September 16 2014

September 16 2014 Greetings My Friend, One of Mindy’s babies is a noisy little boy. He squeaks a whole bunch and the name “Squeaky” sounds fitting. The littlest one is named after my birth defect “Chiari” which leaves the girl yet to be named. As I sit here Junior is on the phone with a friend’s Dad. They went away on a trip and we are checking in on Dad while they are gone. This man is 84 years old and his mind is as sharp as ever so he craves conversation. His body is slowly giving out, first it was his legs, then his hearing started getting bad and now his eyes are going out on him. We are finding that these phone calls are easy enough to do and then the face to face visits would be easier to do and less often. B’s son has a job and she is not around as much as she was there for a while. We found we could not be her “go to” in all situations. Her doctor visits were an hour from her house and she is an hour from our house. Neither Junior or I can do this type of driving on a regular basis plus do our own running to doctors and such. It is too much. Letting her take our truck all the time started costing us way too much money so we’ve had to tell her “no.” At this point we aren’t seeing her like we were at one point. I love helping people out. On the mission trips I’ve taken through the years I have found giving a week of my time to be very rewarding and each time I marveled that the people we went to help also reached back and helped me in such remarkable ways. Giving is a blessing and a joy. Enabling on the other hand is not good. I also went through a stage that the money I gave to the church or to a homeless person was wasted on things like a fancy building, fancy furnishings and the like. The homeless would go out and buy drugs or alcohol which wasn’t really helping them get out of the situation they were in and giving to me seemed absurbed. For a while I wanted to give to every organization that sent me an envelope. Through the years Junior and I have talked about what is most important to us. When we are helping someone on a one to one basis we have also found that point that we will pull back as we see the need to push them to help themselves a bit. More often than not Junior more than I will take a giving situation to prayer. Working with God on where to invest our time or energy seems to work the best. I am also learning that giving is done in other ways like the phone call Junior is on right now. It is encouraging another believer to go out and do also. I had always felt that giving was something I showed the world that I was doing. It somehow proved my faith. These days as I see giving in less grandiose ways I see that giving is done with love, not enabling and with a genuine heart. It isn’t a tick mark in my daily walk that I must cross off. It is giving from my heart. There is that “heart” message again. Our walk in every way must be from the deepest part of our heart. When we are living at the heart level with God it is at that point that the outside world begins to see the difference in us as compared to the world. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet