About a month after my prayer was the first time I saw her. I happened to be turned backwards at my workstation when she was talking briefly with the owner in the hallway. My first thought was (very honestly) she looks like a girl I would marry! In the meantime, she had seen me while I was talking to one of my charges. She says she fell in love with me at that moment and knew she would marry me. I know this sounds contrived, but this is exactly how it happened!
In the coming weeks, the women of the shop tried to get us together. One day Patti stopped me in the hall to ask me about the apartment I was vacating soon, as she and her roommate Becky were looking for a new place to live. I was very shy and distant to her which came off as slightly arrogant. Little did I realize that one of the owner's sisters had put her up to asking me, believing that's all it would take to light a spark. The next day I was called up by the owner's sister and chastised. "I gave you a perfect opportunity to get to know a perfectly wonderful girl and you "acted like a zombie"!!! I promised not to make that mistake again.
Then the office and shop people started speculating on whether I would ask her out to the Christmas party. But I had heard it that she was preparing to ask me to it. Then she herself finally came out and asked me to follow her to her office which I did. She then explained the big mixup how the employees were expecting us to come to the Christmas party together. She was so shy I had to help her out here. "Shouldn't we go to the party together and alleviate all this pressure?" I said. She looked immediately relieved. "That sounds good to me!" "The Christmas party isn't until 2 weeks away." I pointed out. "Shouldn't we get to know each other before then? So I asked her to dinner the next evening and she accepted. 4 weeks later, after going out just about every night we were engaged and then 4 1/2 months later we were married! This coming May 10th, we shall have been married for 29 years!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
How I Met My Wife, Patti Part I
I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell how I got right with the Lord and the miraculous way in which I met my wife!
Back in October of 1979, I was the shop foreman for my employer in what was called the "Handgrinding Dept." at a company called Universal Rotary Tool Co. in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Those in my department (including I), sat at benches sharpening and manufacturing Tungsten Carbide and HSS rotary cutting industrial machine tools. My job as foreman was to see that our orders were completed with superb quality and on time. Unfortunately I was unable to get any of my people to work overtime, so it always fell upon me to take up the slack.
One evening I was working by myself, listening to the radio at about 8pm when the owner came in to retrieve something or other. He came up to me and sat down and exchanged the few normal customary pleasantries. He then started in on me with what seemed to be his favorite subject which I found most annoying, the "Gospel". I let him go on with his usual spiel until he wound up. I used to be involved in the "charismatic" movement when I was a kid and had had my fill of contemporaneous prophesyings, tongues, supposed healings, etc. and found the subject of Christianity always brought back bad memories. I frequently reminded him of this, but he was remorseless in his efforts to get me "resaved".
This time he asked me if he could leave me with a free Bible. I told him that it would be a needless waste of a perfectly good Bible, because it would never be read, but since pessimism was not one of his character qualities, the Bible nevertheless remained on the bench at my side when he ambled off home.
Since I'd taken off the headphones when he began to talk to me, I left them off and did some thinking about some of the things he'd said. I was not feeling too happy being at work at 8 o'clock at night and really, I'd been depressed for some time before that. I thought about the time I'd been with the charismatics. When taken as a whole, my time with them had been a nightmare. But in that moment when I first opened my heart to Jesus Christ, well, that was simply the best moment in the 23 years of my life at the time. I realized that it was not Jesus Christ that made me feel sick about the whole thing, it was the charismatics. They'd told me that I could not really be saved until I quit smoking, and no matter how many times I'd crumpled up my remaining packs at the end of each day, I'd always go out and buy one the following day. No matter how much I prayed and begged God, He never helped me to quit. The charismatics had told me that Jesus was healing people all the time, even raising the dead. I'd never seen anyone "actually" get healed in these supposed healing sessions. I never saw the blind regain their sight or the deaf their hearing. I'd never seen missing arms and legs fully restored or even seen the lame walk for more than a few faltering and painful steps. Where was God? Why would a kind, loving God allow the horrors that go on constantly? This time I thought, "Did God ever really promise to take care of all of this things now? If Jesus weren't God, than who was?" I thought about this for some time, sincerely wanting to know. Soon my thinking turned into audible prayer there by myself in the shop. With tears streaming down my face, I said to Him Who I wasn't even sure was there, "If you are God, please resolve my problem of disbelief. Make me a Christian. Don't let me be an on again, off again Christian, but give me a Christian wife who will help me to maintain a steady relationship with you." At that moment I knew my happiness lay in the hope of a Christian marriage, a life partner with whom I could share my new relationship with Christ. I knew I needed to find a church, and right then and there I ruled out any Assemblies of God or any other Pentacostal (charismatic) churches.
