Personal Question from Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman-p.86

Has God ever allowed threat of trouble in your life to drive you to your knees? If so, what did you learn through the experience?

Pondering this question a memory flashed into my mind:

I was expecting my third child and living in our newly purchased townhouse. The children were almost four and almost two. One day as the children happily and joyfully scampered to the nearby playground with me lagging slightly behind a large man jumped out from behind a bush. He grabbed each child in a “football hold”, ran quickly to a waiting car, and jumped onto the back seat with my two children. The car sped down the street away from me with me screaming bloody murder after my children. Help!! Stop!!
I screamed! Running running!! knowing there was no way to catch the fast disappearing car...

Then I woke up! How awful! Go check on my children... they were there... sleeping peacefully like cherubic angels. Oh my heart! Oh my relief!

The vividness of the dream followed me into my daytime wakefulness. I had overcome my agoraphobia problems several years earlier. Yet this dream could put me right back into terror of leaving my home. Was I safe? How could I protect my children? I prayed and worried and studied God's Word while trying to calm my fearful heart. Finally after several days of worry. The words from the bible:
John 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Prov. 3: 6 acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Isa. 58: 11 Lord shall guide thee continually.

Took on new meaning and answered my prayers. If I sought God's guidance then if there was a day when my children were in danger then surely that would be the day that I would be guided to not go to the playground.

I felt comforted and less afraid. I also remembered when:

My first born toddler had escaped our apartment barefoot and decided to go to the swings. As soon as I noticed the open door (a matter of minutes) I raced out the door seeking him. There was broken glass all over the sidewalk just outside our door (a normal happening in the Government Housing Complex we lived in then) I saw him swinging on his belly on the swing. His little legs were too short to climb up and sit down on his own. I raced madly to him. Grabbed his little feet in my hands with great fear, at the same time noticing all the new broken glass around the graveled square that made up this “play ground”. Not a scratch, cut, abrasion on his feet anywhere!!! And he had crossed a road in which cars tended to speed recklessly down.

We lived in the G.H.C for several years while we saved money to buy our first home. We were kept protected and safe the entire time we lived there. (During that time my husband worked shift work. A rapist somehow acquired a work roster and raped wives of husbands who worked at night or were away on military assignment.) We routinely heard gunshots, and heard or saw vicious fighting between gang members.

Another time when driving to the grocery store I was prompted to change lanes thereby avoiding a terrible car crash that killed several people.

I learned through these experiences the Lord could and would protect me if I sought his will in my life.

Brown Bagging

The first time I remember brown bagging my home was when David was coming to dinner. To help you understand why I did what I did let me give you some background.

When I was a university student I met David. He was in one of my honors classes and I immediately became interested in him. He was funny, clever, very talented and just an all around interesting guy. The entire term I did everything to let him know I would very much like him to ask me out...he never took the hint. A few years later I went on several fantastic double dates with him and became his friend. (He was my date's good friend.)

After I married and moved out of state my husband and I attended an east coast alumni dinner that David and his wife attended as well; turns out my husband was also a good friend of David's. We visited, caught up and exchanged phone numbers.

Then in the middle of a busy week in which most of my time had been devoted to church and compassionate service I received a phone call from David telling me he would be in D.C. for the weekend. Would it be possible for us to meet him and go out to dinner?

(restaurant money, babysitter, gas to get there? No, not on this month's budget)

“We would love to see you David can you come for dinner?” We set the time, I gave him directions and I hung up the phone and looked at my home. Ugg! Arg! What had I done? My house needed serious attention. And I still had other promises to fulfill.

And that is how I came to “brown bag” my home. What does that mean? You gather a bunch of shopping bags and quickly pick up everything on any surface in the living room and dining room that needs to be out of sight or somewhere else. At that time our study and my sewing room shared space in the dining room. So all the stacks of projects on my sewing machine and on the desk were whisked into separate shopping bags. Then you carry the shopping bags to somewhere safe and out of sight. Most of it fit into my clothes closet but there were a few bags that I crammed into the hall linen closet. Then and this is VERY IMPORTANT you go to your personal calendar and write in big letters on a date after the guest has left “sort and put away shopping bags”.

Then with all the toys, dirty and clean clothes, sewing, papers etc. out of the way I could focus on vacuuming and dusting and mopping and planning an impressive dinner.

We really enjoyed David's visit and I was completely at ease because I was not embarrassed by the condition of our home.

The day after his visit I took the shopping bags and dumped them out onto my made bed. It was easy to sort everything into piles according to the room they belonged in, throw away the trash, then carry each pile to the place it belonged. In fact much quicker than if I had tried to sort everything before I had put them into shopping bags.

And thus a tradition was born!

