Liz's Front Porch

Wrong-Side-Out Apron Days

Tomorrow, Dear Heart and I will celebrate SEVEN years of marriage. Ha! And they said it would never last!!

Yet we are still on an awesome trip. IF we stop doing stuff long enough for me to get that scrapbook together, you’ll see what I mean.

In seven short years...among more routine things:

·     We’ve traveled around the country—and hosted here on the hill—weddings, birthdays, graduations, first communions, reunions, anniversaries, and welcome home celebrations.

·     We’ve sent a son to war. Twice.

·     We’ve experienced all the holidays on the calendar in a new and more meaningful way every year. Honest!!

·     We’ve learned our way around at least six different hospitals on more occasions than I want to recount.

·     We’ve taken food to the sick, visited nursing homes, applauded friends performing in theater, sat with other friends during their last days, cheered at band concerts, cried at funerals, watched parades, attended meetings, worshipped, prayed, shared pot-luck suppers, signed books, and cleaned out the empty nest way too many times.

 

In the last post, I included a photo of my handsome, stately, and most lovable Dear Heart. What a guy!

So, it’s only fair to post a photo that shows what my sweet man puts up with on a routine basis! Believe me: around our hill, the days are seldom boring!!

Preparing for our Easter meal, Daughter Melinda giggles while Memaw—in the wrong-side-out apron—endures wisecracks from Grandson John. Ashley is behind the camera and Gus encourages the bedlam.

Giving Thanks with a Grateful Heart,

   Liz

Happy Birthday, Son

xxxxxxx years ago this very day - (well about just before noon and on a Saturday), my second born child and my only son made his grand entrance into the world and attached himself to my heart forever.

To properly celebrate the birth of this very wonderful and awesome guy, the world is seeing the very first full moon of 2009 today, January 10, 2009.

I love you, Eddy. I'm proud of you. I'd be proud even if you weren't the fabulous U.S. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant you are. I'd be proud even if you had not chosen the most perfect wife in the whole world to be my daughter-in-law. I'd love and be proud of you even if your weren't the father of the most precious granddaughter the world has ever seen.

Actually, I would not trade you for any other son in the whole wide world.

Be happy. I'll call you after a while. We traveling and I don't have any of your cute little boy pictures to post! forgive me!

Love,

your very proud Mother

Thanksgiving Blessings

  Just in case you plop down in front of your computer to hide while the kids clean up the kitchen, I want you to know I am thinking of you and praying God’s sweetest blessings to pour out so full and fast, you’ll have to grab your umbrella before you can offer Him thanks and praise!

Blessings EVERY day,

   Liz

 

P.S. Advent begins this Sunday. Please drop by my porch-or fireplace- often for

Advent Minutes with Liz ------

TV and My Common Cold

I’ve learned two new things today.

    One, daytime television is every bit as awful as evening/nighttime television.

I know because it’s been a long weekend. Even with the flu shot, some kind of awful stuff-in-the-head-throat-chest hit me with a wham last Friday morning. I quickly slowed down, tried to rest,  consumed gallons of orange drink, water, and icy cold 7-Up and called up all of Mother’s Absolute Cures for the Common Cold I could remember. Saturday and Sunday brought no relief, little sleep, a totally plugged up head, and general misery. I dragged around the house, moaned and groaned a lot and loafed at my computer.

    Although today is a beautiful autumn Monday in Texas and my flowerbed needs urgent attention, I grabbed a stem of mint for hot tea and ran back inside. I feel worse but none of the symptoms yell out: “call the doctor,” so my self-medicating program demanded that I spend the day in bed. Staying in bed all day is the blight of existence for me. I find nothing fun, restful, or helpful wasting time away lying in bed in daylight hours. Dear Heart and my daughter carefully and dutifully checked on me from the doorway. They handed drinks to me at arm’s length then rushed to wash their hands. Watching me suffer encourages them not to catch whatever “it” is. Since I don’t even remember how to twiddle my thumbs, I turned on the TV and got a cramp in my finger changing channels on the remote.

