A TRIBUTE TO JIM

I’ve written many blogs since I began this blog site but I don’t think I’ve ever written one in honor of my husband Jim.  It’s long overdue!

Probably most of you don’t know that I met Jim on a blind date.  In my last year of college I had been casually dating this guy who had agreed to take me to my college senior prom.  He had also agreed to provide a date for my friend.  Then, maybe a week or so before the prom, we broke up.  I didn’t care that much whether I went to the prom, but I had promised my friend a date and I hated to disappoint her.  So, I began calling all the single guys I knew to see if I could line up a date for her.  No luck.  That’s when Mom stepped in.

My mom was a vice president of a savings in loan and she worked with a lot of women.  One of those women had four sons, so Mom asked if her two oldest might take my friend and me to the prom.  She was very specific that her oldest son Jim should be MY date.  Well, I was thrilled when this very handsome blond haired, blue eyed guy picked me up, and we had a great time at the prom.  We began dating steadily right after, and the rest, as they say, is history!  Fourteen months later, we were married.  This past July marked our 46^th year of marriage.

Like every couple, we had many ups and downs during those years.  Sometimes the downs were pretty low, but now we’re here, just us two, living out our retirement years together, and it’s great.  

If you know Jim, you know he’s a quiet guy.  He says plenty to me, but socializing with groups of people has never been his forte.  That’s why I am so grateful for the kindness and selflessness he’s shown since we made this big move.  He knows how important it is for me to make friends here, so he has been incredibly great, stepping way outside his comfort zone so that I can have friends.  

Not long ago we began having breakfast after church with other couples from our community who also attend our church.  We’ve attended numerous neighborhood get togethers to meet neighbors, and we even took a bus trip to Georgia and North Carolina where we mixed with many of our fellow travelers.  Jim’s willingness to do all these things, for my sake I’m sure, have helped me, and him too, to feel so at home in our community.

Socializing may not be high on Jim’s list of favorite things, but one thing that has always been true of him is that he has a soft, servant’s heart.  Whenever there have been opportunities to serve, Jim steps up, and never complains.  He’s delivered meals long distances in service to people in need from church, driven to the airport for a one neighbor, changed light bulbs for another whose husband was traveling, and he has volunteered to do whatever is needed for a local impoverished public elementary school.    

Yesterday when I was reading the Bible for an upcoming study, I read this in 1 Peter 4:10 and thought of Jim:

“Each one should use whatever gift he has to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”

I’m thankful that 45 years ago, the Lord intervened in a relationship I had, and as a result, I met Jim.  He is an awesome guy, a faithful husband, and a true servant.  Many have been the recipient of God’s grace through him.  Especially me!  I’m thankful for God’s gift in such a wonderful life’s partner.

THE LAW OF SIN AT WORK

Every now and then, when I’m happily going my way, feeling pretty good about myself, the Lord gives me a glimpse of just how sinful I really am, and it hurts.

I have spent time, night and day these last few days wondering, and talking with the Lord, about how I could have said words I said, hurtful and demeaning words, that I cannot take back.  There was a way to address the things that bothered me that would have resulted in a parting of the ways perhaps, but left the relationship intact. I did not take that way and now I believe the damage is irreparable.

The irony of it all is that I’ve been studying the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the verses where Jesus says: “You have heard it said, ‘Do not murder and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”  

I’d like to think that I would never be guilty of breaking the commandment that says, “You shall not kill.”  Pretty proud of that fact, actually.  But as soon as Jesus takes it to the next step, I’m done for.  

Today I understand so well the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:

“I find this law at work (in me).  When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched (wo)man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

This week I have been a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  It shames me.

Clinging to Paul’s final word:

“Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

A LIFELONG LOVE AFFAIR

 I have had a lifelong love affair with books.  My earliest memory of the spark that lit that flame of love was when my mom sent me to my Aunt Elsie’s house.  At the ripe old age of six, my mom put me on a bus, armed with a paper bag containing my weekend clothes, and I would wait for the bus driver to tell me when my stop came.  I don’t remember how often my cousin Marianne met me at the bus stop, maybe it was only that once, but she did something I had never done before, she made a stop.  The stop was at a tiny little storefront library filled with more books than I’d ever seen in one place, and Marianne let me take books out on her library card!  I remember borrowing a Madeline book, still popular today.  And so my love affair began.

 

The next memory I had was going to the main library in my town, twelve blocks away from where I lived.  I don’t know how old I was then, but I must have been young enough to still frequent the children’s section, yet old enough to walk there by myself.  It became my favorite place.  It was cool on those summer days before air conditioning and it smelled, just like books!  

From that point on I was never without a library card, and never without a book.  I lived for summer vacations so I had time to indulge my favorite pastime.  While my brother, the more gregarious people person, was hanging with friends playing ball, I was inside reading.  Reading transported me to other places, inhabited by other people, and I loved that.  My favorite early books were the Nancy Drew series of mysteries.  Mysteries have continued to be my favorite genre since.

My mom, because she had worked much of my growing up life in banking, the hours of which were sometimes irregular and included at least one evening, encouraged me to become a teacher, so that I could be home on school vacations when I had a family of my own.  I did become a teacher, but was nearly a decade before I had children of my own. In the meantime, all that time off for holidays and summer meant hours and hours of reading time!  I had picked the PERFECT occupation for passing the time in a book!

When my first daughter came along, I was not prepared, in so many ways, for how time consuming it was to take care of a baby!  Reading on a quiet afternoon, or before going to sleep at night became a thing of the past, unless you counted reading, “Tubby the Tugboat” a billion times as “reading”.  Both of our girls incorporated "reading" when playing with each other, and their dolls and stuffed animals, not because they were reading yet, but because they had memorized story lines from their favorite books!

When my girls were older, I took them to the library and got them a library card, though they could barely print their names.  We would come home loaded with books and read them over and over till it was time for the next library trip.  We participated in all the library summer reading programs in the towns where we lived.  We took books to the town pool and read them while we dried off or had a snack.  There is nothing like an afternoon with Ramona Quimby or Amelia Bedelia to pass a summer at the pool. 

Then, when they were in grade school, I began to structure their summer days by insisting on at least a half hour of quiet reading every day.  One of my favorite things to do now is to talk books and share favorites with my youngest daughter Becky who has inherited my love of reading.

A few years ago, for a reason I can no longer remember, I was convicted about my reading tastes.  I had always been more of a fiction fan, and not surprisingly, mostly of mysteries – with the occasional non-fiction thrown in.  I began to think that I needed to expand my reading to include more non-fiction books, so now I challenge myself every January to read a certain number of fiction and non-fiction books, and I record their titles and authors in my journal.  That way I can read authors I especially enjoy, and avoid those I don’t!  At first I thought I'd have trouble finding enough non-fiction books I would enjoy, but it seems that one topic leads to another until I love both genres equally now.  And I love to watch my lists fill out over the course of a year and celebrate when I reach my goal, especially in those years when I finish ahead of year end!

When we left New Jersey for Florida, one of the first things I did was get a library card.  I have a kindle which is convenient, but I still prefer the feel of books, the smell of books, and the quiet atmosphere of a library, to reading my kindle, and I still make my regular visits.

Today I was sitting on a lounge chair at the pool, having had a luxurious swim, enjoying lovely breezes and reading (of course!), a book entitled, “When Books Went to War”, appropriate for a book lover!  And I was thinking how awesome it is to love reading, and now have all the time in the world to indulge in my most favorite love affair, the one I have with books!