ONE LITTLE STEP FORWARD AND ONE GIANT ONE BACKWARDS

Hello Neighbor. thanks for stopping.

When I lived back on the farm, it was just as normal for us to attend Sunday School and Church as it was to attend to any of the other things that were a part of our life on the farm.  We went to a Methodist church in the little town of North Wayne.  Mom and Dad were usually the ones to get there to get things started.  I learned all about God, Who He is and What He had done. God , the Creator.  I also learned about “ All have sinned and fallen short of the Lord”.  That Jesus was God’s Son and that He died on the cross to forgive me of my sins. So church was always there.

It’s strange how easily we slip out of the habit of church when we leave home for college or work, or maybe some other reason. Well, I was no different.  I never gave much thought about looking for a church or considered going to one.  Now that was before God stepped in again with another of His little boosts.  For some unknown reason, I decided to go to church one Sunday morning. This is while my sister and I were living and working in the Boston area.  Since I didn’t know about many churches, I chose to go to one of the biggest ones in Boston. Tremont Temple.  It was like going to a huge concert, or opera house.  I sat high up in a balcony and looked down onto the main floor where it looked like hundreds of people were sitting.  After the sermon ,  the usual call for people to come forward who needed to ask Jesus for forgiveness of sins, etc.  I looked at how far away I was and of the long walk to get down from the balcony, walk down that long aisle and to the front of the church and said to myself," Guess not.”  

I decided I would give it a try next Sunday only this time I would sit down on the main floor. At least if the Spirit moved me I would at least be closer to the front.  And that is what I did. I guess God had another step for me to take.  I went in the back with a person and they went  through the usual procedure of words and prayer.  I said, “Yes”, and prayed with them.  And then I left.  No one ever did a follow-up on me. I suppose they have hundreds come forward and can’t follow-up on everyone.

Well, so much for that.

 The only thing I really remember is that I knew I meant what I said and what I believed.  And I guess that is a step in the right direction.  But it’s not easy living as I was living in a place like Boston with no mentors or church family to help me along the way.  They usually call someone like me a “baby” Christian.  Well a baby sure needs someone to help them along the way. So I just went my own way as I was before. And my way soon led me to that road that has the wide gate as the Bible says and I just continued on my way on that wide road.  Well, after some time of that, I guess God decided He’d better step in again and He did. He got me back on the farm.  

  Well, now I needed a job and God  had that all lined up too. It was at the same place where Al worked only I didn’t know Al at that time.  But God did.  Well, to make that story short, Al and I got married and settled in on the farm in the big old farm house because my Grandmother was living in a smaller house in North Wayne.  It  wasn’t long when Al began to talk about buying our own  place. So we did. And guess who picked out the house. God did. It was in a small town called Greene, about 30 minutes from the farm. But just a mile or so up the road was this small church and on the dirt road that went behind our house was a woman who had Prayer Meeting time at her place once a week. So after a while, we got involved at the little church and I went to the Prayer Meeting. So God had finally gotten me to where I was back in church again.

Well guess I'd better continue what God does next until next time. It's getting hard to keep us with Him.

Glad you stopped by and do so again sometime soon.

BEING A TEACHER

Hello Neighbor. Thanks for stopping by.
To be a public school teacher is a long road to travel. There are schools to attend, certificates to get, and degrees, just to mention a few of the bumps along the way.  People become school teachers for a variety of reasons.  Some choose the younger children, some the middle children. Some choose to teach teens or college students.  Some teachers choose this career as a job, some teachers choose to teach because they love their students. and some teachers teach because there is something inside them that God has given them as a gift and they teach because they cannot help themselves. Whatever the reason a person chooses to teach there is a great reward to seeing little minds or bigger minds absorb what you are teaching as they grow into useful adults.

My "teaching" sort of got it's start back when I was attending that one-room schoolhouse that I went to for nine years.  I remember as I advanced to higher grades I would take the Kindergarteners or First Graders up to the big black board and help them to learn their ABC's or reading, or numbers.
Now that I am 80 and have had many years to look back upon things that have happened along the way, I can see how God was beginning to prepare me for the work He had me created for.

