Sunday Night Ramblings

Good evening all!  As I wait for John to finish up on what could be a long phone call, I thought I'd write a few of my latest random thoughts.

First of all, I have to say I like my dad's style of family history.  He makes books about not too distant family members, then sells them for cost to any one who wants one.  The books are collections of memories from people who knew the people he's writing about, so you get a pretty good idea of their life and character.

 I recently was given his latest effort on the parents of my mother's father.  (I could just call them my great-grandparents, I suppose.)  I have learned things that I never knew.  How many of you can say your great-grandpa had a glass eye, and could take it in and out at will!  I also learned that my great-grandmother was an excellent sugar cookie baker, and kept them in a crock with a plate on top for a lid.  She also kept her spoons in a glass bowl that sat in the middle of the dining room table.  Her kitchen was no bigger than a closet yet she fed anybody and everybody, probably because her husband was bishop for 28 YEARS!  When I got married her daughter, my great-aunt, my grandpa's sister, sent me a dish with a rose on it, that had belonged to Minnie (great name, eh!).  I loved it then, but now that I know more about her I love it even more.   Many of the entries in this book say at one point or another, that 'they were the salt of the earth'.  I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think it means that they were pretty darn good people, and I have a lot to live up to!

Second rambling: We walked to church this morning.  It was beautiful outside and we like to have those few minutes going and coming.  (The only downside is I don't lotion up my hands, because my church lotion is kept in the van.  Maybe I'll get some for the stroller...).  Well, like I said it was beautiful outside.  Little did we know we would practically freeze to death on the way there.  Note to self: Beautiful does not mean warm.

Third and maybe final...sounds like John's wrapping it up: I'm reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.  I've read it before so I know what's coming and I'm reading it anyway.  I am only on page 45, but there are already quotes that I'd like to remember.  Click HERE to see an interview with her.

"That was Father's secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn't know they were there."

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent.  Today I know that such memories ar the key not to the past, but to the future.  I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do."

This one comes from Corrie's mother:

Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings, Corrie.  It's something we make inside ourselves."

 And this from her father:

"Do you know what hurst so very much?  It's Love.  Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.  There are two things we can do when this happens.  We can kill the love so that it stops hurting.  But then of course part of us dies, too.  Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel. Whenever we cannot love int he old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way."

This is not light reading, people.  It is, however, light-giving reading. 

Number Four (not off the phone yet!): Hmm.  Can't think of anything.  You?