexico, far away from East Texas where I was born and where my biological family suffered through the depression and all the hardship that devastating time in our history brought upon the people who lived through it. I have learned since then that I was one of the "lucky" ones. Many families were separated by that event. There were trains filled with orphans who were shipped across the United States to be given to people who took them to work the fields and become servants in their homes, or who in some instances became beloved members of those families. I was indeed blessed.
My adoptive parents were hard working, Christian, "salt of the earth" kind of people who had experienced early in their marriage the loss of the only baby they could ever have. They began praying right after that loss for a child to adopt. They prayed for 13 years. Because my birth mother's doctor was the same doctor they used as a family physician the connection was made and the deal signed, sealed and delivered one hour after my birth.
There was never a child more cherished than me. I was "Daddy's little girl!" He taught me to hunt, ride a horse, shoot several guns and drive a pickup truck at an early age so I could drive while he hunted. My mother said that it was one of the saddest days in his life when I got into middle school and he had to admit that I was a girl. They gave me everything I needed and many things I didn't need. I had a good education, friendship, firm discipline, and a large extended family who accepted and loved me. Added to this they were wonderful examples of genuine Christian love and service to me.
All of this skittered through my mind one afternoon in 1979 as we rode home from the school where I taught and my youngest son in the back seat asked, "Mom, haven't you ever been curious about your biological parents? Wouldn't you like to find them?"
I thought about it a minute than said, "Not really,...besides, why would they want me now? They didn't want me when I was a cute, cuddly, baby girl. What makes you think they'd want me now that I'm a middle-aged, not so cute, grown up woman?"
Everyone fell silent as we contemplated it the rest of the way home. When we got there I went in to begin preparing supper and Ted went to his office in the church. About half and hour later he walked into the kitchen with a strange look on his face. "What?" I asked.
"I found your birth father." he announced in a subdued tone.
"What?!!!" I yelled.
"I picked up the phone and called the city you were born in Texas and within ten minutes I had him on the phone. It just happened so fast I didn't have time to think about it."
He knew their names because the first time I applied for a passport I had to produce my adoption papers, so my mother had reluctantly surrendered them to me.
"I told him you'd call him." he continued.
"Well you shouldn't have done that because I may not call him!"
"I think you'll want to when I tell you what he said."
"What was that?"
When I told him who I was and that I had married the little girl he'd given up for adoption in 1938 he broke down and cried then he asked, "Do you think she could ever forgive me?"
Well he had me there. Of course I'd forgive him. I'd had a wonderful life. I was a happy woman who had never wanted for anything. My life had been blessed and the thought that he might be suffering any guilt from giving me up for adoption, was hard for me to hear. So I called him. We didn't talk long but it wasn't because we were strangers. The minute I heard his voice it sounded familiar. He asked for and I gave him forgiveness then I told him about my life. It made him happy. Since it was close to Christmas we made arrangements to go to Texas and meet him during Christmas break.The night before we met I began to feel a little apprehensive and I said to Ted and the kids, "What if he doesn't like me?" Ted look at me and quoted a scripture, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh!" I sighed, "Maybe I'll look just like my mother."
The moment I looked into his face I knew how appropriate that verse had been. I looked just like him! My biological mother had been dead for five years and he was alone. He had gone into the navy after they gave me up and when he returned they got back together and had another little girl. So I had a sister.
Between him and my sister I had so many questions answered. He told me why they had given me away. He told me about their ethnic background. He was very proud of the fact that he was descended from William the Conqueror and that our family name was Drury as in "Drury Lane, the home of Shakespeare. He talked about my mother's Indian heritage and how she had a great grandmother who lived to 114 years old. We looked at family pictures and compared me and my children to them all. We had a great time.
He only lived two years after we found him but in that time he got to see his oldest grandson married and his first great grandson born. He was blessed to be the grandfather he never thought he be. By that time my Daddy had died and he was the only grandfather Jennifer was able to know.
Now contemplating as and older woman, one thing has become clear to me. Adopted children are rescued children. No matter what circumstance brought them to their adoptive parents, they have been rescued from some situation. Adoption is the best parable for salvation that can be found on earth. Children who are adopted all come from something from which they had to be rescued. Their very survival, happiness or well being depends on grace... the grace of someone who will take them and love them and provide for them until they can provide for themselves.
In the Bible, God uses this illustration abundantly. Because of this the scriptures about the "Fatherhood of God" have come to mean so much to me. Psalm 27:10 says, "When my father and mother forsake me, Then the Lord will take care of me." Is. 49: 16 & 17 says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands..."
My biological mother from her death bed, told my sister about me and ended the story by saying, "If you ever find her, tell her Jesus loves her and so did I."
And the title to this story... It was given to me by my biological father. The first morning we were in his home we were awakened by loud bag pipes playing some Scottish call to arms. We jumped out of bed and rushed into the living room to find out what was assaulting our eardrums. He was standing in front of his stereo smiling, as a record played as loudly as he could crank it up. He saw the startled questions on our faces and said, "They wake the queen with pipes, you know." It was his way of honoring me and it touched my heart. The phrase has come to mean so much to me as I've gained insight into the heart of God through this experience. For me it was truly an "awakening". I really can't think of a more godly act than adoption.
Because of this perspective as an adopted child, I have found it easy to believe in God's soverignity, His love and protection and His presence in my life. These are treasures He places in the hearts of adopted children and I believe with all my heart that..."behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own" ( James Russell Lowell)
(c)copyright2014ljgehrke
Friday, January 31, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
On The Road to Emmaus
Every once in a while I will be including in the blog, one of Ted's sermons. Today I have chosen the introduction to a sermon that is one of my favorite. This short introduction is like a poem and stands on it's on without the remainder of the sermon.
I have attempted to write it down in the same free, open style in which he wrote his sermons with lots of space and big letters. This allowed him to glance at his notes and kept him on track while not losing eye contact with the congregation. Losing eye contact would have been fatal to Ted's preaching because he reacted to the people. He knew the joys and sorrows each were experiencing because he knew them. When he preached their faces reflected their hearts and touched his. As you will be able to tell from this short piece, the man had a poet's heart and all of us who heard him preach will hear his ringing oratory as we read. I hope it comes across to all of you.
"Oh, how we all would have loved...would have given anything to have traveled that road...
and heard what He
had to say!
One can easily imagine as he thinks through the Old Testament, what He might have said,
...this stranger....
as He took their own Sacred writings and broke them open
like bread,
interpreting their deepest meanings.
They listened to Him as He traced the MESSIANIC note in the music of all the prophets! Showing how He was
David's King,
"fairer than the children of men!"
...and in the days of Solomon's doing, He was "the altogether lovely One!"
He was Isaiah's child King...
with a shoulder strong enough to bear the Government
and the name EMMANUEL.
He was Jeremiah's ...
"Branch of Righteousness,
executing justice and righteousness in the land."
He was Ezekiel's "Plant of renown, giving shade and offering fragrance to all!"
He was Daniel's "stone, cut without hands,
smiting the image,
becoming a mountain
and
filling the whole earth!"
He was Joel's "hope of the people and strength of the Children of Israel!"
He was the usherer in of the
vision of Amos...of "the plowman overtaking the reaper and...
the treader of grapes to him that seweth seed!"
...and to Obadiah, the "deliverance upon Mt. Zion and holiness"
He was the fulfillment of that of which Jonah was but a sign!
He was the "turning again to God" of which Micah spoke,
...the One Nahum saw upon the Mountain..."publishing peace!"
He was the Anointed of Whom Habakkuk sang as "going forth for salvation".
He was the One who brought to the people, the pure language of Zephaniah's message...
the true Zerubbabel of Haggai's word....
"forever rebuilding the house of God!" Himself being the dawn of the day when "holiness shall be on the Bells of the horses!"
...as Zechariah foretold.
...and He, this Stranger... the refiner sitting over the fire,
the "Son of Righteousness"
of Malachi's dream...
spoke of these things, to these men on the Road to Emmaus until they arrived,
....and their hearts burned within them!
and
wouldn't we have loved to have been there?
(c)copyright LauraGehrke 2014
I have attempted to write it down in the same free, open style in which he wrote his sermons with lots of space and big letters. This allowed him to glance at his notes and kept him on track while not losing eye contact with the congregation. Losing eye contact would have been fatal to Ted's preaching because he reacted to the people. He knew the joys and sorrows each were experiencing because he knew them. When he preached their faces reflected their hearts and touched his. As you will be able to tell from this short piece, the man had a poet's heart and all of us who heard him preach will hear his ringing oratory as we read. I hope it comes across to all of you.
"Oh, how we all would have loved...would have given anything to have traveled that road...
and heard what He
had to say!
One can easily imagine as he thinks through the Old Testament, what He might have said,
...this stranger....
as He took their own Sacred writings and broke them open
like bread,
interpreting their deepest meanings.
They listened to Him as He traced the MESSIANIC note in the music of all the prophets! Showing how He was
David's King,
"fairer than the children of men!"
...and in the days of Solomon's doing, He was "the altogether lovely One!"
He was Isaiah's child King...
with a shoulder strong enough to bear the Government
and the name EMMANUEL.
He was Jeremiah's ...
"Branch of Righteousness,
executing justice and righteousness in the land."
He was Ezekiel's "Plant of renown, giving shade and offering fragrance to all!"
He was Daniel's "stone, cut without hands,
smiting the image,
becoming a mountain
and
filling the whole earth!"