I did not know this then, but just a few short blocks away, a 19 year old christian woman, a "missionaries' kid" was praying for a new job to replace the one she'd grown to hate. Within weeks she had a job with my company, working in the front office. (to be continued...)
By the way, while I was away from the Lord, I quit smoking on the first day of summer in 1977.
Back in October of 1979, I was the shop foreman for my employer in what was called the "Handgrinding Dept." at a company called Universal Rotary Tool Co. in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Those in my department (including I), sat at benches sharpening and manufacturing Tungsten Carbide and HSS rotary cutting industrial machine tools. My job as foreman was to see that our orders were completed with superb quality and on time. Unfortunately I was unable to get any of my people to work overtime, so it always fell upon me to take up the slack.
One evening I was working by myself, listening to the radio at about 8pm when the owner came in to retrieve something or other. He came up to me and sat down and exchanged the few normal customary pleasantries. He then started in on me with what seemed to be his favorite subject which I found most annoying, the "Gospel". I let him go on with his usual spiel until he wound up. I used to be involved in the "charismatic" movement when I was a kid and had had my fill of contemporaneous prophesyings, tongues, supposed healings, etc. and found the subject of Christianity always brought back bad memories. I frequently reminded him of this, but he was remorseless in his efforts to get me "resaved".
This time he asked me if he could leave me with a free Bible. I told him that it would be a needless waste of a perfectly good Bible, because it would never be read, but since pessimism was not one of his character qualities, the Bible nevertheless remained on the bench at my side when he ambled off home.
Since I'd taken off the headphones when he began to talk to me, I left them off and did some thinking about some of the things he'd said. I was not feeling too happy being at work at 8 o'clock at night and really, I'd been depressed for some time before that. I thought about the time I'd been with the charismatics. When taken as a whole, my time with them had been a nightmare. But in that moment when I first opened my heart to Jesus Christ, well, that was simply the best moment in the 23 years of my life at the time. I realized that it was not Jesus Christ that made me feel sick about the whole thing, it was the charismatics. They'd told me that I could not really be saved until I quit smoking, and no matter how many times I'd crumpled up my remaining packs at the end of each day, I'd always go out and buy one the following day. No matter how much I prayed and begged God, He never helped me to quit. The charismatics had told me that Jesus was healing people all the time, even raising the dead. I'd never seen anyone "actually" get healed in these supposed healing sessions. I never saw the blind regain their sight or the deaf their hearing. I'd never seen missing arms and legs fully restored or even seen the lame walk for more than a few faltering and painful steps. Where was God? Why would a kind, loving God allow the horrors that go on constantly? This time I thought, "Did God ever really promise to take care of all of this things now? If Jesus weren't God, than who was?" I thought about this for some time, sincerely wanting to know. Soon my thinking turned into audible prayer there by myself in the shop. With tears streaming down my face, I said to Him Who I wasn't even sure was there, "If you are God, please resolve my problem of disbelief. Make me a Christian. Don't let me be an on again, off again Christian, but give me a Christian wife who will help me to maintain a steady relationship with you." At that moment I knew my happiness lay in the hope of a Christian marriage, a life partner with whom I could share my new relationship with Christ. I knew I needed to find a church, and right then and there I ruled out any Assemblies of God or any other Pentacostal (charismatic) churches.
I did not know this then, but just a few short blocks away, a 19 year old christian woman, a "missionaries' kid" was praying for a new job to replace the one she'd grown to hate. Within weeks she had a job with my company, working in the front office. (to be continued...)
By the way, while I was away from the Lord, I quit smoking on the first day of summer in 1977.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Followup to Hospitalization Blues
Well it turned out that Patti had a bowel obstruction which was caused by the hernias. The pain was absolutely horrible. She came home from the hospital on Saturday and was right back at work Monday. I showed her this blog as she had not really been informed about it yet. She doesn't like it at all in terms of the whole concept of blogging one's private life. I see her point here. She also said it seems rather vain to think that people would actually look at it. I personally would not think someone vain for doing this, although I can see why someone would think it so. I enjoy writing and why not write in a way that can keep friends and family members informed as well? I think she will grudgingly allow me to self-censor what I put in here. If not, you will see some of the content here disappear!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Hospital Blues
My wife Patti went to the emergency room Thursday morning complaining of a severe pain in her abdomen and the inability to hold anything down in her stomach. They put her on several large glasses of a contrast agent for the CAT scan and after drinking the last one succumbed to projectile vomiting.
The CAT scan results did not come in until Friday morning. They could find nothing but 2 small hernias. They think that is the problem. They are working her up to greater and greater amounts of water to see what she can hold down, and hopefully she can come home Saturday (tomorrow).
