Just a Trip to the Store

We only needed a few things. Just some ice-cream, a gift bag, some milk and maybe a movie... I grabbed my handy-dandy insulated bag for the market covered with cute Hawaiian flowers from Trader Joe's and JJ asked, "Can't we just go to Vons? Right next door to the movie store?" "Sure," I said. "Well, will they let you use a Trader Joe's bag?" "Sure, it's just a bag."

We happily agreed on a movie in record time. I had a coupon so that always lifts one's spirit. I put the DVD in the large insulated Trader Joe's bag for convenience. We're going green, you know, so we didn't need the plastic bag for the movie.

We sauntered down the sidewalk and entered the grocery store --- Where we were greeted by an armed security guard!!! Is milk really that high now? Maybe there's a rush on the green beans on aisle three on Monday nights now. No, it must be the maple syrup. That was on our list but the teeny-tiny bottles started at $9.56. Ridiculous! DJ will just have to suffer with another brand until I can make it into the large box store later in the week.

So we were ready to find our dessert. I showed JJ the name brand cartons of ice-cream and pointed out they were buy-one-get-one-free. How can you pass up buy-one-get-one-free! That just wouldn't be American and we are approaching the fourth of July. (Happy Canada Day to our friends up north, by the way....)

Thankfully, the time had come to check out. Although we were in the express lane, there was an "issue" --- I often end up behind those customers. Curious. We loaded up our stuff and I couldn't find my discount card. Oh, dear. Well, the oh-so-convenient credit card swiper asked for my phone number if I'd rather use that than my frequent shopper coupon card. "How easy!" I thought. "Your number is invalid Ma'am," she said. "No, it's not! I've had this card for twenty years." She asked for the number again. "Your number is invalid ma'am." Before I could say another word, she'd pushed some button and was handing me cash back and had circled a number for me to call to straighten out my "issue."

Walking out, I saw JJ carrying the two plastic bags loaded with the two frozen ice-cream cartons, a half-gallon of milk, butter pecan syrup and a gift bag. And I still had the large insulated Hawaiian themed shopping bag from Trader Joe's with the one DVD inside. We laughed all the way to the car. I, of course, was laughing at my silly bag and JJ was just laughing at me. Somehow these things always happen when we go to the store together. As the commercial says, "Priceless."

Uh-oh

On a bright Sunday morning a few weeks ago, we sat down in the mega church nearby. We're talking mega-mega... JJ was just back from the university out west and we were visiting a church just for fun. We were settled into the highest balcony and feeling those good vibrations from the massive sound system and we weren't quite sure what we should set our eyes upon. There were the small screens right above our seats, then the larger ones a few rows down, then there was the minister live - right there in the front of the stage and behind him were the two-story-tall screens full of the graphics to accompany everything planned for the service.

We'd just sat down following the worship when it happened: JJ handed me the bulletin. And he grinned.

I spent the next thirty five minutes listening (get it) ever so closely for the minister to refer to "lestening," but to no avail. Then at the close of the service, I realized the larger than life-sized graphic on the wall had been changed and all the "listenings" were identical.

oops.

1943

June 27th, 1943 was a sunny Sunday in Long Beach, California. I'm not sure if the people attending the Four Square church knew the plans or not.... but right after church this young couple had their wedding. The congregation all stayed to participate.

I've heard that Jack Hayford attended this same church when he was growing up, so maybe he helped throw rice on them... But I've never asked him. If you know Jack, please find out for us.

I do know that the minister who married them, Howard Rusthoi, was married to the talented hymn writer, Esther Kerr Rusthoi. She was there and Mom and Dad loved them dearly. Her well known hymn, "When We See Christ" was very special to my parents.

Oft times the day seems long, our trials hard to bear,

We're tempted to complain, to murmur and despair;

But Christ will soon appear to catch His Bride away,

All tears forever over in God's eternal day.

Chorus:

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,

Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ;

One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,

So bravely run the race till we see Christ.

Sometimes the sky looks dark with not a ray of light,

We're tossed and driven on , no human help in sight;

But there is One in heav'n who knows our deepest care,

Let Jesus solve your problem - just go to Him in pray'r.

Life's day will soon be o'er, all storms forever past,

We'll cross the great divide, to glory, safe at last;

We'll share the joys of heav'n - a harp, a home, a crown,

The tempter will be banished, we'll lay our burden down.

Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mom & Dad may have invited Howard & Esther over for cake tonight. Of course, I can't really base that on biblical knowledge, but we do know that after the resurrection, Jesus ate with the disciples and discussed earthly matters. He didn't just sit on a cloud nearby and show them cool heavenly tricks. He was and is real. Experiencing the reality of heaven is something that my folks and oh so many of their dear friends are experiencing today. Although life in Sunny is pretty fabulous.... I want to be sure I'm set to join the party one day.

Word-Filled Wednesday

But if we hope for what we do not yet have,

we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:25

Oddly Similar

We've started preparing for the Olympics here in our house. For our family, that involves hours of watching gymnastics mostly. That's the only sport we'll watch before the actual games begin. Those girls are amazing. The guys are too, but the girls are so tiny!