He was Joel's "hope of the people and strength of the Children of Israel!"
He was the usherer in of the
vision of Amos...of "the plowman overtaking the reaper and...
the treader of grapes to him that seweth seed!"
...and to Obadiah, the "deliverance upon Mt. Zion and holiness"
He was the fulfillment of that of which Jonah was but a sign!
He was the "turning again to God" of which Micah spoke,
...the One Nahum saw upon the Mountain..."publishing peace!"
He was the Anointed of Whom Habakkuk sang as "going forth for salvation".
He was the One who brought to the people, the pure language of Zephaniah's message...
the true Zerubbabel of Haggai's word....
"forever rebuilding the house of God!" Himself being the dawn of the day when "holiness shall be on the Bells of the horses!"
...as Zechariah foretold.
...and He, this Stranger... the refiner sitting over the fire,
the "Son of Righteousness"
of Malachi's dream...
spoke of these things, to these men on the Road to Emmaus until they arrived,
....and their hearts burned within them!
and
wouldn't we have loved to have been there?
(c)copyright LauraGehrke 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
The Turtle and the Porcupine
As I said in a previous post, I've been reading Chuck Swindoll's book, Strengthening You Grip. I recommend it highly. Whatever I read, if it's good, I feel compelled to share. So here goes...
He started chapter 2 with this bomb..."I know of no more potent killer than isolation. There is no more destructive influence on physical and mental health then the isolation of you from me and us from them. It has been shown to be a central agent in the etiology of depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, rape, suicide, mass murder, and a wide variety of disease states."
This startling quote is from Professor Philip Zimbardo, of Stanford University who is a respected authority on psychology. If true, and I've seen no reason to disbelieve it, this is indeed frightening because we have become a culture of "Lone Rangers". (But even he had Tonto!) We sit in our own little isolated worlds, with headsets, listening to whatever we want to hear, blocking out the sounds around us. We spend hours on our electronic devises entertaining or educating our minds and hearts with only God knows what. We no longer know the neighbor across the street, much less down the block. Chuck Swindoll said, "Our watchword is "privacy"; our comments are short-term. Our world is fast adopting the unwritten regulation so often observed in elevators, "Absolutely no eye contact, talking, smiling, or relating without written permission from the management." How tragically true! We are an aimless, lonely generation who's roots have been pulled, displaced and scattered to the wind. Our children don't know their extended families and Chuck goes on to say that "anonymity, cynicism and indifference are fast replacing mutual support and genuine interest." He then adds, "This becomes a major factor in our ability to cope with life on this planet, an otherwise lonely and discouraging pilgrimage."
The first thing we have to ask ourselves is why is this... Why do we shun involvement? Well as I contemplated my own condition, I realized that there are several reasons for it. First of all I have to confess that as I made a "gun" with my hand and my pointy finger pointed at you, I saw three others pointing back at me. I am perhaps "the chief of sinners" in this realm. Ted used to say to me, "When I die I want you to join and "Old Lady Gang" so you don't become a hermit!" He knew me. My idea of a good week is one when I don't have to get out of my pajamas. Now having confessed that and after some self-examination, I have had to answer the question for myself. "Why do I shun involvement?" I have to admit that the first answer has to be laziness. It's just too much trouble. I'd rather stay home and avoid the crowds. Now I know not all of you will agree with this. Some people actually enjoy the crowds. I don't understand it but I know it to be true. Another reason is fear of being vulnerable. This is always a risk. Chuck said, "The one who gets involved doesn't play the role of prim-and-proper, Mr. Clean. No he is human, vulnerable,...capable of being wounded, open to attack, misunderstanding, or damage. He is unguarded." That was my husband, Ted. He wasn't a perfect man. As a matter of fact, no one would have ever called him "Pastor Perfect". And as long as we're allerating, sometimes he could be a "pain in the old patoot!" But he made himself vulnerable for the sake of others. He was at every birth in the church... he was there when their loved ones suffered and died... he officiated at all the weddings, and baptisms and attended all the graduations and special events of his flock. He used to ask me, "Why am I always in trouble?' I didn't know how to answer him then, but now I know...he made himself vulnerable and got involved. I was the "turtle". When things got too rough I just tucked my head back into my shell. Ted never did that. He engaged the battle whatever it was and sometimes came home bruised and bloodied and yes he was very often, "in trouble".
Chuck went on to say that he has heard the church described as a "pack of porcupines on a frigid wintry night". The cold drives us closer together into a tight huddle to keep warm. As we begin to snuggle really close, our sharp quills cause us to jab and prick each other...a condition which forces us apart. But before long we start to get cold again, so we move back together, only to stab and puncture each other all over again...we cannot deny it, we need each other, yet we needle each other."
"Still God's desire for His children is that we be personally and deeply involved in each other's lives," Chuck goes on to say. "He wants more involvement between us than our superficial greetings on Sunday, "How are you doing?" and "Have a nice day!" as we walk away, because "beneath that secure-looking, self-reliant veneer most of us wear...deep down inside, there's a scared little kid who is waiting for someone to care, to hold his hand, to affirm and love with authentic affection."
As I read this chapter I prayed that I would come out of my turtle shell and join in the "porcupine dance". After all we have to run out of quills sooner or later. I hope this encourages you to pray the same.
(c)copyrightlauragehrke 2014
He started chapter 2 with this bomb..."I know of no more potent killer than isolation. There is no more destructive influence on physical and mental health then the isolation of you from me and us from them. It has been shown to be a central agent in the etiology of depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, rape, suicide, mass murder, and a wide variety of disease states."
This startling quote is from Professor Philip Zimbardo, of Stanford University who is a respected authority on psychology. If true, and I've seen no reason to disbelieve it, this is indeed frightening because we have become a culture of "Lone Rangers". (But even he had Tonto!) We sit in our own little isolated worlds, with headsets, listening to whatever we want to hear, blocking out the sounds around us. We spend hours on our electronic devises entertaining or educating our minds and hearts with only God knows what. We no longer know the neighbor across the street, much less down the block. Chuck Swindoll said, "Our watchword is "privacy"; our comments are short-term. Our world is fast adopting the unwritten regulation so often observed in elevators, "Absolutely no eye contact, talking, smiling, or relating without written permission from the management." How tragically true! We are an aimless, lonely generation who's roots have been pulled, displaced and scattered to the wind. Our children don't know their extended families and Chuck goes on to say that "anonymity, cynicism and indifference are fast replacing mutual support and genuine interest." He then adds, "This becomes a major factor in our ability to cope with life on this planet, an otherwise lonely and discouraging pilgrimage."
The first thing we have to ask ourselves is why is this... Why do we shun involvement? Well as I contemplated my own condition, I realized that there are several reasons for it. First of all I have to confess that as I made a "gun" with my hand and my pointy finger pointed at you, I saw three others pointing back at me. I am perhaps "the chief of sinners" in this realm. Ted used to say to me, "When I die I want you to join and "Old Lady Gang" so you don't become a hermit!" He knew me. My idea of a good week is one when I don't have to get out of my pajamas. Now having confessed that and after some self-examination, I have had to answer the question for myself. "Why do I shun involvement?" I have to admit that the first answer has to be laziness. It's just too much trouble. I'd rather stay home and avoid the crowds. Now I know not all of you will agree with this. Some people actually enjoy the crowds. I don't understand it but I know it to be true. Another reason is fear of being vulnerable. This is always a risk. Chuck said, "The one who gets involved doesn't play the role of prim-and-proper, Mr. Clean. No he is human, vulnerable,...capable of being wounded, open to attack, misunderstanding, or damage. He is unguarded." That was my husband, Ted. He wasn't a perfect man. As a matter of fact, no one would have ever called him "Pastor Perfect". And as long as we're allerating, sometimes he could be a "pain in the old patoot!" But he made himself vulnerable for the sake of others. He was at every birth in the church... he was there when their loved ones suffered and died... he officiated at all the weddings, and baptisms and attended all the graduations and special events of his flock. He used to ask me, "Why am I always in trouble?' I didn't know how to answer him then, but now I know...he made himself vulnerable and got involved. I was the "turtle". When things got too rough I just tucked my head back into my shell. Ted never did that. He engaged the battle whatever it was and sometimes came home bruised and bloodied and yes he was very often, "in trouble".
Chuck went on to say that he has heard the church described as a "pack of porcupines on a frigid wintry night". The cold drives us closer together into a tight huddle to keep warm. As we begin to snuggle really close, our sharp quills cause us to jab and prick each other...a condition which forces us apart. But before long we start to get cold again, so we move back together, only to stab and puncture each other all over again...we cannot deny it, we need each other, yet we needle each other."
"Still God's desire for His children is that we be personally and deeply involved in each other's lives," Chuck goes on to say. "He wants more involvement between us than our superficial greetings on Sunday, "How are you doing?" and "Have a nice day!" as we walk away, because "beneath that secure-looking, self-reliant veneer most of us wear...deep down inside, there's a scared little kid who is waiting for someone to care, to hold his hand, to affirm and love with authentic affection."
As I read this chapter I prayed that I would come out of my turtle shell and join in the "porcupine dance". After all we have to run out of quills sooner or later. I hope this encourages you to pray the same.
(c)copyrightlauragehrke 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Timmy Tom Turkey
At a very young age our son, Timothy was funny. He was given the nickname, Timmy Tom Turkey by relatives because he was such a cut-up. Some of his antics bear repeating, so they made it into the blog.
