Stories and other stuff

I was outside cleaning my pool a while ago.  I let the dogs out.  The beagle will come when you call her, most of the time, and most of the time stays in the yard.  When she ventures out, she always comes home.  Long time readers of the blog will know what's coming next.  For you occasional readers, my other dog, Bucket, is a bit more of a free spirit (and occasional jailbird) so he has to be on a chain.  I was out there, cleaning the pool.  Buck is on his chain.  Katie is in the back yard. I looked up and both dogs were gone.  At first I thought Miss June brought them in.  I looked a couple of minutes later, though and saw the beagle.  And then I saw the empty collar.  Bucket is on the run. I turned off the pool pump, ran into the house, informed the immigrant, and found my keys.  I had his collar, grabbed a leash, and the search was on.  As I walked to the truck, my roommate's friend was coming up the driveway a...

So, I started out with the intent to poke fun at the universe but I still have this reverent fear of God.  I will laugh with Him, never AT him.  And I'm honestly humbled that the God who created me loves me enough to be involved with my life. It also didn't hurt that I heard the last part of the book of Job on the radio today.  So, instead of mocking the things I saw this evening, I will just tell of them. I have a doctor's appointment in Salt Lake on July 15.  June was kind enough to remind me the date has some significance to her. I passed a couple on the track around the duck pond this evening.  They have a son named Cody.  As I was walking along the track, I saw several cars pass from the base housing area with Wyoming license plates.  Please keep in mind that I'm only telling a story. As I drove back to the hangar, I saw something I have only ever seen one of before, and that was the one I used to own and got almost dead in several years a...

When we first moved here just about ten years ago, one of the things we discovered we had was the dying quivers of a raspberry patch.  Over the years, one or maybe two canes would grow.  We'd enjoy a small handful of raspberries and that was it.  Two years ago, though, I noticed the raspberries were running away from where they were and headed for open ground where Miss June has her small garden.  I cleared away the weeds carefully and nurtured 19 raspberry plants I found growing amongst the weeds.  Last year, I put down bark to mulch the area and counted 54 raspberry plants. We just picked raspberries.  We will be picking raspberries again tomorrow and once again next week. What started out as a forlorn little spot in the back 40 has turned into a productive patch of ground which will provide our family (and yours too if you're nice to me) with some homemade raspberry jam. We don't take lightly the blessings we've been given here at Lark Circle.  ...

Lately the blog posts have been short.  There's a reason for that.  There are stories but some are just for keeping to yourself.  Today's though, maybe not so much because it's such a reflection on sin and our broken world. I was ill last night.  I still am.  It's a chemically induced illness caused by a lung function test in which the administration of an inhalant to yours truly was on the menu.  Yours truly did not have a positive reaction to said inhalant and I'm still feeling it today.  I just need to get through the next three days and there will be time to recover. Anyway, that explains why I was home last night to hear the radio program I did, and in it the man was talking about reading a book on raising children and being asked by his daughter why the Bible wasn't all the book he needed?  The man described that revelation by using an illustration from the old "Skin Bracer" commercials where a man after shaving gets slapped in the face ...

I had a birthday like no other.  I mean that. I'd love to tell you all about it but you wouldn't believe it. Or, maybe you would....

I get these inspirational videos sometimes and I thought this one was going to be deep, to explain something to me in ways that would help me understand "why".  As always, there is a back story to my story and this is it: Lsst night about 9:30 p.m., I began to feel the Holy Spirit lift all my burdens from my heart.   I told God I don't know what changed and really didn't need to know.  I told God I didn't want to know why or what changed. I don't care why I feel the way I do today and if anything tries to creep back in that doesn't belong, it's going to be met with a resolved fight to not let it. I would have used a smaller word but that implies I'd be talking about someone else and that's part of what I had to let go of.  The ex is another I let go of so very long ago and save for this last story, that's not for comment either. God answers prayers.  Try praying for your enemies  I prayed for mine; I prayed he'd learn to become a ...

Since I wrote my last blog post, my life has been literally flipped upside down.  I had some things to pray through this morning, and by God's grace, I'm hoping that those things are as far removed from my heart as the east is from the west.  I sure feel better. There's a flip side to the rowboat story.  Even when a man has the best of intentions, you cannot help or same someone from what they don't want to be saved from.  I had to come to that realization and the realization that although I want to be the right man at the right time to get the job done, what was on my heart might have just been a heart memory. I took that away from the men's conference too.  Our hearts have memories.  The speaker made an excellent point by retelling a story about a dream a young girl had after receiving a heart transplant.  As the story goes, the girl had a vivid dream about how the donor met her demise.  She was killed and the recipient of the transplant had...