Fortunately my circumstances have improved. My sewing room, study, and toy room no longer share space with the dining room table so “brown bagging” happens a lot less frequently. But it is nice to know in a pinch how quickly I can improve the look of any room. :-)

a month or two later David came and spent the weekend with us bringing his wife and children with him. I was thankful that I was better organized that week and the house just needed a little tidying up to prepare for their visit. We immensely enjoyed our time visiting the Smithsonian together as a group and I greatly admire his wife. We both married great men.

Another Good Question

My edition of Change Your Questions Change Your Life has arrived and it is a beautiful book I highly recommend it for getting your thoughts flowing. One: What questions have changed the course of my life?

Reminded me of a question my sweetheart asked me during our first month of marriage.
Do you think about me during the day and do you remember the times of physical intimacy and replay them in your head?

My answer was no. After some discussion we realized that I had carried over into our marriage the practice of “No, lustful thoughts!” That when I might start to think about the intimate private moments of our marriage I immediately chased them out of my mind feeling guilty. I was carrying my pre-marriage modesty thought habits a little too far. He helped me see that our marriage gave me permission to “think about him in that way”. Slowly I began to create a habit of replaying in my mind times of intimate fun. I discovered that anticipating his arrival home from work with thoughts of remembered moments of intense pleasure got my rockets charging and ready for action. And remembering the sizzle of our first kiss prepares me for more passionate kisses.

Doctor James Dodson once said in one of his radio broadcasts that most marriages have appetite disparity. The husband comes home with a few words left over and grumps and nods through dinner. Then he goes off to his projects with nary a word to his wife. Then hours later when she passes him in her night gown suddenly the non-communicative husband is ready for action. And the wife feeling ignored is not in the mood to play. He said that if both spouses compromise then marital disparity can be more aligned. He needs to understand her need for conversation. She needs to understand his visual response time is usually pretty fast. And use that to her advantage when she desires his attention.

As my husband once said, “you never hear of a man being shot when he is doing the dishes”. If I make a point of noticing all the nice things he does for me and our children then my response time stays short too. A night like Dr. Dodson described above means that he has been serving me and working diligently NOT that he has been ignoring me.

Now after 27 years of marriage I realize that there is an added bonus to the good habit my Man encouraged me to develop. I am strongly bonded to my husband. If I feel irritated or slightly mad at him I know what images to switch to in my mind. A few minutes replaying some “honeymooning” and I will soon be feeling very loving and warm towards him. The way I would prefer to feel.

Ride to Sinai

My daughter requested we see more of Egypt so handsome husband arranged a van to take us to Saint Catherine's Monastery. That was built around the sacred burning bush 1700 years ago...or so they say.

Now here is where the tour guy that took our money and arranged the van failed us. He didn't tell us we were going up 5,128 feet above sea level. So if it is a cool day at the seaside..then going up that far will result in a significant temperature drop. Not mentioned, so we un-informed tourists hopped into the van at 7:30am ready to go to the desert in sandals, t-shirts, and the ladies in short pants; without sweaters, jackets, scarves or hats. (I had a scarf and a cotton serape) At 11 am after a picturesque drive through the desert and mountains we unloaded to find it freezing!!! Yes, very cold. We are now the reluctant owners of 5 very soft Egyptian style shawls. That thankfully partially shielded our bodies from the bitter wind and chill of the air.

We shivered our way up the trail to see the monastery, camels and yes! the not-so-burning bush.
As seen below

The little chapel in the monastery was blessedly warm, though decorated in Eastern Orthodox style. It would have been magnificent if the candles had been lighted. But on this sabbath morning they weren't for some reason. I spotted a holy relic in a wooden box. It didn't say what bone it was or from whom. There was a special room upstairs that contained more holy relics since I was the only one interested in going to see them I was out voted. Therefore I can not report on the amount or significance of their selection.

R and S rode back down the trail to our van on camels. I took photos and videos of their ride and rescued S's fallen shoe.

Because of the cold I did not get to take a close-up shot of the place of the “Golden Oxen.” But shot a stone-something very near the spot as the van sped by. (I aimed too slowly and missed the big sign saying the fenced in area was where the golden Oxen was built or crafted. Sorry I'm sure that is a huge disappointment to you all.)

I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of the many photos I shot from the speeding van through the glass window.

We have now seen a wadi, the river bed that is sometimes dry and sometimes very wet. The road we traveled followed the most likely route of the Israelite s exodus or sojourn. As they would have camped or traveled on the wadi.

The mountains nearest Saint Catherine's shine more than the mountains I shot on the ride there and back because of the amount of crystal in the stone. I was also interested to find that the area around the monastery is rich with geods & crystals. Both of which we declined to buy from the shouting in-your-face sellers at the gates.

It was a fascinating yet tiring trip for our last day in Egypt.