When we were stationed in South Carolina Timmy was in his "terrible twos". We lived out in the country and owned horses. Behind our house was a tobacco barn, a chicken coop and a tack house where we kept the feed for the horses. It was also the place where we stored saddles, bridles, blankets and other equipment needed for their care and maintenance. Next to the tack house was a water faucet with a hose connected to it. We used it to clean the area and water plants and animals. Unfortunately, it was also Timmy's favorite play thing.
South Carolina is extremely hot in the summer so I guess it was a good way for the kid to cool down. In the morning when he finished breakfast he would head straight for the faucet , turn it on and begin spraying the whole area (including himself). I knew it was great fun for him and most of the time I ignored it. Our grass grew thick in the yard, so the mud wasn't a problem but if there was trouble to be found, Timmy could find it.
One day he decided to venture a little farther with the hose and clean out the tack house. He took it into the little shed and soaked everything,-- the leather reins, the saddles, the horse blankets and even the feed. One of the older kids came running into the house yelling...
"Timmy's spraying the tack house!"
I ran out but it was too late to salvage everything. I pulled Timmy into the house, swatted his bottom a couple of times and scolded him as I yanked off his wet clothes.
"Your Dad is going to be so upset with you! That feed cost a lot of money and it's no good now. If the saddles are ruined he'll spank you again!" I had sufficiently put the fear of Dad into him so at least he didn't get into the tack house again that day.
When Ted came home I told him about the incident. He went out and examined everything and said that he thought the saddles and bridles weren't as badly soaked as the blankets and feed. The blankets would dry and we'd just have to throw the feed out to the neighbors chickens and buy new feed for our horses. He called Timmy inside to lecture him.
"Timmy, you are forbidden to play with the hose!" he said. "Do you understand?" Timmy nodded. "There's just too much out there that can be destroyed with water. I don't want you to even turn the faucet on! You just stay completely away from the water. You have a wading pool out back to play in but Joel or Kelly will have to fill it for you. I don't want you using the hose! Am I making myself clear?!" Timmy nodded, (We were such young parents that the fact that you simply can't reason with a two year old hadn't sunk in yet.) "Okay, I won't spank you this time but it better not happen again!" said Ted as Timmy nodded again.
The next morning was Saturday and the day started out hot. Timmy ate his breakfast and I dressed him in a tee shirt and shorts. He pulled on his cowboy boots, grabbed Joel's big cowboy hat and yanked it down on his small head, flattening his ears. As he turned to run outside, I reminded my cowboy again not to play with the water hose. When he had been gone for a while I looked out the kitchen window to check on the kids, playing in the yard. Standing beside the tack house was Timmy. He had the water hose in his hand and was spraying everything around him for as far as the stream would reach. I yelled, "Ted!"
Ted came into the kitchen and I said, "Look out back." He peered outside and when he saw Timmy his jaw dropped. "He's gonna get it! he muttered as he bolted for the door. "Ted, he's only two!" I implored. "Maybe he didn't understand." I wasn't even sure if Ted had heard my pleas for mercy as he disappeared from the kitchen.
I retreated into the living room, unable to watch the administration of justice, and after several minutes I heard Ted come back into the kitchen. I went to find out what had happened and was astonished to find him hiding there, laughing his head off!
"What happened? Did he not understand your instructions?"
When Ted gained control he said, "I'll tell you what happened and you tell me if he understood."
He explained that he had run out the door yelling, "Timmy!" and by the time he reached him Timmy had the hose behind his back. He was standing there with an innocent look on his face. The hose shooting a stream of water up his back and onto the brim of the cowboy hat. At the front peak of the hat it ran off and pooled on the ground in front of him. He was the wettest little kid Ted had ever seen.
He said he remembered my words, "Maybe he didn't understand. He's only two!" so he stopped and took a deep breath before he exclaimed, "Timmy,--don't tell me you're playing with the hose again after I told you not to. Don't tell me that you are deliberately disobeying me. I don't even want to hear an excuse!" Timmy stood silent...water running off his hat and gushing out of his boots, the flattened ears, the only dry place on his little body.
"Okay, I won't tell you that." he said to his dad.
"Well, if your not playing with the hose then what is that running off your hat, gushing out of your boots and dripping from your face?" Ted asked.
Timmy looked up, his eyebrows dancing like a hound dog's as his mind raced for an explanation. "Sweat?" he asked.
Ted lost it! He turned on his heels and ran into the house to laugh because he knew he had to spank Timmy and he couldn't do it while laughing.
Disobedience was bad enough but now Timmy had added a lie and one so cleaver that it had become a comedy routine. Ted had to administer discipline, but first he had to stop laughing.
I learned that day just how much we underestimate our children. Timmy at two not only understood perfectly what was expected of him but he had already learned to devise and excuse for disobedience. Neither had it escaped him just how far-fetched the excuse was because he didn't give his dad a definite answer--sweat! Instead, he answered with a question...sweat? or in other words "Would you believe me if I said, sweat?" The only thing this two year old didn't understand was just how far he could skate along the line of disobedience. He found out that day.
Another Timmy incident happened during this same time frame. Ted had a favorite chair in the living room where he sat at night to watch T.V. It was an overstuffed old thing with a foot stool and he loved to relax in it after a hard day.
One night I made Sundaes for our evening snack with scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup. I distributed the sundaes to the three children who usually sat or laid around the floor during T.V. time, then went back into the kitchen to scoop out mine and Ted's. Ted of course had to come supervise the pouring of the chocolate onto his.
While we were in the kitchen Timmy crawled with his short little legs and a bowl full of ice cream and chocolate syrup, into his dad's chair. When we returned from the kitchen, Ted looked at him in surprise and said, "Timmy, that's my chair!" Timmy glanced up nonchalantly and said, "Okay." I took his bowl while he climbed obediently off the chair. None of us noticed afterword as all our eyes were glued to the T.V., that Timmy's weren't. We didn't observe him concentrating on his dad's face until we heard him ask, "Do you feel it yet?
Ted looked at him, perplexed and asked, "Feel what?"
Timmy said, "The shocolate."
I saw Ted's eyes widen as he jumped up from the chair. Just as Timmy said the word schocolate his dad began to feel the wet sticky sensation on the back of his leg. If I remember correctly he didn't laugh that time...but neither did he spank Timmy. "Confession is good for the soul" and sometimes spares the bottom.
(c)copyright2014Laura Gehrke
When we were stationed in South Carolina Timmy was in his "terrible twos". We lived out in the country and owned horses. Behind our house was a tobacco barn, a chicken coop and a tack house where we kept the feed for the horses. It was also the place where we stored saddles, bridles, blankets and other equipment needed for their care and maintenance. Next to the tack house was a water faucet with a hose connected to it. We used it to clean the area and water plants and animals. Unfortunately, it was also Timmy's favorite play thing.
South Carolina is extremely hot in the summer so I guess it was a good way for the kid to cool down. In the morning when he finished breakfast he would head straight for the faucet , turn it on and begin spraying the whole area (including himself). I knew it was great fun for him and most of the time I ignored it. Our grass grew thick in the yard, so the mud wasn't a problem but if there was trouble to be found, Timmy could find it.
One day he decided to venture a little farther with the hose and clean out the tack house. He took it into the little shed and soaked everything,-- the leather reins, the saddles, the horse blankets and even the feed. One of the older kids came running into the house yelling...
"Timmy's spraying the tack house!"
I ran out but it was too late to salvage everything. I pulled Timmy into the house, swatted his bottom a couple of times and scolded him as I yanked off his wet clothes.
"Your Dad is going to be so upset with you! That feed cost a lot of money and it's no good now. If the saddles are ruined he'll spank you again!" I had sufficiently put the fear of Dad into him so at least he didn't get into the tack house again that day.
When Ted came home I told him about the incident. He went out and examined everything and said that he thought the saddles and bridles weren't as badly soaked as the blankets and feed. The blankets would dry and we'd just have to throw the feed out to the neighbors chickens and buy new feed for our horses. He called Timmy inside to lecture him.
"Timmy, you are forbidden to play with the hose!" he said. "Do you understand?" Timmy nodded. "There's just too much out there that can be destroyed with water. I don't want you to even turn the faucet on! You just stay completely away from the water. You have a wading pool out back to play in but Joel or Kelly will have to fill it for you. I don't want you using the hose! Am I making myself clear?!" Timmy nodded, (We were such young parents that the fact that you simply can't reason with a two year old hadn't sunk in yet.) "Okay, I won't spank you this time but it better not happen again!" said Ted as Timmy nodded again.
The next morning was Saturday and the day started out hot. Timmy ate his breakfast and I dressed him in a tee shirt and shorts. He pulled on his cowboy boots, grabbed Joel's big cowboy hat and yanked it down on his small head, flattening his ears. As he turned to run outside, I reminded my cowboy again not to play with the water hose. When he had been gone for a while I looked out the kitchen window to check on the kids, playing in the yard. Standing beside the tack house was Timmy. He had the water hose in his hand and was spraying everything around him for as far as the stream would reach. I yelled, "Ted!"
Ted came into the kitchen and I said, "Look out back." He peered outside and when he saw Timmy his jaw dropped. "He's gonna get it! he muttered as he bolted for the door. "Ted, he's only two!" I implored. "Maybe he didn't understand." I wasn't even sure if Ted had heard my pleas for mercy as he disappeared from the kitchen.