    The TV commercials show products that only a young, stay-at-home mom would need. Sorry, but I don’t know a single one of those young women who ever have time to watch daytime television. Some of the new-fangled, modern cleaning materials seemed too good to be true, so I clicked away from them. Watching Sandra Lee take an amazing assortment of semi-homemade Thanksgiving leftover’s to her perfectly appointed table complete with hand-made napkin ring/name cards exhausted me so I took a nap.

    When the phone rang, I woke up and drank another glass of cold 7-Up. It was then I knew I had learned a second lesson.

Wham – smack in the head – I could have prayed!

    Today, I had quiet time handed to me on a silver platter complete with an afternoon of no interruptions. With curtains drawn and the room darkened, I pulled out my Bible but I could not focus on the words. Instead of lying quietly and worshipping my Father, I pushed my Bible off to the side of the bed and flicked on the television.

    Typical, I guess, of us human kids of God’s.

The food channel can show us how to make leftover’s appealing, but I want to give God the first of my fruits and of my days and of my life.

 

Thank You, Father, for giving us new days and new chances!

Blessings on your prayer life!

     Liz   

   

The Joy of Adult Grandkids

Funny thing about open doors and sad hearts…

After arriving back home on Wednesday from our trip that didn’t happen, Friday afternoon, some of Dear Heart’s Texas grandkids blew in our front door!

Two of ‘em. Along with two buddies and one grand dog. Young adults. Texas deer hunters. A fireman, a college kid, a schoolteacher, a dad in search of deer meat for his family. And Willie, our granddog.

The hurt of missing the other family evaporated and there was no time to sit and sulk!

We laughe and hugged then while spreading a little cash around a local eatery instead of washing dishes at home, we got to know the new "best gal" of a grandson.

The kids and Willie slept in their campers on our west slope and didn’t complain about the light freeze that descended on us. When the girls sneaked inside to take hot showers Saturday morning, we didn’t tell them that the tough guys did, too!

After bagging a deer, they took in Fredericksburg, including kidding around with my grandson while he waited on them at the restaurant where he works. Then before heading out to the famous Luckenbach Dance Hall that night, the four of them provided supper for us! They went to the store, bought groceries themselves, cooked dinner in our kitchen, sprawled around wherever to eat and visit with us, and cleaned up the whole mess. Sassy, our guard cat argued about sharing her space with Willie while the young adults hung out and talked to us. They told us about their jobs, school, and asked us questions about our “old days.” They actually listened to our stories!

It doesn't get much better than that.

So, we missed out on one blessing but we got another one in its place, proving that growing old does come with good things: adult grandchildren! Perhaps King Solomon was thinking of our adult, grown-up GRANDkids when he wrote, “A wise son makes a father glad.” (Proverbs 10:1)  Makes a Memaw smile, too!

As King David admonished in Psalm 69:30, this week Dear Heart and I have “Praised God’s name in song and glorified him with thanksgiving.”

In fact, since we’ve in the season of Thanksgiving, I refer you to Psalm 100. All five verses!

I’m certainly going to be diligent about searching for all the sweet things my Holy Father has for me. I hope you’ll do the same!

Hugs and Blessings,  Liz  ©

Back Up and Listen

Hi, Friends. I'll bet you thought I forgot you! Not a chance. And I really missed spending time with you!

Even though our November weather in Texas is front-porch-delightful, we haven't spent much time out there lately because in addition to preparing to leave on a 16 day car trip, things have been extra hectic around our place.

But this afternoon, Dear Heart announced, "It is Porch Time!"

It was good to just sit and rock for a while. We looked ahead to our trip and pondered the last three weeks. Ouch!