Things are really crazy when she's not here. With my disabilities I need help for almost everything. She is the center of our lives emotionally and physically. Many of you will remember that the summer before this last one, she came down with a perforation of the colon and had to have a colostomy for six months. Nothing ever went well with that. She had skin conditions that wreaked havoc with the ostomy and it kept her in constant pain. It was a horrible summer for her. She finally got it reversed in January of this year. Now this!
The hernias will be repaired during normal elective, scheduled surgery. For now, she can return home for the weekend and get some rest before the workweek. Also -- our washing machine is making a loud squealing sound during the spin cycle. Patti had called the repairman who scheduled Thursday as the earliest he could get here. He was supposed to be here between 7 and 8 in the morning. He didn't get here till 10 am. Then he gets into the job and says there is something caught in the works, but the tool that he needs to remove the bowl was in the possession of his partner, so it would have to wait until the next day to return to fix it. He would call early in the morning to confirm. Meanwhile, he wanted a check for $75. I should have insisted the job be finished before writing the check, but being the schmuck I am, I wrote it to him.
When he didn't call the next day, he had a heck of a story: His partner accidentally left the tool at the customer's house. When he called later, he found that the customer was out of town and would be for two weeks, sooo they had to order another one and that wouldn't arrive until the following Tuesday. Now I went off on the guy about having a single one of these tools and then told him I wanted to be first in line Tuesday after he got this tool. He agreed. After hanging up I recalled my rule about never sending a plate back to the cook unless you want to be eating his spit and called back and apologized for my unpleasant attitude and for being such an ungrateful rube. The good news is that I just got a 6 months free trial to Angie's List! :)
The CAT scan results did not come in until Friday morning. They could find nothing but 2 small hernias. They think that is the problem. They are working her up to greater and greater amounts of water to see what she can hold down, and hopefully she can come home Saturday (tomorrow).
Things are really crazy when she's not here. With my disabilities I need help for almost everything. She is the center of our lives emotionally and physically. Many of you will remember that the summer before this last one, she came down with a perforation of the colon and had to have a colostomy for six months. Nothing ever went well with that. She had skin conditions that wreaked havoc with the ostomy and it kept her in constant pain. It was a horrible summer for her. She finally got it reversed in January of this year. Now this!
The hernias will be repaired during normal elective, scheduled surgery. For now, she can return home for the weekend and get some rest before the workweek. Also -- our washing machine is making a loud squealing sound during the spin cycle. Patti had called the repairman who scheduled Thursday as the earliest he could get here. He was supposed to be here between 7 and 8 in the morning. He didn't get here till 10 am. Then he gets into the job and says there is something caught in the works, but the tool that he needs to remove the bowl was in the possession of his partner, so it would have to wait until the next day to return to fix it. He would call early in the morning to confirm. Meanwhile, he wanted a check for $75. I should have insisted the job be finished before writing the check, but being the schmuck I am, I wrote it to him.
When he didn't call the next day, he had a heck of a story: His partner accidentally left the tool at the customer's house. When he called later, he found that the customer was out of town and would be for two weeks, sooo they had to order another one and that wouldn't arrive until the following Tuesday. Now I went off on the guy about having a single one of these tools and then told him I wanted to be first in line Tuesday after he got this tool. He agreed. After hanging up I recalled my rule about never sending a plate back to the cook unless you want to be eating his spit and called back and apologized for my unpleasant attitude and for being such an ungrateful rube. The good news is that I just got a 6 months free trial to Angie's List! :)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
This is my favorite holiday. It's a time of year when we can sit down with those we love and are thankful for, and consider the past year's blessings. The meal is pretty good too! This year we will be celebrating with our adopted family of 26 years, the Doans. They have been very special people to us through the years. We met them at the first church we went to when we moved to this area from Wisconsin back in 1981. They have been used miraculously by God in our lives on many occasions, and we have spent many Thanksgivings with them
This year there have been many events for which I'm grateful. My grandson was born, my daughter got married, Patti had successful surgery to reverse a colostomy she'd had to live with for 6 months, and many other things I cannot recall just now. It's good to take one day just to be thankful to our Creator, Father and Friend.
Thankfulness itself is a wonderful gift from Him. It certainly is not an unpleasant feeling to be thankful. Why is it then that people are so unthankful to God? Atheists go through their lives feeling that they are accidents of nature with no one to thank for their existence. Thankfulness to our Creator is the foundation of our emotional lives. We all acknowledge Him in the many "foxholes" life throws at us. We just don't all "thank" Him. What a shameful thing it is from His perspective; to have created "and loved" and blessed these creatures of his, only to have them turn their backs on Him and show no "thankfulness", no gratitude for the gift of life He's given to each of us.
Let those of us who "are" thankful, purpose in our hearts to audibly thank God in the company of others every day. I have a theory that it is as infectious as a smile or a yawn. Tell someone today about something for which you are thankful and draw attention to Him who is to receive all thanks, all glory and all honor. Praise Him with words, songs and prayer. May God richly bless your fellowship this Thanksgiving and make your day spent with loved ones over a delicious meal, a day you will be thankful for, for many years to come!