I retreated into the living room, unable to watch the administration of justice, and after several minutes I heard Ted come back into the kitchen. I went to find out what had happened and was astonished to find him hiding there, laughing his head off!
"What happened? Did he not understand your instructions?"
When Ted gained control he said, "I'll tell you what happened and you tell me if he understood."
He explained that he had run out the door yelling, "Timmy!" and by the time he reached him Timmy had the hose behind his back. He was standing there with an innocent look on his face. The hose shooting a stream of water up his back and onto the brim of the cowboy hat. At the front peak of the hat it ran off and pooled on the ground in front of him. He was the wettest little kid Ted had ever seen.
He said he remembered my words, "Maybe he didn't understand. He's only two!" so he stopped and took a deep breath before he exclaimed, "Timmy,--don't tell me you're playing with the hose again after I told you not to. Don't tell me that you are deliberately disobeying me. I don't even want to hear an excuse!" Timmy stood silent...water running off his hat and gushing out of his boots, the flattened ears, the only dry place on his little body.
"Okay, I won't tell you that." he said to his dad.
"Well, if your not playing with the hose then what is that running off your hat, gushing out of your boots and dripping from your face?" Ted asked.
Timmy looked up, his eyebrows dancing like a hound dog's as his mind raced for an explanation. "Sweat?" he asked.
Ted lost it! He turned on his heels and ran into the house to laugh because he knew he had to spank Timmy and he couldn't do it while laughing.
Disobedience was bad enough but now Timmy had added a lie and one so cleaver that it had become a comedy routine. Ted had to administer discipline, but first he had to stop laughing.
I learned that day just how much we underestimate our children. Timmy at two not only understood perfectly what was expected of him but he had already learned to devise and excuse for disobedience. Neither had it escaped him just how far-fetched the excuse was because he didn't give his dad a definite answer--sweat! Instead, he answered with a question...sweat? or in other words "Would you believe me if I said, sweat?" The only thing this two year old didn't understand was just how far he could skate along the line of disobedience. He found out that day.
Another Timmy incident happened during this same time frame. Ted had a favorite chair in the living room where he sat at night to watch T.V. It was an overstuffed old thing with a foot stool and he loved to relax in it after a hard day.
One night I made Sundaes for our evening snack with scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup. I distributed the sundaes to the three children who usually sat or laid around the floor during T.V. time, then went back into the kitchen to scoop out mine and Ted's. Ted of course had to come supervise the pouring of the chocolate onto his.
While we were in the kitchen Timmy crawled with his short little legs and a bowl full of ice cream and chocolate syrup, into his dad's chair. When we returned from the kitchen, Ted looked at him in surprise and said, "Timmy, that's my chair!" Timmy glanced up nonchalantly and said, "Okay." I took his bowl while he climbed obediently off the chair. None of us noticed afterword as all our eyes were glued to the T.V., that Timmy's weren't. We didn't observe him concentrating on his dad's face until we heard him ask, "Do you feel it yet?
Ted looked at him, perplexed and asked, "Feel what?"
Timmy said, "The shocolate."
I saw Ted's eyes widen as he jumped up from the chair. Just as Timmy said the word schocolate his dad began to feel the wet sticky sensation on the back of his leg. If I remember correctly he didn't laugh that time...but neither did he spank Timmy. "Confession is good for the soul" and sometimes spares the bottom.
(c)copyright2014Laura Gehrke
Monday, January 20, 2014
The Angel from Arkansas
When we came back from Spain in 1973 we landed at McGuire Air Force Base and went directly to Ohio to visit Ted's family. It was June 7, my thirty-fifth birthday. The New Jersey summer was extremely hot!
When we reached Ohio, we spent several days shopping for a camper. We had decided in Spain that this would be our next big purchase. Our car was big, so we knew it would pull a camper. While in Europe we became fans of loading up the kids and taking off for the outer limits of our finances. It was a great way for a middle class family to vacation.
We bought a good used one and parked it in Mom Gehrke's back yard. Ted and I slept in it while we were in Ohio and I sneezed and wheezed from the surrounding farm fields the whole time!
After a couple of weeks in Ohio, we packed up, hitched up and and headed for Texas to visit my dad and his new wife. Mother had died two years before while we were still in Spain and Daddy had remarried a lady who had been my mother's Sunday School teacher. I barely remembered her so I was looking forward to seeing him and getting acquainted with my new step-mother. Also, they had never seen their new granddaughter, our three year old, Jennifer. I could hardly wait to get there. I called them two or three times from Ohio eagerly anticipating the second half of our leave.
We started south, humming right along with our camper in tow. The first night, we parked it beside and all night gas station and went to bed early. We were so pleased with the free accommodations and lunches in our camper, except for one thing. We were burning up from the heat and the farther south we went the worse it became.
The second day out, Ted announced that the car was overheating from pulling the heavy load and we would have to turn off the air conditioner to protect it. We rolled the windows down and panted like dogs from the hot wind that hit us in the face. After suffering for several miles, we stopped to go to the bathroom, spend a few minutes in a cool gas station and grab a snack. Afterward, we reluctantly returned to the hot car.
The kids were whining, crying and fighting each other. It was miserable! Ted pulled the car back onto the highway and said, "Tell you what kids, if you will settle down, Mom will read to us and when lunch time comes we'll stop, go into a restaurant and eat a hamburger instead of eating in the hot camper." They all cheered and settled down for the promised story.
I really didn't have anything to read them except The Daily Bread, a little devotional book that I read every day. So I dug it out along with a Bible from under my car seat and began to read the day's assignment. The assigned passage was "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Psalm 116:15. I was reading from one of the kid's Bibles which happened to be The Living Translation . The verse following said, "He does not lightly let them die".
The story in The Daily Bread, was about a young mother who had gotten up one night to feed her crying baby and in her sleepy stupor had mistakenly grabbed a can of rat poison instead of powdered formula. She mixed it with water and filled the bottle. The infant died of course, and the mother almost lost her mind. The thing that saved her sanity was this verse from the psalm. It gave her comfort and assurance that God loved her and her baby and that He was in control of their lives and their deaths and that He does not lightly allow anyone to suffer death. It seemed a strange and terrible thing for me to be reading to my children and I wondered when I closed the books if I had done the right thing. "Well! That was cheery! said Ted, echoing my thoughts.
Timmy had fallen asleep. Joel and Kelly were discussing how it was too hot to be touching each other. "Don't touch me with your sweaty arm!" was their response to the gruesome story. So I decided that it hadn't made much of an impression on them.
Jennifer was trying to sleep between Ted and I. She kept waking up because of the heat. I bathed her arms and legs constantly with a wet wash cloth. It was the only thing that kept her skin from turning red. We were all extremely uncomfortable.
It was just after noon when we approached the outskirts of Texarkana, Arkansas.. Another half hour and we would be in Texas.
Suddenly Ted turned off the highway and headed for a truck stop. There was a small gas station attached to a roadside restaurant. The buildings were old . The gas station pumps had the old fashioned round tops . We pulled up to the pump and I sighed lethargically. In the window of the restaurant we could see truckers eating big, fat hamburgers. The truckers looked cool and comfortable. "Let's go eat first!" yelled Kelly and Joel together.
"No, you kids keep your seats. I'll just take a minute here then we'll go in and have lunch. Wash your hands, comb your hair and I'll be back as quick as I can." said their dad. They complained a little but settled back to wait.
An old man came out of the station. He had the distinctive loping gait that marked him as a man who had followed a mule in the fields for a good part of his life. He stopped before he reached us, took his hat off and raked his fingers through a mop of thick, black hair then stuck the hat back on his head and pulled it down to his eyes. For some reason the gesture reminded me of my daddy. Daddy also had thick, black hair and wore a Stetson hat. His hat had the same sweat ring around the band and the habit of removing it and running his fingers through his hair was familiar to me. I felt a pang of homesickness and a sudden urgency to get back on the road.
The elderly attendant stuck the nozzle into our gas tank and went to the front of the car to lift the hood. As he struggled with the latch, he looked up at us and smiled. Joel said, "Hey! That man looks like Grandpa Stanley!" I looked at him closely and said, "Yes, he does."
After checking the oil and water, he closed the hood and walked to the water barrel to pick up the squeegee for the windshield. As he cleaned it, he nodded to the kids in the back seat, flashing another big smile at them.. Jennifer crawled into my lap and stuck her head out the window. She reached a chubby hand toward him and started jabbering. He stopped, took her hand and kissed it and made funny noises with his mouth on the back of it. She giggled and Timmy said, "Sir, you look just like our Grandpa!" Kelly chimed in to tell him that Grandpa lived near Waco, Texas and we hadn't seen him in two years and we were on our way to see him. I explained a little more before he moved to the other side with the squeegee. The kids and I were having a good time talking to this familiar stranger when Ted returned to pay him. We heard Ted ask, "How's the food next door?" "Best hamburgers in Arkansas!" he replied.
Ted got into the car and started the engine. The old man smiled and waved at the kids in the back seat and tipped his hat to me.
As we stopped in front of the restaurant Ted asked, "Did you notice how much that man looked like your Dad?"
"Yes." I said, "and he even smelled like him." Daddy had worked in the oil fields of New Mexico for most of my life so the smell of gasoline and oil were odors that I associated with him.
"Let's hurry up and get back on the road, Ted. For some reason I feel like we're late" I added.