The day after I wrote about wiping up spills on my desk, my computer died. Had nothing to do with the water and coffee drenching all my papers or with me or worms or viruses. Just this plain-old-modern-technology world we live in that gets out of hand now and then. One program refused to talk to another program, then some hardware started sulking, and before I knew it, a cyber war was raging right under my fingertips.

Nevertheless, through a bunch of long nights, many harried telephone conference calls with parties of the first, second, and third parts, floods of tears, miles stomped back and forth to our gate to let off steam, and after the manufacturer erased everything on my harddrive back to factory settings of 9 months prior, there was a beautiful light at the end of my long, dark tunnel.

It took about five days altogether, but-- GUESS WHAT!!! Every dot and tiddle, every file, picture, document, tax record, blog entry, favorite, and every single one of the 45,000 words of my novel are ALL back, each nestled in its own safe file and folder on my desk top, resting beautifully. Absolutely amazing.

The only credit I can take is that I listened to an excellent computer guru who God sent my way last summer. At his advice, I purchased a fancy, way out there pie-in-the-sky internet back up system. Since I do NOT believe in accidents, God over-ruled technology and reminded me to recall my grandmother's advice: "Better safe than sorry!" The best $50.00 I ever spent. So, along with Rush and Kim Komando, I absolutely and highly recommend Carbonite at www.carbonite.com.

However, I think there is a deeper lesson here about being still and listening. I have a hard time with both of those. I'm glad God is patient with me. It seems to me that He cares about all things in our lives. Afterall, if my little aches, pains, joys, sorrows, problems, glitches, and hard work were not important to Him, He would not have gone to all the trouble to send Jesus to the cross for me. I think He meant it when he said in Jeremiah 33:3: "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know."

Our friend, Jeremiah, also records in 29:12 that "you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you." So, I'm standing in the gap for some dear ones with really big problems. Isn't it awesome to KNOW that the Most High God Himself is listening?

Remember to do your back-ups, check the smoke-alarm batteries, turn your clocks BACK, be sure to vote on Tuesday, and take some time to listen. I'll be spending some extra quality time with my Heavenly Father. I hope you'll do the same!

Enjoy your extra hour tonight! I'll chat with you while we're roaming between Texas and Ohio.

   Blessings from

         Liz

                   ©

Mopping up Spills

I did it. Big time. I made a mess on my desk the other day.

It really wasn't too bad, but I was upset. Totally! There was only half a cup of coffee and thankfully no cream--no sugar! I got it wiped up before too much damage was done. But I fussed and complained while I sopped up coffee.

I didn't get the message though so, naturally, there had to be a second.

Last night, in a huge hurry AGAIN, I knocked over a whole glass of water on my desk. BIG mess. Wet water went everywhere. I grabbed towels, jerked up important papers, blotted receipts and miscellaneous instructions and cried with every swipe. Why me? Why am I so clumsy? I keep making messes!  I fumed and cried more. I slammed stuff and shoved stuff and fussed at everything in sight. There was as much self-pity wet tears on my face as there was wet water on my desk. I rushed to the bathroom and grabbed my hair drier, hoping to salvage some of the more important papers. As I stood at my desk, blowing hot air through a handfull of paper, it hit me.

I turned off the blower, hung my head, and cried tears of shame to my Lord. Only a few hours drive from our lovely, secure, dry, home in the Texas Hill Country lies the beautiful and sometimes peaceful Gulf Coast. When Ike ripped and roared through there a few weeks ago, people lost every thing they possessed except what they could stuff into a couple of suitcases. Everything. Not just a few damp papers that would dry. My friend's children lost their entire home and all its contents while they were welcoming a new grandbaby to the family in Oregon. All along South Texas, the papers, photographs, furniture, and clothes would not clean up nor dry. Things were ruined. Gone. Jobs were lost. Everything. Every thing.

I spent a long time last night pondering things. Material things. Some 'things' mean a lot. Some 'things' we accumulate mean nothing. I thought about my friend's son who had just become a grandfather. I thought about the new baby, a new life, a healthy, precious soul to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They have no things left.

