Year: 2015

People ask me, “Have you lived here all your life?” My husband says, “Not yet, I haven’t.” I have lived in Vinita, Oklahoma, most of my life except for 7 years back in the early 70’s. I came home in 1977 and have lived here ever since.

It used to be a “two-stop-light town” but now we have 4 stop lights.

Most of the graduates of my Vinita High School Class of 1967 just wanted to get away from here, no matter where they went. You can find Vinitans in Dallas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Tulsa….especially Tulsa. You can’t even walk through the mall in Tulsa without running into someone  from Vinita.

There are some people who live here now who would give anything to be able to get away from Vinita. They would go anywhere just to get out, but they are stuck here because of financial setbacks or family ties.

God cannot change the situation you are in until you learn to be happy where you are. God doesn’t cause your troubles and trials; the devil brings some things on you, but some you bring on yourself.

When you learn to say, “Lord, I don’t know why you want me to live in this town, but as long as I am here, I am going to like it,” then you may learn to like it so well, that you won’t want to live anywhere else. On the other hand, God may open the door for you to move to some other town you like better.

In the meantime, instead of cursing Vinita, start praying for Vinita and blessing Vinita, (or whatever town you live in.)

 “And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” Jeremiah 9:7.

Like my daddy always said, “Just be happy.”

Warm days, cool nights. Rainy days. Leaves turning autumn colors. I love the seasons of the year. Can’t say which I love more. Each has its own special treats.

Seasons change. Nothing stays the same. We are born, we live, we die. Some have called it futile, but there is a peace in knowing that each season follows the one before. When seasons are disrupted, it causes confusion and uncertainty.

When we have a warm spell in the winter, nature sends forth buds and leaves, which are killed by the next freeze. A late freeze in spring kills the fruit on trees. 14 inches of snow in March when gardeners are preparing their soil for planting is not normal.

Here, of course, I am speaking of weather in the Heartland of America-Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas. I don’t know about weather and seasons in other parts of the country. And I can’t even guess what it is like in other parts of the world, like Australia or Africa.

Genesis 8:22 NKJV says “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” This was a promise from the Lord. Noah came out of the ark after more than a year and built an altar to the Lord God Jehovah, sacrificing burnt offerings on the altar. Then the Lord spoke to Noah, making a covenant of blessing with him. God promised never to destroy all the earth with a flood again and as a sign of His promise, He set a rainbow in the cloud.

This promise included the seedtime and harvest, winter and summer. There is something very reassuring in knowing that while the seasons change, they will always remain. As long as there is an earth, as long as the earth remains, there will be seasons.

I was young, I became a teenager, married, had children, have grandchildren, now growing older, when I reach my 90’s on earth, and am satisfied with my life, then I will lay my life down to go be with my Saviour and my Lord Jesus Christ.

Seasons change, seasons remain, as long as the earth remains–this is God’s promise to me.

MOTHER HEN

Once a week, my 97-year-old mother gets a full shower, her hair washed and set, and her nails trimmed and filed. Sometimes we polish her fingernails. When I give her a choice of color she always chooses a light pink almost pearl color.

I can remember as preteen girls, my sisters and I would polish her nails. We curled her hair, even cut it, and gave her permanents. When we were young we believed our mother was the prettiest mother there ever was, but as we grew up into our teen years, our mother seemed old-fashioned and behind the times.

I got married, moved about 100 miles away, and settled into work, but I still felt so attached to my mother and family that I came home to Vinita almost every two weeks. I didn’t care what it cost to drive home. The town we had moved to never became home.

After my first child was born, I continued to return to Vinita bringing him to visit my mother and mother-in-law. When he was sick, I called Mother and she’d catch the bus down to help me take care of him. When I was divorced and moved back to Vinita, I moved my mobile home next door to Mother to live, and once again, she was the one who helped me with everything.

Mother and I have had our ups and down, probably because we are both stubborn and mule-headed, but I learned as I matured that my mother was truly my best friend even during those times we butted heads.

Jesus stood looking out over Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood [chicks] under her wings, but you were not willing.” Luke 13:35 NKJV

Jesus, our Savior, our Lord, our Master, our Healer, and yes, even our mother hen who watches over her little children, gathering them under wings of love to protect us in troubled times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One real regret of my life has been that we didn’t take summer vacations. Many families we knew went to Disneyland, Disney World, Six Flags in Dallas and Kansas City. Lots of people traveled to grandma’s house or to visit other relatives, but Grandma lived in the same town we did.