We did hurry. We both felt a sudden urgency to get home. We stopped about fifty miles away to call them. Myrtle, Daddy's new wife, answered the phone and said that he had gone to Waco for a doctor's appointment and would probably be home by the time we arrived. I knew he took a bus into the city for those occasions so I had no reason to think that she may not be right.
We arrived just before sundown to find her walking the floor, wringing her hands and fretting. The temperature was still well over a hundred degrees. Daddy hadn't come home with the last bus from Waco and she was frantic. She knew that he was eager to see us and she couldn't imagine why he wouldn't be home.
Their air conditioner had broken and the house was very hot. Myrtle's face was red and she wasn't making sense. We realized right away that something wasn't adding up, so we decided to look for him. We began the search by calling his doctor's office, then their neighbors and relatives, but no one had seen him. The doctor's secretary said that he hadn't even had an appointment that day. The man at the bus station said that he hadn't gotten on the bus that morning. We knew then that Myrtle wasn't remembering anything right.
Ted unhooked the camper and we got in the car and went to the police station in Waco and reported him missing. They got his picture out on the late news. We then decided to conduct our own search through the streets of Waco and up and down the highway in between. By then it was very dark and hard to see anything.
I was almost overcome with worry..crying incessantly and praying aloud. I envisioned his body lying in a ditch. Finally we fell into bed about three a.m. and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. We were up by six to began the search again. We canvased the neighborhood and the neighbor across the street said that he remembered seeing Daddy walk past his house with a bucket about ten a.m. the morning before. He seemed to be headed for the Baptist Church a block away. Daddy sometimes cleaned the church so that wasn't unusual but it didn't jibe with Myrtle's memory. By then people were arriving to help.
About noon we heard a helicopter. It was the police chopper and Ted was aboard it. They were searching the little town from the air. Joel and I ran into the yard to watch as it flew over us. After a few minutes we saw it land in a field behind the church so we ran for the car and drove to the field. By the time we arrived they had found his body. He was lying face down by a barbed wire fence. He had fallen there with his bucket and died of a heat stroke.
There were bee hives a short distance away. The police surmised that Daddy was going there to collect honey. Bees had never stung Daddy for some reason and the man who owned the bee hives had given him permission to rob them anytime he wanted. He was expecting us so he probably went to get fresh honey for us.
They wouldn't allow me to get close to him because the body had deteriorated in the heat. We buried him that week in a closed coffin.
I have wondered since that day about the events surrounding his death. I had a hard time for a while with the thought that we had been cheated. Jennifer never met her Grandpa. He died just a few hours before we arrived home. It was hard not to ask, why. But I was comforted by the words of Psalms 116:15 and the story of that pitiful mother. I was able to say to my children. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. He does not lightly let them die." I could tell them that God had planned it carefully even if we didn't understand it and we could trust Him with Grandpa.
I've wondered too about the old man in Texarkana. The Bible says that sometimes we "entertain angels unaware."
Now granted, it's hard for me to believe that I met an angel in Arkansas but I had to ask myself if he was just a friendly old man exchanging pleasantries with a travel weary family or could he have been sent there for a heavenly purpose...to smile at three hot children, kiss a baby's hand and tip his hat to their mother. Only God knows for sure, but the encounter with that stranger has comforted us all, since that day.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
When we reached Ohio, we spent several days shopping for a camper. We had decided in Spain that this would be our next big purchase. Our car was big, so we knew it would pull a camper. While in Europe we became fans of loading up the kids and taking off for the outer limits of our finances. It was a great way for a middle class family to vacation.
We bought a good used one and parked it in Mom Gehrke's back yard. Ted and I slept in it while we were in Ohio and I sneezed and wheezed from the surrounding farm fields the whole time!
After a couple of weeks in Ohio, we packed up, hitched up and and headed for Texas to visit my dad and his new wife. Mother had died two years before while we were still in Spain and Daddy had remarried a lady who had been my mother's Sunday School teacher. I barely remembered her so I was looking forward to seeing him and getting acquainted with my new step-mother. Also, they had never seen their new granddaughter, our three year old, Jennifer. I could hardly wait to get there. I called them two or three times from Ohio eagerly anticipating the second half of our leave.
We started south, humming right along with our camper in tow. The first night, we parked it beside and all night gas station and went to bed early. We were so pleased with the free accommodations and lunches in our camper, except for one thing. We were burning up from the heat and the farther south we went the worse it became.
The second day out, Ted announced that the car was overheating from pulling the heavy load and we would have to turn off the air conditioner to protect it. We rolled the windows down and panted like dogs from the hot wind that hit us in the face. After suffering for several miles, we stopped to go to the bathroom, spend a few minutes in a cool gas station and grab a snack. Afterward, we reluctantly returned to the hot car.
The kids were whining, crying and fighting each other. It was miserable! Ted pulled the car back onto the highway and said, "Tell you what kids, if you will settle down, Mom will read to us and when lunch time comes we'll stop, go into a restaurant and eat a hamburger instead of eating in the hot camper." They all cheered and settled down for the promised story.
I really didn't have anything to read them except The Daily Bread, a little devotional book that I read every day. So I dug it out along with a Bible from under my car seat and began to read the day's assignment. The assigned passage was "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Psalm 116:15. I was reading from one of the kid's Bibles which happened to be The Living Translation . The verse following said, "He does not lightly let them die".
The story in The Daily Bread, was about a young mother who had gotten up one night to feed her crying baby and in her sleepy stupor had mistakenly grabbed a can of rat poison instead of powdered formula. She mixed it with water and filled the bottle. The infant died of course, and the mother almost lost her mind. The thing that saved her sanity was this verse from the psalm. It gave her comfort and assurance that God loved her and her baby and that He was in control of their lives and their deaths and that He does not lightly allow anyone to suffer death. It seemed a strange and terrible thing for me to be reading to my children and I wondered when I closed the books if I had done the right thing. "Well! That was cheery! said Ted, echoing my thoughts.
Timmy had fallen asleep. Joel and Kelly were discussing how it was too hot to be touching each other. "Don't touch me with your sweaty arm!" was their response to the gruesome story. So I decided that it hadn't made much of an impression on them.
Jennifer was trying to sleep between Ted and I. She kept waking up because of the heat. I bathed her arms and legs constantly with a wet wash cloth. It was the only thing that kept her skin from turning red. We were all extremely uncomfortable.
It was just after noon when we approached the outskirts of Texarkana, Arkansas.. Another half hour and we would be in Texas.
Suddenly Ted turned off the highway and headed for a truck stop. There was a small gas station attached to a roadside restaurant. The buildings were old . The gas station pumps had the old fashioned round tops . We pulled up to the pump and I sighed lethargically. In the window of the restaurant we could see truckers eating big, fat hamburgers. The truckers looked cool and comfortable. "Let's go eat first!" yelled Kelly and Joel together.
"No, you kids keep your seats. I'll just take a minute here then we'll go in and have lunch. Wash your hands, comb your hair and I'll be back as quick as I can." said their dad. They complained a little but settled back to wait.
An old man came out of the station. He had the distinctive loping gait that marked him as a man who had followed a mule in the fields for a good part of his life. He stopped before he reached us, took his hat off and raked his fingers through a mop of thick, black hair then stuck the hat back on his head and pulled it down to his eyes. For some reason the gesture reminded me of my daddy. Daddy also had thick, black hair and wore a Stetson hat. His hat had the same sweat ring around the band and the habit of removing it and running his fingers through his hair was familiar to me. I felt a pang of homesickness and a sudden urgency to get back on the road.
The elderly attendant stuck the nozzle into our gas tank and went to the front of the car to lift the hood. As he struggled with the latch, he looked up at us and smiled. Joel said, "Hey! That man looks like Grandpa Stanley!" I looked at him closely and said, "Yes, he does."
After checking the oil and water, he closed the hood and walked to the water barrel to pick up the squeegee for the windshield. As he cleaned it, he nodded to the kids in the back seat, flashing another big smile at them.. Jennifer crawled into my lap and stuck her head out the window. She reached a chubby hand toward him and started jabbering. He stopped, took her hand and kissed it and made funny noises with his mouth on the back of it. She giggled and Timmy said, "Sir, you look just like our Grandpa!" Kelly chimed in to tell him that Grandpa lived near Waco, Texas and we hadn't seen him in two years and we were on our way to see him. I explained a little more before he moved to the other side with the squeegee. The kids and I were having a good time talking to this familiar stranger when Ted returned to pay him. We heard Ted ask, "How's the food next door?" "Best hamburgers in Arkansas!" he replied.
Ted got into the car and started the engine. The old man smiled and waved at the kids in the back seat and tipped his hat to me.
As we stopped in front of the restaurant Ted asked, "Did you notice how much that man looked like your Dad?"
"Yes." I said, "and he even smelled like him." Daddy had worked in the oil fields of New Mexico for most of my life so the smell of gasoline and oil were odors that I associated with him.
"Let's hurry up and get back on the road, Ted. For some reason I feel like we're late" I added.
We did hurry. We both felt a sudden urgency to get home. We stopped about fifty miles away to call them. Myrtle, Daddy's new wife, answered the phone and said that he had gone to Waco for a doctor's appointment and would probably be home by the time we arrived. I knew he took a bus into the city for those occasions so I had no reason to think that she may not be right.
We arrived just before sundown to find her walking the floor, wringing her hands and fretting. The temperature was still well over a hundred degrees. Daddy hadn't come home with the last bus from Waco and she was frantic. She knew that he was eager to see us and she couldn't imagine why he wouldn't be home.
