Month: May 2024

Sticker Shock

Last week in Walmart, Aaron was excited to show me a sticker book he had found.  He wanted to give it to Ryker, his nephew, and if you know the history there then you know that this was a very sweet gesture.  But I told Aaron the sticker book was way too advanced for Ryker but added that I thought he should try to do it.

Now Aaron isn’t very keen on most craft-type projects.  As I showed him how you match the lettered and numbered stickers to the spaces on each picture, he became more interested.  So, we bought the book and home we went.

To my great surprise, the first time that Aaron and I worked on the first dog picture, he was hooked.  He absolutely loves finding the correct sticker and matching it to the right place on the picture.  Aaron is a little shaky because of his seizures and seizure meds, but he is really doing great with putting the pieces in each space as carefully as he can.  After I sat with him for that one time, he has finished each picture mostly on his own with only a little help from me here and there. 

He is SO excited about this accomplishment!  He wanted me to take a picture to send to everyone.

Aaron is very happy with this sticker book and with how well he is doing with it.  It’s great fun to see.  And he wants everyone else to see as well!

He took it to his Epilepsy doctor, who was so nice to take the time to let Aaron show it to him.  

His office staff and the nurse were also kind enough to look at it and let Aaron explain all about the stickers.

Aaron took it with him, along with a new cat sticker book we bought, as we went to visit our friend Speedy for his birthday.  He showed them all about it and Speedy’s mom ordered him some right there on the spot.  Aaron was thrilled!

That morning as I was having my quiet time, I heard Aaron rolling his chair up the hallway.  In the room he came, sitting in the chair as he guided it with his feet, and rolled up to the bed.  He proceeded to open his sticker book and get to work.  

“Um, Aaron,” I said, “this is my quiet time, so you need to run on and do your stickers in your room.”

“But Mom,” he replied, “I can have my quiet time here, too.  I can be quiet!”

Aaron being quiet is a miracle that God has not granted yet.  

Off he rolled, back to his room.

I was out for a bit yesterday morning and when I drove back to the house, there was Aaron sitting at the end of our neighbor’s driveway…talking, of course, and showing our two very sweet neighbors his sticker books.

Today he showed all our Meals on Wheels clients his dog sticker book, letting one find the correct sticker and helping her put it on the right spot.  Then he took the book into Pizza Hut and worked on it while we waited on our lunch.

You might wonder why I am writing about all this.  It’s because Aaron has never really enjoyed painting or coloring or drawing or most other art projects.  He will do them reluctantly, with lots of our help, but his heart is never in it.

But this sticker book has captured his attention enough that he was willing to try it on his own.  It’s a huge victory for him and for me!

I’m as thrilled as I was when he learned his alphabet before he was 2, and taught himself cursive, and how to read and do math.  

That was so long ago, and over the years we see regression in some areas as well as frustration on Aaron’s part about what he CAN’T do.

But this sticker adventure has been a huge shot in the arm for Aaron.  He is delighted with himself, and he is so happy that he has something he can share with others…something that HE did on his own!

At this time of graduations and awards and all the pride that parents feel, it’s just sweet that we can praise Aaron for a job well done and see the joy on his face.  

And then to see the understanding and the shared excitement that others share with Aaron is just the cherry on top.  

It may “only” be stickers, but oh, it is SO much more to Aaron!

Mom’s Ways

Years ago, when we had a big family gathering in our West Virginia hometown, Mom had prepared a meal for us.  She decided to serve it buffet style.  The first person to go through the line was one of my nieces.  She scooped some rice onto her plate and then beside the rice she put the stew meat and gravy.  Back in the line, craning her neck to see, was our short little mother.  She saw my niece’s plate with the meat beside the rice.  Mom could not restrain herself.

“The meat goes ON the rice!” she exclaimed.

There was the typical eye rolling and many knowing smiles between us as Mom still felt that need to supervise this detail…a very important detail to her.  In my family, this comment and story has become one of our favorite sayings when we want something to be done a certain way.

The meat goes ON the rice!

Mom’s particular ways permeated our lives.  She was and still is the most energetic and organized woman I have ever known.  It wasn’t easy back in the 50’s to have four children in five years.  Then came Kathryn, our caboose, three years later.

Her ways of managing our home were as precise as she could make them during those very hectic years.  She had baskets of ironing for us to do with a piece of paper in each basket that held a name of one of us girls.  We had our chores to do and the day on which to do them.  She even taught us the best way to load dishes into the kitchen sink after dinner.  Wash the glasses first, then the silverware put just so along with the plates, and so forth.

