Anger

Do you like to read?? I read everything, always, constantly. I always have. When I was young a friend (after whom I was named) gave me the complete works of O. Henry for Christmas, before I even knew who O. Henry was. I must have read them many times over the years. I do not have them now - perhaps in all the moves we made, they got lost, sold, or given away. My brother received the complete works of Sherlock Holmes which I read after he went off to college and left them at home in the bookcase. Wonder I did not read them sooner?? We also had the My Book House series,  a set of 12 books that started out with nursery rhymes and continued on up as the reading ability in increased. I also read them often. As a child in Chicago, we visited the library almost weekly - I must have read the Snick, Snack, Snirr and Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka books hundreds of times!! I have even read through the Bible several times. Now with the past few weeks of shelter at home I have been invading the library here at the park to find reading material.  I read anything that catches my fancy at the time. I just finished an interesting book, Once Upon a Town. A story of North Platte, NE during the second World War. The troop trains came through this small town out in the middle of nowhere in NE and stopped for water. The troops were allowed to leave the train for 10, maybe sometimes 20 minutes while the locomotive filled up with water. The whole town and surrounding areas prepared sandwiches, bottles of milk coffee, and other treats and gifts for all the soldiers who were on their way West, and even those returning to the East.  One day they served 7000 troops!! An unbelievable story. When I am waiting in a line, I read whatever is in my sight - I am sure some folks sitting at a desk thought I was peering at the papers on their desk - nope - just my insane desire to read anything.

 

Whoo - the temp right now is 105 degrees. No one is outside at all. If I wasn't writing this blog, I would be reading or sewing. When sorting through some things in order to clean out old projects, I came across an old clothespin bag from of my mother's. It probably was given out at a Home Show in the small town we lived in. Look at the phone number - only three numbers - and I am sure the telephone operator knew every number by heart and to whom it belonged. All of a sudden I remembered some fabric I had squirreled away - perhaps I would be able to incorporate this old clothespin bag into a quilt?? What do you think??   

the fabric that I had on hand

                                                             the clothespin bag from the 50's

Another wonderful week serving the colonias. Both Tuesday and Friday distribution were blesssed with an abundance. A new item this week, frozen biscuit dough - it was starting to thaw out so we took each biscuit and rolled it into a ball and portioned it out 8 into each bag. Thank goodness for some of the ladies who helped with that sticky project. The week before last, Magdalena gave us 4 breakfast tacos with homemade tortillas, eggs, and chorizo. This week she gave us 4 more - only this time the taco was more like a gordita with eggs and cactus. Very good and a great lunch for us after we finished with the distribution. We love our ladies!! As we were traveling on Friday to pick up our food, there was a beautiful moon, sliding in and out of the clouds. The pictures do not do it justice. 

                                           

                                           

Continuing in the book of James, Pastor Vance compared it with the violence and anger that abounds in the country today. James 2:8 says "If you truly keep the royal law found in Scripture, "love your neighbor as yourself", you are doing right". Right now we are doing the right things to end the spread of the contagious virus, but anger is also contagious. We need to get control of the anger that is spreading all over our country right now. It is spreading as fast as any disease can. We need to get control and set the right tone for our country. We need to slow down and look to God's grace at this time. Don't be overcome by the temptation of ignoring God's goodness during this trying rime. Anger is considered a secondary emotion. The environment of our country today sets the stage for this emotion to surface. More important than the fact of trying to be right, we need to concentrate on retaining the relationship in the world. If someone loses in any relationship, everyone loses. We often think our own opinions are the right one, so we get caught up in a turmoil of emotion. "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry,because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God deserves. Therefore, get rid of all the moral filth and the evil that so so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you" James 1:19-21. These verses are not hard to understand, but are hard to implement. We need to be stirred up to understand this. "In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold". Ephesians 4:26-27. To the day she died, my mother carried this guilt, as she and my father had an argument in which she went to bed angry. During the night he got up and had a blood clot and fell over dead. She often preached to my and my daughters about this. I tried to help her understand that God forgave her and she needed to forgive herself, but I really do not think she ever did. Don't stew in anger or you will give the devil a foothold. Hurt people tend to hurt people. When you hold in your anger, you do the opposite of: be quick to  listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. It becomes slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry. This does not lead to a righteous person. When you act like this, it becomes an unhealthy pattern. When you cannot get your anger under control, you cannot hear God. God does not speak to the humble. Go to Him in a humble attitude and He will hear you. When you feel the angry juices flow think quick, slow, slow. Act in the Word of God. A camera, mirror, and the Word of God helps us to see who we really are. We need to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. Go out and look after those in need, love God, love others,and serve others. 

Continue to pray for our country to turn itself around and begin to love each other again.