Their air conditioner had broken and the house was very hot. Myrtle's face was red and she wasn't making sense. We realized right away that something wasn't adding up, so we decided to look for him. We began the search by calling his doctor's office, then their neighbors and relatives, but no one had seen him. The doctor's secretary said that he hadn't even had an appointment that day. The man at the bus station said that he hadn't gotten on the bus that morning. We knew then that Myrtle wasn't remembering anything right.
Ted unhooked the camper and we got in the car and went to the police station in Waco and reported him missing. They got his picture out on the late news. We then decided to conduct our own search through the streets of Waco and up and down the highway in between. By then it was very dark and hard to see anything.
I was almost overcome with worry..crying incessantly and praying aloud. I envisioned his body lying in a ditch. Finally we fell into bed about three a.m. and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. We were up by six to began the search again. We canvased the neighborhood and the neighbor across the street said that he remembered seeing Daddy walk past his house with a bucket about ten a.m. the morning before. He seemed to be headed for the Baptist Church a block away. Daddy sometimes cleaned the church so that wasn't unusual but it didn't jibe with Myrtle's memory. By then people were arriving to help.
About noon we heard a helicopter. It was the police chopper and Ted was aboard it. They were searching the little town from the air. Joel and I ran into the yard to watch as it flew over us. After a few minutes we saw it land in a field behind the church so we ran for the car and drove to the field. By the time we arrived they had found his body. He was lying face down by a barbed wire fence. He had fallen there with his bucket and died of a heat stroke.
There were bee hives a short distance away. The police surmised that Daddy was going there to collect honey. Bees had never stung Daddy for some reason and the man who owned the bee hives had given him permission to rob them anytime he wanted. He was expecting us so he probably went to get fresh honey for us.
They wouldn't allow me to get close to him because the body had deteriorated in the heat. We buried him that week in a closed coffin.
I have wondered since that day about the events surrounding his death. I had a hard time for a while with the thought that we had been cheated. Jennifer never met her Grandpa. He died just a few hours before we arrived home. It was hard not to ask, why. But I was comforted by the words of Psalms 116:15 and the story of that pitiful mother. I was able to say to my children. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. He does not lightly let them die." I could tell them that God had planned it carefully even if we didn't understand it and we could trust Him with Grandpa.
I've wondered too about the old man in Texarkana. The Bible says that sometimes we "entertain angels unaware."
Now granted, it's hard for me to believe that I met an angel in Arkansas but I had to ask myself if he was just a friendly old man exchanging pleasantries with a travel weary family or could he have been sent there for a heavenly purpose...to smile at three hot children, kiss a baby's hand and tip his hat to their mother. Only God knows for sure, but the encounter with that stranger has comforted us all, since that day.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
The Broken Watch
"I wonder what's in that big box under the tree," I asked, then glanced at my mom and dad just in time to see them exchange a smile.
"It's a shoe shine kit." said Daddy. "Mother and I thought it was about time for you to get a job so we bought you a shoe shine kit for Christmas. After you open it you can go to work. I hear they are getting up to a quarter a pair down at the bus station."
"Oh Daddy!" I exclaimed, making sure my exasperation came through. But by the time Christmas came I was almost convinced that it was a shoe shine kit and I would be expected to go right to work. You can imagine my delight when I opened the big box to find a smaller box wrapped inside it. I tore into that one only to find a smaller one inside that one. This continued in graduated sizes until I came to a little box in the center of it all and unwrapped my new Elgin watch. I was so proud of that watch (and not just a little relieved that it wasn't a shoe shine kit). It was just like my mother's watch that Daddy had given her the year before.
"...sixteen jewels and 14 carrot gold with a gold stretch band!" said Daddy proudly, as he put it on my wrist. "It's just like your mother's and should last you a lifetime if you take care of it."
I was eight years old and it felt good to be trusted with something so precious. I wore it every day through elementary school, high school and college and even after I was married. Finally in my late twenties my watched stopped and I couldn't get it to run again. I took it to a jeweler and he pronounced it hopelessly dead. He told me that he could no longer get parts for it. I cried privately then bought a cheap ten dollar watch to replace it. I couldn't help thinking, I'll never get another good watch because Ted is just a poor Airman!
The years passed and when Mother died, Daddy gave me her watch. "She wanted you to have it, even though it doesn't run any more. Maybe someday you can get it fixed." he added. By then my Elgin had been lost.
I took it to a jeweler and received the same depressing diagnoses that had been given about mine...no parts available. I put Mother's broken watch in my jewelry box and was sad that I couldn't use it.
Years went by and my little daughter, Jennifer began to play dress up. She went into my jewelry box and put on the watch along with her finery. I know this only because she confessed it later. She lost the watch that day and months passed before I missed it. We searched the house in vain and finally gave up on it.
A couple years later a friend joined me one day to help me with my spring cleaning. We were moving appliances to clean under them when she spied that glittered beneath the stove. "Look, I found a watch!" she exclaimed. I cleaned it up and happily returned it to my jewelry box where it lay forgotten unless I saw it when I dug around for jewelry.
Sometime later we were on our way to school one morning and Jennifer was shaking her pencil box in the back seat, just to make noise. I looked at it and asked, "What in the world do you have in that box?" She said, "Treasure!" I said, "Let me see it." She handed it over with what I thought was a sheepish look on her face and when I opened it I understood why. There was my Mother's watch! As you can imagine, I was pretty upset with her and began to threaten that if she ever touched that watch again... Suddenly Ted interrupted me and said, "Let me see that watch." I gave it to him and he rubbed it between his fingers as he drove the car, then put it into his pocket. "I think I'll take it back to a jeweler. Surely technology has come far enough to fix this watch by now." Once again, I let it go and forgot about it.
A couple weeks later Ted came in and put it on my wrist. It began faithfully ticking away the time of my life.
Now far be it from me to moralize such a thing (wink, wink) but the watch has become a symbol for me. It was something precious that I treated carelessly. It is something that is "numbering" my days that I had disregarded. It is a reminder of my mother and all the time she gave to me and of my dad and my husband who faithfully provided for me for so many years of their lives...and I had thrown it into a box and lost it over and over again.
Symbols are important. They remind us of the things we should value and reveal to us how little we do value them. We forget so easily what we owe to others. Maybe it's us that is broken.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
"It's a shoe shine kit." said Daddy. "Mother and I thought it was about time for you to get a job so we bought you a shoe shine kit for Christmas. After you open it you can go to work. I hear they are getting up to a quarter a pair down at the bus station."
"Oh Daddy!" I exclaimed, making sure my exasperation came through. But by the time Christmas came I was almost convinced that it was a shoe shine kit and I would be expected to go right to work. You can imagine my delight when I opened the big box to find a smaller box wrapped inside it. I tore into that one only to find a smaller one inside that one. This continued in graduated sizes until I came to a little box in the center of it all and unwrapped my new Elgin watch. I was so proud of that watch (and not just a little relieved that it wasn't a shoe shine kit). It was just like my mother's watch that Daddy had given her the year before.
"...sixteen jewels and 14 carrot gold with a gold stretch band!" said Daddy proudly, as he put it on my wrist. "It's just like your mother's and should last you a lifetime if you take care of it."
I was eight years old and it felt good to be trusted with something so precious. I wore it every day through elementary school, high school and college and even after I was married. Finally in my late twenties my watched stopped and I couldn't get it to run again. I took it to a jeweler and he pronounced it hopelessly dead. He told me that he could no longer get parts for it. I cried privately then bought a cheap ten dollar watch to replace it. I couldn't help thinking, I'll never get another good watch because Ted is just a poor Airman!
The years passed and when Mother died, Daddy gave me her watch. "She wanted you to have it, even though it doesn't run any more. Maybe someday you can get it fixed." he added. By then my Elgin had been lost.
I took it to a jeweler and received the same depressing diagnoses that had been given about mine...no parts available. I put Mother's broken watch in my jewelry box and was sad that I couldn't use it.
Years went by and my little daughter, Jennifer began to play dress up. She went into my jewelry box and put on the watch along with her finery. I know this only because she confessed it later. She lost the watch that day and months passed before I missed it. We searched the house in vain and finally gave up on it.
A couple years later a friend joined me one day to help me with my spring cleaning. We were moving appliances to clean under them when she spied that glittered beneath the stove. "Look, I found a watch!" she exclaimed. I cleaned it up and happily returned it to my jewelry box where it lay forgotten unless I saw it when I dug around for jewelry.
Sometime later we were on our way to school one morning and Jennifer was shaking her pencil box in the back seat, just to make noise. I looked at it and asked, "What in the world do you have in that box?" She said, "Treasure!" I said, "Let me see it." She handed it over with what I thought was a sheepish look on her face and when I opened it I understood why. There was my Mother's watch! As you can imagine, I was pretty upset with her and began to threaten that if she ever touched that watch again... Suddenly Ted interrupted me and said, "Let me see that watch." I gave it to him and he rubbed it between his fingers as he drove the car, then put it into his pocket. "I think I'll take it back to a jeweler. Surely technology has come far enough to fix this watch by now." Once again, I let it go and forgot about it.
A couple weeks later Ted came in and put it on my wrist. It began faithfully ticking away the time of my life.
Now far be it from me to moralize such a thing (wink, wink) but the watch has become a symbol for me. It was something precious that I treated carelessly. It is something that is "numbering" my days that I had disregarded. It is a reminder of my mother and all the time she gave to me and of my dad and my husband who faithfully provided for me for so many years of their lives...and I had thrown it into a box and lost it over and over again.