She taught us how to fold laundry, including those dreaded fitted sheets.  Sorry, Mom, for the mess I still make with those sheets today.  Sometimes I feel like she’s craning her little neck from heaven, watching me struggle with that sheet and just shaking her head.

But over the years, with a family of my own, I do wonder how Mom did it all.  She made all our clothes, often late at night after we had gone to bed.  I still remember our kitchen table full of homemade rolls, cookies, pizza crusts, and so much more.  Our freezers were full of those goodies, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.  She canned and froze fruits and veggies from their garden.  All of this while working full time after we were all in school, eventually supervising the school lunch programs in thirteen West Virginia counties.

Mom’s ways of reaching beyond our home into the lives of others was amazing.  Our home was always open to our friends, to groups, and to pastors and missionaries.  In later years, she knit hundreds of Christmas stockings for so many people as well as her beautiful quilts.  She visited the sick, usually with flowers she had grown or food she had made.  

Mom’s ways of offering help to the struggling really spoke to me.  She didn’t judge those who had made mistakes in life but instead looked for ways she could help them and love them through their hard times.

But the most impacting of Mom’s ways, the one for which I am most thankful, is that every morning she made sure that we began the day in God’s word together as a family around our breakfast table.  Dad was already at work on those early mornings so she would lead us in reading Our Daily Bread and praying together.  

Throughout her life she consistently exhibited that the number one value in our lives was to live our lives for Christ and to trust Him in every situation.  We saw her follow her own advice without wavering as she cared for Dad until cancer took his life.  She continued her faithfulness even as Alzheimer’s took away her memory, her spunk, her humor and wit.  

Some of the last words she ever spoke was to softly sing:  

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus;

Sweetest name I know.

Fills my every longing,

Keeps me singing as I go.”

So Mom, I not only honor you on this Mother’s Day but on every day as your ways continue to influence my own life…and hopefully the lives of our children. 

And for you, I will make sure that the meat goes ON the rice!

The Fringes

We have been in a period of stormy weather here in the central Plains.  Many of you know that I love taking sky pictures.  There is hardly any better time to take some amazing shots of God’s work in the skies than during the build-up or the after-effects of a good old Kansas storm.

The clouds build:

Then darken:

And after the drama of the storm, there were these stunning clouds.

As I looked at these skies recently, I was reminded of the undeniable power of God in the creation of such beauty.

 I remembered reading Job 26, how Job talked about God’s unmatchable power that we see, or sometimes can’t see, in our world around us.  

Read some of Job’s description:

“He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.  He wraps up the waters in His clouds, and the cloud does not burst under them.  He obscures the face of the full moon and spreads His cloud over it.  He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness.  The pillars of heaven tremble and are amazed at His rebuke.  He quieted the sea with His power…by His breath the heavens are cleared…”    (Job 26:7-13)

Just stop and think of the astounding power of God that we see in the heavens and on this earth.  His design in creation and His ability to hold everything together, causing the world to operate as it should, is beyond comprehension.  

Listening to the deep thunder this past weekend during our storms made me feel very small.  Our windows even seemed to shake at the power of that rumble.  It reminded me of God’s strength.  So did our gorgeous clouds, so beautifully designed by God.

But listen to what else Job said in the last verse of that chapter.

            “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways…”

All these mighty acts of God that Job describes are then said to be the fringes of His ways.

Fringes…the outer edges, the outskirts.

Stop and think about that.  We see only a small part of God’s ways, of His power, and of His plan.  Yet that small part is so vast and complex!  Imagine what He is doing that we know nothing of!

Job continues:

“And how faint a word we hear of Him!  But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”

We only hear a small whisper of God’s ways in the thunder of His power!

Oh dear friend, if all that we see and hear of God are only the fringes of His ways, then imagine what He is doing in our lives that we cannot know or see.  

He is behind the scenes of those who know Him, working out His perfect will in our lives.  Sometimes we don’t feel that He is doing anything at all, or that our circumstances are too hard and so we doubt Him.  

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, and nothing can deter Him from working out His best plan for His children.  Amid our suffering…our questions…our fears…our pain…our tears – God is doing so much more than we know.  

Someday we will move from the fringes of His ways to seeing His final plan, and we will understand that all along this life, our great God was weaving a beautiful masterpiece full of His mighty grace.