Monday Morning Chat

Today is Monday and the day our ladies come to do the heavy lifting(cleaning)

yes, Nate would do it but why should he, he works hard enough so I got the

"girls". After they left I was looking for something to listen to on my phone,

something I usually do as I take my shower. I came across a pastor that was

at my previous church, Our Saviors in Lafayette, La. His name is Pastor Tim Dilena

and he is one of the top ten preachers, in my book! He is now at Times Square Church

in NYC. His topic was "A Warning to the Church That is Becoming a Den of Thieves".

He told this story, that was told to him by a global leader from Teen Challenge about a young, alcohol addicted, homeless woman in Prague, Czech Republic and how she was looking for a place to sleep on a very cold night she ended up climbing into a dumpster.

When she woke up the next morning there was a crack in the top, it didn't shut completely

and the sunlight began to come into the dumpster and she saw these pages, they were

pages from the book "The Cross and The Switchblade" by David Wilkerson, hand written in her language! (David Wilkerson is the founder of Teen Challenge) She stayed in that dumpster and read the whole book. She felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit and got saved, right there!! Two weeks later she was walking along and looked up and sees a building that says "Teen Challenge", she says "That's the

place from the book", walks in and tells them the story on how God met her in a dumpster!

Don't ever count God out! He can meet us in a dumpster, He can meet us in a church, He is not limited!!God can work miracles wherever you are today!!

I hope if you are reading this today and you feel far away from God, guess who moved?

certainly not God, it's you, me, us, we are the ones who move, God is always there to meet us where we are, to forgive us when we ask. Maybe you know someone who is struggling today and needs to hear this message, please share with them. God Bless You

!

A Special Tribute

Nathan's mom and I took a trip to Amish Country,

Sugar Creek this past weekend, compliments

of my dear husband. He had a Halloween thing

his son, Nathan and him were doing at our house and I

preferred to do something else.

During this overnight trip, we stopped at some

lovely stores and also spent the night at the

Carlisle Inn and was entertained with a concert

"Exile" a band doing songs from the 80's, which

we both really enjoyed!

We explored a lot of the stores around and Nathan's

mom gifted me with this devotional. Nathan and I

were using Joel Osteen's devotional and both felt it

was time for an upgrade so this devotional was

a blessing for sure.

Today's devotional was called

"Friends For The Journey". As most of you

know we recently lost a very dear and close

friend so this one in particular, spoke volumes.

This devotion referred to The Pilgrims Progress, by John Bunyan,

a book I have not yet read that uses allegories to describe the journey.

Bunyan's allegory of the believer's struggle through

life on the way toward heaven poignantly illustrates

the difficult journey we face. But the indispensable

lesson of faith and hope through the Christian's traveling

companions reminds believers of another truth: we need

friends along life's path to pick us up when we fall, encouraging

us to keep on keeping on.

Do you have such a friend? They say(whoever "they" are)that we

are blessed if we have two good friends in life. I'm especially

blessed because I can truly say my husband is my best friend, my

daughter is my best friend and Ruth Ann was my best friend.

"Two are better than one......For if they fall, one will

lift up his companion". Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

"A man of many companions may come to ruin,

but there is one who sticks closer than a brother".

Proverbs 18:24

No burden is too great to carry with the heavenly

promise of our Lord(John 14:1-2)and encouraging

friends who help turn our despair into joy and our doubt into

a stronger faith and hope. Look around your path today.

There is probably someone not to far from you who needs

your encouragement.

*A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down".

Arnold H. Glasgow

Saying Goodbye

It is with deep sadness in my heart that I write this blog. 2021 was the last blog posted here.

Please forgive my lack of content and I promise to try and do better.

As the title reflects my heart is sad today as we have just returned from a very quick and

mostly unexpected trip to NY state where we laid to rest one of my dearest and longest friend relationships.

What can I say about Ruthann? We met at Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in 1977 or around there, My family was new to the church and she befriended us right away.  Ruthann never knew a stranger, her infectious smile made you feel at ease right away.

She loved Jesus and everybody knew it, she didn't hide anything, she gave her all to her church, family and friends. 40+ years, who has friendships that last that long, not many people, this was a true friendship.

My family and I moved away and when you have a true friend like Ruthann, distance doesn't matter. While I lived in Florida she made a trip to visit us and we had a great time catching up. In between we would catch up by phone calls, this was way before we had texting, Facebook or any social media. 

Ruthann met Bruce and moved to Canada, still our communication continued.

Life happened to us all and 10 years in Canada she moves back to USA, Rexford, NY.  I was still in Florida and was able to make a trip to NY. Ruthann is like good healthy Celtic salt, flavorful and good for you.  I have to interject here a minute and give kudos to Bruce as well, he kept me in coffee, as we all know Ruthann was not and never was a coffee drinker, so Bruce made coffee each morning and in the afternoon he would go to Stewarts and buy us both coffee.

Skipping forward to 2019, I met and married Nathan and we started our journey in RV living, one of the first places we visited was Ruthann and Bruce. She had made a huge sign welcoming RTS(Romancing The States)our RV. I could go on and on but our last encounter was May 2023, Ruthann and Bruce spent her birthday with us in Ohio, and she made me a beautiful spring wreath for our front door, she was quite the crafter. I have so many good memories with Ruthann that it was take many many pages  to write.  I must say I turned Ruth Ann onto the Marco app(my mistake? Or was it?) I now have many wonderful videos I can look back on with a smile and perhaps a tear or two because her last Marco was on the morning of the day she passed into the arms of Jesus, here's what her message was "Just a quick Hi, nothing exciting, ice chips and drinking lemonade, and ginger ale, clear stuff, that's about it, just wanted to say Hi, love you guys, bye". She usually ended her Marco's with "Bye, for now", but not this time, this time she just said "bye". I still feel significance

in the "Bye for now" because it says to me we will meet again one day, this is not the end.

My husband and I knew we had to make the trip to Ruthann's "celebration" to honor her and our long term friendship, it was worth the 16 hour drive(to and from).

Ruthann planned her "going away" celebration down to the last detail. My husband often said she was like the energizer bunny, she filled every moment of every day not wasting one second! I thank God that we had such beautiful times together in the last 4 years. Nothing prepares you for losing a loved one. When her and Bruce visited us in May 2023, she planned all our activities, making a wreath, doing tied dyed tee shirts, we took them for drives to the country, had lunch at little out of the way places, went to church, stopped at Golden Corral Buffet, so many things we crammed in to their 5 day stay.

I have to stop here because there are so many happy and fun times we shared it would take a book to write. We have videos on our YouTube channel called Romancing The States, if you care to watch some, more specifically the Lake George video was super fun.

I will post what I can here so you can see our friend!

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