Symbols are important. They remind us of the things we should value and reveal to us how little we do value them. We forget so easily what we owe to others. Maybe it's us that is broken.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
Saturday, January 18, 2014
The Haunted Farm
"Sweet Memory! Wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail." Samuel Rogers
As I leaned on the dilapidated old fence, I fought back tears. I was staring, for the first time as an adult at Grandpa's farm house.
The house sat, leaned and fell in the middle of the front acre of the farm, looking like an abandoned old woman...a lady who had once stood tall and straight and smelled of roses with brilliant hydrangeas on her skirt, pine trees in her hair and music in her soul.
I closed my almost 30 year old eyes and reached out beyond the fence to touch her. As my hand extended toward the house I felt ghosts flutter at my fingertips. They weren't cold as you'd expect phantoms to be, but warm, frolicking spirits of children laughing and screeching as they ran barefoot on the smooth hard wood floors.
I was one of them and at nine or ten years old, one of the oldest of the cousins visiting Grandpa's farm with my Mom and Dad. We were "home" for some occasion and it was late summer or early fall. The family was so large that we had to stagger our visits so there would be enough beds for sleeping and space at the table for everyone.
I heard one of my aunt's yelling, "You kids get on out into the yard to run...Mama! Cain't you take them to the field with you til we get the house cleaned? They're driving me plumb crazy!" "I reckon," said Grandma, "but they'll have to work... cain't have 'em stompin' round in the wagon bed and scarin' old Tom!" "Old Tom" was the mule. We all loved and feared him at the same time. He was big and strong and obedient only to Grandpa. He was impatient with kids and dogs. He'd been known to step on them if they got under foot. So we loaded into the wagon amidst a cacophony of instructions from mothers and aunts and headed for the cane field with Grandma and Old Tom.
There Grandma organized us into a small army. We filled the wagon bed with sugar cane in a short while then climbed on top of our harvest and struck out across the field toward the syrup mill. We chewed the sweet stalks as we bounced along.
At the mill we found the second mule of the team hitched to a mill stone that crushed the sugar cane. He was a more gentle creature than old Tom and tolerable of noisy children, so we jumped off the wagon and formed a circle around him. We stroked his side as he passed within arms length.
Grandpa was inside the mill house stirring the syrup which was cooking in a large vat. When he saw us coming across the field he had scooped up chunks of rock candy from the sides of the vat. Our treats were cooling on a board laid across the top. This was our "pay" for helping in the field. After a while we each grabbed a chunk of candy, hugged Grandpa's legs and waist, according to our height, then followed an uncle as he led us back across the field to the house. We waved as we watched Grandma and one of the uncles take old Tom back to the field.
Back at the farm house we lined up to wash our hands in a wash pan on the porch before lunch. Lunch was in the dining room and consisted of a platter of leftover biscuits and a pitcher of molasses which we washed down with a tall glass of fresh milk.
After lunch the younger ones had their feet and hands washed and went to bed for naps. Us older kids got to sit on the long back porch and shell peas, snap beans or shuck corn with the aunts all afternoon. These were special moments when we could listen to them talk of old times, old friends and laugh together for hours.
Back in the present, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arm drop onto the fence. The sounds and smells and coolness of my bare feet on the wood porch began to fade. I gazed once again at the pathetic old lady in front of me and tasted the salt of my tears as they trickled into my mouth. Kelly, my own little girl, was tugging at my skirt. "Mom, why are you crying?" she asked. I looked down at her, speechless for a moment, then heard my voice squeeze by the lump in my throat as I answered, "Ghost."
She looked at me a little scared so I scooped her up and walked to the car. "I'll explain later." I said,-- but I never did. I couldn't explain it. I really didn't understand it myself-- why the memory was so powerful that it caused me to cry, or why it was so profound that it couldn't be put into words.
As I look at it through wiser 70 something eyes, I can now see more than I did that day. I see that it was gratitude that washed over me. Gratitude for a big family that gave us love and good values. And I see a longing for a simpler time but with this older, wiser insight, I know only one thing for sure, these memories are my priceless treasurers that I wouldn't sell for gold! They will continue to delight and warm me for as long as I can think and remember because they are sweeter to me than sugar cane and rock candy.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
As I leaned on the dilapidated old fence, I fought back tears. I was staring, for the first time as an adult at Grandpa's farm house.
The house sat, leaned and fell in the middle of the front acre of the farm, looking like an abandoned old woman...a lady who had once stood tall and straight and smelled of roses with brilliant hydrangeas on her skirt, pine trees in her hair and music in her soul.
I closed my almost 30 year old eyes and reached out beyond the fence to touch her. As my hand extended toward the house I felt ghosts flutter at my fingertips. They weren't cold as you'd expect phantoms to be, but warm, frolicking spirits of children laughing and screeching as they ran barefoot on the smooth hard wood floors.
I was one of them and at nine or ten years old, one of the oldest of the cousins visiting Grandpa's farm with my Mom and Dad. We were "home" for some occasion and it was late summer or early fall. The family was so large that we had to stagger our visits so there would be enough beds for sleeping and space at the table for everyone.
I heard one of my aunt's yelling, "You kids get on out into the yard to run...Mama! Cain't you take them to the field with you til we get the house cleaned? They're driving me plumb crazy!" "I reckon," said Grandma, "but they'll have to work... cain't have 'em stompin' round in the wagon bed and scarin' old Tom!" "Old Tom" was the mule. We all loved and feared him at the same time. He was big and strong and obedient only to Grandpa. He was impatient with kids and dogs. He'd been known to step on them if they got under foot. So we loaded into the wagon amidst a cacophony of instructions from mothers and aunts and headed for the cane field with Grandma and Old Tom.
There Grandma organized us into a small army. We filled the wagon bed with sugar cane in a short while then climbed on top of our harvest and struck out across the field toward the syrup mill. We chewed the sweet stalks as we bounced along.
At the mill we found the second mule of the team hitched to a mill stone that crushed the sugar cane. He was a more gentle creature than old Tom and tolerable of noisy children, so we jumped off the wagon and formed a circle around him. We stroked his side as he passed within arms length.
Grandpa was inside the mill house stirring the syrup which was cooking in a large vat. When he saw us coming across the field he had scooped up chunks of rock candy from the sides of the vat. Our treats were cooling on a board laid across the top. This was our "pay" for helping in the field. After a while we each grabbed a chunk of candy, hugged Grandpa's legs and waist, according to our height, then followed an uncle as he led us back across the field to the house. We waved as we watched Grandma and one of the uncles take old Tom back to the field.
Back at the farm house we lined up to wash our hands in a wash pan on the porch before lunch. Lunch was in the dining room and consisted of a platter of leftover biscuits and a pitcher of molasses which we washed down with a tall glass of fresh milk.
After lunch the younger ones had their feet and hands washed and went to bed for naps. Us older kids got to sit on the long back porch and shell peas, snap beans or shuck corn with the aunts all afternoon. These were special moments when we could listen to them talk of old times, old friends and laugh together for hours.
Back in the present, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arm drop onto the fence. The sounds and smells and coolness of my bare feet on the wood porch began to fade. I gazed once again at the pathetic old lady in front of me and tasted the salt of my tears as they trickled into my mouth. Kelly, my own little girl, was tugging at my skirt. "Mom, why are you crying?" she asked. I looked down at her, speechless for a moment, then heard my voice squeeze by the lump in my throat as I answered, "Ghost."
She looked at me a little scared so I scooped her up and walked to the car. "I'll explain later." I said,-- but I never did. I couldn't explain it. I really didn't understand it myself-- why the memory was so powerful that it caused me to cry, or why it was so profound that it couldn't be put into words.
As I look at it through wiser 70 something eyes, I can now see more than I did that day. I see that it was gratitude that washed over me. Gratitude for a big family that gave us love and good values. And I see a longing for a simpler time but with this older, wiser insight, I know only one thing for sure, these memories are my priceless treasurers that I wouldn't sell for gold! They will continue to delight and warm me for as long as I can think and remember because they are sweeter to me than sugar cane and rock candy.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The "Why" of My Blog"
"...Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done." Psalms 78:4
The "why" of my blog...well first of all, I think I've finally been dragged, kicking and screaming into the 21st century. It has been my firm conviction, for a long time, that I should write everything down for my children and grandchildren. (See the scripture verse above.) I feel obligated to let them know where I came from and how I've failed in some areas and succeeded in others and what I learned on my journey. Aside from that, I love to write and now I have time to write. On that subject, friends and family, you shouldn't expect brilliance. I'll be happy if when you get through reading my writing you say something like..."sounds just like her".
This is my introduction to my blog and because of that, I'm going to be borrowing from Chuck Swindoll's introduction to his book, Strengthening Your Grip. In that introduction he condenses in a few paragraphs, the six decades, from the '30s to the '80s. Since they were also the "times of my life", I identified with his synopsis. I only wish he could have spoken about the '90s and 2000s. But the book was written in the '80s so I guess I'll have to do that on my own. I will be both quoting and condensing what he said. I'll try to credit him with quotes when I can, so I won't be stealing his words and claiming them as my own.
Chuck Swindoll...."Every decade possesses a particular characteristic. It comes into focus without announcement or awareness as the years unfold.. Not suddenly, but quietly. Almost imperceptibly. Like random pieces of a puzzle...each a different shape and size...the events and people and ideas of a decade begin to come together in a meaningful form. First a corner, then a side, finally the entire border falls into place. But the scene is not immediately clear.
