Love Is Patient

1 Corinthians 13:4 New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Let’s face it; none of us married the totally ideal partner! I’m afraid I’m not a great communicator. I do things without saying a word, leaving Sylvia mystified. She wonders what I’m going to do next.

We have a library in the house. It fills two complete walls in our smallest bedroom. It then spills out onto bookcases and every level spot in every room of the house. Okay, so we’ve learned to live with it. Our (my) favorite pastime is to go to used bookstores and library book sales and look for more books.

But a major bomb shell hit me when I officially retired. That meant I needed to clean out my office. Not bad! Except it had an entire wall devoted to books. All of those books had to go somewhere. Every time I looked at them, I realize that I wanted to keep most of those books. So many of them arrived at home, most now in our storage shed.

On top of Sylvia’s honey-do list, she wants me to “retire” bunches of books. She still loves me even though I don’t think I have retired a single book in the last ten years. On the contrary, I’ve added several books practically every month. Actually, I just persuaded my daughter to take a collection of 18^th and 19^th century antique books that are family heirlooms. They were in the vacant shelf you can see on the right of the picture. As Neil Armstrong said when he first stepped onto the moon, “That’s one small step…”

Thank You, Lord, for a patient, loving wife.

 

 

 

Old Age

Titus 2:2

King James Version (KJV)

² The aged men [are to] be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

Seventy-five years have gone by since I was ripped out of my mother’s womb. In my youth my parents had a lot to be proud of and a lot to be disappointed over. I have pushed the limits in most things that came my way. In some directions, pushing the limits has been both exciting and rewarding. At other times it has been embarrassing and even on occasion expensive.

I purchased a Ford F150 4x4 pickup that I don’t need on a daily basis in my line of work. It averages 12 miles per gallon of gasoline, which makes it the most expensive vehicle I’ve ever owned.

It has taken me through hundreds of miles of raw desert, both beautiful and ugly. It has brought home a trailer load of my daughter’s belongings from Kansas down a thousand miles of glare ice and falling snow. Numerous times it has taken me across the Rocky Mountains on sand, dirt, and rocky trails sometimes barely visible. I have confidently challenged roads and trails from Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It uncomplainingly sports thousands of scratches running from the front grill to the tail gate from desert thorn bushes crowding the tracks.

Sylvia, my faithful life partner, loves adventure as much as I and has supported and accompanied me in our varied experiences. We installed a cap over the pickup bed, and on long trips we put a mattress back there. This allows us to sleep almost anywhere we can find a spot to pull over, including Walmart parking lots. We have slept—or sometimes tried to sleep—in our F-150 during fierce, tornado-alley rainstorms, desert heat, and mountain frost and have actually done very well for ourselves.

In many ways our experience with the F-150 parallels what God has put up with in my life. He has supported me through near death from West Nile Virus and on Los Angeles freeways. He has rejoiced with me in celebrations like children’s weddings and graduations and commiserated with me through loss of many friends and the death of my parents. Like the Ford, He has given us of the beauties and bounties of life and walked with us during poverty, scarcity, and sickness. 

Lord, as old age embraces us ever more firmly, continue to support us, and renew our faith, love, and patience.

#CALIFORNIA, #IE, #FORD, #F-150, #WALMART, #WESTNILEVIRUS, #LOSANGELES, #FREEWAY, #RAINSTORM, #BLACKICE, #TOWING, #SCRATCH, #OFFROAD, #OLDMAN, #WIFE, #INSOMNIA, #ROCKYMOUNTAINS, #CAMPER, #DEATH