After graduating from the 8th grade in that one-room schoolhouse, I moved on up to high school. The high school was some distance from the farm that we lived on. I had to take the same bus that I used to take to get to the one-room schoolhouse where the bus picked up the kids in the little town of North Wayne who were in high school. Since the bus went right by our house, I just had to catch it as it stopped on its way back from North Wayne.

High school sure was some different from the school in North Wayne. It had three floors. There was a gym on the bottom floor and the other two floors had the classrooms.  Being in high school was just about the same as it was in North Wayne.  Living on the farm I did not have the opportunity to have a social life with the kids that lived in either town.  Consequently, high school  presented the same situation. I rode the bus in and rode the bus out. There was not much time for socializing with the kids in my class or the other classes.

By the time I reached my Senior year, I had discovered that I had an interest in Secretarial Work. Going on to college never occurred to me. Life on the farm certainly didn't give me an opportunity to even think about it.  But God did.  Some of the colleges would send booklets telling about their schools and what they had to offer.  I did look at some of them out of curiosity, I suppose. There was one that might be a possibility. This was a 2 year business school. It was located outside of Boston, Mass.  They offered classes for students such as I was an opportunity to attend their school by living with a family who would provide room and board in return for helping them with whatever they needed.  Here was a chance!  One only God could come up with.  So I was going to go to college! Who would have thought it possible. The family I would be living with was a Dr. and his wife and their four children. So I spent the next two years getting more education to be a secretary as I also became very much involved with my new "family".

After graduating from Mt. Ida I found a job right there outside Boston in Watertown working as a typist for the Polaroid  Company. They made those new fangled cameras that you pulled the film out of after taking the picture and waiting for it to develop as you held it. That was the first big step to following God's plan for me.   He had more for me which I will write about next time.

Stop by again sometime and we will chat some more.

THE HOUSE THAT DAD BUILT

Hello Neighbor. Glad you stopped by.

When we lived in the little cabin on the hill next to the farm house, my mother told my dad that she wanted a house down the hill in a field.  So Dad, who never built a house or anything else, for that matter decided he would build that house.

He went down to the field. I expect he did some pondering on just how to build a house and how to lay it out.  My mother tells me that one day Dad asked her to come and see what he had done. Well, when Mom got out there in the field, Dad showed her four stakes marking four corners.   My mother looked at them and said, "Is this the living room?"  Well, my father told her that it was the whole house. I don't expect that impressed her very much.  But I know how misleading that can be. I thought the same thing when the ground was laid out for the home that was going to be built for us behind our daughter's house.  Her husband, Roy, was going to build our new house. Things look smaller than they really are.

Well, anyway after Dad convinced Mom that it was the floor plan for the whole house, I expect that she had to just trust that he knew what he was doing. Anyway, Dad got to work and began building a house that he had no idea if he could or not. The foundation was put in place and the walls, etc. began to show up.  I was too little to be too interested in the building of a house.  What I do remember is mostly the things my Mom told us.

Like when the house got to where it had a kitchen and another room added on, which eventually would be the dining room. I guess my mom was anxious to get into that house. Tired of the crampness of that one room cabin, she tells me that they moved into that house, a kitchen and an empty room to be a dining room, in the middle of the winter.  Everyone in town thought sure we would freeze to death through the winter especially those two little girls.  But as you can see, we didn't.

Well, Dad kept working away off and on. Whenever he had a music gig and would get a little more money, perhaps another wall would go up, or another window would go in.  People used to drive by to see if another window had been added.  Slowly but surely,my father kept to the job. I wonder how many times he might have wanted to throw in the towel.  But, by gorry, one day there it stood in all its splendor. A whole house built,wired and plumbed by a man whose only thing was music. One does not know what one can do unless circumstances force one to just step up and do it.

The thing I remember most about this house building project was when it was all done and Dad was going to pull the switch to see if the lights would work.  I think I remembering him saying something if the thing didn't blow up.  Well when I heard those words I was off and running up the road to get just as far away from that house as I could.  Well, We lived in that house all the years while I grew up, graduated from high school, went to business school and got married.  The house is still standing and so my Dad COULD build a house.

Stop by again sometime and we'll have another chat.