Tuesday, July 5, 2016

GOD'S TRAINING TIME


Hello, Neighbor. Glad you stopped by.

Well, there we were close enough to a church that I could walk to it. So we began attending  this little church that sat at the cross roads. I also began going to the little Prayer Meeting that was held at a lady’s home up behind us.  I must confess it was a new experience for me.  I don’t remember there being a study or not, but I surely do remember how surprised I was when it was time to pray.  They all got down on their knees at their seat and prayed, and I admit that I just let it pass me by.  It took a while before I got up the nerve to say something.  I guess that shows that I was gaining some spiritual growing at that little church. 

There is one sermon that I really remember.   I really felt like the preacher was talking straight to me.  It was about making a commitment to be at church every Sunday.  So I told Al how the message impressed me and ever since we have always made a point to be in church on Sunday.  Of course there are times when traveling or other reasons prevent us from always being there.  But if nothing serious, we were there, all kit and caboodle of us.

Well after living in that small house along the side of the main road from Augusta to Lewiston where the traffic could be quite heavy at times, we decided that perhaps we should find another house to call home. There was not much space between the house and the road. One day I found our middle child riding his tricycle up the middle of the road. That settled that. This was not a very good place for three children to try to play outside. 

We found a nice two story old house right on Main Street in the next town up from Greene.  We found out later that other people had looked at this same property but no one got it.  I told them that God had it picked out for us and they didn’t have a chance.

Well, I think God brought us to this little town of Monmouth, where He was going to begin my training.  I was always a shy, introvert sort of person.  One of the first things I guess was to bring me outside of myself so that I could work and be around other people.  So I joined the Grange. This is an organization that was started many, many years ago. It’s main purpose was to keep up with the bills, etc. that were voted on by law makers, especially those that would affect the farmers.  I held a number of offices and one of them was called the Lecturer.  This was the person who would put on entertainment for the meetings.  Sometimes there would be visitors from other granges or maybe the State Grange. I guess I did alright getting up in front of a lot of people and putting on programs.  One year I was chosen as the Lecturer of the year for the whole State of Maine. We also started a Jr. Grange for the children.  I was elected to oversee the running of the Jr. Grange. Of course all three of our children were in it as well as many of the other town kids.  Again this was more training for me in being in charge and helping the Jr. Officers to do their obligations.

Just so this whole training experience won’t be too long, I will just mention some of the other areas that God had me take part in: Help the producer of a fund raiser program for the Lions Club who sponsored the Baseball team; the next year I was the producer of the program.  Then there was the Cub Scouts of which I was a den mother; and I organized the Bi-centennial  parade for our town.
All these various “jobs” taught me many things about organizing, planning programs, directing others, and just bringing me out of myself.  Just to be able to stand in front of a large group of people and do “my thing”.  I still am a non-social person.  I do not like social affairs where people just sort of stand or sit around and talk, but let me get up in front of a large group and do “my thing” I am ready to go.

Well, then came the day when Al got word that the company wanted to send him to the Buffalo,  N.Y. to work there. So another move was on the way. And another new training session with God.  (to be cont.)

Stop by again and we'll have another chat.



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