As we were watching and picking our favorites, we began to notice Bela Karolyi more closely as he was interviewed. He's been part of our US gymnastics scene for so long. I say "Our" in the broadest sense.... (I am not of the gymnastically-capable persuasion by any manner.) I began to notice a familiarness about him and then it hit me.

Could he be closely related to Captain Kangaroo????

Loadin' Up

Summertime, Summertime, Summ, Summ, Summertime..... In case you haven't heard we're having a heat wave around these parts. So Sunny is blazin' this weekend! My goodness it's too hot to do much of anything. We attended a beautiful wedding on Saturday. At noon. In the sun. Oh boy. The bride and groom looked so happy; they probably didn't even realize it was melt-your-mascara hot out...

This morning I was on my way into church pretty early (to make sure our new cave was still together) and had one of those 'theology' moments. Well, that would be Grace's theology, so bear with me... I passed the luxury liner cruise bus loaded up with happy folks on their way to our local Harrah's for the day. (Harrah's is a local casino on a nearby Indian reservation. The law says it's o.k. to have gambling on Indian property.) Most of the local casinos have buses now. They've had them going a while, but with the gas prices they're just buzzing with new riders. It's a way to spend the day having oh so much fun and now you don't even have to pay for your own gas to use your money gambling...

So back to my theology moment:

When I was a little girl, we had this lady in our church named Sister Knizek. (I think I've got that right.) "Kuh-neez-ick" She had a big clunky car and every Sunday morning, she would load it up with all sorts of kids from her neighborhood and drive them into church. We never really got to know those kids, because she found different kids each week. I was too little to know if any of them actually became part of our church, but chances are some of them did. She did this for at least thirty years.

When I was away at college, Dad told me that Sister Knizek had passed away. He went to her funeral and it was well attended. The casket was the poorest quality casket he had ever seen and he said he felt horrible that no one knew these were the plans in place. It broke his heart. He always loved Sister Knizek.

You know where I'm going; I can tell. Sister Knizek invested her time, effort and every ounce of her energy in her love for God and children. Somehow, I don't think her casket meant one little bit to her. She knew where she was going and I am confident her accommodations are first class, with the buffet included.

Remember when churches had buses and vans and went out early on Sundays to pick up kids?

And just think, Harrah's buses are running every single day of the week...

So You Will Know

Last night we had our big summer kick-off party at church. I sat with three new friends. Ryan is 3, but will be able to hold up four fingers next month. Next to him were Emma and Emily, two gorgeous little girls with bright red hair. I was totally convinced that they were twins, due in part to one saying they are 15 hours apart. Later on I discovered that Emily lives next door to Emma's grandmother and that is how they became inseparable. Emma's favorite number is three-hundred-thirty-three. "That is just the coolest number ever."

As you may remember, I have lots of best friends. One of them is dear Laurie --- we met about 27 years ago. We too, were often thought of as sisters. Those things amaze me. One time we took a psychological assessment (the real kind, this was before the "What is your favorite Starbucks?" test....) and we came up with the exact same score and identical answers. I'm sure our psychology teacher thought we shared answers. But no, we were truthful.

As a grown-up (mostly) I truly cherish the variety of friends in my life. I'm glad we're not all identical, and I'm ever so glad for each one and the gifts they bring to my world. But I do need to find out their favorite numbers. I realized last night I'm not at all sure what mine is...

Brand New

This is the week....We're starting a brand new world with Kid's Church. Way too much fun, if I may be honest with you... Yesterday's paint scenario involved splash painting a new bulletin board. Just as easy as you could imagine and it turned out great --- except, well, my hands were spotted, red, yellow and green all afternoon and my fingernails seem destined to look like I've been fingerpainting just a tad too long.

Today we began around 10 this morning:

And then after a bit of teamwork, with creative energy flowing like the Mississippi River, foraging for props in every closet we could find with quite a few laughs thrown in here and there....

I think we'll have a contest with the little ones to have them name the cave. But if you have a great idea, please feel free to let me know. You just might win a jar of play-doh yourself... Be sure to tell me your favorite color, too.

FYI

Washable paint might not be...

Just thought you'd like to know.

***

One More Referral

Honestly, I should charge this Jon guy a fee for promoting his stuff. (Maybe he'll let me throw out the T-Shirts for him to the crowd when he is the featured guest at the next NRB convention...) But here's the deal: my father was an amazing worship leader back when they only had song services and had never used the terminology "worship leader." Our son is a well experienced drummer and we've discussed worship issues for years and years... So sorry.... Back to my referral.... Please click here: Stuff Christians Like # 295 and # 296. #295 is about singing the first and third verses of hymns and #296 is titled "Fishbowling the Drummer."

If you've stopped by today hoping to find my latest recipe for cream puffs or mocha brownie surprise, I've really let you down. If you don't attend church and haven't grown up trying to stifle a snicker here or there when you're supposed to be giving God your full attention; well, you've missed out. Maybe this is to whet your appetite just a little. You see for years, the only entertainment lots of Christians had was seeing things other Christians did to either make them laugh or gossip about and getting together for church dinners. (That gossip option was probably never o.k. with God and never ever helped anybody, but you get the idea, I hope.) Laughter and food. Those were the things we could enjoy.

I really enjoy Jon the Prodigal's blog and the fun he has with Christian life. I hereby promise not to keep telling you about it. Unless it's really, really good....