Years must pass. As they do more sections fit together, and meaningfulness starts to emerge. By the end of the decade, the seasoned picture is obvious, including the shading, harmony of colors, and even our feelings about the finished product. Every decade puts a frame around its own particular scene.
I was born in 1934". (That was Chuck. I was born in 1938.) "The '30s bring the distinct impression that it was a decade of idealism. Renewed hope clawed its way from beneath the devastation of the Great Depression. Optimism and diligence joined hands with determination, giving our country a needed boost out of the ominous shadows of the late '20s."
I grew up as a youngster in the '40s...a decade of patriotism. Chuck said of this time... "Nationalistic zeal reached its zenith as "our boys" slugged it out in Europe and the Far East. ...gasoline and food rationing, plus an unconditional commitment to win, gave us a feeling of pride and partnership as we rallied around the flag. Nobody questioned authority...babies born in the forties learned the pledge of allegiance as early as they learned the alphabet."
By the '50s, I was a teenager. My high school years in New Mexico could have been the perfect place to film "Happy Days." My education continued with Business college in Lubbock Texas, cut short by marriage to a handsome Airman in the USAF. Kids came quickly after that, then I proceeded to follow him around the world for the next 21 years. Chuck says, and I agree, that "the '50s were a decade of materialism, a time of dreaming, learning, earning, and succeeding. "The good life" seemed attainable to all who would work longer hours and reach for the top. War was behind us, everyone was going to college, jogging, self improving. What we overlooked was the growing number of children who got caught in the backwash of our materialistic greed. The fuse burned shorter each year ....only a matter of time before the powder keg would blow."
Then came the '60s. Who could ever forget the anger, the riots, the frenzy of the sixties? A decade of rebellion. (This is where Chuck inserts Rock and Roll. Actually for me, by then I had pretty much out grown Rock and Roll. I was a fan of R and R in the '50s.) Chuck goes on to say..."The foundations of our new frontiers came unglued. Campus riots, civil rights marches, political assassinations, the growing addiction to T.V., domestic runaways, sit-ins, drug abuse. My kids were very young at the time, but I remember being scared for them growing up in such a time. On top of all that, Chuck goes on to describe, "a weird war in Southeast Asia...the black eye on Uncle Sam's face, the no-win wound that refused to heal. Nothing was quiet on the Western Front in the '60s."
He said that this era led us, "Limping and licking our wounds, into the '70s. Depressing folk songs and the strumming of a guitar had now become our national emblem ...increased passivity characterized our leadership...confusion replaced confidence, ushering us into a decade of disillusionment." Everything was questioned...the integrity of our Oval Office, the proper role of women, the need for national defense, capitol punishment, ...abortion,...the media,...the home..the school.,... the church,..the establishment,... nuclear energy, ..ecology, ....marriage... I could go on and you could add your own list. We lost purpose, direction and hope. We lost our grip on absolutes in the '70s
If we went "limping and licking our wounds" into the '70s, we wandered "aimlessly" into the '80s Swindoll said, "The grim-faced, tight-lipped, double-fisted fight of the '60s had turned into a lazy yawn twenty years later. The brave slogans of the '40s---'60s, "Remember Pearl Harbor" and "We Shall Overcome", had turned into "Don't mistake me for someone who cares!" We isolated ourselves with computers, TV., games. The tide of apathy had risen and our sandcastles were washed out to sea." This of course was the national perspective. On the personal front it was a joyous time of family weddings, grandchildren, and the bright spot of Reagan's presidency. We, as Americans, were fighting for our nationalistic identity with the progressives. Capitalism was under attack and the welfare state on the rise.
The '90s were characterized by this battle Our public schools and colleges had been under the influence of "Humanism" for decades and it was beginning to rule all of our educational institutions. As it gained supremacy so did global warming, abortion, the anti-war sentiment, socialism and amoral attitudes. By then, Bill Clinton was our president and the country watched in horror as he desecrated the Oval Office and answered the growing threat of terrorism by lobbing rockets over to the middle east to bomb "aspirin factories". On a personal note it was the decade when my life was changed forever by the loss of my faithful husband, Ted Gehrke. Chuck didn't name it but I would call the '90s, the age of decadence and disappointment.
Now we find ourselves in the 2000s and the picture of this decade is just being painted. It started out with a bang as we watched the twin towers fall to the feet of a false god by the hands of terrorists in hijacked planes. This was followed quickly by wars in the middle east and the deaths of thousands of people, ours and theirs. It's been very sad so far as our nation reels and rocks like a drunk...the future uncertain in foreign affairs and in one domestic battle after another, as we fight for the supremacy of ideas and values. Chuck Swindoll summed it up this way after his synopsis of the '80s. "We cannot drift on the ship of aimless indifference very long without encountering disaster". (That was prophetic.) "God's eternal and essential principles must be firmly grasped and communicated afresh if we hope to survive. None of them are new. But for too long, too many of them have been buried under the debris of tired cliches and predictable talk of yesteryear. Most people are not interested in religious bromides that come across in a dated and dull fashion. We need biblical fixed points to hang onto...firm, solid handles that will help us steer our lives . What we really want is something to grab...believable, reliable truth that makes sense for today's generation.essential principles for our chaotic world."
Finally, Swindoll concludes, "the Lord is "the same yesterday and today, yes and forever" (Heb. 13::8). The puzzle of every new decade rests firmly in His hands. He is still in charge. In spite of how things may appear, our times are still in His hands" That is the message I want to convey in this blog. This is the message that I have believed and that has sustained me throughout the decades of my life Hopefully it will encourage someone to continue their journey with their eyes fixed on the only fixed position...the Lord Jesus Christ.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
The "why" of my blog...well first of all, I think I've finally been dragged, kicking and screaming into the 21st century. It has been my firm conviction, for a long time, that I should write everything down for my children and grandchildren. (See the scripture verse above.) I feel obligated to let them know where I came from and how I've failed in some areas and succeeded in others and what I learned on my journey. Aside from that, I love to write and now I have time to write. On that subject, friends and family, you shouldn't expect brilliance. I'll be happy if when you get through reading my writing you say something like..."sounds just like her".
 |
| Swindoll's Book |
Chuck Swindoll...."Every decade possesses a particular characteristic. It comes into focus without announcement or awareness as the years unfold.. Not suddenly, but quietly. Almost imperceptibly. Like random pieces of a puzzle...each a different shape and size...the events and people and ideas of a decade begin to come together in a meaningful form. First a corner, then a side, finally the entire border falls into place. But the scene is not immediately clear.
Years must pass. As they do more sections fit together, and meaningfulness starts to emerge. By the end of the decade, the seasoned picture is obvious, including the shading, harmony of colors, and even our feelings about the finished product. Every decade puts a frame around its own particular scene.
I was born in 1934". (That was Chuck. I was born in 1938.) "The '30s bring the distinct impression that it was a decade of idealism. Renewed hope clawed its way from beneath the devastation of the Great Depression. Optimism and diligence joined hands with determination, giving our country a needed boost out of the ominous shadows of the late '20s."
I grew up as a youngster in the '40s...a decade of patriotism. Chuck said of this time... "Nationalistic zeal reached its zenith as "our boys" slugged it out in Europe and the Far East. ...gasoline and food rationing, plus an unconditional commitment to win, gave us a feeling of pride and partnership as we rallied around the flag. Nobody questioned authority...babies born in the forties learned the pledge of allegiance as early as they learned the alphabet."
 |
| Me at 15, in 1953 |
 |
| Ted Gehrke in 1956 |
 |
| Children hidding in a swamp in Viet Nam |
He said that this era led us, "Limping and licking our wounds, into the '70s. Depressing folk songs and the strumming of a guitar had now become our national emblem ...increased passivity characterized our leadership...confusion replaced confidence, ushering us into a decade of disillusionment." Everything was questioned...the integrity of our Oval Office, the proper role of women, the need for national defense, capitol punishment, ...abortion,...the media,...the home..the school.,... the church,..the establishment,... nuclear energy, ..ecology, ....marriage... I could go on and you could add your own list. We lost purpose, direction and hope. We lost our grip on absolutes in the '70s
 |
| President Ronald Reagan |
The '90s were characterized by this battle Our public schools and colleges had been under the influence of "Humanism" for decades and it was beginning to rule all of our educational institutions. As it gained supremacy so did global warming, abortion, the anti-war sentiment, socialism and amoral attitudes. By then, Bill Clinton was our president and the country watched in horror as he desecrated the Oval Office and answered the growing threat of terrorism by lobbing rockets over to the middle east to bomb "aspirin factories". On a personal note it was the decade when my life was changed forever by the loss of my faithful husband, Ted Gehrke. Chuck didn't name it but I would call the '90s, the age of decadence and disappointment.
 |
| The World Trade Center, 2001 |
Finally, Swindoll concludes, "the Lord is "the same yesterday and today, yes and forever" (Heb. 13::8). The puzzle of every new decade rests firmly in His hands. He is still in charge. In spite of how things may appear, our times are still in His hands" That is the message I want to convey in this blog. This is the message that I have believed and that has sustained me throughout the decades of my life Hopefully it will encourage someone to continue their journey with their eyes fixed on the only fixed position...the Lord Jesus Christ.
(c)copyright2014lauragehrke
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)