This year there have been many events for which I'm grateful. My grandson was born, my daughter got married, Patti had successful surgery to reverse a colostomy she'd had to live with for 6 months, and many other things I cannot recall just now. It's good to take one day just to be thankful to our Creator, Father and Friend.
Thankfulness itself is a wonderful gift from Him. It certainly is not an unpleasant feeling to be thankful. Why is it then that people are so unthankful to God? Atheists go through their lives feeling that they are accidents of nature with no one to thank for their existence. Thankfulness to our Creator is the foundation of our emotional lives. We all acknowledge Him in the many "foxholes" life throws at us. We just don't all "thank" Him. What a shameful thing it is from His perspective; to have created "and loved" and blessed these creatures of his, only to have them turn their backs on Him and show no "thankfulness", no gratitude for the gift of life He's given to each of us.
Let those of us who "are" thankful, purpose in our hearts to audibly thank God in the company of others every day. I have a theory that it is as infectious as a smile or a yawn. Tell someone today about something for which you are thankful and draw attention to Him who is to receive all thanks, all glory and all honor. Praise Him with words, songs and prayer. May God richly bless your fellowship this Thanksgiving and make your day spent with loved ones over a delicious meal, a day you will be thankful for, for many years to come!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Children
My grandkids are coming over to play today. I do look so much forward to their coming, to feel the love that comes from these new sources for and of love in my life. There are two of them by my daughter Caitie and her husband Brian Andrew. Their names are Lillian Grace Andrew, and Devin Sean Andrew. Brian works for Centennial Wireless, and Caitie works at Glen's Supermarket. We have a new grandchild on the way via Sean and his girlfriend Meschia Cooper. I'm not sure when it will be born, but she just found out about 3 weeks ago.
I really love having grandchildren. I loved having my own 5 children. I'm glad we had all 5 of them. They are each unique in their own way and have each their own little eccentricities. Shannon just graduated last May with her MBA and is trying to stay in this area, but is finding it difficult to find a job due to being "overqualified". She has a very serious boyfriend named Jason. He works as a Blackjack dealer at the Casino in Mt. Pleasant.
It is true as the Word of God says,
Psalm 127:3-5
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
My grandkids are coming over to play today. I do look so much forward to their coming, to feel the love that comes from these new sources for and of love in my life. There are two of them by my daughter Caitie and her husband Brian Andrew. Their names are Lillian Grace Andrew, and Devin Sean Andrew. Brian works for Centennial Wireless, and Caitie works at Glen's Supermarket. We have a new grandchild on the way via Sean and his girlfriend Meschia Cooper. I'm not sure when it will be born, but she just found out about 3 weeks ago.
I really love having grandchildren. I loved having my own 5 children. I'm glad we had all 5 of them. They are each unique in their own way and have each their own little eccentricities. Shannon just graduated last May with her MBA and is trying to stay in this area, but is finding it difficult to find a job due to being "overqualified". She has a very serious boyfriend named Jason. He works as a Blackjack dealer at the Casino in Mt. Pleasant.
It is true as the Word of God says,
Psalm 127:3-5
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Judgement of the Lord is Upon Us
The economy keeps sinking deeper and deeper, and no wonder. Our "civilization" has fallen a lot in the past 40 years. After the roaring 20s, an economic catastrophe occurred and our nation turned to God. "In God We Trust" was made into our National Motto in 1956 by an act of Congress. "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegience in 1954 as well. Our nation prospered in those years. In the late 60s, things turned for the worse. Anyone 50 and older remembers television as "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriot etc. Look where Television has fallen. We have Homosexuals declaring themselves so and proud of it. Right now they are practically rioting across the country because California voters rejected the use of the term "Marriage" for the union of these perverts.
Well God has had his fill apparently. He has a plan to turn us back to Him, and He will execute it.
Read Romans 1:24-32 and weep, pray and fast for our nation.
The economy keeps sinking deeper and deeper, and no wonder. Our "civilization" has fallen a lot in the past 40 years. After the roaring 20s, an economic catastrophe occurred and our nation turned to God. "In God We Trust" was made into our National Motto in 1956 by an act of Congress. "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegience in 1954 as well. Our nation prospered in those years. In the late 60s, things turned for the worse. Anyone 50 and older remembers television as "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriot etc. Look where Television has fallen. We have Homosexuals declaring themselves so and proud of it. Right now they are practically rioting across the country because California voters rejected the use of the term "Marriage" for the union of these perverts.
Well God has had his fill apparently. He has a plan to turn us back to Him, and He will execute it.
Read Romans 1:24-32 and weep, pray and fast for our nation.
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