We always felt as though we didn’t have enough money to spend on trips and vacations, but other people who made less money than we did went on great vacations. Of course we were not racking up debt like they were.

One thing I always made an effort to do was send our children to Camp Fire Girls camp and Boy Scout camp. I wanted my two kids to learn to live off the land, to learn to make a fire, dig a latrine, and build a lean-to shelter.

The only vacation I ever remember taking in my childhood was in 1958 when we kids and Mother returned to California with her two sisters and their families. We stayed there about 3 weeks and then came back with our uncle Cecil who was moving back to Oklahoma to live.

California was like a foreign country to us little kids from Vinita, Ok. We visited Knott’s Berry Farm, but didn’t get to go to Disneyland. We went to Seal Beach where we little kids sat in swimsuits while the Pacific Ocean waves rolled up over our legs and ran crying to Mother when we became afraid of drowning.

I am planning a trip some day, a trip to beat all trips. No, I’m not going to schedule a cruise to the Bahamas or up the coast of Canada to Alaska. I’m planning my trip to heaven.

I’ve already obtained my one-way ticket aboard the Great Railway to Heaven. My ticket was bought and paid for by my dear Lord Jesus Christ, with His own blood. I’m not sure exactly when I’m going but it could be soon or it might be a long time. St. Paul said, “The time of my departure is at hand. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

 

My cousins Cathy and Judy were just a couple of years apart in age. My first real memory of them took place in 1958 at a big family reunion held at our grandparents’ home in Altamont, Kansas. Their parents brought them home from California that summer and we all went to Altamont for the reunion. We ran around and played childhood games with them and all our other first cousins while our parents enjoyed their time together.

The next time I saw them was in 1960, when their father passed away and was brought back from California, to Kansas for burial. I remember going with our parents to meet the train in Parsons, Kansas, and I remember them stepping off the train with their mama—two of the prettiest little blonde girls about 7 and 5 years old.

That scene came back to my mind this week when their mother my aunt passed away, all these many years later, the sad picture in my mind of that young mother with two little baby girls to raise all by herself.

That young mother raised those sweet little girls to adulthood, then helped them in raising her grandchildren. She served the Lord faithfully all those years in the church. She always had a smile and loved many people into the kingdom of God. Her last years in the nursing home were spent praying for all those who needed prayer, and all of the nursing home workers loved her dearly.

Our minds are strange, but wonderful, with all those little hidden memories that spring up at the slightest thing. Two or three musical notes bring songs with all the words flooding back to our minds. Multiplication tables come back when we balance our checkbooks. The smell of  hand cream reminds us of  our grandmother who has been gone for 30 years.

The Bible teach us about the memory. “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11.

My memory also holds all those wonderful family memories/ It also holds the Word of God that I memorized when I was a child.

Lavon Hightower Lewis

Email me at llewis2138@sbcglobal.net

When I was in grade school, Mom used to say that I ate more corn-on-the-cob than their old mules did on the farm. I love corn on the cob. I could eat it every day, three times a day, 7 days a week all summer long. White corn, yellow corn, mixed white-and-yellow corn, field corn, home-grown corn, any corn. I even eat canned corn, frozen corn.

One year, my friend and I bought 3 bushels of corn between us to eat and freeze. We sat in the backyard, shucking corn, all morning. I was even eating it uncooked, right off the cob, while I shucked.

She said, “What shall we have for lunch?” I looked at the corn, I looked at her, I looked back at the corn. She said, “After all this shucking, you want to eat corn?” I nodded. So we cooked 4 ears each and I ate one of hers. And we had plenty left over to freeze.

The oldtime farmers saved some of their corn kernels back to plant the next year. They ate the corn, gave some of it to the horses, then saved some back to plant. They didn’t eat it all. They couldn’t run down to the feed store to buy seed.

One ear of corn has about 16 rows, about 100 kernels each. If you planted those 100 kernels and all of them germinated, you would have 100 stalks of corn. There are usually 4 ears of corn on one stalk, so that is 400 ears of corn from that one original ear of corn, in one corn season. Next year when you plant the corn kernels, then from those 400 ears of corn with 100 kernels each, you would get 40,000 stalks of corn times 4 ears each equals 160,000 ears of corn. (It took a lot of figurin’ to cipher that out. And of course this is assuming that every kernel germinates and every stalk of corn has 4 ears.) From one ear of corn. What a harvest that would be.

In II Corinthians 9:7, Paul said, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

Don’t eat all your corn. Plant generously in your local church.