Serve by Design

After all these years, I am still filled with joy and feel a childlike giddiness when I see one of God’s colorful “bows” arcing across the sky. I can’t count how many times I have invited family and friends to come to the window or step outside to see the unfolding drama in God’s message of hope in a rainbow arcing across the sky! God's Handiwork! Our son recently sent me a picture that perfectly captures God’s creative handwork in a beautiful rainbow. As is typical, a thunderstorm and downpour drenched his neighborhood. He and his daughter had stepped out the front door to survey for any wind damage. Looking up, they beheld the stunning perfection of dazingly colors in layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Many of us have heard about the science of rainbows. Simply stated, they develop as light from the sun is refracted through the water droplets after a rain. Mathematicians add that rainbows are all about geometry. They occur when the sun is low in the...

This spring has marked another epic chapter for our family. Two more of our grandchildren are now gainfully employed with part-time jobs! Klay, fifteen-years-old, is making pizza, subs, and salads at Dion's in New Mexico, and seventeen-year-old, Cam is taking orders (via the speaker!) for chili dogs, smash burgers, and shakes. He is also serving as an occasional carhop, cleaning the ice cream machine, and doing other duties as assigned at the Sonic Drive-In. Leander, Texas. The grands are growing up and moving on! Cam, Our Sonic Man! Cam took to his new job like the proverbial “duck to water!” He has been flexing his “cooking muscles” since taking Culinary Arts during his sophomore year. He received a “Food Handler’s License” after completing the class. At home, he can manage the toaster oven and any pan like a professional! Made from scratch Cheddar Bay Biscuits and Fettuccine Alfredo with homemade noodles are his specialties! There is another dimension of fast-food restaurants ...

We are blessed to have good neighbors! It is extra special to have professional firefighters on both sides of us and a retired fire chief across the street! A few years ago, one of them had to “rescue” me from the roof where I had been blowing leaves out of the gutters. It was a blustery day and I had not tied off the ladder on the back side of the house. As I finished, I was surprised to find that my aluminum ladder had been blown down to the ground by a strong gust of wind. This left me hopelessly stranded on the rooftop without a cell phone or a way down! "Mom, does anybody see me?"😇 In my despair, I happened to look across the street and saw one of my neighboring firefighters who had briefly stepped outside. I immediately shouted, “Hey, neighbor! I could use some help!” He waved and was on the way. I will not forget his counsel as he put the ladder up against the house that day, “Neighbor, you might want to take some rope and tie it off on the gutter next time!” He winke...

Our Internet and cable service was interrupted three and a half hours recently from about 6:20 to 9:40 p.m. By my recollection, this degree of service interruption has never happened in the thirty years we have been with this small rural service provider! I called the company’s customer service line the next morning to inquire as to the reason for this failure of service. The lady politely said that it was due to someone outside of the company accidentally cutting a major fiber optic cable. She told me that it took the cable company all those hours to restore the service.  I explained that while we were retired and this was a minor inconvenience to us, I wondered how those with school aged children dealt with their assignments! I would learn later that our granddaughter did have an assignment due that evening and had to go to her other grandparents in Springfield to get it completed and sent to her teacher on time!  It amused me to hear what the customer service lady did. She ...

On numerous occasions during these past months of coping with life-issues in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, I have been asking this question of friends and acquaintances, "How are you hanging on?" I sense a lot of angst, uncertainty, and agitation in the expressions of many these days. I am learning that empathetic listening is therapeutic for others and for me as well. There are stories that need to be told and we are helped by hearing them and in sharing them. Monique and I ventured out of town recently on a grocery run and to eat "carry out" at one of our favorite haunts. We usually frequent this eatery on Friday evenings, but this time it was midweek. We have only given ourselves permission to do this once before so we are novices concerning the necessary protocols that are involved. We refreshed our preferences by looking at an online menu while out front and then we called in our order. Everything fell in place rather quickly. The order was taken...