Happy Birthday Month

Our family continues to celebrate after the official holiday season is over. Kirk had his 36th birthday on January 4th, and my brother, David, is celebrating his 67th birthday today. My grandson, Caleb will be 15 years old on the 31rst. Mine is somewhere in between. We celebrate life and thank God for family and friends!

I'm looking forward to going out West in February to spend time with my son, Kirk, and 4 brothers, David, Galen, John and Roger.

Noel will be going to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix on January 17th to spend a week. We have already begun praying that the doctors can do something for his electrical system if that would glorify Him.

Yesterday, I taught 2 hours of grammar from 10 to noon. My students learned irregular plurals, and count and non-count nouns. After lunch, I taught an hour of reading, and an hour of writing. The story in the text was about people who received a sample bottle of liquid detergent that had a picture of lemons on the label. Some people put it on their salad or in their tea because they had not read the label carefully. If we don't ask questions, we often hurt ourselves when jumping to conclusions. In fact, we look foolish.

After school, I drove to the mall to use my gift certificate for BonWorth. Then, I went to Wal-Mart to replace my taper candles. I got back in my car feeling satisfied that I had made some good purchases. However, after checking my mirrors and slowly backing out, I felt something and quickly hit my brakes. An 80 year old lady had decided to pull out at the exact same time. I apologized and began to assess the damage. As she ranted and raved, I couldn't find the slightest dent on either car. She insisted that the black line on the rearend of her car was caused by me. My car is not black-- and when I traced my finger across the line it came off. She kept insisting, so I asked the fellow who was waiting to park, if he would check. He couldn't find any damage either. And then, a man who had been parked while his wife was shopping got out of his van and shouted that I had tapped the side of her car, not the back end at all. I thanked God for this "angel" and assured the lady that there was no damage. (Probably because I was moving about 5 mph.) As I drove away, I kept thinking about the lady who wanted there to be a problem. While working in a nursing home years ago, I was told that people become more of what they are as they grow older. We will become more positive and sweet, or more negative and bitter. It is our choice. God help me to choose faith over fear!