I thought about the life of God's own son that He gave so we His children can spend eternity with Him.

And, I thought about those irritating, daily, mundane situations that upset me.

Today, I'll hug Dear Heart extra big when he gets home from errands. Then when his daughter arrives in a little bit for a weekend visit, I'll greet her with a bigger than usual hug and I'll remind her how precious she is to me. I'll send a card to my Sunday School secret prayer partner and tonight we'll call our other kids.

And then I'll say an extra thank You to my Heavenly Father for reminding me what is really important. I will slow down.

I hope you will stop, slow down and remember how very special and dear YOU are!

Bessings from

Liz

©

Building

Good Morning!

Thank You, Heavenly Father! We have rain today! Mostly it is just a drizzle, but it is wet water fron His holy and merciful hands and we are grateful!

I don't have a hammer, but I'm building again. At my age, I never dreamed I would ever again build anything. Even all the Legos and Lincoln Logs were packed away when our last great grand went to first grade. But, at a time when I desperately need sleep, I find myself hunched over the 'Survivor' -- my trusty computer-- :-) -- building a blog site.

Well, let this old Memaw tell you something: Cyber space ain't all it's cracked up to be and I've certainly done easier things in my life. But, again: :-) .... it is fun.

My goal is to share with you the amazing love and the sweet, sweet mercy of my God and my King. Along the way, we'll share thoughts, hints, lessons, laughter, encouragement, and some plain old Texas fun.

Counting our blessings is the best way to shoo away the clouds, so there's lots of counting on Liz's Porch! I'd love for you to share your blessing list with us.

Check in now and then to see how the building is going. No telling what will happen around here!

Blessings from

Liz

©

Keep our Eyes on Jesus

Today is Friday, October 10, 2008

Today would have been my mother's 96th birthday.

Today will become known as a Black Friday--

-- for those who listen to the stock market--

-- for those who are tuned in to the world.

Good morning sweet friends.

Today my prayer is that:

• your day is being holy.
• you are blessing the laces off your kids shoes.
• you are speaking words of peace and love and faith.
• we are keeping our fingers busy and our hearts quiet
• our beings are focused on the one, true, faithful
• Triune God who loves us. Regardless. Forever.

Blessings from

Liz

©

Company's Coming

I've never before welcomed company to a messy house. And, I don't remember ever being away from home when I knew a guest was on the way.

To normal people, that's disgusting. But that's just the way I USED to be. Until this week.

I'm trying to learn.

Our expected guest is an old friend who won't have on white gloves when she arrives for a visit. She will come on in and relax while I'm at a tea party.

Yes! Adults do go to tea parties!

A local friend is honoring my great-niece who is a U.S. Marine just returning home from her THIRD tour of duty in Iraq. I'll drink tea, read a poem, hear the prayers of sweet friends, hug my young hero, and rush home to welcome and nurture our house guest.

Then, she and I together with my daughter will rush off to attend the prayer retreat in Kerrville, Texas, Slowing Down to Hear His Voice featuring Debbie Williams.

I'm eager to slow down and I desperately want to hear my Lord's voice.

While we're gone, Dear Heart will watch sports in peace and fend for himself for dinner Friday night. Then Saturday night he'll take us three tired but refreshed women to dinner. It doesn't get much better than that... for him or for us!

After public worship on Sunday our guest will depart. When the supper dishes are done, Dear Heart and I will sit on our front porch. We'll pray for a friend who just became a widower and another who is back in the hospital again; we'll call some of our kids, and while the yellow bells wave in the breeze, Dear Heart and I will remind each other how tremendously God has blessed and loved us.

What will your blessings be this week? I love taking time to count mine!

Along with King David, perhaps we, too, will claim, "Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the nations, and I will sing praises to Your name." 2 Samual 22:50 NASB

Blessings, 

Liz